Nico Vs. Paige…
The roar of the crowd is a physical thing, a wave of sound and energy that washes over the arena, making the very air tremble.
Carter stands with the other recruits. The seven of them are a small, isolated island of calm in a sea of roaring anticipation.
Gabriel’s voice, amplified by magic, booms across the field. He announces the first match of the headquarters’ tournament.
“For our first battle,” he declares, his voice silencing the crowd.
“We have Nico Reyes versus Paige Hellen!”
Nico takes a deep, centering breath. The nervous, hesitant boy who arrived seven months ago is gone.
In his place stands a young man with a quiet, unshakeable confidence. He gives Paige a small, respectful nod.
His hand rests on the haft of his glaive, Lianghai.
Paige, looking small and academic in her black and gray training uniform, returns the nod.
Her expression is a mask of nervous but fierce determination.
She clutches her grimoire, Lellibel, to her chest. Her mind is already working, calculating, strategizing.
They walk to the center of the vast, sandy arena. The weight of thousands of eyes is on them.
They take their places, fifty feet apart, and wait for the signal.
A deep, resonant gong echoes through the arena, and the match begins.
“GONNNNNG! BEGIN!”
Paige acts first. She doesn’t cast a grand, explosive spell.
She reaches into a small pouch at her belt and throws a handful of acorns onto the sanded areas of the arena at her feet.
Before they even land, she opens her book. Her voice is a soft, melodic whisper that is almost lost in the vastness of the arena.
“LELLIBEL! GROW!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Lellibel + Grow{Fás}
- Phonetic: Lellibel (Grimoire Name) + Fás (base)
- Irish Gaelic Base Spell Translation: “Grow”
The acorns erupt. With a sound like creaking, groaning wood, a small grove of thick, sturdy oak trees explodes from the sandy floor.
Their branches twist and weave together to form a complex, chaotic battlefield of cover and obstacles.
In the viewing stands, a wave of confused murmurs ripples through the combat agents.
“What is this?” one of them asks, his brow furrowed.
“She’s building a forest? How is she supposed to fight in there?”
“She’s not fighting,” Killian says. A slow, appreciative grin spreads across his face.
“She’s thinking. She knows she can’t match him in a direct confrontation of pure power at this point in her training.”
“So she’s changing the rules of the game.”
Down on the field, Nico seems unfazed by the sudden appearance of the miniature forest. He raises his glaive.
His stance is low and ready. His eyes scan the dense foliage.
His mind reaches out, feeling for the subtle shifts in kinetic energy that betray Paige’s movements.
He knows she is in there, somewhere, preparing her next move.
He doesn’t have to wait long. The roots of the trees nearest to him begin to writhe and twist.
They erupt from the sand like thick, woody snakes.
They lash out, whipping through the air with a speed that belies their size. They try to ensnare him, to crush him.
Paige’s voice, muffled by the trees, rings out.
“LELLIBEL! SHIELD!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Lellibel + Shield{Cruthaigh sciath adhmaid beo}
- Phonetic: Lellibel (Grimoire Name) + Cruthaigh sciath adhmaid beo (base)
- Irish Gaelic Base Spell Translation: “Create a shield of living wood”
Nico meets the assault.
His movements are a blur of controlled, efficient motion.
He spins his glaive.
The long, polished wood shaft is a perfect defensive tool. He parries and deflects the whipping roots.
But he is not just defending.
With every blocked strike, he speaks a quiet, firm command.
“LIANGHAI! NULLIFY!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Lianghai + Nullify{Pawiin ang puwersa}
- Phonetic: Lianghai (Grimoire Name) + Pawiin ang puwersa (base)
- Tagalog Base Spell Translation: “Nullify the force”
The kinetic energy of each of Paige’s attacks is absorbed into his body.
It’s a shimmering, invisible power that makes the air around him seem to hum.
He is not just a shield; he is a battery, turning his opponent’s own power into his own.
He sees his opening. Paige, hidden behind a thick wall of woven branches, believes she is safe. She is wrong.
Nico slams the butt of his glaive onto the sandy floor.
