Reborn as the Archmage's Rival
Chapter 36: Dominion

Chapter 36: Dominion

The rings reached him all at once.

The spiraling energy compacted the space between them like a collapsing star, warping the air, pulling static from the ground, the sky, the crowd itself. The sound vanished. No impact. Just absence. Silence deep enough it swallowed the air in every lung.

Then—

Impact.

A spiraling detonation of light, wind, and force radiated out in a pillar of brilliance. The arena floor cracked beneath it. The reinforced dome shimmered as defense glyphs surged to life, blocking errant arcs of current from reaching the stands. The very sky above dimmed as arcs of storm-light raced across the shielded dome, clawing at the heavens.

Darius flinched in his seat, arm instinctively raised to block the light.

When it faded, Lucien was lying at the far edge of the circle.

His coat was torn from the left shoulder down. His arm hung limp, fingers twitching. One of the reflective stones embedded in the dueling platform had shattered beside him. The side of his face was scratched, bruised, covered in soot.

His eye—his eye—still flickered faintly, but the silver glow was dim. Unstable. Like a candle trying to survive a storm.

A voice rang out through the arena.

"Ten-count beginning."

The referee’s voice. Calm. Professional.

But there was tension in the tone. No one had expected Lucien to fall. Not like this. Not so cleanly.

Darius leaned forward, heart pounding.

This wasn’t how I wrote it.

"ONE."

Lucien didn’t move.

His chest rose, shallow. His fingers twitched. But his body stayed down, as if every nerve had shut down in reverence of the pain.

"TWO."

The crowd had gone eerily quiet.

Even Arin hadn’t moved from her place, her stance relaxed but uncertain. She watched him—not with disdain, not even with pity—but curiosity.

She had given everything she had. That final strike was no flourish. It was a statement.

If you’re going to awaken... now’s the time.

"THREE."

Lucien’s mind was distant. Not gone. Not unconscious.

Just... elsewhere.

He was drifting, caught somewhere between memory and meaning. There was no pain here. Only silence.

And a voice.

"They said you were a gift from the gods."

His mother’s voice. Faint. Warm. Threaded with sorrow.

"I believed them. But it’s not always easy to love a gift the world hates."

He saw it now—the cold stone walls of their home, dimly lit and water-stained. The flicker of candlelight in the corners. The smell of burnt herbs, meant to keep away spirits. The hushed words neighbors spoke when they thought the boy couldn’t hear.

He’d been born with the Eye. No one had known what it was, only that it glowed sometimes. That he looked through people. That he saw things. Things he shouldn’t.

He’d learned early not to speak about the colors he saw around people. Or the shape of a spell before it was cast. Or how he could predict movement like it was dance.

The first time he mimicked a noble’s magic in public, a man twice his age, the town elder called it "thievery of spirit."

His father was beaten. His mother, forced to beg for forgiveness.

"You don’t have to hide, Luce," her voice echoed again, softer now. "One day, the thing that hurt you all your life will become the thing that saves you."

He had never known what she meant.

Until now.

His breath shuddered in his chest.

"FOUR."

The Eye wasn’t just watching anymore.

It was... opening.

It was understanding.

He wasn’t seeing Arin’s energy—he was seeing intention. Motion. Decision. He remembered the way her body aligned before a whip strike, how her knees bent slightly left before a lunge. Not guesses. Not prediction. Certainty.

Lucien’s vision adjusted, and the world shifted.

The threads of magic between Arin’s hands? He saw how tightly they curled, how they wrapped inward, meaning she was building—not projecting. The way her stance widened before any dual-arc cast, how her heel lifted when she prepared a dome-field collapse.

It was all there. All of it. Patterns like breathing.

I thought I could copy spells... but I was wrong.

He could feel the currents now—not just arcane force, but the breath between casts, the micro-movements, the tension in her spine before each decision.

It’s not copying.

It’s claiming.

A surge ran through him. Not adrenaline. Not a spell.

A realization.

"It’s all just motion. Energy in motion. And I see it."

His eye flared wide.

The glow shifted from pale silver to something deeper—liquid blue laced with bright fractals. The pupil became not a dot but a ring, rotating slowly like a wheel turning with divine patience.

Darius felt it before he saw it.

A ripple in the air.

A coldness—not of temperature, but clarity. The shift before a storm when the world stands still to listen.

Lucien’s fingers curled.

"FIVE."

He pushed his palm into the stone floor.

It cracked beneath him—not from power, but from sheer presence.

The pressure around him bent, as if the arena itself leaned forward to watch.

Arin blinked, her expression tightening for the first time.

Lucien rose slowly, one knee at a time.

His left arm trembled, fingers outstretched as if plucking invisible strings.

He stood.

Straight.

Calm.

Eyes burning.

The crowd still hadn’t breathed.

Lucien exhaled once, quietly, and looked down at his open hand.

"I get it now," he murmured. "It’s not about casting faster. Or harder. Or smarter."

He closed his fist, the light in his eye blazing.

"It’s about control."

Lucien raised his gaze, and the air trembled.

Around him, the world began to respond.

Arin shifted her stance.

Her prodigy’s instinct screamed at her—something had changed. The boy across from her didn’t just glow now. The very mana in the air bent to him. The charged arena air, the electricity still lingering from her last spell—all of it stirred toward Lucien like metal pulled to a lodestone.

He lifted his foot slowly and took one step forward.

The dueling floor—already cracked and battered—shifted faintly beneath him. Not in power, but in pressure. Subtle. Coiled.

He raised his right hand and let it trail through the air.

