The next morning, the floating arena was packed so tightly that people had to look up to see the screens.
Ten thousand Forgers stood in their assigned sections beneath the bright sky. The whole place buzzed with anticipation. Yesterday had been about registration, faction announcements and posturing. Today was the part where people stopped pretending they were here for polite craftsmanship.
The female host stepped into the center of the arena. She was elegant as always. When she raised her hand, the last of the murmuring died away.
"Welcome back. All ten thousand Forgers have been granted three days to decide upon their dates and secure their masters. That decision will shape your progress in this tournament. However, there is one participant among you who has chosen to act alone. They have no master or faction support. The only Forger who made that choice is known as the Faceless Forger."
Gasps spread across the arena. Veneri stepped forward.The white fabric of his clothing moved around him as he walked and the faceless black mask over his face made him mysterious except for the fact that his voice, when he spoke, was unmistakably male. He stopped at the center of the gathered contestants, standing taller than most of them by a full margin.
"I won't choose anyone to serve nor will I never serve another with my skill."
The host's expression remained professional, but her eyes narrowed a little. Veneri continued, lifting his sapphire fan and pointing it toward the arena's upper tiers where the factions, sponsors, and spectators were gathered.
"I don't need a faction. I have survived on my own until now and I will keep doing so."
Somewhere in the crowd, a murmur rose. Somebody laughed under their breath. Somebody else did not. He kept going without changing his tone.
"And if the factions think they can make my life difficult, then I'll destroy them all."
He released his Divine Presence. It was deep and oppressive. It felt like the arena had been suddenly dipped into the bottom of an ocean trench. Several spectators in the front rows went rigid. A few of the contestants nearest to him staggered under the force of it. The weaker ones went pale. The stronger ones looked startled, then irritated, then impressed against their will.
The host did not move but the arena was undeniably affected. That was when the clouds split.
Three beings descended into the arena with enough force and authority to make the crowd gasp again. They landed in a loose triangle in front of Veneri. Each one of them was broad, muscular and built for battle. One carried a mallet, one carried a chain weapon and one carried an axe. All three were seven meters tall, which was the same rank height as Veneri in his original form.
Veneri's eyes narrowed with interest.
The Divine pressure he had released was being countered now. He could feel the shape of their presence. The one with the axe stepped forward first. He had the kind of face that belonged to a man who had spent his life being expected to win. His voice was low and blunt. He pointed the axe toward the host's platform and then towards the field around them.
"We are the Triplet Rampage Brothers. I am Axe. This is Mace. That is Mallet."
The brother with the chain gave a short, satisfied grin while the one with the mallet rolled his shoulders once like he was warming up for a routine execution.
"We are ranked one hundred, ninety-nine, and ninety-eight in the Immortal Anchor Rankings. We are the line that separates the top hundred from the rest."
The host lifted her voice again, turning towards the spectators and the contestants alike.
"Since the Faceless Forger has chosen independence, he has one path remaining. He must reach the top hundred on his own. If he kills them, he will enter the top hundred. If he fails, he dies."
The arena went quiet enough to hear the wind. Veneri sighed.
"Great. This is troublesome."
A few people in the crowd reacted to that alone because he said it so casually. He looked at the three brothers and then back up at the arena stands, where the faction representatives were already watching with obvious delight.
"Three of you working together might be a problem."
Axe smiled without humor. "A problem?"
"For most people, yes. But not me."
Mace cracked his neck. "You talk too much for a man standing alone."
"Then stop listening and cover your ears, dumbass."
That got a few stunned snickers from the spectators. The host lifted her hand, ready to begin the official call.
"The battle will commence when the competitors are prepared."
Veneri rolled his fan lightly in one hand and gave the brothers a flat look even if they couldn't see it.
"You can begin whenever you like."
Veneri's body grew from the three-meter size he had been using into his original seven-meter form. The transformation alone drew a second wave of gasps from the stands. His build expanded and in the process the body itself changed shape in a way that made the entire arena pause. What had looked androgynous became unmistakably feminine. The answer hit the crowd before anyone could name it aloud.
