Chương 49: Chapter 48 - The Twist

The referee led them to a section of open ground just off from the queue, where a tall wooden frame stood bolted into the stone — a wide panel embedded with a grid of dulled glass circles, dark and unremarkable until someone actually engaged them. A small crowd from the queue had already begun drifting over, drawn by the promise of something more interesting than waiting.

"Calvin," the leader said, by way of introduction, before the referee could ask. The referee gave a short nod, unbothered, clearly used to picking names up exactly this way.

"Calvin goes first," he said.

"Then your man." He nodded toward Kalsar.

"Here's how it runs, in case either of you haven't played before. Each level's fifty lights. You get three misses total across the whole attempt — not per level, the whole thing, so pace yourselves accordingly. Burn the third one and you're done, wherever you happen to be standing. Score's just how many lights you struck before that happens, added up as you go. Highest completed level anyone's witnessed here is seven. Nobody's ever seen further than that, not that this hall's got any record of."

Ant turned that over, the size of it settling in properly for the first time. Fifty lights a level, Mahkir said, quiet enough that only Ant would catch it. That's rather a lot of chances to get this wrong.

"Not helping," Ant muttered under his breath, and felt something almost amused ripple back through the bond in response. Calvin stepped up to the panel without any visible nerves, rolling his shoulders once before settling into a loose ready stance. His four companions had drifted to the edge of the crowd rather than close around him, watching with arms folded, expressions unreadable — no calling out, no encouragement, nothing that suggested they expected this to be difficult enough to need it.

Maren noticed it at the same moment Ant did.

"They're not cheering him on," she murmured.

"Strange, for a team that just wagered everything on this."

"Maybe they don't need to," Ant said, though something about it sat wrong with him too. He found himself watching the four of them instead of Calvin for a moment — the way they stood shoulder to shoulder without quite touching, the way none of them had so much as glanced at each other since the game began. A team that trusted the outcome didn't usually stand that still. The referee tapped the frame, and the grid flickered to life.

The first light bloomed near the panel's centre, a soft amber glow, patient enough that Calvin barely needed to move to catch it. A second followed, then a third, each one lit and struck with the easy rhythm of a man tapping his foot to a song he'd heard a thousand times. Fifty lights passed this way, one after another, and Calvin cleared level one clean, without so much as a flinch. A few onlookers near the front murmured approval, the small, easy applause of people watching something they already expected to see.

Level two woke the panel up slightly. Points began flaring in twos now, close enough together to demand a real decision — which one first, which one second, how fast the hand could swing between them. Calvin handled it well, quick and economical, and by the time the fiftieth light of the level had faded under his palm, the counter beside the frame read a clean hundred. Maren leaned toward Ant slightly.

"He's good," she admitted, grudging.

"Better than I expected."

"Kalsar's better," Ant said, though he wasn't entirely sure yet whether that was confidence or just the thing he needed to believe. By level three, Calvin's shoulders had drawn in, the loose ease of the earlier rounds replaced by something tighter. A light near the panel's lower edge caught him out entirely, gone before his hand had even started moving — his first miss of the attempt, one life spent, and Calvin's jaw tightened visibly at the counter's small chime marking it.

He finished the level anyway, the total climbing to a hundred and fifty despite the scare. Level four broke him properly. The panel lit in a rapid cluster near the edge, three points flaring almost simultaneously. Calvin caught one. Missed the second — his last life gone, a soft chime confirming it. He pushed through what remained, correct but visibly rattled, until a final light flared and faded at the panel's edge before his tired hand had properly started moving. The attempt ended there. The panel went dark.

Calvin straightened slowly, hands dropping to his knees, dragging air in through his nose. The referee read off the total from the counter mounted beside the frame. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"One hundred and seventy-nine," he said.

"Three lives spent. Attempt ends partway through level four." Calvin's group didn't react at all. No sympathetic word, no visible disappointment — just four people watching their own teammate catch his breath with the same flat patience they'd shown the entire time. Maren glanced at them again, clearly bothered by it now in a way she hadn't been a minute ago.

"They still don't look worried," she said quietly.

"Not even a little." Ant didn't have an answer for that. It sat in his stomach the same way it seemed to be sitting in hers. Calvin stepped back from the panel, breathing hard, and gave Kalsar a look that was more assessment than concession.

