Only three minutes remained in the Cavalry Battle. The atmosphere on the battlefield was thick enough to cut with a knife. Our position was surrounded by the two strongest teams: Todoroki's group from the left and Bakugo returning from the right.
"Iida, now!" Todoroki yelled.
"Recipro Burst!" Iida shouted. The engines in his calves erupted with blue flames. Iida's speed multiplied instantly to such an extreme that he became nearly invisible to the naked eye.
In a tenth of a second, Todoroki's team appeared directly before us, and Todoroki's hand reached straight for my headband.
"I've got you!" Todoroki screamed.
I inhaled deeply and circulated energy throughout my entire body.
"Shadow Domain."
A surge of crimson-and-black energy instantly spilled out across the ground in a dozens-of-meters radius from beneath our formation. A chilling cold enveloped the entire arena. Inside my Domain, the attributes of my entire army surged. The ice Todoroki attempted to form under our feet turned black in a second and crumbled into dust.
The moment Todoroki's hand came within inches of my headband, a tall, majestic silhouette emerged directly in front of him from the dark soil of my Domain.
Dark armor, a long red plume on his helmet, and the aura of a pure killer. Igris!
KRAAAASH!
Without a single word, Igris drew his massive sword and blocked Todoroki's strike using the flat of his blade. The force of the impact knocked Todoroki and his entire team back several meters. The stadium froze—no one had ever seen this summon before.
"What...?! Another shadow?!" Yaoyorozu gasped in awe as she watched the glowing red eyes of the knight standing within my shadow.
"DIE!" Bakugo roared from the other side, soaring above our Domain as he primed a massive explosion from both palms. "Stun Grenade!"
A flash of light and a deafening blast hit the entire arena. Bakugo believed he could outsmart anything on the ground from mid-air and snatch the headband from a disoriented team.
However, inside the Shadow Domain, the power of my summons reached its absolute peak.
Surging directly from the shadow behind my back came the massive silhouette of Agron. Agron capitalized on the domain's buff. The absorbing wave of his dark aura swallowed all the flames, light, and shockwave from Bakugo's explosion as if it were nothing more than a weak candle.
"A futile effort, worm," Agron's cold voice resonated directly inside Bakugo's mind.
With a simple flick of his hand, Agron generated a pressure wave that swept Bakugo out of the air and slammed him hard back onto the ground.
"Are you freaking kidding me..." Bakugo spat as he pushed himself up from the dust, staring in disbelief at both Igris and Agron standing around us.
"Ten seconds left!" Present Mic yelled in ecstasy. "Mephisto Darkness's team has spread their energy across the battlefield, summoned yet another unknown shadow entity, and is putting on a display of absolute tactical and defensive dominance! No one can touch his ten million points!"
Todoroki gritted his teeth. Determination flared in his eyes. For the first time in the entire festival, he raised his left hand—his fiery side, which he had refused to use until now. Flames erupted from his left side.
Todoroki gritted his teeth, pure, frustrated resolve gleaming in his eyes. He sent the strongest freezing wave he could manage across the ground. The air froze in an instant, and massive ice spires shot straight toward our formation.
Igris, however, stepped forward and shattered the ice wave into thousands of harmless shards with a single sweep of his sword.
TIME'S UP!
A siren pierced the stadium air.
The freezing wave halted, and my Shadow Domain receded back into my shadow. Todoroki stood a meter away from me, breathing heavily and looking at me with an expression of shock and respect.
"THAT'S THE END OF THE SECOND ROUND!" Present Mic roared. "MEPHISTO DARKNESS'S TEAM REMAINS IN FIRST PLACE WITH TEN MILLION POINTS! ALSO ADVANCING TO THE FINAL TOURNAMENT ARE THE TEAMS OF TODOROKI, BAKUGO, AND MIDORIYA!"
Shoji and Hatsume sighed in relief and sank to their knees from exhaustion. Tokoyami looked at me and nodded. "It was an honor fighting alongside you, Mephisto. Your shadows run deeper than I could have imagined."
"Great work, team," I said calmly, hopping down to the ground.
The ten-million-point headband remained untouched on my forehead. The first two rounds were in the past. Tomorrow, the final tournament bracket awaited us—one-on-one matches right in the arena before the eyes of the whole world.