My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy-Chapter 183: Slammed Power

He noted the conjured shield — thickened by reflex rather than pre-planning — and the way Elias rolled weight through his heels to stay standing.

"Versatility under pressure," Silas concluded softly.

"A valuable data point."

The faint hum of his shard vibrated through the floor beneath him, a low, curious note, as Silas’s mind raced to map out the variables faster than the combatants could move.

To him, every slip, every counter, every flicker of exhaustion in their frames was another piece of a puzzle.

Another lever to pull.

Another thread to cut when the time came.

Vincent stood near the edge of his platform, arms folded loosely across his chest.

At his side, Nosey — his Ikona — crouched low, sinewy muscles bunched under its dark coat, sharp eyes gleaming with restless energy.

Vincent’s smirk curved wider as he watched the clash unfold below, the golden pulses of Kikaru’s strikes flashing across his irises like sparks catching on stone.

He didn’t shift his weight.

He didn’t even breathe differently.

The tension that rolled off him wasn’t explosive — it was patient.

Predatory.

"Tear him apart, girl," Vincent growled, his voice low enough that it seemed to vibrate in the heated air. freewebnøvel.coɱ

"Make it quick."

The golden light from the arena floor reflected off the curve of his smirk, painting the sharp line of his jaw in flickering highlights.

He watched Kikaru press the attack, saw Elias stumble, saw the blood start to mark the gravel.

"Blood’s blood," Vincent murmured, almost to himself.

"And I want to see it spill."

The fingers of one hand flexed briefly against the opposite arm — not out of excitement, but restraint — as if it took conscious effort not to leap down there and finish it himself.

Nosey growled softly under its breath, its tail flicking once in time with the mounting pressure of the arena.

Across the ring, Elara stood like a statue on her platform, her posture rigid enough to crack stone.

The faint shimmer of her Glacial Sovereign Ikona curled around her, a thin frost spreading along the railing at her side, turning the metal a muted silver-white.

She said nothing for a long moment.

Only the tightening of her hands at her sides betrayed the strain twisting through her.

"He’s fighting her..." Elara murmured at last, her voice almost lost in the heavy pulse of golden light filling the arena.

"After everything."

Her eyes never left the center of the ring.

Not even when the frost thickened under her boots, spiderwebbing across the stone with silent, deliberate force.

No anger crossed her face.

No sadness.

Just that cold, inevitable weight — a pressure she didn’t voice, a regret she didn’t allow to surface.

The frost continued to spread, carving silent patterns across the floor, as unspoken history tangled itself around her stance, coiling tighter with every second the fight dragged on.

Faye clutched her arms tighter across her chest, her small frame trembling as the suffocating pressure of the arena pressed down from all sides.

Her bird Ikona fluttered close to her shoulder, its delicate form flickering with every ragged breath she drew.

The usual lilt of music that accompanied it — bright, playful, alive — had faded into a broken, faltering hum that barely carried past the edge of her platform.

"Kikaru..." Faye whispered, the words fragile, torn loose from a heart that already knew it was too late to pull them back.

"Don’t do this."

Her eyes darted between the figures below — between Elias, battered and struggling to hold his ground, and Kikaru, burning brighter with every step forward — searching for some sign that either of them would stop.

The bond they had forged in A Block, built in cramped quarters and low, whispered hopes, trembled invisibly under the strain.

Another heartbeat, another clash — it felt ready to break.

Beside her, Tidwell leaned heavily against the platform’s railing, his body sagging under the strain of half-healed wounds, but his eyes alive with a fire that injury hadn’t dimmed.

His cloud Ikona hovered low to the ground, the once-buoyant form now sluggish and heavy, its edges dull against the arena’s golden glare.

"She’s got every right," Tidwell muttered, the words coming rough, scraping like gravel in his throat.

"Elias screwed us over."

His fists tightened around the rail, knuckles whitening with the force of it.

"You wanna save someone, fine. But don’t chain your team to do it."

He didn’t shout.

Didn’t rage.

The anger in him was quieter than that — deeper — a fire burning hotter than any torch lining the arena walls.

A few steps away, Paul stood apart from them, his posture deceptively relaxed.

Ripples — the swirling coil of multicolored glass that formed his Ikona — orbited his wrist in slow, deliberate spirals.

Each shard caught the arena’s harsh light, casting fractured rainbows that danced faintly across the cracked platform stone.

Normally, Ripples moved in perfect precision.

Now, the spiral drifted wider, a touch unstable, the refraction around him shivering in tune with the tension tightening his shoulders.

"Her constructs are denser," Paul murmured, mostly to himself, his analytical gaze flicking over the shifting patterns of golden plasma that flared with Kikaru’s strikes.

"You can see it in the way the energy holds under impact."

His voice stayed low, steady — but his fingers tapped an uneven rhythm against his thigh, a rare crack bleeding through the calculation he wore like armor.

Paul shifted slightly, watching as Elias repositioned, battered but still moving, still fighting under the weight of it all.

"But Elias’s perception..." he added, softer now, almost reluctant.

"It’s always been better than anyone gave him credit for."

The glass spiral around his wrist pulsed once, tightening briefly before drifting wide again — a nervous shudder Ripples couldn’t quite conceal.

At the far edge of the platform, Wes stood motionless, his broad frame half-silhouetted against the flickering torchlight.

The soft hum of his Ikona — a faintly translucent bubble — floated lazily near his shoulder, pulsing with slow, contained light.

Every so often, the bubble would spit out a tiny orb, a perfect sphere that popped harmlessly in the warm air before fading back into nothing.

Wes didn’t react.

Didn’t speak.

He watched the arena floor with the same steady gaze he had carried through every training drill, every mission, every failure they had survived together.

The glow of the golden floor reflected faintly across his features, sharpening the tight line of his mouth.

After a long moment, almost too soft to catch under the weight of the arena’s hum, he spoke:

"He’ll fight for us."

The words were plain. Unadorned.

Carved from the same stubborn bedrock that had kept Wes standing when everything else broke.

"Even now."

The bubble near him drifted closer, pressing almost protectively toward his shoulder before settling back into its slow orbit.

Elias conjured another shield, Dot’s blue glow flaring weakly at his side.

The barrier snapped into existence just in time to catch the next wave of heat rolling toward him —

but even as he braced behind it, he knew it wouldn’t hold.

"Kikaru!" he shouted, voice raw and scraping against the charged air.

"We’re A Block! We don’t have to kill each other!"

The words tore loose from somewhere deep — not strategy, not survival — just instinct, desperate and unguarded.

But the golden orb of Light only burned brighter in response.

Kikaru’s hand snapped forward, sending a fresh volley of plasma-light spears streaking through the air.

Each spear screamed across the arena like a comet, the tips white-hot, tearing long arcs of gold across the torchlit haze.

Elias threw up his shield, feet digging into the gravel as the first impacts slammed home.

The shield buckled instantly, spiderweb cracks racing across the steel face like veins under thin skin.

Each hit forced him back, step by grinding step, his arms trembling under the sheer force driving down on him.

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