"Your turn," he said. Kalsar stepped up, rolling his neck once, something settling into his posture that Ant hadn't seen from him before — older, more practiced, as though he was slipping back into a version of himself that had been dormant for years rather than gone entirely. He flexed his fingers once, staring at the panel like a man studying a puzzle he'd already half-solved from memory.

"You can do this," Maren said, quiet, more to herself than to him. The referee tapped the frame again. The first light bloomed and Kalsar's hand was already moving before Ant's eyes had fully registered where it had appeared — a strike that looked less like reaction and more like anticipation, some old, half-buried instinct recognising the pattern before his conscious mind caught up.

Fifty lights went the same way, struck almost lazily, his whole posture loose in a way that made Calvin's earlier clean run look hesitant by comparison. Level one closed out at a perfect fifty, not a single life spent. A ripple of surprise passed through part of the crowd, a few heads turning toward the retired champion they clearly hadn't expected to see standing at a Light Smash panel at his age. Level two barely slowed him.

The paired points that had made Calvin think came to Kalsar like a conversation he'd already had — striking the near one and pivoting into the far one in a single fluid motion rather than two separate decisions. The counter passed a hundred clean. Ant felt something in his own chest ease with it, though he made himself keep watching for the moment it started costing Kalsar something. He didn't want to be caught off guard the way he had been watching Calvin fall.

He's not even trying, Mahkir said, sounding faintly amused by the whole spectacle. You could have told me this was going to be boring.

"You're worried about the wrong thing," Ant murmured back, not taking his eyes off the panel. I'm not worried at all. That's rather the point. He's already better than the other one was on his best level. Mahkir's attention didn't waver either, tracking Kalsar's hands with the same close focus Ant recognised from watching him size up an opponent before a fight. This isn't a contest. It's a formality he hasn't noticed is over yet. Ant wanted to feel that certain.

Some part of him did, watching the counter keep climbing — but the rest of him had learned, over quite a lot of very bad mornings, not to trust anything that looked finished before it actually was. It came in level three. The pattern doubled in complexity, two separate rhythms demanding attention at once, forcing Kalsar to actually think for the first time rather than simply flow. Midway through, a light he'd clearly seen too late slipped past him entirely — first life spent, the small chime confirming it.

He pushed through the rest of the level regardless, closing it out at a hundred and forty-eight, sweat properly showing now. Level four opened with the same rapid cluster that had broken Calvin. Kalsar caught the first two clean, faster than Calvin had managed the same pair, weight already committed before the second light had even fully formed. The third came a fraction quicker than his hand could recover from the second, and it faded untouched. Second life spent.

The counter read a hundred and sixty-one — already past where Calvin's attempt had ended entirely — and Kalsar hadn't even finished this level yet. He was holding his breath, Ant realised. Beside him, Maren's hands had curled into fists, knuckles pale. Even Calvin had gone still, watching now with something closer to actual attention than the flat disinterest he'd shown a moment ago. Kalsar kept pushing.

The lights kept falling — thirty more struck clean, his form starting to fray at the edges the way Calvin's had, movements a fraction slower with every strike even as they still landed true. Then his last life went, a light at the lower edge his hand simply didn't reach in time. No lives left now. Every remaining strike was a genuine risk. A light near the panel's centre caught him a half-second late, and the grid went dark.

Kalsar exhaled hard, hands braced against his knees, breathing like he'd just finished a real fight rather than a game. The referee checked the counter.

"Two hundred and eleven," he said.

"Three lives spent. Attempt ends partway through level four." Silence held for a moment before someone in the small crowd let out a low whistle. Both men had fallen at exactly the same level, caught by the same brutal cluster of lights — but the numbers told the actual story, and Kalsar's total sat more than thirty clear of Calvin's. Maren let out a breath she'd clearly been holding the whole round, something like a laugh escaping with it.

"That's it, then. We've got the deed." Ant wanted to believe her. Something about the way Calvin's expression hadn't shifted at all made the relief feel premature.

"Winner—" the referee began.

"Wait." Calvin's voice cut through before the referee could finish, and something shifted in the air immediately — a grin spreading across Calvin's face that had nothing to do with having just lost the match he'd apparently just lost.

"We agreed to a clan battle," Calvin said, looking directly at Ant now rather than Kalsar.

"Not a duel." His grin widened further, something almost gleeful in it.

"You've got two members left to fight. Per the rules. This isn't a solo match."