The "brief intermission" stretched into a significantly longer one. Arena attendants worked frantically to clear the sand of debris – shattered lance fragments, dented armor pieces, and the tragically deceased warhorse (which was removed with a mixture of solemn respect and extreme caution, as if it might retroactively explode if handled incorrectly). Healers tended to Sir Gideon and Sir Malachi in the medical tents, their physical injuries minor compared to their shattered pride and profound confusion. The crowd murmured restlessly, a mixture of nervous excitement, morbid curiosity, and a growing sense of 'what fresh madness will we witness next?'
In the Royal Box, an emergency huddle had formed. King Olric, his face a mask of regal fortitude barely concealing a volcano of stress, conferred in hushed, urgent tones with Archmagus Theron, Lord Valerius, and Chancellor Evrard.
"This is… untenable, Your Majesty," Chancellor Evrard hissed, his usual composure frayed. "He accidentally killed a prize warhorse and incapacitated two of our finest knights without even trying! What happens when he faces an opponent he actually perceives as a threat? He could level the entire arena with a misplaced sneeze!"
"The diagnostic value, however, is… unprecedented," Archmagus Theron countered, his ancient eyes gleaming with an almost unsettling scientific fervor. "His interaction with kinetic energy, his passive inertial dampening… we are witnessing phenomena that could rewrite our understanding of fundamental physics, to say nothing of combat metaphysics!"
Lord Valerius, ever the pragmatist, interjected, "With respect, Archmagus, while rewriting physics is undoubtedly fascinating, my immediate concern is the survival of the remaining tournament participants and, indeed, the structural integrity of this city. Do we continue? Do we… disqualify him on grounds of 'excessive accidental collateral damage'?"
King Olric rubbed his temples, the royal headache now a throbbing certainty. Disqualify Saitama? How? And what would his reaction be? The image of a bored, pancake-deprived Tempest "cleaning up" the Royal Palace in frustration was not a pleasant one. Continuing seemed equally fraught with peril. He felt trapped between a rock (Saitama's power) and a hard place (the potential consequences of not understanding or managing that power).
"We proceed," the King finally declared, his voice heavy with a resignation that bordered on fatalism. "The die is cast. The world is watching. We cannot simply… stop the tournament now. But," he fixed Archmagus Theron with a pointed look, "the next opponent. It must be someone who can engage him… differently. Not with brute force. Not with conventional martial skill. Magic. Someone whose abilities might… probe his defenses in a less overtly destructive manner. Someone who can, perhaps, operate at a distance."
Archmagus Theron nodded slowly, his mind already sifting through the roster of magical combatants. "There is one… Master Eliphas Thorne. A recluse, a scholar of esoteric and dimensional magics. His power is not in overwhelming blasts, but in subtle manipulations of reality, illusions, spatial distortions. He is… unorthodox. And perhaps, just perhaps, capable of engaging the Tempest in a way that doesn't involve immediate, catastrophic physical impact." He paused. "Or, he will be driven instantly mad. The possibilities are… intriguing."
The King did not look reassured by the Archmagus's definition of "intriguing." But he nodded. "Make the arrangements. Master Thorne is next."
And so, after a delay that felt like an eternity to the restless crowd, the Master of Ceremonies, looking paler and significantly more stressed than before, reappeared on the arena floor. He took a deep, fortifying breath.
"Honored spectators!" he boomed, his voice noticeably less enthusiastic. "We… uh… we resume! Our next qualifying bout promises a… a truly unique confrontation! A battle of wits! A dance of arcane energies! A testament to the power of the mind over… well, over other things!" He seemed to be struggling to find appropriate superlatives that didn't involve the words "obliteration" or "accidental horse-slaughter."
"In this corner," he gestured dramatically, "still undefeated, though perhaps slightly peckish… the enigma from the Deepwood… SAITAMA THE TEMPEST!"
Saitama, who had finished his second round of small cakes and was now trying to see if he could use a discarded lance fragment as a toothpick, looked up. "Oh, me again? Cool. Hope this guy's tougher. And maybe has snacks on him." He ambled back towards the center of the arena, his new cape (still chafe-free, much to Sir Kaelan's profound relief) fluttering with an almost ironic majesty.
