In an instant, a strip of cloth lashed around Ero’s neck.

“Ghk—!”

Clawing at the collar constricting his breath with both hands, he kicked both legs wildly, his face turning bright red in agony. His panicked thrashing made it obvious he had never expected to be grabbed like this and hauled upward.

And then the Floating Platform he had been standing on split clean in two beneath his feet. Three contestants caught in it dropped in the blink of an eye with screams.

<An enormous crash rings out the very instant the match begins! Ah, Floating Platforms are being shattered all over the arena! Eliminated contestants are already pouring out in droves!>

Ero’s face went deathly pale for a moment, and he stopped struggling altogether. At the same time as the commentators’ voices, the number of survivors displayed on the crystal board began dropping at a terrifying speed. Starting from 500, it plunged straight into the 480s.

<Most of the contestants leaped into the air the moment the countdown ended. An appropriate defensive strategy. If you stay still, the odds of taking a preemptive strike rise dramatically. But the speed of one contestant moving near E Spot looks far from ordinary.>

<That’s right. E Spot is the central section of the arena. It offers many footholds to move across, but that also makes it a high-risk zone for attacks. And right in the middle of it, there’s a contestant with white hair and bandages streaming behind her, like some ghost from a snowy mountain! She’s pursuing the other contestants at full power!>

The lenses of the cameramen stationed around the stadium swung in one direction. Hanging limp like laundry on a line, Ero jerked his head up as well.

<She’s the first contestant to attack a separate zone! Definitely someone to keep an eye on. Who is she?>

<A rising prospect who placed in the top three of her group twice in the earlier Test Matches. No. 33, Asher!>

He had not even fully recovered from the chilling realization that he would have been done for if he had stayed still. Vast shockwaves surged in from every direction, too broad to even identify where they were coming from. Along with them, a scene much like the one he had just witnessed spread before Ero’s eyes.

Kwaaang—!

Shattered Floating Platforms and contestants alike were blasted outside the Ether trajectory and plunged like leaves in a storm.

At the center of it was a single figure moving too fast for the eye to properly track. A corpse-like woman cutting through the light as she butchered contestants.

“Asher.”

Ero’s main voice slipped out like a groan. She was already notorious even before the league began. She was not literally tearing arms and legs into pieces, but everywhere her figure passed, contestants suspended in midair were sent flying in all directions with their bodies twisted like grenade fragments. Faced with that overwhelming force, many lost their wits and scattered toward the outer edge of the arena.

The woman who had taken position in the center of the column of light slammed her fist down onto a Floating Platform like a mace. In that instant, the shattered rock burst apart into sharp projectiles, and the split platform was driven outward in all directions, crashing into others in a chain and unleashing a barrage of ringing destruction.

<Asher is wiping out both rivals and footholds in the blink of an eye! Like driving prey into a corner, she’s plunging the entire arena into terror!>

Thanks to Ether’s expansive nature, thunderous sound echoed savagely throughout the arena. The shockwaves scraped across the skin and raised goosebumps. Ero’s body had only just started °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° trembling when the tip of a foot brushed a Floating Platform, and once again he was yanked backward as if someone had grabbed him by the hair.

“B-boss—!”

Leonardo stepped on debris drifting through the chaos and climbed steadily upward. To grasp the overall situation at a glance, higher ground was more suitable.

Asher?

Even in the middle of it all, hearing the alias shouted by the commentators made him think of ashes burned white. He did not even need to turn around to guess who they were talking about.

It’s a game where you only have to make it into the top two hundred, so why go that far?

A strategy focused on destroying the footholds first was unexpected. Erasing the very ground people could stand on and making herself everyone’s target in the process—it was one hell of an opening statement.

<No one can stand against her. Will the first round of the Preliminary Round turn into her one-woman show at this rate?>

<She hasn’t used magic or a weapon. She’s a contestant specialized in physical ability. On top of that, this arena extends hang time, so it may actually favor those who aren’t mages.>

<But aerial combat has the drawback of making it difficult to change direction in midair. To survive, contestants need not only physical ability, but also the skill to use the terrain and the trajectories formed by Ether!>

Around that time, five contestants who had been exchanging looks slowly narrowed the distance. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, they all charged at Asher, whose presence stood out too distinctly.

Each of them held vicious blades or binding weapons. Intent on eliminating a powerful rival first, Asher rolled her bloodshot eyes and instinctively jumped away to evade the simultaneous strike.

