The sixth day marked the tournament's conclusion.
As Rowan Mercer had predicted, Evan Clarke stepped onto the field without hesitation and conceded immediately. He hadn't come here to win. His goal had always been answers, not trophies.
The final standings were settled in minutes.
Rowan Mercer took first place. Evan Clarke placed second and, with it, secured the right of succession he'd been quietly maneuvered toward all along.
The following day, Rowan received the Codex from Marcus Hale. With it came the second forbidden discipline he'd been after. By afternoon, the mountain began to empty. Competitors and spectators alike filtered down the paths, returning to their ordinary lives as if the past week hadn't quietly reshaped the world beneath their feet.
Marcus Hale and Kanzaki Mio stopped to say their goodbyes.
"Stay with the Bellamy Consortium for a few days," Marcus said. "If anything comes up, you know how to reach us."
"I'm fine," Rowan replied, waving them off. "I'll check in once things settle."
To put them at ease, Rowan mentioned that he'd formally aligned himself with the Consortium. It wasn't entirely a lie. A working agreement was already in place.
After they left, Aureo approached him, his expression tense.
"We've confirmed it," Aureo said. "The Ward family has mobilized. A lot of their people are gathering below the mountain. My father wants to know if you want backup."
Rowan shook his head. "No. You head down with the others. When you hear they're gone, focus on absorbing what's left of their operation."
Aureo hesitated, then nodded. "Just… be careful."
That night, Rowan hovered unseen above his quarters, watching several intruders ransack the empty room below. Their frustration was obvious.
"He's not here," one of them muttered. "Vanished."
Another spat on the floor and cursed under his breath.
From the treeline, an older man emerged with several allies at his back. His voice cut through the darkness.
"You're rummaging around my mountain for something that isn't yours. That takes nerve."
The man was Marcus Hale.
Steel met steel. Spells clashed. Across the mountain, similar battles erupted as coordinated attacks struck multiple locations at once. The assault had begun.
Rowan didn't intervene.
The defenders were ready. They'd been expecting this for years.
What caught Rowan's attention was something else entirely.
Marcus Hale moved like a man who refused to stay broken. His body shifted between solidity and raw energy, wounds sealing almost as quickly as they appeared. Rowan recognized the technique instantly. It came from a destroyed order, one whose philosophy revolved around reversing the body to its most primal state.
Interesting.
The method converted flesh into condensed force and back again, reinforcing the body while allowing rapid recovery. Taken to its extreme, it bordered on functional immortality.
Rowan already possessed formidable regenerative traits. Combined with something like this, the results could be absurd.
He considered it carefully.
This world's ceiling was low. Its raw destructive potential lagged behind modern weaponry. But its disciplines excelled in refining the body, the mind, and the self. The problem was compatibility. These systems weren't designed to coexist. Running one interfered with another.
Unless you cheated.
Rowan smiled faintly.
His duplicates didn't share that limitation.
Each one trained separately. Each one stacked its gains back into the whole.
One learned endurance. Another mastered projection. A third refined regeneration.
The results accumulated anyway.
Below, the fighting intensified.
Rowan watched as the mountain's strongest defender was drawn away, then another. A soft-spoken acolyte slipped through the gaps, his timing flawless, his panic convincing.
"Well played," Rowan murmured.
The man wasn't the strongest there. Not even close.
But he understood people. And that made him dangerous.
The night was far from over.