The Faceless Forger was not merely a strange independent competitor.
She was Prism Madonna.
The spectators rose from their seats in shock. The weaker contestants looked stunned. The stronger ones looked either fascinated or alarmed. Even the host was stunned. The Triplet Rampage Brothers, meanwhile, stared at the revelation with expressions that shifted instantly from irritation to alarm. Veneri let the mask remain in place for one second longer, as if giving the arena time to understand exactly how badly it had misread him.
He then removed it.
The Prism Madonna stood in the open arena at full height with white hair spilling behind her, a sapphire fan in her hand and a calm beautiful expression on her face that had no business belonging to someone who had once obliterated war fronts by the millions. She had spent the entire tournament's opening pretending to be a faceless mystery and now the truth stood in the center ring in the form of a living catastrophe.
The female host looked genuinely astonished now.
"Prism Madonna…"
A few of the faction representatives stared with obvious disbelief. Some looked furious. Some looked thrilled. Some were already reconsidering all of their earlier assumptions about the tournament. A legend had just walked into a forge competition and removed her own disguise in front of everyone.
The Prism Madonna looked at the Triplet Rampage Brothers and then raised one hand. Calimostria appeared in staff form with a burst of sapphire light. The staff settled into her grip like it had always belonged there.
"It has been a while. I really missed being in this form."
The Prism Madonna rested the staff against the ground lightly and the pressure of her Divine Presence emerged again, making the atmosphere around her feel like it had sunk a layer deeper into the sea.
"Now, let's show this planet just how powerful I really am."
Axe tightened his grip on his weapon. Mace shifted his stance. Mallet brought his hammer up. The host lifted her hand, already excited for this.
"Begin!"
Axe moved like a hammer falling from the sky. His axe cut a brutal line through the air as he launched himself straight at the Prism Madonna's head. The crowd could barely track him. One second he was standing and the next he was already mid-swing. Veneri's body tilted just enough to slip the strike by a hair. The axe whistled past her visor and slammed into the floor, splitting the arena stone with a violent crack that sent shards spinning.
Mace was already there.
The chain was targeted towards her legs. Veneri twisted just enough to let the chain pass beneath her instead of binding her. The motion was so smooth it looked almost lazy but the instant he moved, a sapphire colored Soul Energy beam burst from his palm. Mace cursed and yanked his chain back, barely avoiding the hit as the beam carved a hot glowing tunnel into the arena behind him.
Mallet came from the blind side.
He was heavier than the other two. His weapon descended in a vertical crush aimed at Veneri's shoulder and for the first time, the Prism Madonna took a direct hit she could not fully evade. The blow caught her across the upper arm and shoulder with enough force to make the entire side of her body jolt sideways. The audience gasped. A line of blood flashed across her sleeve. Her body skidded back but before the crowd could even fully react, her arm shimmered with sapphire light and the damage vanished as she used of Body Reconstruction.
She looked back up.
"Good. Again."
The brothers' expressions changed. That one word was enough to make them realize she had taken that hit on purpose.
"She's testing us."
Mace barked out a grin that did not reach his eyes.
"Then let's stop being polite."
They attacked together.
Axe led the two with wide cleaves designed to force her into the other two's range. Mace used the chain to restrict her movement and cut off escape lines. Mallet struck the floor and the air around it alike, turning the arena into a pressure field that made each step harder than the last. Veneri moved through it all, evading by fractions of seconds, turning her body at angles no ordinary immortal could have survived and firing Soul Energy beams whenever an opening lasted more than a blink.
The beams were precise too.