He speaks a single, sharp, and powerful word in Tagalog, a command not to create, but to release.
The immense, stored kinetic energy he has just absorbed has nowhere to go but out.
A massive, concussive blast of pure force erupts from his body, not into the air, but channeled down through his glaive and into the ground.
A visible shockwave rips through the sand. The entire grove of trees shudders as if struck by an earthquake.
Paige’s fortress of living wood explodes. The trees are torn from their roots.
The branches shatter into a shower of splintered wood. She is thrown off balance, her concentration broken.
And in that single, decisive moment, Nico is moving.
He closes the distance between them in a heartbeat and places the cool, sharp edge of his glaive at her throat.
The match is over.
“I yield,” Paige says, her voice a breathless, disappointed whisper.
Gabriel’s voice booms across the arena.
“An impressive display of tactical thinking from both combatants! The winner is Nico Reyes!”
The crowd roars its approval. Nico helps Paige to her feet. A look of genuine, respectful admiration is on his face. He has won the battle, but he knows, with a profound, unshakeable respect.
As Nico and Paige leave the arena to the sound of appreciative applause, a new, more primal energy fills the air.
The crowd leans forward. Their voices are a low, hungry buzz.
They have just witnessed a battle of wits.
Now, they are about to witness a war of pure, unadulterated power.
Yula Vs. Keyona…
Gabriel’s voice booms across the coliseum. “For our second match, we have Yulian Volkov versus Keyona Baker!”
Yulian strides onto the field, a wide, almost feral grin on his face. He hefts his heavy mace, Tiberius, as if it weighs nothing.
His massive frame radiates an aura of raw, explosive power.
Keyona follows, her movements a confident, predatory swagger.
She unslings her massive scythe, Akan, and rests it on her shoulder.
Her dark eyes are fixed on Yulian with a look of cold, analytical focus.
It is the irresistible force versus the unstoppable object.
The gong sounds, and the battle begins.
Keyona doesn’t waste a moment. She knows she cannot match Yulian’s raw, physical strength or his defensive mastery of the earth.
Her only chance is to overwhelm him, to never give him a moment to breathe, to think, to cast.
She charges, her scythe a blur of black steel, and unleashes a relentless, overlapping barrage of wind blades.
“AKAN! SLICE!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Akan + Slice{Skapa en skärande vind med varje slag}
- Phonetic: Akan (Grimoire Name) + Skapa en skärande vind med varje slag (base)
- Swedish Base Spell Translation: “Create a cutting wind with every strike”
The air screams as a dozen crescent shaped blades of pure, cutting wind fly towards Yulian.
He is forced on the defensive instantly.
The sheer speed and volume of the assault is a testament to Keyona’s aggressive, relentless style.
“TIBERIUS! BLOCK!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Tiberius + Block{Воздвигнуть каменную стену }
- Phonetic: Tiberius (Grimoire Name) + Vozdvignut’ kamennuyu stenu (base)
- Russian Base Spell Translation: “Erect a stone wall”
A thick, hastily formed wall of solid rock erupts from the sand in front of him.
But it is not enough.
Keyona’s wind blades strike the wall, not with a dull thud, but with a sharp, slicing sound.
They cut deep gashes into the stone. A few of the blades slice clean through. This forces Yulian to stumble back.
A shallow cut opens on his cheek, drawing first blood.
In the viewing stands, the leaders watch with a critical eye.
“She is controlling the pace of the fight,” Wulan says, a look of grudging respect on his face.
“She knows she cannot win a battle of attrition surrounded by stone and earth that Yulian can manipulate endlessly.”
“She is using Swedish magic, If she wan’t a Resonant, she’d have dropped to the floor already.”
“She is not giving him the chance to fight one a long battle. A sound strategy.”
“But it is a costly one,” Damien adds, his gaze fixed on Keyona. “She is a Resonant, but she is still burning through her energy at an unsustainable rate. If she cannot end this quickly, she will lose.”
“Agreed,” Wulan replies.
Down on the arena floor, Keyona knows this. She presses her advantage.
Her scythe is a constant, whirling dance of death. The air around Yulian is a storm of invisible, razor sharp blades.