"And his opponent!" the Master of Ceremonies continued, his voice rising slightly in pitch. "A master of the mystic arts! A scholar of secrets that would turn lesser minds to jelly! He who walks between worlds and whispers to the echoes of creation! The Ethereal Enchanter… MASTER ELIPHAS THORNE!"
From the opposite tunnel, a figure emerged who was the antithesis of Krog the Skullcrusher. Master Eliphas Thorne was a small, wizened man, draped in voluminous robes of a deep, shifting purple that seemed to swallow the light. His face was a network of fine wrinkles, dominated by a pair of incredibly bright, intelligent eyes that darted around the arena, taking in every detail with unnerving acuity. He carried no obvious weapon, only a slender, rune-etched staff of polished blackwood. An almost visible aura of arcane energy shimmered around him, distorting the air, making him seem slightly out of focus, as if he were only partially present in their reality.
The crowd murmured, a mixture of respect and apprehension. Master Thorne was a legend in magical circles, though rarely seen in public. His magic was said to be subtle, insidious, capable of unraveling minds and bending reality to his will. This, surely, would be a different kind of fight. Brute force might be useless against such an opponent.
Saitama looked at Master Thorne. "Huh. Old guy. Nice sparkly robe. Is he gonna do a magic show? I like magic shows. Especially the ones with disappearing rabbits. Or sawing ladies in half. Is he gonna saw a lady in half? That's kinda mean, though. Hope she's okay afterwards."
Master Thorne ignored Saitama's commentary, his bright eyes fixed on the bald man with an intensity that was almost palpable. He could feel it – the baffling void where an aura should be, the quiescent, overwhelming something that defied all his senses, all his knowledge. He had been briefed by Archmagus Theron. He knew the risks. He knew this was less a tournament bout and more a live-fire thaumaturgical experiment with potentially apocalyptic consequences. But the scholar in him, the seeker of forbidden knowledge, was… thrilled. This was the ultimate arcane puzzle.
"Begin!" the Master of Ceremonies squeaked, then practically dove behind a reinforced pillar.
Master Thorne did not charge. He did not posture. He simply raised his blackwood staff, and the air around Saitama began to shimmer, to distort. The ground beneath Saitama's feet seemed to twist, to ripple like water. The sounds of the arena faded, replaced by a low, dissonant hum.
"Spatial Distortion Matrix," Thorne murmured, his voice a dry whisper, yet amplified by his own magic to carry across the arena. "Let us see how your… physicality… copes when the very fabric of space rebels against you, Tempest."
Saitama looked down at his feet. The sand was indeed swirling in odd, impossible patterns. He felt a faint, disorienting pull, as if the ground were trying to slide out from under him in multiple directions at once. "Whoa," he said. "Kinda trippy. Like standing on a really wobbly trampoline. Or after eating too much sugar." He took a step. The ground flowed around his foot, resisting, then yielding in a strange, non-Euclidean way. "This is weird. Making me a bit dizzy."
In the Royal Box, Archmagus Theron leaned forward, his eyes alight. "Excellent! A direct assault on his proprioception! Bypassing physical confrontation! How will he adapt?"
Saitama, feeling slightly nauseous from the constantly shifting ground, decided he didn't like being dizzy. He frowned. "Okay, this is getting annoying."
He stomped his foot. Just one. Not a ground-shattering impact like before. Just a firm, impatient stomp, like someone trying to get rid of a persistent cramp.
Thump.
The shimmering distortions around Saitama vanished. Instantly. The ground beneath his feet solidified, becoming ordinary sand again. The dissonant hum ceased. Master Thorne's intricate Spatial Distortion Matrix, a spell that had taken him decades to perfect, a spell capable of trapping powerful demons in inescapable dimensional loops, had been… stomped out of existence.
Master Thorne blinked, his bright eyes widening slightly. The arcane energies he had been manipulating recoiled, a painful psychic backlash snapping through his connection to the spell. He staggered back a step, his staff trembling in his hand. "Impossible… The resonance… it simply… ceased! He didn't break the matrix; he unwove it with a purely physical shockwave! The localized disruption of fundamental constants…"
Saitama, no longer dizzy, looked at Thorne. "Okay, magic floor trick over? You got any other stuff? Because that one just made me feel kinda sick. Not very fun."
Thorne, recovering his composure, though a muscle twitched in his wrinkled cheek, narrowed his eyes. "A mere trifle, Tempest. A test of your… equilibrium. Now, let us engage the mind!"