One beam burned through the chain's midsection and forced Mace to retreat. Another emerged from Veneri's palm and struck Axe across the side, tearing a line through his shoulder and sending him skidding back. A third clipped Mallet's forearm, cracking bone and throwing his swing off just enough for Veneri to escape the follow-up. The triplets were strong that every hit landed with real impact and every dodge had to be precise. One of Axe's counters struck Veneri across the ribs and sent him spiraling half a turn through the air. Another time, Mace managed to catch her with the chain around one ankle, dragging her down hard enough to slam her against the arena floor. Mallet used the opening to drive his hammer into her back.
The audience shouted.
The Prism Madonna's body cracked against the floor in a burst of dust and shattered stone. However, her injuries vanished in seconds. Her expression did not change once. She wiped a line of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of one hand, then looked at the brothers through the visor and grinned:
"You're good."
Axe's face was filled with confusion.
"That's all you have to say after taking all that?"
"I'm still deciding."
She lifted her staff and fired a beam straight through the space between them. They split apart to dodge but the pressure behind the shot still forced them to break formation. where she might be one second later. The host's voice echoed above the arena.
"They are using the Triple Rampage Technique! It's a High Class Technique created by the Triplet Rampage Brothers. It increases their power tenfold for nine minutes!"
That explained the way their presence was thickening. The brothers each inhaled once.
Their bodies took on a denser, more violent appearance. Axe roared first and swung with enough force to split the arena floor, forming a trench. Mace's chain moved like a spear and a whip at once, restricting Veneri in a pattern of attacks that made even her footwork a bit off. Mallet's hammer came down and cracked the ground hard enough to create shockwaves through the floating platform.
This time, Veneri's evasion wasn't normal. The audience could see it now. She had been holding back.
That realization hit the stands hard. Every time she chose to slip a strike by a centimeter instead of countering with maximum force, it was because she wanted to see the brothers' full range. Every time she took a wound and healed it immediately, it was because she wanted to study the rhythm of their attack. Every time she answered with a beam rather than a killing blow, it was because she was measuring them. She had been treating the fight like an evaluation and the brothers had only just realized they were the ones being tested.
"Stop dodging!"
"Then stop missing, axe freak."
Mace snarled and swung the chain in a huge circular arc that forced her into Mallet's range. Mallet's hammer came down in a thunderous blow that Veneri barely escaped but the shockwave still caught her side and twisted her hard enough to expose her waist for a split second. Axe saw it instantly.
The three of them moved together in perfect sync. The host's voice echoed in shock.
"Their ultimate strike—"
The brothers shouted together. The Triple Rampage Technique drove them into a single coordinated assault so fast it was blurred. Mace pinned the route with his chain, Mallet forced the opening with raw strength and Axe moved through the center line with the final cut. The world seemed to narrow to a single streak as Axe brought his blade across Veneri's waist with full force.
The Prism Madonna's body split at the waist in a violent burst of blood.
The crowd screamed. Even the host leaned forward. For a second, they looked like it had won.
Dust scattered across the floor in a dense haze. The three brothers landed in separate stances still blazing at tenfold force. The cut had been clean. However, the Prism Madonna stood in the center of it, unscathed.
Her waist reattached. She rolled her shoulders once and stretched slowly as though she had just been sitting too long in one posture and needed to loosen up. She touched one side of her waist and smiled.
"Ah. Thank you. That area was stiff. I needed that reset. Phew, that was satisfactory. It's like when you crack your back and you feel better, you know?"
The visor still covered her eyes but that couldn't hide her expression. The crowd could not see the expression in her gaze yet they felt it anyway. They had unleashed their strongest technique and landed what should have been the deciding blow and yet she was treating it like a stretch. Veneri lifted her staff again and tilted her head.
"You're stronger than I thought. But you're not strong enough."
For a moment, none of them moved.
The Triplet Rampage Brothers had just used their best move. The fact that she was still standing there, breathing calmly with her visor on and her body restored like nothing had happened, was already rewriting every assumption the arena had made about her.
Axe raised his weapon again but the Prism Madonna shook her head.
"It's my turn now. I sure hope you survive long enough before you die, if you want to save face for being the bottom hundred."