Randidly watched the final moments of the match without expectation or judgment, simply experiencing the heights to which humanity could now reach. These would be the people on the front lines against the First Calamity.

Alana’s hand of pale flames slammed against Kayle’s defensive Skill. In the air above Kayle, his image manifested with a vivid intensity that surpassed his previous usage by far; he was currently giving it his all. That simple white divide in a sea of blackness warped the surrounding air, somehow shifting before Randidly’s eyes until the colors flip-flopped. Now a black line divided a sea of white. Kayle’s face was twisted into the most pained grimace that Randidly had ever seen.

The two Skills clashed. And in the end…

...Kayle’s Absolute Divide endured while Alana’s flaming hand faltered and dissipated. For a second, the two stared at each other. The low roar of the crowd was like the static on an old television that was poorly tuned. It added a sense of unreality to the two rigidly staring fighters.

They both sagged at the same moment.

“Dammit… I wanted to win…!” Kayle muttered. Then his eyelids fluttered and he fell forward, having completely overdrawn his mental energy to defend against that last attack.

Randidly felt a great deal of sympathy for the man; the headache he must be experiencing right now was undoubtedly brutal. Plus, Alana had tricked him. The hand of white fire she had conjured looked intimidating, especially after she had sliced Paolo, but it hadn’t possessed any real bite. Randidly unleashed a bit of Yggdrasil’s image to lessen Kayle’s pain.

There were now only two active participants left in the finals.

With a grunt, Alana pulled Kayle’s knife out of her right thigh. Then she rolled onto her belly and slapped the ground with her left hand, pushed her body of a couple of meters off the ground. She twisted midair and managed to land on her good leg. She swayed for a second, then turned toward Paolo while she ripped off his hand’s grip on her face and tossed it to the side.

“An excellent fight,” Paolo announced from a growing pool of blood. “One worthy of crowning a champion.”

Alana simply stared at him, appearing too exhausted to muster the words. But as she held the knife aloft, her arm didn’t waver.

Chuckling Paolo looked down at his own limbs. Blood oozed from the stumps of the fingers on his right hand and gushed spiritedly from the severed end of his left forearm. In front of him and a few meters to the left, his limbs twitched. “Yes, it should be exactly like this. Alana Donal, I want to show you one last Skill.”

He raised his right arm. The silk wisps of images that he took from the audience flowed in faster and faster, weaving themselves together where Alana’s Want had severed his flesh. Very quickly, the missing fingers were replaced by a ghastly phantasm of those fingers. His hand glowed with meaning and Paolo clenched those spectral fingers into a fist.

“The Right Hand of the Challenger.”

Paolo lightly threw a punch forward. The spectral fist shot not toward Alana, but directly up into the air, gleaming like freshly polished silver.

Then he shrugged at Alana. “But the fact I need to make a challenger’s fist means that it is already my loss. We concede.”

The crowd was silent until the words that Paolo had said seemed to sink in. Randidly tilted his head and considered the slate grey sky; hopefully, they could finish the award ceremony before it began to snow.

Then the audience caught up to Paolo's words and exploded.

*****

King Phirun watched the award ceremony with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. Some of the best doctors from the various Zones had rushed down to the arena and made sure that all the contestants were recuperating without any issues. But aside from having their images roughed up a bit, even the hemorrhaging Wivanya was quickly returned to prime form so that the ceremony could begin.

That was the benefit of the System: as long as there were no extenuating circumstances, even severed or annihilated limbs could be replaced. So that now, only thirty minutes after being pronounced out of the final, Wivanya sat primly on her hind legs while her rapidly wagging tail revealed her cheery mood. Alana Donal actually had to whisper something to the dragon so that she wouldn’t injure any of the other duos with her tail.

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The sight only served to worsen King Phirun’s mood. Beside him, Huang Shou glanced sideways at him in amusement. “You are disappointed with the result?”

“Pah.” King Phirun spat to the side. Next to him, his Zone’s duo that made it the farthest in the tournament, Kadir and Tosam, visibly flinched. But then King Phirun shook his head. “No, Alana Donal deserves this victory. Paolo and Kayle are also impressive fighters. The only problem… I wish they would have a little decorum. They act so carelessly.”

Huang Shou’s smile quirked upward at the corner and he adjusted his grip on his cane. “Oh?”

King Phirun refolded his arms so the opposite arm was on top. Although he was inherently suspicious of Huang Shou, the man at least had an admirable amount of pride. For that reason, he deserved an answer. “These are the greatest warriors of our age, fighting with each other to the point that they were practically bleeding out and ineffectually swinging their fists at each other! How can the populace have any respect for power when the powerful seem so… mundane? Truly, I am glad that I didn’t decide to participate. I worry about how my reputation would have been impacted.”