Yulian is a titan, a fortress of a man, but even a fortress can be worn down by a relentless storm.
He is forced to constantly retreat. He summons new, crude earthen shields that are shattered as quickly as they are formed.
He is losing.
Frustrated, his back now almost to the cold, unforgiving stone of the arena wall, Yulian lets out a furious, defiant roar.
It is the sound of a cornered bear, a titan pushed to his absolute limit.
He is a warrior of the earth, a man of power and pride, and he is being forced to retreat.
To cower behind crumbling walls of his own making.
Yulian is being bled, cut by a thousand tiny wounds. His strength is rendered useless by his opponent’s relentless, untouchable speed.
He is done defending, done retreating.
With a final, guttural cry that seems to come from the very heart of the world, he slams his mace, Tiberius, onto the ground with all his might.
The impact is not a simple thud; it is a declaration of war.
A deep “BOOM” echoes through the arena, and the entire stone floor shudders.
“He is pouring all of his untamed power into a single, decisive act of will.”
“He is not trying to create a shield to protect himself; he is reshaping the entire battlefield to his own brutal design.”
“TIBERIUS! PIERCE!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Tiberius + Pierce{Пробить землю шипами(base)}
- Phonetic: Tiberius (Grimoire Name) + Probit’ zemlyu shipami (base)
- Russian Base Spell Translation: “Pierce the ground with spikes/thorns”
The entire sandy floor between him and Keyona erupts.
A dense, chaotic forest of massive, jagged stone spikes explodes upward.
This forces Keyona to halt her relentless assault and leap back. Her eyes are wide with surprise.
It is the opening Yulian has been waiting for.
Yulian has seized control of the battlefield.
But Keyona has a deeper well of power..
The pain of the Dissonance is a dull, persistent throb behind her eyes, but she pushes through it.
She sees the opening Yulian’s massive spell has created. It’s a brief moment he is exposed as he channels his power into the earth.
She raises her scythe. Her voice is a cold, hard command.
“AKAN! DESTROY!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Akan + Destroy{En destruktiv vind + Which shatters all matter}
- Phonetic: Akan (Grimoire Name) + En destruktiv vind (base) + Which shatters all matter (effect)
- Swedish Base Spell Translation: “A destructive wind”
- English Effect Spell Translation: “Which shatters all matter”
A wave of shimmering, silent entropy erupts from her blade.
But Yulian is ready.
He doesn’t try to block it. He slams his hand on the ground.
A single, massive pillar of stone erupts at an angle, intercepting the wave of un creation.
The pillar dissolves into nothingness, but it has served its purpose.
It has bought him the single, precious second he needed.
While Keyona is still recovering from the backlash of her own powerful spell, Yulian acts.
He doesn’t attack her directly. He slams his mace on the ground again.
The earth around Keyona’s feet turns to thick, grasping mud.
Her feet sink.
Her movements are suddenly slow and clumsy. Before she can free herself, he speaks a final, quiet command.
The mud hardens instantly into solid stone, trapping her in a prison of earth up to her knees.
Her grimoire, Akan, clatters to the ground, just out of her reach.
The match is over.
“I yield,” Keyona grits out, her voice a mixture of fury and grudging respect.
Gabriel’s voice booms across the arena.
“A stunning display of power and strategy! The winner is Yulian Volkov!”
“YAAAAAHHHHHH!”
The crowd roars its approval. The final match of the first round is about to begin.
The air in the arena grows thick with a new, more intense anticipation.
This is the one they have been waiting for. The one with the Mage Killers and thought-based casting the entirety of Marble City has been talking about endlessly.
Even the foreign recuits have heard about Carter’s entrance.
Word has spread quickly.
Amy Vs. Carter…
Carter and Amy walk to the center of the field. The weight of thousands of eyes is on them.
In the viewing stands, the whispers begin again.
“That’s him, right? The thought-based caster?”
“I heard he’s the one who who put Gendric on his ass.”
“Doesn’t he have the mage killers?”
“Yeah… Who is this kid?”
Killian hears the murmurs. A slow, proud grin spreads across his face.
