Raymund Ballast moved through the stands toward his seat. Due to his large size and three fluffy tails, several children cooed in wonder at him as he made his way through the press of the crowd. Some parents made perfunctory efforts to quiet their children, but most were too caught up in the chatter around the stadium to say anything.

In a very real way, the excitement of the finals was already contagious. Now, this mass of people just waited for the spectacle to begin.

Honestly, Raymund didn’t mind the wonder in the children’s eyes. He was just inwardly glad that he hadn’t participated in the tournament so that he could still move through the city without being crowded by fans. Being mobbed by such a high-energy group felt oddly terrifying.

DiOrtho Vant noticed his approach and waved. Due to his relative fame, he kept a low burn of his image present in the air, the grinding screech of his Machine Horror dissuading even the most enthusiastic fan. Raymund squeezed down the hall and sat next to his second in command, looking up at the giant board above the arena which announced the battle between Charlotte and Drake.

Happy. Raymund was definitely happy that he didn’t get the chance to fight to his limits in the arena. The consequences of doing so would have been quite inconvenient.

“Don’t look so sour,” Vant laughed next to Raymund. “This portion of this event might draw attention, but it will only become pain when they need to fight against the Ghosthound.”

Raymund glanced sideways at Vant. Despite the fact he wanted to agree with the sentiment, some inner fire flared in his heart. “Have you no inner desire to challenge the Ghosthound yourself?”

“Well, whether or not I have that desire is kinda irrelevant to my point.” Vant shrugged, but wouldn’t meet Raymund’s gaze. “Every time I think I understand what Randidly is capable of, he disappears for a few months and comes back with unexpected depths. He is not a man that rests at all. He’s always pushing his limits. The challenge against him will be a rather overwhelming confrontation, I believe. Even for these eight.”

“But the event will be quite illuminating,” Raymund said firmly. Before the conversation could continue further, the appearance of the Ghosthound and Tatiana caused the noise of the crowd to explode out across the arena.

The moment had arrived.

Soon, the doors to the different contestant entrances opened. From one walked a tall and sturdy-looking bear woman. Her metal armor wrapped tightly around her body, only showing a few tufts of thick brown fur. Her eyes were bright and the strange mixture of forest green and maroon swirled about her body, evidence of her powerful image. The specter of the Primal Force stalked behind her, with its wide rack of antlers and the bloody wings of bone and clumps of torn flesh.

It had once been a majestic creature that resembled a stag, but the additions Charlotte had made morphed it into something vaguely sinister. It walked on two legs, hunched over, the knuckles of its long arms dragging against the ground. Its firm muscles were a testament to how robust its tenacity for life was.

And the implacable determination of its master.

Opposite her came Drake. Raymund had seen a few of Drake’s matches but still found this participant to be slightly inscrutable. He was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, with only his bastard sword as equipment. Due to prior trauma, the man didn’t speak or make much noise at all. In addition, his image had only a vague manifestation that stood starkly in contrast to the other competitors in the top 8.

However, Raymund had a theory about why Drake had been able to make it this far anyway; he believed the true form of Drake’s image was inside his body. Although the audience couldn’t see it, the fact that he managed to stand toe to toe with his foes thus far proved he didn’t lack potency and focus.

Somehow, Raymund suspected that this final match would draw out that inner power.

The Ghosthound stood after the two competitors were in position, which quieted the crowd. His emerald eyes surveyed all the people gathered here for the finals and then he released a slow smile. Even in public speaking, it seemed Randidly improved more each day. “Welcome. We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the tournament, haven’t we? And we’ve seen dozens of powerful competitors: the best that the Alpha Cosmos has to offer. In this final match… I hope both of your display your fullest capabilities. Because I’m very excited to see what comes next for you.”

The Ghosthound’s smile almost seemed mocking, then. This was his lazy goading toward the challenge against him that waited in a week.

“Cocky bastard, isn’t he?” Vant sucked on his front teeth.

Raymund grimaced. “Despite knowing how many he has in the Nexus, he walks into that lion’s den with his head held high. He knows of no way of proceeding except with self-confidence that borders on hubris. That dangerous mindset is how he managed to make it this far.”

“Without further ado!” Randidly’s voice boomed out. It seemed to smooth out all the smaller noises present and create a perfectly serene arena platform for the two individuals facing off. The defensive barrier swirled, clearing out the dregs of image remnants from prior rounds. Drake shrugged himself out of his jacket and folded it neatly at the edge of the arena. Charlotte cracked her heavy knuckles. “Let the finals of the first-ever All Alpha Cosmos Tournament… begin!”

The Primal Force raised its head and roared like a tuba made of bone. Its chest cavity vibrated with the intensity of its cry. The force of its shout instantly allowed Charlotte to dominate the mood of the arena in a split second.

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And on the heels of mood, she took control of the image.

The Primal Force mutated further. Currents of pulsing energy wormed their way outward from the beast. At first, they were small and hidden behind the image’s body, only a few meters long, as brown as mud and just as tainted by strange ingredients, but soon they began to grow bulging and lanky into the surrounding space.

Within a few seconds, it became a thousand-leg spider with hollow eyes and endless hate. The protrusions continued to grow. These elastic limbs released mixed waves of forest green and maroon, dyeing the air. Meanwhile, Charlotte crouched down and smashed her fists against the arena with enough force to shatter the tiles. She pounced forward, crossing the distance between her and Drake in only a moment.

Drake’s bone armor was still condensing around his body when her shoulder rammed through this stomach and sent him tumbling off the stage. Raymund narrowed his eyes. Drake’s nascent armor cracked, but the equilibrium of madness hadn’t yet been established. He couldn’t derive his usual benefit from it.