He raised his staff again, and this time, the very air around Saitama seemed to coalesce into terrifying, phantasmal shapes – writhing tendrils of shadow, monstrous visages with burning eyes, echoes of the horrors Saitama had faced in the Deepwood, all swirling around him, whispering insidious doubts, primal fears, the chilling touch of despair. "Phantasmagoric Assault! Your deepest terrors, your hidden traumas, laid bare! Succumb, Tempest! Succumb to the abyss within your own soul!"
Saitama looked at the swirling nightmare images. He saw a vague representation of the Chasm Guardian, a blurry approximation of Vorlag, even a comically oversized, angry-looking cabbage. He blinked. "Huh. More blurry ghost things. And is that… a grumpy cabbage? Why would I be scared of a grumpy cabbage? Unless it's, like, really, really past its sell-by date. That can be pretty scary."
The Phantasmagoric Assault, designed to shatter the sanity of even the strongest-willed individuals by preying on their subconscious fears, met… nothing. Saitama's mind, a place largely occupied by thoughts of grocery sales, training regimens, and the profound injustice of missing out on limited-edition snacks, offered no fertile ground for psychic terrors. The illusions swirled around him, finding no purchase, no resonance. It was like trying to scare a rock by showing it a picture of a bigger rock.
Saitama sighed. "Okay, this is just silly now. Are you gonna fight, or just show me bad special effects all day? Because I could be napping. Or trying to find that pancake mountain." He then did something Thorne absolutely did not expect. He reached out and tried to grab one of the phantasmal shadow tendrils.
His hand passed right through it, of course.
"Aw, man," Saitama said, looking disappointed. "Not even solid. Lame." He then waved his hand dismissively through the swirling illusions, like someone shooing away a bothersome cloud of gnats.
Fwoosh.
The same silent, invisible wave of negation that had erased the Valley Wards washed over the arena. Master Thorne's Phantasmagoric Assault, a masterpiece of psychic manipulation, simply… vanished. Gone. Erased. The terrifying images, the insidious whispers, the chilling despair – all ceased to exist, leaving only Saitama standing in the sun-drenched arena, looking mildly annoyed.
Master Eliphas Thorne stared, his jaw agape, his bright eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief, horror, and a dawning, soul-crushing existential crisis. He had spent centuries mastering the subtle arts, peering into the hidden machinery of reality, wielding powers that could unravel creation itself. And this… this being… had just waved away his most potent psychic assault like it was a bad smell.
"My… my illusions…" Thorne stammered, his voice barely a whisper. "My control over the noosphere… negated… by a hand wave? But… how? What… what are you?!" This was no longer a diagnostic. This was a confrontation with a truth too vast, too terrifying for his arcane-saturated mind to comprehend. He felt his understanding of magic, of reality, of his own place in the cosmos, beginning to crumble.
Saitama looked at the visibly shaken sorcerer. "Look, old timer," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, though still laced with a hint of exasperation. "Your magic tricks are… okay, I guess. For a kid's birthday party. But this is supposed to be a tournament, right? Fighting? Punching? You got any of that? Or are you just gonna stand there looking like you saw a… well, a grumpy cabbage?"
Master Eliphas Thorne didn't answer. He just stared at Saitama, his face pale, his eyes unfocused. He then did something utterly unprecedented in his long, distinguished career. He slowly, deliberately, lowered his blackwood staff, planting its tip in the sand. He took a deep, shuddering breath. And then, he turned and began to walk, unsteadily, back towards the exit tunnel, his voluminous robes dragging in the dust. He didn't look back. He didn't say a word. He just… left. Resigned. Defeated not by a spell, not by a blow, but by the sheer, soul-crushing weight of incomprehensible reality.
Saitama watched him go. "Huh. Guess he didn't have any fighting moves. Or maybe he just remembered he left the oven on." He looked around the silent arena. "So… did I win again? Is it pancake time now?"
The echo of Master Thorne's silent, existential retreat was, in its own way, even more profound, more unsettling, than the echo of Krog's incapacitating pat. The Tournament of Champions was becoming a systematic deconstruction of everything the Kingdom of Midgar held to be powerful, skilled, and real. And it was only the second bout for the Bald Cape.