“Truly, it was a great dishonor to lose to Paolo and Kayle in the quarter-final round,” Haung Shou said lightly, but the smug expression on his face revealed his true feelings. King Phirun grunted but had nothing to say to that quiet boast. The older man had earned it. His gaze was heated as he turned briefly to his duo that was eliminated in the top 16, then back to the arena floor.

Randidly Ghosthound looked around at the waiting audience. Beside him, Wivanya’s flicking tail was positively hypersonic. “It is with great pleasure that I announce the victors of the Earth’s first, and possibly last, Duo’s tournament. In third place-”

“Last tournament?” Kadir mumbled to himself.

Tosam nudged his partner’s shoulder. “Because we might be renaming the planet today.”

“-Hank Howard and Ancho!” The Ghosthound continued. While the crowd clapped enthusiastically for the gunslinger’s saunter toward the proffered bronze medal in the Ghosthound’s hands, Kadir huffed out a breath.

“Well, I’m not gonna go calling Earth something different just because of some stupid tournament,” Kadir said through gritted teeth.

Hank took the medal and then tried to put it around Ancho’s neck. The horse shook its head wildly, avoiding it like it was a piece of rotten meat. Meanwhile, King Phirun threw a mild glance at Kadir. “If you felt so strongly about the issue, you should have simply won the tournament.”

“Besides, it might not matter,” Added Tosam with a sly smile. “The name change happens in the System, right? With its translation software, it might automatically translate Earth to the new name every time you say it. So even if you refuse to say it, no one else will notice. And you will hear everyone else say whatever the new name is.”

Kadir blinked in horror. Beside Huang Shou, Huang Li leaned forward and glanced down the row of people at Tosam. “That’s an excellent point.”

Out on the arena floor, Hank threw up his hands helplessly and put the medal around his own neck. The audience was half-clapping and half-laughing as he returned to his starting position at the side of the arena. With a small smile on his face, the Ghosthound continued. “In second place, Paolo and Kayle!”

This applause was much louder, but mostly because mixed in the clapping were calls of ‘you got screwed!’ and ‘Next time for sure!’. Despite their loss, Paolo and Kayle seemed rather genial about the whole thing, taking the silver medal from the Ghosthound and then engaging in an impressively fast game of rock, paper, scissors afterward. With a wide grin, Paolo slid the medal around his neck and strutted back to their position. Kayle just shook his head.

“Finally… the announcement that we were all waiting for,” The Ghosthound beckoned. He didn’t even bother to activate his images, yet he somehow seemed to be standing at the bottom of a bowl so your attention couldn’t help but flow down toward him. “The winners of the duo’s tournament are Alana and Wivanya!”

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRR!

The clapping from the crowd started off loud, but it was quickly drowned out by the fifty or so dragons that launched themselves into the sky at the announcement and belched frost toward the overcast grey skyline. Wivanya raised her head and joined her children in their exultation, giving themselves over completely to their joy.

Rather than a medal, Randidly produce a glowing stone tablet. Strange runes covered its surface, shifting as the Ghosthound’s fingers pressed up against it. He walked over to Alana and offered her the Runic Tablet. “So. Are you ready to officially make our planet a part of the Nexus?”

“Yes,” Alana said shortly. She looked at Randidly with several seconds, as though wanting to say something. He regarded her with a mild expression on his face. Then she shook her head and looked down at the tablet. She held it in front of her with both hands, as though she was truly holding an ancient artifact that could be broken from the slightest mishandling. Wivanya lowered her head from her roar and brought it next to Alana’s head, where the dragon began to speak rapidly.

King Phirun could not hear what the dragon was saying, but Alana Donal was having none of it. After literally shooing the enormous dragon away, she released a sharp breath and looked around at the audience. “I name this world… Expira.”

Crack!

The tablet in her hands broke in half, golden dust shooting rapidly out of the broken tablet and flying up into the air. Then, in front of King Phirun, a notification appeared.

Congratulations! Your planet Expira has officially become a part of the Nexus! As new citizens of the Nexus, you will be subjected to periodic tests to determine your eligibility for benefits. The first test will take the form of a great Calamity that will descend to Expira and attempt to lay waste to everything you have built!

Calculating…

Congratulations! The difficulty of your Calamity has been increased in proportion to the density of Aether on your planet. The Calamity will arrive in 150 days. Please prepare well.