So that’s why the turnout is so high this year, he thinks. They all want to see what the rumored kid is capable of.
The gong sounds, and the battle begins.
“GONNNNNG! BEGIN!”
Amy doesn’t waste a moment. The gong’s echo is still fading as she takes a single, centering breath.
Her entire demeanor, once a mask of cool, bored detachment, now sharpens into one of absolute, serene focus.
She is not a fighter preparing for a brawl; she is a grandmaster contemplating the opening move of a chess match.
She speaks her command. In a high energy command that seems to cut through the noise of the crowd.
A perfect note in the vastness of the arena.
“LUCY! FLY!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Lucy + Fly{내 몸을 무중력 상태로 만들어주세요 + 내 주변의 중력 흐름을 조작하다 + 跟随我的视线}
- Phonetic: Lucy (Grimoire Name) + Nae mom-eul mujunglyeog sangtaelo mandeul-eojuseyo (base) + nae jubyeon-ui junglyeog heuleum-eul jojaghada (effect 1) + Gēnsuí wǒ de shìxiàn (effect)
- Korean Base Spell Translation: “Make my body weightless”
- Korean Effect Spell 1 Translation: “Manipulating the flow of gravity around me”
- Chinese Effect Spell 2 Translation: “Be guided by my line of sight”
A soft, silvery light, like captured moonlight, envelops her. The sand at her feet stirs, not from a gust of wind, but from the subtle, powerful warping of the air around her.
She rises from the ground, not with a sudden, jerky motion, but with a slow, graceful, and utterly silent ascension.
She floats up, ten, twenty, fifty feet into the air.
Her black training uniform is a stark contrast against the brilliant blue of the sky. Her grimoire floats serenely beside her.
She is flying.
A collective, sharp intake of breath, a sound like a reverse wave, sweeps through the thousands of spectators.
They have seen mages leap great distances. They have seen them levitate for a few, precious seconds.
But this is different.
This is true, sustained, controlled flight.
A power so rare, so difficult to master, that most of the seasoned combat agents in the audience have only ever read about it.
In the viewing stands, Freya leans forward. Her red eyes are sharp with analytical interest.
“That’s a three part Mixed Spell,” she observes.
“The base and the propulsion are Korean, her affinity. But the guidance system, the part that allows for such precise control… that’s Mandarin, is it not?”
She turns to Damien.
“She is not a Resonant. A Mandarin effect should be a level five Dissonance for her. How is she maintaining such perfect control under that kind of strain?”
“Chinese is a unique linguistic branch,” Damien explains, his voice a calm, clinical lecture amidst the awe of the crowd.
“It has multiple applications. The core spatial manipulation spells are a level five Dissonance.
But its ability to add complex effects to other spells is a partial power, a level three.”
“Which is still a significant strain, but Ms. Soo-young has taken her physical conditioning quite seriously.”
“Her body,” he says with a flicker of something almost like approval, “can handle the backlash.”
A collective, sharp intake of breath, a sound like a reverse wave, sweeps through the thousands of spectators.
They have seen mages leap great distances. They have seen them levitate for a few, precious seconds.
From her vantage point high above the arena, Amy raises her hands. “Spears,” she says, her voice a calm, clear command.
A dozen spears of solid, gray stone materialize in the air around her.
With a single, sharp gesture, she sends them hurtling down towards Carter, a silent, deadly rain of stone and gravity.
Carter doesn’t flinch. He raises his left hand. The heavy, bronze weight of Atlas is a familiar, reassuring presence. He snaps his fingers.
“ATLAS! EVISCERATE!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Atlas + Eviscerate{Shatter my target into its smallest form + 散布剩余的颗粒}
- Phonetic: Atlas (Grimoire Name) + Shatter my target into its smallest form (base) + Sànbù shèngyú de kēlì (effect)
- English Base Spell Translation: “Shatter my target into its smallest form”
- Chinese Effect Spell Translation: “Spread the remaining particles”
The first few spears simply… vanish, deleted from existence before they can even build momentum. But Amy’s barrage is relentless. She creates more spears, a constant, overlapping volley that forces Carter to move. He is a blur of motion, dodging and weaving. The spears crash into the sand around him, sending up plumes of dust and shattered stone.
