Noah drove the butt of his spear into a B-1 student’s ribs hard enough to send him stumbling sideways into two others, and all three went down tangled together on the broken ground.

He didn’t stop to watch them as one of them got eleminated..

He was already moving.

His spear swept low, forcing a pair of students back, and he pivoted on his heel to drive an elbow into the jaw of a third who had come at him from the side. The impact landed clean. The student’s vision tag flickered and winked out.

Three more down.

He had jumped or ducked down, to avoid the magic spells thrown at him.

BOOM!!

He had lost count of his total somewhere in the middle of the last exchange. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the line was thinning and there was a problem at the front that needed handling now.

He spotted it clearly between attacks.

Brian.

Rank four of the first years. B-1 class. The boy carried two short swords, one in each hand, balanced and relaxed at his sides like they weighed nothing. He was a big student. Broad through the shoulders. The kind of build that made people hesitate before engaging.

He was standing behind his own teammates.

Not caught out of position. Not recovering from a hit. Just standing. Watching battle calmly. Letting the students around him absorb the damage and wear down their enemies while he kept himself fresh.

’Smart mf,’Noah thought coldly. ’And completely useless to deal with myself right now. Well not like I could defeat him.’

He had to cover the middle. He couldn’t leave it.

But he knew exactly who could.

He turned his head and found Kaelan in the mess of the fight. The boy was three meters away, low and quick, dark daggers leaving thin lines in the air as he slipped between two opponents without fully engaging either of them.

"Kaelan!"

Kaelan glanced sideways at him without stopping his feet.

Noah pointed. One sharp gesture toward the back of the B-1 formation.

Toward Brian.

Kaelan followed the direction. Saw him. The dual swords. The careful, preserved posture of that young man.

He looked back at Noah.

Noah gave a single nod.

"He’s yours. Go defeat him. "

As much as Noah’s reputation was bad. Kaelan have heard about Noah, what be had done in incident that happened few days ago.

So he decided to followed his words without questioning. After all there was not need for that.

Kaelan didn’t need anything else. He was already gone, shadow clinging to his outline as he changed angle entirely and began threading through the debris in a wide arc around the edge of the fight, putting rubble and bodies between himself and Brian’s line of sight.

---

The moment Kaelan peeled away, the middle pressure shifted.

Two B-1 students immediately pushed forward to fill the space, and Noah took both of them.

He swept the spear in a wide horizontal arc, forcing them to duck back, then reversed direction into a shorter thrust that drove one of them off balance. The student tripped on a chunk of concrete behind his heel and went down hard.

A fire spell came from somewhere to the left.

A rough ball of orange, fast and badly aimed but close enough.

’Fuck!’

Noah turned his body and let it pass behind his shoulder, close enough that he felt the heat wash across the side of his neck. He didn’t stop moving.

His free hand came up.

A magic circle bloomed from his palm, pale blue lines spreading outward like frost across glass, and a dense burst of snow mist erupted forward in a wide cone. It wasn’t an attack. It didn’t hit hard.

But it moved fast and spread thick and immediately swallowed the visibility of the six or seven students directly in front of him in a wall of cold white.

Confused shouting broke out inside it.

Footsteps scattered wrong directions.

Noah was already moving through the edge of the mist, using the cover he had just made, angling toward Damien.

"Arisha, Lyria! Cover for us!" He screamed.

Arisha who was few meters away from him, standing on a broken wall nodded.

She nock an arrow in bow and shot towards enemies. Not letting them closer to Noah and Damine.

Lyria did the same. Her spear shining golden moved through enemies. Not letting them past her.

Noah found him twenty meters away.

Damien had his back to a half-collapsed pillar and was working through a two-on-one exchange with the controlled and exhausted precision of someone who had been in the fight for too long.

His golden sword slahsed a wide arc made of light. Clean, sharp and precise. He eleimeianted two enemies in one attack.

Just then Noah reached him.

He was breathing hard.

"You look tired," Noah said, falling into place beside him, spear forward.

"What gave it away," Damien said flatly between breaths.

Noah almost smiled. Then killed it.

"I have an idea."

Damien glanced at him sideways. "Talk."

"Your ability." Noah said it directly, no preamble. "Bring it out. The miniature sun. Send it through their formation and take down as many as you can in one move."

Damien was quiet for exactly one second.

"After I use it I’m done," he said. "I won’t have anything left to fight with."

"I know."

"Travis and Michael haven’t shown themselves yet. If they come in after I’ve emptied out—"

"I know that too," Noah said. "Listen to me." He met Damien’s eyes. "Kaelan is already moving on Brian. Lyria and Arisha are holding the flanks. We still have Ophelia." He paused. "When you use it, I will cover you myself. You will not be touched."

Damien looked at him.

The fight moved around them, steel and light and shouting.

Then Damien exhaled.

"Alright." He nodded once. Hard and decisive. "When?"

"Not yet. You need to get yourself into the middle of their formation first. Also wait untile Kaelan eliminate Brian." Noah glanced across the battlefield quickly, reading it.

"Thread toward the center. Get surrounded if you have to. Deeper the better. When you’re positioned I’ll signal you."

"And what’s the signal?"

"What singnal? Actually there’s signal. I wikl just shout your name loud."

Damien made a sound that was almost a laugh. He straightened his grip on his sword.

"Fine. Go." Noah said.