”Time to eat dirt!”

The judge gold-haired judge started the unapproved duel and Arreta immediately launched herself at the black-haired boy with a cheer.

”Earth wave!”

She shouted and Zoemi felt that the very soil underneath his feet is moving as if someone was pulling a rug from under his feet.

”Stone miss…!”

”Stone explosion.”

The brown-haired young woman called out, going for both the close and long-range attacks – but Zoemi’s cold voice resounded over her incantation…

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

”GHYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH…!”

At the black-haired boy’s command, the stone armor around Arreta’s arms and legs blew up with such horrifying power that her body was flung high in the air…

*THUMP*

…just to crash in the same spot it got launched from a few seconds later…

”What the hell do you think you try to do using earth and stones that still have my mana coursing through them? Didn’t you see me put the arena back together or something?”

Zoemi scoffed coldly at the earth magician’s body.

”As for you… who do you think you are, calling for the beginning of a duel? This is…”

”(Ghost found! Strong shadow connect spell – looking for the point of origin!)”

He also turned right around and walked over to the edge of the arena and called out the gold-haired judge, but he suddenly froze when one of his sentinels called out to him using the message spell.

”(~!? Master? Hello! Why you here?)”

Although it was both shocking and welcomed news, it alone could not shock Zoemi to the point of stopping in his track – but seeing his own sentinel suddenly slip out from the mouth of the gold-haired judge was a completely different matter altogether.

”The duel will continue.”

The gold-haired judge said as if nothing happened at all, but for some reason, he left his mouth hanging open after speaking…

*haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*

…unfortunately, the reason became clear very fast as with another blink, the gold pupils of the light magician turned silky-black and half-transparent black mist burst out from between his jaws enveloping the entirety of the arena within a single heartbeat.

”…what the ** is this supposed to be…?”

Zoemi squinted his eyes, furrowing his brows as he glared at the supposed light magician – he did not attack for one reason only – the rather stunning performance and display of the darkness attribute from someone clearly not looking like a darkness magician should cause a rather shocked and confused reaction of the audience watching whatever was happening on the stage…

…but it did not…

After a closer look Zoemi tensed up and the murky-black demonic-looking armor enveloped his body.

People in the audience weren’t reacting because they all fell unconscious.

Including

Miriette, so, there was no place for kid gloves at that point.

Similarly, Arreta wasn’t moving – but whether that was because of the power of the spell she was exposed to or the fault of the black mist was a question that Zoemi didn’t fund to be significant in any way, shape, or form.

What Zoemi found extremely disturbing though, was the gold-haired man’s unique shadow.

There was no trace of anything leeching onto it as it was the case with Aspakeony using necromancy on her corpse puppets.

The unique shadow looked normal, the proper size and details for an average light magician – those were all in place too.

It was a five-legged stag with impressive antlers – quite normal for what unique shadows could look like, to be honest.

All that information leads to some extremely worrisome conclusions.

…the black mist would suggest the member of the Ghosts of Bellcephora that hated Benevirau – Rethaq…

…as for things happening to the light magician judge, that could be the fault of the darkness blade that another member of the Ghosts developed to allow himself to possess other people…

…and the worst part about that was that if that really was Kiorterel, that would mean his possession is impossible to be discerned with only the ability to see unique shadows…

”My, my – you have found yourself in quite a pickle young man…”

”…”

The mouth of the possessed light magician moved, but the voice that came out of it was completely different than before…

…and it was a voice that caused Zoemi to flinch as a distant memory became vivid once more…

”Commander told us to leave you alone, but you are proving yourself to be too dangerous to be left alive.”

”He wanted to keep you alive because you might have an answer for the question we have been struggling with for a long time.”

”…but let’s be honest… Why should we allow anyone to obtain godhood right under our noses while we are stuck at the pinnacle of the human capabilities…”

The two voices, male and female, began talking together using the gold-haired judge’s mouth.

To make things even more disturbing, as they were doing that, the possessed man’s hair began turning from gold to black.

The change didn’t even happen by the gold dimming and fading into blackness – no, instead the jet black spots appeared in various places and expanded until the light magician could not be discerned from the darkness magician anymore.

With the change in his appearance, the change happened to his unique shadow too – the fife legged stag suddenly increased in size until its body covered the sky while the number of his legs multiplied into hundreds making for a truly eerie sight.

…at least for someone who could see the unique shadows, that is…

”This is bad…”

Zoemi clicked his tongue as he glanced at the massive unique shadow before looking back at the possessed judge.

”Oh, don’t worry, it won’t be that bad.”

”You actually will not even feel a thing.”

Two oily, obnoxiously reassuring voices assured, very clearly enjoying the distress in the boy’s voice.

”It will be just like with those other weaklings – you will fall asleep…”

”…with the only difference being that you will not wake up.”

The voices coming from the judge turned darkness magician declared, reveling in the sadistic pleasure of bullying those they deemed weak.

”I…”

”IN YOUR DREAMS! GET AWAY FROM ZOE!”

”…!”

”…!”

Zoemi opened his mouth to respond, but to the great surprise of the possessed man – or rather the people possessing him – someone other than Zoemi called out and jumped from the audience seats straight into the arena, surrounded by a crimson blaze that was burning up the black mist crawling its way towards the black-haired boy.

”…Natural born sage…”

”Annoying privileged brat…”

The voices commented spiteful while their host glared at the tall, crimson-haired girl who stepped between them and the black-haired boy.

”I don’t know who or what you are – but you are interrupting the important tournament – and I will not allow you to kill a man who is participating in it for my sake!”

Ehmi Gamemi Victureo called out as her body shone with powerful red light only to be engulfed in flames the next moment.

The outburst of crimson flames caused the black mist to sizzle out and retract the moment they touched – the raging fire subsided from a blazing inferno into a shape of a ballroom dress – a unique shape for already extremely hard to master fire armor spell as Ehmi was about to begin the counterattack.

”Tsk… annoying.”

”Evorietto should help us, right? Let’s call him and deal with the annoyance without the commander’s knowledge.”