As it moved, the remnants of her last lightning construct—flickering lines of broken current—pulled toward him. Mana particles that hadn’t dispersed suddenly slowed, hovered, and traced the path of his fingers.

Arin’s breath caught.

He’s rewriting loose magic.

She raised both hands and lashed forward without hesitation, launching three staggered thunder strikes in an erratic fan pattern. She didn’t hold back—this was honed reflex, muscle memory turned violent.

Lucien exhaled once. His eye shimmered, and the world slowed.

He didn’t dodge.

He simply moved.

A slight lean left—the first strike passed his shoulder.

Step forward. Dip. Shift weight—the second sliced through the air behind his head.

Last strike—a jump. Half-foot lift. The bolt tore beneath his toes.

Darius felt it in the stands. Not the pressure. Not the power.

The rhythm.

Lucien was inside her tempo now. Not reacting.

Conducting.

Arin didn’t hesitate—her fingers sparked again. She clapped both hands once, and a wide field of lightning rippled outward in a full sphere.

Lucien raised his left hand and whispered, "Stop."

The field collapsed at the edges.

Not canceled—redirected. He hadn’t unraveled the spell. He had touched the ambient mana Arin was relying on, just enough to bend its path.

It was like watching a gust of wind twist a waterfall.

Lucien stepped through it unharmed.

The first real flicker of shock crossed Arin’s face.

And that’s when he moved.

Fast.

He appeared beside her—not teleported, just perfectly placed. He tapped her electric whip arm with two fingers. Her own energy stuttered—pulse flickered. The feedback sent a surge into her shoulder, throwing off her form.

Not enough to injure. But enough to interrupt.

She tried to reset—cast a short-range current lash aimed for his thigh.

He slid back with air compression, flicked a finger toward the floor, and the stone itself answered.

Darius’s jaw tightened.

He’s drawing mana from the arena.

Lucien crouched and placed his palm on the dueling floor.

His eye pulsed once.

Tiny veins of mana—usually invisible—began to glow beneath the stone.

Not brightly. Not loud. Like veins beneath skin—subtle, pulsing, ancient.

Arin launched high this time, twisting into the air. Her next spell came mid-flight—three jagged bursts of lightning shaped like lances, hurled downward.

Lucien didn’t dodge.

He flicked his wrist.

The arena rose.

Not violently. Not as an earth wall.

The stone around him lifted in quiet, circular ripples—thin layers of lifted plates forming an umbrella. The lances struck and shattered against stone.

The force of the impact rattled the plates but did not break them. Arin’s power crackled into the air, and even in midair, she realized the flaw.

He’s not just defending....

Lucien dropped the dome with a flick of his wrist, letting the plates fall back into place like a folding fan. The arena trembled beneath him. His boots touched down softly—light, composed, coiled with purpose.

His right eye glowed brighter.

Lucien exhaled. Each breath felt heavier. He’d burned through nearly everything he had, and still—Arin was standing.

Bruised. Breathing hard. But upright. Lightning still curled around her wrists like chained dragons, teeth bared. Her expression wasn’t frustration.

It was excitement.

They both knew what came next.

Lucien whispered, almost like a prayer.

"Let’s end this."

He lifted his gaze, and the world slowed.

The air pressure shifted, just enough for the crowd to lean forward. Darius held his breath.

Lucien began tracing a shape in the air—delicate, graceful. His fingers danced through invisible threads only he could see, like a conductor preparing the final chord. But this time, he wasn’t drawing from within himself.

His eyes locked onto the floor beneath him.

To the average viewer, it was just cracked stone.

To Lucien, it was a reservoir—a slumbering field of potential.

He bent his knees, leapt high into the air, cloak fluttering like torn wings behind him. The dueling platform shrank beneath his feet. Arin responded immediately.

Her lightning gathered into one final surge—a broad, spear-shaped projectile, etched with jagged arcs that spiraled inward. Her casting was nearly perfect—force balanced, spin controlled, the kind of final spell that could level the duel ring’s edge if allowed.

She launched it.

It screamed upward, blue-white and brilliant.

Lucien didn’t dodge.

He raised both arms above his head—and clenched his fists.

The floor responded.

The very arena bloomed.

Dozens of tiny veins of dormant mana awakened—flickers of elemental resonance still embedded in the cracked stone. Lucien’s presence brought them to life. They arced upward in concentric waves, stone shifting like tectonic breath.

Then—

eruption.

Pillars of shaped earth exploded upward from the floor in a perfect grid, forming a midair net of spiraling stone. Not spikes. Not violence. Architecture.

The arcs bent, looped, spiraled in tight precision, forming a three-tiered lotus of rock and energy around the path of the lightning spear.

The spell struck it—

—and folded inward.

Lucien had redirected her final attack into a constructed mana lattice. The collision sparked a blinding flash of refracted force. Thunder echoed off the coliseum walls. Lightning didn’t explode—it danced, bouncing between the arcs of stone in a symphony of echoes, trapped and drained.

The wave passed.

The air fell still.

Lucien fell through the upper arc of the structure, slowly, arms extended.

He landed softly.

Arin stood in the center of the ring.

But her knees gave.

The drained remnants of her lightning curled off her skin like dying embers. She gasped once—barely.

Lucien didn’t move.

He simply held out a single hand, and a breath of wind rolled across the stone, catching Arin’s body as she collapsed, cushioning her descent.

The crowd sat stunned.

Utter silence.

Then: "MATCH END," the referee called.

"VICTOR: LUCIEN ASHFORD."

Lucien blinked. His eye dimmed, slowly, like embers retreating to ash.

He fell to one knee.