Then, Amy changes tactics. She speaks a single, sharp Korean word.
짓누르다 (Jin-nureuda – “Crush”).
An immense, invisible weight slams down on Carter, forcing him to one knee.
The stone craters beneath him. He feels his bones creak, his muscles strain against the crushing, unnatural gravity.
He is pinned, a helpless target.
Another volley of stone spears descends, aimed at his exposed back.
He can’t dodge. He can’t block. He is trapped.
On pure, desperate instinct, he doesn’t cast a spell with his voice. He casts it with his mind.
Here! he thinks, his will a focused, desperate command as he pictures a spot twenty feet to his left.
He vanishes. In a flicker of distorted space, he is gone.
The stone spears slam into the empty ground, impaling the spot where he was kneeling just a fraction of a second before.
The impacts send spiderwebs of cracks through the sand dusted flagstones.
He reappears twenty feet to the left. His heart hammers in his chest. The phantom feeling of the crushing gravity still clings to him. It was pure, desperate instinct. But it worked.
His mind flashes back. He is in a small, quiet study room in the Great Archive, weeks ago.
A stern faced Mandarin tutor drills him relentlessly. The characters swim before his eyes.
The grammar is a confusing, illogical mess.
He remembers his frustration, the feeling of hitting a wall.
He could understand the words, but he couldn’t feel them, couldn’t grasp the underlying philosophy of the magic.
Then, his mind jumps to just a few hours ago, watching the Chinese recruits fight. He sees the older mage, standing perfectly still, commanding a storm of teleporting swords. He hears Yulian’s frustrated, awestruck voice in his memory
“It is like trying to punch a ghost.”
And in that moment, something clicks. The light bulb goes off.
It’s not about moving, he thinks, a sudden, profound clarity cutting through the chaos of the battle.
The Chinese mages, they don’t just move from point A to point B. They fight the space itself.
They don’t run from the attack; they move the battlefield out from under it.
A wave of shocked shouts erupts from the audience.
“He teleported!”
“Without a word! He just disappeared!”
Monk Taichar, sitting with the other Regional Directors, begins to focus in anticipation.
His playful smirk is gone, replaced by the look of intense, analytical focus.
That thought-based casting….
That’s a flawless, instantaneous spatial jump.
The Mandarin spell on Atlas. To use a level five Dissonance spell with such casual, instinctual speed… this boy is far more than just an anomaly.
A high speed, three dimensional chase begins. But now, Carter is not just a target.
He is a participant.
Amy, still soaring through the air, tries to lock him down with targeted gravity fields. Her spells slam into the ground like invisible anvils. But Carter is a ghost. He is no longer just reacting. He is thinking, adapting, turning the entire arena into his personal chessboard. He doesn’t just teleport away from her attacks.
Carter is telporting from place to place, attempting to land a hit from Archer on Amy. He teleports from place to place so quickly in the sky that it looks as if he is flying as well.
He is moving before the gravity force drops him.
“Is he flying too?” Ruby asks.
“No, He is teleporting rapidly, and with such a short distance it requires less magic.” Damien replies in the crowd.
“As a Resonant, he’s only getting half the backlash, but even with that advantage. And regardless of how short the distance is.”
“Using it so frequently will cause a buildup of Dissonance.”
He teleports through them, using the short range spatial jumps with a newfound, intuitive grace.
The Chinese characters that once seemed so alien are now a fluid, natural part of his own magical grammar.
He sees his opening. Amy, frustrated by her inability to pin him down, is focused on the ground below.
She doesn’t see him coming.
He teleports again, not to the ground, but directly above her in the air.
Carter hangs in the air above Amy for a fraction of a second, a dark, avenging figure against the bright, clear sky.
He plummets, his left fist, the one bearing the heavy, Vastian steel weight of Atlas, pulled back for a devastating, gravity assisted blow.