Tumbling like a rag doll, Drake’s body dug a deep ditch in the grassy area around the arena. He rolled to a stop and began to push himself to his knees. Above him on the stage, Charlotte raised her arms; her image had been waiting for her. The brown leech protuberances generated by the Primal Force rose and twisted together to form a massive squirming cudgel.

“I get your trick,” Charlotte Wick spoke through gritted teeth. Raymund could see her arms tremble as she held them up toward the sky, struggling to keep those two opposite powers of life and death working together. Red and green light curdled around her body, barely balanced with one other. “You make yourself a vessel for an unstable cocktail of power and use external pressure to break your emotional pain down to something manageable. But if you fucking think I’m going to let you do as you wish- If you think this stage is so leisurely you can walk yourself through therapy here-”

Charlotte’s massive weapon stretched up, a thick pillar of wiggling negatively, almost as high as a tall building and as thick as a redwood trunk. With a great effort of will, Charlotte tightened it into a dense weapon. Then she smashed it downward, aiming for Drake on the ground but the curving attack stretching tall enough to pulp a thin strip of seats up to about the middle row of the stands as it made its deadly descent.

Drake was still pushing himself up as the attack began; he might not even see it coming until it was too late.

Raymund was on his feet and blurred into motion to land at the base of the stands to protect the unlucky strip of the crowd, but he quickly realized his concern was unnecessary. The Ghosthound pulled out an ancient-looking key. Clamped on the wide bow of the key were several dangling geometric shapes that seemed to be folding themselves, even when the Ghosthound was still. After a breath, the Ghosthound waved the key.

A strange and ethereal wind swept through the area. Suddenly, the grassy ground around the arena was much, much larger than it had been previously; the interior area had been somehow magnified and stretched. The seats were almost a mile away, making it difficult to see the action, aside from the conjured image weapon of Charlotte Wick.

It was, Raymund noted, quite like watching a barren tree trunk collapse from a safe distance.

Still, the entire audience felt the impact and saw the ground rupture as Charlotte brought her hammer blow down on where Drake had been struggling to his feet. A horrifying roar of blood and life exploded, drilling wildly in every direction and digging several thin tunnels in the ground around the area.

As Charlotte’s image dissipated, the Ghosthound lowered his key. In a disorienting jump, the ground vanished and suddenly they were back close to the action. The ground just beneath the front of the stands was still cracked and collapsing from withstanding Charlotte’s strike. Those perfect holes twisted and curved down into a complex warren. The crowd held its breath, trying to make sense of the scene in front of it.

Clouds of dust billowed outward, eventually revealing a cracked and barely whole bug creature.

Even Raymund had a moment where he couldn’t grasp exactly what he was seeing. At first, he wondered whether Drake had completely transformed into some segmented insectoid with six spindly legs, but gradually he recognized this creature. At the deepest point of the crater, directly underneath the remaining portion of Charlotte’s wiggling attack, was the morphed body of Drake’s Elemental.

The thing had inflated itself to protect its struggling master. As for Drake himself, there was no sign.

It had only a small face of a porcupine remaining, beneath its heavily armored and now cracked frame. Its eyes were red and hateful as it glared up across at Charlotte. Then its legs collapsed, the elemental unable to withstand her power. Like a drying sandcastle, its extended limbs flaked and cracked away. Only that small face and a trembling pink body remained. Blood leaked out of its mouth.

The elemental emitted a whimper.

“You…” Charlotte’s gaze grew heavy. Yet before she could speak further, the stage behind her erupted. Drake, his body pulsing and almost quantumly jittering side to side. A geyser of soft purple gas erupted with him as he returned to the stage. It swirled outward, slipping in beneath Charlotte’s more domineering image. He had no bone armor on his body, and the top of his helmet had been ripped away, revealing wild eyes and torn skin.

Only the bottom part of his rigid exterior remained on his head, looking his jaw in place.

He whipped his body around in a brutally fast heel kick. Unfortunately, his opponent was Charlotte, who had endured the grueling physical training regimen designed by the sadistic combination of Randidly Ghosthound and Helen. Her arm whipped up and deflected the kick. Then she closed the distance and reached for his throat. “If you fucking think this will be enough-”

Raymund felt the strange resonance coming from Drake’s chest. Time seemed to slow and the hair along the Vulpine’s arms began to stand on end. This feeling…

In terms of power, it was still a feeble image from an Expiran, but in terms of shrieking intensity and pure madness, Raymund Ballast couldn’t help but recall the leering face of Actus Suprem Devick.

Drake’s head vanished and appeared a half meter to the left while Charlotte’s fingers tightened on nothing but air. A hundred possible fists blurred at his sides and slammed into her body. She took a staggering step back, but then her eyes blazed with fury. Behind her, the figure of the Primal Force condensed once more. It raised its head and roared, releasing a gushing wave of brown, maroon, and forest green power that swept away Drake’s purple gas and even threw him physically off the stage once more.

“A painful execution then,” Charlotte’s footfalls were heavy as she crossed the stage.

Drake's muscles bulged as heaved himself back to a standing position. His eyes were nearly incandescent with pain and madness; the man might be witnessing the future or entirely blind, it was difficult to tell.

Yet the emotional surge within his chest came again. He captured that feeling once more. Drake slammed his fist against the ground and the hilt of a sword jutted up past the base of the area. He gripped the hilt and pulled out his massive bastard sword. When Charlotte lowered her shoulders and charged forward, this time Drake was ready.