Contrary to everyone’s expectation that she would flee, she instead reversed direction. Her bandage-wrapped feet struck the underside of a Floating Platform hanging above. The moment she kicked off the uneven surface with all her strength, cracks split through the rock with a sharp crunch. As soon as her reinforced momentum carried her away, the Floating Platform split apart in half.

She charged straight at only one of the five who had attacked her. Grabbing the opponent’s shoulder and wrist, she twisted them apart and dislocated the joints through raw grip strength alone. It took less than three seconds for the contestant’s arm to dangle in a grotesque angle, as though it had been ripped out.

“Aaaagh!”

<No. 179, Iron7, eliminated! His Identity Band has been damaged!>

<Looks like the band isn’t the only thing that’s damaged. He’d better get to the medical team immediately.>

The bleak scream carried far on the Ether. For some contestants who had come up expecting nothing more than the level of the Test Matches, their mental state was already in chaos.

“What kind of monster is that...”

“There isn’t even a safe zone this time?”

“Quit talking and run!”

<And even as we speak, a fierce battle is breaking out at G Spot in the one o’clock direction from E Spot—>

<A new clash zone!>

Gillian, whose large build made him impossible to miss, had become a target as well and was facing off against quite a few opponents. When he swung a single punch, the Ether filling the space boomed with the force of wind and shoved his rivals right off the Floating Platform. Some barely managed to catch the edge and ended up hanging from it.

“Belle!”

When Gillian, holding off five or six men by himself, shouted out, Beatrice lifted her skirt and stepped forward, then ground the fingers of those clinging on beneath the thick sole of her shoe, sending their last hope tumbling into the abyss below.

“Ugh, this is exhausting. Everyone’s way too violent!”

She said it with a grimace, shuddering at the behavior of others, when a gun barrel suddenly aimed at her from not far away. A contestant with a musket braced to his shoulder took careful aim from a Floating Platform in the ten o’clock direction, targeting Beatrice’s flamboyant hat.

At the very moment he was about to pull the trigger, Beatrice turned her head that way.

Bang—!

“Aagh!”

The shot went wide, and the scream came from the shooter instead. Morvain, holding a fallen contestant’s pistol that he must have picked up somewhere, had shot the man clean through the wrist. Striking a pose as if blowing smoke from the muzzle with his mouth, he tipped his hat lightly like a gentleman.

Watching the performance from that cherished doll of hers, Beatrice smiled brightly and shot him a finger heart full of affection.

<Is B Spot a case of collusion? Around twenty contestants are tightly grouped together and refusing to move!>

<It seems they’re under the protection of someone in the center. Grains of sand are floating around them in the shape of a barrier. Ah—she’s been drawing attention for years now. No. 71, Nefertiti.>

<And once again, she’s gathered a swarm of followers. Truly worthy of the title Ruler of the Desert!>

Right then, Leonardo reached the upper part of the stadium and planted both feet fully on an unoccupied Floating Platform. Ero, who had likewise only just managed to breathe again, dropped to his knees the moment his feet touched down, then immediately collapsed forward as all strength left him. He panted frantically and broke into an ugly fit of coughing first.

“Urk, cough, cough—”

“Quit the dramatics and get up. I told you to get ready earlier.”

“When did you ever tell me to get ready!?”

Still coughing, Ero protested timidly, his eyes half full of tears. But the moment Leonardo’s brow arched, he shrank right back down.

“No, I definitely heard something, but there wasn’t time to prepare...”

Letting the end of the sentence trail off, Ero scrambled back to his feet. But Leonardo, his gaze turned cold, started walking straight toward him.

Sensing something ominous, Ero edged backward little by little. He had already hunched his body as much as possible, afraid he might get hit, when it happened.

“B-boss. Uwah!”

Leonardo abruptly shoved Ero aside, then instantly seized the collar of a contestant charging in from behind him. Using the recoil, he twisted his body and hurled the man in the opposite direction. The contestant, caught in his grip and flung through the air, did not even have time to scream before slamming straight into the Floating Platform behind them.

Kwaaang—!

When a human body drove into the rock, shattered debris burst apart with a cloud of dust. Beyond it, the spectators witnessing the scene in real time let out cries of astonishment.

Still staring that way, Leonardo rolled his stiff wrist, then bent down to pick up Ero’s dropped pistol and tossed it back to him lightly.

“Stop getting distracted. At least pull your own weight.”

Barely catching it with both hands flailing, Ero swallowed hard. Then he loaded the bullets and nodded desperately.

Before long, the two were standing back to back, facing opposite directions. The number of survivors left on the board was 430, and the number of footholds left to stand on was shrinking even faster.