CHAPTER 41: THE WANDLESS END

The Solflare spell hung in the air like a second sun. A sphere of molten brilliance, it radiated waves of flickering heat that warped the very atmosphere.

Its surface writhed with entangled runes—silver veils of wild magic wrapped around coils of dancing flames. Wisps of incandescent energy floated off it, crackling and fizzing in the tension-charged air.

Darius Wycliffe stood opposite Orien Dahl, the harbinger of that infernal creation. Orien was a slight first-year, far from imposing in stature, yet his hand trembled imperceptibly as he held his focus. His eyes shone with pride—but fear ran in hidden lines beneath them.

In that moment, the arena fell dead silent. Even the protective barrier’s hum dropped a notch, as if the world itself feared speaking in the presence of that living inferno. Sweating students fanned their chests; professors leaned forward. No one expected a first-year to wield magic this potent.

But here Orien was. And the cost was clear:

Darius’s layered wind shields – spirals of compressed air lining up at his front, behind, midsection – shimmered under the oppressive blast. Each layer fought to keep him shielded. He was just above the melting threshold. The ambient heat was relentless.

Too much heat. Not enough leverage.

His heart thumped at the raw power of Orien’s magic. Layers and layers of fire, feeding on each other.

This isn’t about force. It’s about maneuvering.

With a sudden twist of his wrist, the wind shields condensed into a gust that deflected spitting embers harmlessly. It bought him enough time. Enough space.

He ducked low, arms trailing, and prepped for the next move. If Orien pressed the advantage, the flame could flesh-burn the stone beneath them. Darius needed transitions. Movement. Misdirection.

Standing firm would be suicide.

So Darius moved.

A snap of his fingers and the wind cracked around him. The air shimmered from heat, but he didn’t flinch. He slipped low and let the pressure collapse, then spun sharply, slamming a palm to the scorched ground as his mind connected to the technique he’d forged over weeks of trial, training, and refinement.

The spell had begun as a simple body projection in Professor Marek’s course. A test in forming semi-physical clones through mana infusion. Most students barely managed blobs. But Darius had combined that basic spell with his training in flow control and elemental anchoring—shaped it, honed it, and now? Now it moved.

Three forms burst up from the cracked arena in bursts of coiling wind and unstable mana. Humanoid figures, identical to him at a glance—same height, same stance, even the same hair flicking from their brows. But their faces were smooth, half-melted, their arms trembling unnaturally as if too full of unstable force. Waxy sheen clung to their limbs. Glowing lines of mana veined through their bodies like overdrawn circuit maps.

The crowd gasped.

The heat warped the space around them, but the clones endured—just barely.

Orien blinked once at the sight of them. The fire in his hand—the great solar orb rotating above—flared slightly in reaction to their sudden presence, but he didn’t move. He didn’t need to. The orb alone was enough, its heat punishing, its influence stretching through the battlefield like a second sun.

But the clones came anyway.

Darius was already gone—unseen, his elemental body broken into flowing wind. Invisible to most. Untraceable. He glided low, slipping past searing heat and pressure, nothing more than a breeze dancing between feet and flame.

The three clones moved fast, aggressive, unpredictable.

The first launched forward, arms out, feet dragging awkwardly as if unsure how to run. Its fingers curled midair as it lunged toward Orien’s shoulder. A burst of fire leapt from the air above—autonomous defense—but the clone dropped low and clipped Orien’s knee.

It didn’t hurt. But it startled.

The second darted from the side, turning sharply as if drawn by instinct more than vision. Its foot caught in a shallow crater, causing it to stumble—but it used the momentum to roll toward Orien’s opposite flank. Another burst of heat answered it. The clone’s back peeled open from the flame, skin bubbling, but it kept moving.

The third was slower, hanging back. Waiting. Its head twisted awkwardly as if listening to something only it could hear.

Orien’s focus sharpened. He twisted, pivoted, and flared his free hand—sending a wave of heat forward. The first clone evaporated halfway through a tackle, its body sloughing off into steam and wind before crumbling.

The second made it closer. It latched onto his arm.

The skin on its chest had already begun to melt.

Orien’s eyes narrowed. He fired a close-range blast of flame, ripping through its torso. It screamed—not with pain, but as if its mana refused to go quietly. The pieces fell, smoking.

The third clone moved, finally. Its run was rigid, jerky—more puppet than soldier. But it came straight at Orien’s face, leaping high.

Orien growled and swept an arc of flame.

The clone’s chest split open—but its hands grabbed hold of his shoulder.

And in that moment, Darius struck.

He reformed in the air above the solar orb, suspended in a cushion of condensed wind that flared outward from his heels.

"No better time to be theatrical."

He drew the spell in one motion.

A Wind Lance—a condensed spear of air, sharp as steel and held in a tightly braided spiral of rotating gusts. It whistled faintly in his palm, humming with speed and precision.

He’d learned the base version in Professor Velien’s weapon-forming class, but this—this wasn’t the student version.

This was for real.

He drove it straight down.

The lance hit the orb’s surface and didn’t stop.

It pierced straight through the burning core like a pin through wax paper. The magic buckled, stuttered.

And then it detonated.

Not a flash, not a collapse—a bloom.

The solar orb unraveled all at once. Fire unspooled from it like overcooked threads, snapping out in jagged arcs of unstable light. The shockwave hit everything—air, ground, barrier—and set the ring aglow.

Orien staggered as the heat flared across his cheek. His core spell—his strongest gambit—had been struck and destabilized. His footing wavered. One of the clones still clung to his shoulder, face half gone, hands melted into a fused shape.

