My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy-Chapter 182: Defiant Moments

"I didn’t want this!"

The words tore loose, too loud, too raw.

For a moment, he wasn’t standing in the arena anymore.

He was back in A Block — cramped corridors soaked in recycled air and flickering lights.

He remembered Kikaru pushing a ration pack into his hands after a bad day, the corner of her mouth twitching in that rare, reluctant smile.

Her dry laugh when he flubbed a combat drill and ended up on his back, swearing into the mat.

Their whispered plans late at night — talk of finding a way out of Cube X, finding something better, no matter what walls the Federation tried to build around them.

They hadn’t been family.

They hadn’t been childhood friends.

They had been something else — something harder, something earned.

Two people trapped together, hammered into loyalty by shared pain.

And he had broken it.

Torn it apart to save Junjio.

Bound her without her consent.

Traded her trust for a chance at survival.

Now, standing in the center of the arena, blood thick in his mouth, shield shaking in his arms, he faced the cost.

"Don’t lie!" Kikaru roared.

Light surged around her — brighter, hotter — bleeding golden brilliance into every crack of the arena floor.

At her side, her Ikona flared, its energy folding inward, reshaping — and in a blink, a shield formed in her hand.

It wasn’t the small, sharp-edged constructs she’d used in training drills.

This one was larger.

Heavier.

The plasma-light woven tighter, denser, the surface shimmering like the core of a burning star.

She moved without hesitation —

Shoulder forward.

Shield raised.

A full-body charge across the fractured sand.

Elias barely had time to brace.

The collision hit like a sledgehammer — not just sound but force, a concussive blast that rocked the arena’s center.

Gravel exploded outward in a ragged spray, shards of stone pelting Elias’s legs as he skidded backward.

His own conjured shield — already cracked from the last strike — finally gave way.

Steel and condensed energy tore apart under the impact, fragments splintering into the air like burning shrapnel, glinting gold and silver as they spun down across the blood-warmed sand.

The blast sent Elias stumbling.

His feet dragged deep trenches through the gravel before he crashed onto one knee, breath tearing from his lungs.

A hot line of pain split open along his left arm — the edge of a flying shard — blood spilling freely now, dripping in sharp, fat drops onto the shifting sand.

He forced himself upright, teeth gritted against the pain, but he could already feel the sting of the wound weakening his grip, tightening his chest.

Kikaru didn’t slow.

Her light burned brighter, golden tendrils of heat curling along the fractured ground between them, the pressure thick enough to make the torch flames along the walls falter and snap.

The storm she carried refused to break.

Around the platforms, the watchers stirred harder now.

The low murmur of Shard Users grew sharper, harsher — a rising tide of voices threading fear, awe, and something darker through the charged air.

It wasn’t cheering.

It wasn’t sympathy.

It was the sound of people witnessing the start of a kill — the inevitable pull toward blood the arena demanded.

On his platform, Junjio’s small frame trembled.

His hands clutched at the ragged sleeves of his jacket, twisting the fabric into knots against his ribs.

His portal Ikona flickered behind him, dim and unsteady, its light shrinking against the overwhelming glare of the battle below.

"They can’t..." Junjio whispered, voice cracking through the rising hum of the arena.

"They can’t die here... not Kikaru... not Elias..."

Tears welled in his wide, desperate eyes, slipping down his cheeks as he stared at the two figures locked in violence —

caught between the people he trusted most and the nightmare that refused to let them go.

On his platform, Asurik’s smirk faltered.

The molten red glow of his magma Ikona flickered dimly at his side, casting thin, shifting shadows across the gray stone underfoot.

He watched the fight unfold, arms folding tighter across his chest, shoulders stiffening as the weight of the clash sank deeper into the arena.

"She’s out for blood," Asurik muttered, voice low, almost thoughtful.

His gaze narrowed, following the blur of golden strikes as Kikaru pressed forward, relentless, the air around her rippling with heat.

"But Elias..." Asurik added, a flicker of something crossing his expression — not hope, not pity — something grittier. "He’s tougher than he looks."

The magma Ikona at his side pulsed once, a slow, sullen heartbeat.

Still, Asurik’s mouth tightened into a hard line as he tracked Kikaru’s light carving through the space between them — fluid, precise, unstoppable.

"That light," he said under his breath, voice almost lost in the low hum of the crowd.

"It might burn him to nothing."

For a second, Asurik’s eyes dipped lower — not at the combatants, but into something only he could see.

A shadow behind his thoughts.

The simple, brutal truth of the arena:

Strength meant survival.

Nothing else.

He shifted his stance, arms crossing harder.

"I was hoping to see Elias again," he murmured, so low the words barely carried even to his own ears.

"But... damn."

Across the ring, higher up on the observation tier, Silas adjusted his glasses with a slow, deliberate motion.

The red glow of the monitors caught the diamond edges of his lenses, fracturing the light into sharp shards across his face.

His gaze was cold. Clinical.

Observing not people.

Variables.

"Her control’s improved," Silas said, his voice flat, devoid of weight.

The words hung there for a moment, as if the arena itself paused to listen.

"Luminous Constructs... Refraction Control..." he continued, tracking the golden flares of energy rising from Kikaru’s movements.

He didn’t speak in awe.

He didn’t speak in fear.

He spoke as if cataloging specimens for future dissection.

"She’s refined her plasma-light stability far beyond initial parameters."

His gaze shifted smoothly to Elias — battered, shield cracked, blood sliding down his arm — still moving, still fighting.

"And him," Silas mused.

"Adaptation remains his strength."

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