“ATLAS! JUMP!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Atlas + Jump{接触后，将我的目标移动到我想要的位置}
- Phonetic: Atlas (Grimoire Name) + Jiēchù hòu, jiāng wǒ de mùbiāo yídòng dào wǒ xiǎng yào de wèizhì (base)
- Chinese Base Spell Translation: “Upon contact, move my target to my desired location”
He punches through her. The brass knuckle connects with her shoulder, and the world warps.
Amy vanishes from the air. She reappears an instant later, not in a gentle teleport, but in a brutal, violent dislocation.
Slamming into the sandy arena floor fifty feet below with a sickening, ground shaking crunch.
A collective gasp of horror ripples through the crowd. The sheer brutal efficiency of the attack was shocking.
Carter lands a moment later to his feet, with his knees bent to absorb the impact.
His expression is a mask of cold, focused intensity.
He sees Amy pushing herself up, body aching with a look of pure shock and pain on her face.
Before she can become airborne again, before she can even think to cast another spell, Carter acts.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He simply thinks.
In his mind he merely imagines shackles of solid, gray iron.
With a thought, he brings them into existence. They erupt from the sand, clamping down on Amy’s wrists and ankles, pinning her to the ground.
Amy is trapped but not yet defeated.
Despite the pain, despite the shock, a look of fierce, defiant fury enters her eyes.
Her grimoire, Lucy, is still in her hand. Its pages turn frantically.
She is restrained, but can still cast magic.
“LUCY! SHIELD!”
- Spell Tag On Grimoire: Lucy + Shield{나를 둘러싼 뚫을 수 없는 중력장}
- Phonetic: Lucy (Grimoire Name) + naleul dulleossan ttulh-eul su eobsneun junglyeogjang (base)
- Korean Base Spell Translation: “An impenetrable field of gravity that surrounds me”
A perfect, invisible sphere of distorted gravity materializes around her. It’s a final, desperate, and seemingly impenetrable defense.
Carter teleports, appearing on the ground directly in front of her. He sees the shimmering, warped air of her shield.
He knows that normal, physical force is useless against it. He knows that Atlas, with its kinetic, space bending power would be equally ineffective.
But Archer… Archer is different.
He remembers the feel of its blade, the cold, hungry whispers in his mind.
He remembers its unique property, a gift from the mythical creature whose horn was used in its forging.
He raises his right hand. The unicorn horn blade of Archer gleams with a faint, internal light. Carter doesn’t attempt to shatter the shield with any spell; he puts his full trust in his blade.
“ARCHER! NOW!
He thrusts Archer’s blade forward.
It connects with the invisible gravity shield. And instead of being stopped, instead of being deflected, the pure white blade begins to glow with an intense holy light.
It rips the shield apart with ease.
It cuts through the distorted space of Amy’s gravity shield, as if it was nothing more than a stick of soft butter.
The sound is a low, harmonic chime that is both beautiful and terrifying.
Amy stares with a wide final, dawning realization. Her confidence, her control, her entire world… it all shatters in that single, impossible moment.
She has never been so utterly defeated, so completely and utterly at someone’s mercy.
The tip of Archer’s blade, still glowing with a soft, purifying light, stops an inch from her throat.
“I yield,” Amy whispers, her voice a broken, trembling thing.
The iron shackles around her wrists and ankles dissolve into dust. The match is over. Carter has won.
Gabriel’s voice booms across the arena, pulling Carter from his focused, almost trance like state.
“An unbelievable display of power, strategy, and control from both combatants! The winner is Carter Cross!”
The crowd erupts in a massive, deafening roar.
“HOAAAUUUAAAAHHH!”
And the moment the adrenaline of the fight fades. The full, crushing weight of the Dissonance Carter has been building up during their battle hits him like a truck.
A searing stabbing headache, a thousand times worse than any he has felt before, explodes behind his eyes.
The world dissolves into a blurry, spinning mess of light and sound. His knees buckle, and he drops to one knee, his head bowed. His entire body trembles with the effort of staying conscious.
But he will not collapse. Not here. Not in front of everyone.
He forces himself to fight through the pain. He masters the agony of his own power.
Carter on one knee at the center of the roaring arena.
He is victorious but visibly straining.
It’s a stark and powerful image of the true price of his immense and terrible gifts.