He raised an arm to blast it away—

And the second clone rose from behind him, its melted limbs crawling toward his back like something out of a fever dream.

Darius landed behind them all, crouched low, fingers spread across the stone.

He clenched his fist.

A shock pulse of wind exploded from beneath both clones—small, tight bursts that activated just as both latched fully onto Orien’s form.

The explosions didn’t throw them off.

They drove them in.

The heat shattered the remains of their bodies.

Their heads split into vapor, but their arms locked around Orien’s chest, locking his limbs.

His spell casting hand twitched—

Darius called again.

"Now."

And the clones blew.

Not fire—not raw force.

Wind bombs.

Charged pressure pockets that burst from their hollow chests in two high-compression detonations. It didn’t tear Orien apart—but it sent him hurtling backward across the ring like a ragdoll, his coat aflame.

He hit the ground hard, rolled, and groaned.

Darius moved quickly, stepping through the evaporating mist.

Only one clone remained—half-standing, head cracked to the side. It limped toward him, unstable, and without ceremony held out a trembling hand.

Something lay in its palm.

The wand.

Darius took it.

The clone now stood at attention by his side.

Across the field, Orien staggered to his knees, stunned, blood at the edge of his lip.

His eyes widened when he saw what Darius held.

He shouted—something wordless, furious.

But Darius didn’t hear it.

He snapped the wand behind his back in a quick arc, tucked it into his belt, and raised one arm.

With a push of his palm, he fired one last gust—not lethal, not sharp.

Just strong.

A clean, compressed wind push, aimed straight at Orien’s chest.

The fire mage reeled and braced. Without his wand, he summoned a raw counterspell—wild, burning heat that erupted forward and met the gust mid-air.

Boom.

The gust split. Smoke billowed.

Flames hissed and rolled—

And out of the smoke, the final clone moved.

Silent.

Crumbling.

Arms open.

Orien saw it too late.

The clone jumped on him, already bubbling, the wind in its chest howling.

It latched on like a dying beast—and exploded.

The arena shook.

Orien’s body was flung upward and backward, through the smoke, off the stone.

He landed hard outside the boundary.

The ref raised his hand.

And the count began.

"One..."

Smoke still clung to the battlefield like breath held too long. The air shimmered with the aftershock of compressed heat, rippling above scorched stone where Orien had stood. The wind clone had detonated with enough force to rock the edges of the barrier—and for a moment, it seemed like it was over.

"Two..."

Movement.

From the edge.

A hand—singed and shaking—rose from beyond the boundary line. Fingers curled against the stone lip of the ring, dragging a scorched body up from the shadows.

"Three..."

Orien pulled himself into view.

He was bleeding, limping, face half covered in soot. His robes were blackened at the collar, edges curled inward from the heat. And still—he moved.

"Four..."

Darius didn’t lower his guard.

He watched Orien with narrowed eyes, body still lined with ready wind, hand loosely on the stolen wand now clipped to his belt. If Orien made it back in time, if he had one more attack in him—

"Five..."

Orien’s mouth twisted.

Not in pain. In resolve.

He lifted his hand, palm open.

"Six..."

The flames returned.

This time, not grand. Not a full sun, not a spinning ball of apocalyptic plasma. But something tighter. Focused. Condensed flame coiled into a spinning spiral in the center of Orien’s palm, burning a furious red-gold. His other hand dragged against the stone, using everything he had to get back on his feet.

"Seven..."

Darius moved.

Calm. Silent.

He unclipped the wand from his belt and raised it for the first time—not to cast, but to intercept.

Orien roared.

"Solar Brand—SECOND CREST!"

A javelin of flame shot from his palm, spun end over end—narrow, direct, seething. Not flashy. Just lethal.

Darius lifted the wand.

And the moment the flame connected—

The wand glowed a hungry red for a split second, its runes reacting as if it recognized the returning owner’s mana—but didn’t care who held it.

Then it pulsed.

The fire twisted in mid-air, coiled once in reverse—and shot back.

Straight at Orien.

He barely had time to flinch.

The javelin slammed into the ground just in front of him and exploded upward, a towering column of fire that roared like a furnace’s scream.

He was thrown back.

Not far.

But far enough.

Right on the edge of the stage and this time, he didn’t get back up.

"Eight..."

He lay flat, chest heaving, fingers twitching.

"Nine..."

Darius let the wand lower in his grip, not smiling, not smirking.

Just breathing.

"Ten."

The crystal overhead pulsed. The ref’s voice carried across the silenced arena:

"Victory: Darius Wycliffe."

The cheer came slow at first. Then rising. Then roaring.

But Darius didn’t turn to face it.

He looked down at the wand in his hand, fire still dying in its core. It was a refined tool—sleek bonewood etched with thin, swirling threads of rune-silver. Not particularly powerful on its own. Not nearly as dangerous without Orien’s unique counterspell technique.

But it had survived him.

And served him.

He turned it once in his fingers.

"Not bad."

"Could come in handy."

He tucked it back into his belt and stepped off the field, cloak rustling behind him in the winds he no longer needed to call.

Aiden met him at the top of the stairs.

Kai just whistled. "That," he said, "was completely over the top."

Darius shrugged.

"Had to secure my place."

Kai snorted, and Aiden gave him a glance.

"You planning to keep that wand?"

Darius looked down at it once more, then nodded faintly.

"Feels like I’ve earned it."

And for the first time since entering the ring, he allowed himself a smile.

This tournament was only beginning.

But now, the world knew he wasn’t just some rewrite trying to survive.

He was writing something new.

And he was far from finished.