The Golem Mage

Kaelus was still airborne when he gritted his teeth, tasting blood at the back of his tongue, his insides felt scrambled, as those wind bombs triggered by the glyphs had torn through his internal organs, and when he finally began to drop, he didn’t fall to safety.

He fell straight into Earth Takeda’s hands, it was like they were running a tag-team execution.

The moment Kaelus’s back slammed into his chest, Earth Takeda locked an arm around his waist, dipped low, then surged upward, dragging Kaelus along with him before snapping into a brutal suplex that drove Kaelus’s face into the arena floor.

Silence swallowed the Central Region stands, everyone could see it, Kaelus wasn’t coming back from that.

He went limp the instant his face kissed the hard ground, Earth Takeda then rose, as the other Takeda didn’t waste a second. He stepped in by activating wind pressure again to hook Kaelus with a sharp pull , as he bent his arm while the wind seemed to be mirroring his actions, without wasting time he flung him cleanly out of the battle ring.

“And the winner of the match is the School of Silent Night!” The judge announced it the moment Kaelus’ back hit the ground outside the ring, not even hesitating.

It almost felt deliberate, like the judging committee had purposely joined them together to get something out and they had gotten what they wanted to confirm, and now they were ready to move the tournament forward.

The Eastern fans exploded into cheers, roaring at the top of their lungs, no matter how the bracket looked, they still had two academies left in contention, and this match poured fresh confidence into their veins.

To them, it was proof that one of those two could still take the crown. At that moment, nobody cared about the earlier victors, the crowd was still riding the high of the School of Silent Night’s win, already looking ahead to the loser’s bracket match scheduled for the next day.

After seeing how wild the crowd was, Wind Takeda didn’t waste a second more, as he pushed his right hand into the space before him, and another wind door materialized.

At the same time, Earth Takeda thrust his palm outward, recalling his greatsword that had been knocked away earlier by Kaelus, then he stepped through the wind door after he was ready and just like that he vanished right before everyone’s eyes.

The spectators were stunned, they knew this was a high-level wind spell called Wind Pocket, but the fact that Takeda could form one large enough to hide a full person inside it just showed them all how this constitution of his truly was as they were realizing that there was definitely somethings that the great dean of the shinsei academy did not disclose to them.

Right now the normal mages just felt his mastery of the spell was terrifying, however the knowledgeable ones know that even the most talented high-rank wind mages used Wind Pocket only to store objects, treating it like a substitute for a space ring, they can’t use it to hide a person.

On top of that, it wasn’t a widely circulated technique, meaning not every wind-specialist clan even had access to it.

Agnes, who had been quietly collecting data on the teams, couldn’t help but sigh, today’s matches had been fun, eye-opening, even she was already looking forward to seeing who would face the War God Mage Academy team next.

And just like that, the day’s matches came to an end.

Tomorrow would be the loser-bracket battles, and whoever won would then have to fight again the following day, against the winner from the previous loser bracket, which just so happened to be Arcanis Academy.

That single loser-bracket match would decide the sixth qualifying team, the one that would join the remaining five and advance to the next stage.

The judges structured the tournament this way so no team ever got a free pass, and the “extra chance” also allowed strong teams to redeem themselves, especially if they had been unlucky, or if they had lost early to a monster of an opponent.

But that same promise made the loser bracket brutal, because everyone knew it: win, and you return to the tournament. Lose, and you disappear.

To the judges, all of this was completely acceptable, as it didn’t just rile up the crowd and draw out raw emotion from the teams that lost, it also gave the judges time to reassess the fighters.

In tense, dangerous situations, the best in every mage was forced to the surface, that was why the next two days would be bloodier for the academies that had already fallen into the loser bracket, while the judges watched closely to see who truly deserved a place on the list they were keeping.

As people began filing out of the arena, many of the VIPs debated the day’s battles and who had surprised them most, while Terran Dunce made his way to the Grand Dean of War God Mage Academy.

(For clarity, “Grand Dean” would now refer to the former dean of an institution, someone who had already passed their duties to a successor, and now lived freely while still supporting the academy in their own way.)

The moment old man Alfred saw Terran, he was genuinely surprised, and that was because Terran rarely left the academy, if he moved at all, it was usually for duty or an emergency.

Alfred immediately thought of the space portals under their control and realized that even before he left there should have been no problem at all with them, so he was wondering what disturbances truly did make Terran come to tell him that he couldn’t wait and he took a space travel instead.

Yet Terran still leaned in and spoke quietly into his ear.

The instant Alfred heard what Terran said, shock flashed across his face, he wanted to keep the news to himself, but deep down, he knew he couldn’t, this was something he had to discuss with the people it concerned.