The last Metal Knight was Ankhta Sable. She used her Sand shroud similar to how Lily used Cloud, obscuring her opponents' vision and striking from stealth. Cat beat her in under a minute. Caeden watched from above, somewhere in between amusement and sympathy. Ankhta had no way of knowing that Cat's specters didn't use normal vision and were unaffected by her sand screen.

At the start of their fight, Cat flooded the arena with a dozen spectral assassins and posted two Guardians to protect her. These were given weapons, massive great shields, and spears. What followed was a strange game of tag with knives. Caeden watched through his aura sense as Ankhta beelined for Cat's position, only to get blindsided by assassins wielding infused daggers that held a variety of effects.

Just like Lily, Ankhta could formshift into sand, becoming almost entirely immaterial. That led to a back and forth between the invisible assassins and the nearly undetectable Ankhta. Unlike Lily, the Metal Knight didn't seem capable of concealment sense, so her presence was like a beacon to Caeden's senses. He assumed the spectral assassins were in a similar situation.

The battle ended when an assassin finally managed to get the drop on Ankhta while she tried to attack another assassin that had deliberately exposed itself. She couldn't formshift fast enough to avoid a wind-infused dagger to the kidney, which sent a secondary air blade blasting through her body. She dropped instantly.

"That went extremely well," Caeden noted, looking at Lily.

"Yes. Cat did an amazing job." Her sober tone and deep frown didn't match her praise.

"Lily, what's wrong? You've been distant and sad all day. Actually, every time we've talked about today for the last couple weeks, you've been strangely unhappy. Is this about Ander?" Caeden couldn't stop himself from asking.

"What? No! Yes? Not really." Lily jumped at his words before settling down. "I'm not happy he's here, but it's not really about him."

"Explain it to me." Caeden encouraged.

"I…I don't like this. We shouldn't be here." Lily shook her head.

"Here? At the arena? At the Academy?" He had no idea what she was talking about.

"I mean, here on this ranking day. Forming the Forged was a mistake." Lily looked him dead in the eye, her expression sincere. Caeden was shocked. Lily had been the primary reason they made the Forged in the first place. Now she thought it was a mistake? And why did her eyes look so guilty?

Before he could say anything in response or even recover from the shock of her assertion, Cat burst into the room. "How was that?! They better kick my rank up after those fights! I kicked ass!"

Lily spun toward Cat, smiling brilliantly. "Yes! You did such a good job. How was handling encampment in an actual battle?"

Seeing the obvious deflection for what it was, Caeden let Lily run away from their conversation. Whatever was bothering her was obviously weighing much more heavily than he had initially guessed. Now wasn't the best time to have that talk. They had fights to win and fights to watch. He could force it out of her later. Instead, he turned to watch the next matches as Cat and Lily walked through her two fights, looking to make improvements.

{}

Their next set of matches would be against Twilight Guard from the Entropy Seat. Out of all the factions, the Twilight Guard…had not done well. In fact, they hadn't won a single round so far. They had certainly put up a fight, but they appeared to be the weakest showing today. Much of that was due to their co-leaders.

The three brothers of the Mutrimens family, triplets, all held the Bounty shroud. Each had their own splinter and used the shroud differently, but they all had the same domain. Their main problem arose from the fact that Bounty was at its best in a support role. Caeden dreaded fighting them in a group context. They would be a nightmare. But in these sequential one v one matches, they posed much less of a threat.

"You ready?"

"Of course. They have very little they can do in response. The last two might be a challenge, but I can handle it." Lily nodded confidently. She wouldn't look at him, though. After Caeden confronted her, Lily hadn't looked at him once. He would almost say she was afraid to do it, and he had no idea why. She clearly wasn't feeling emotionally stable right now, so he wouldn't press, but he was worried.

"Just be careful, ok? It's not like we need this to happen. Jared or I can step in if they pull off something you don't expect. We need to pace things out for Soldiers and Radiance later. They're the real threat." Caeden tried his best to speak lightly and not nag. He didn't want Lily to think he doubted her ability. He just wasn't sure how much her wonky mental state would affect her fighting.

"You don't need to worry about me. None of them can touch me. I'll be perfectly fine at the end of it." Lily's tone was strange. She sounded absolutely confident but also sad, somehow. Upset. Caeden wished he could pick at her thoughts and get her to talk but now wasn't the time.

"Ok, good luck then." He smiled, even if Lily wasn't looking at him.

Lily said nothing, just walked off to head to the arena floor. By the time she got there, and Caeden could see her through the ready room window, he could tell her whole demeanor had changed. Gone was any hint of uncertainty. She strode confidently across the arena, pitch-black hair swaying behind her in sharp contrast to her emotionless, pale face. She looked around with an expression bordering on disdain at all the people in the stands.

The crowd ate it up. Like Caeden, Lily had something of a stage persona at this point. Her generally cold public image had evolved in the minds of her admirers into something more. Most thought that Lily, the Ice Queen, was a true elitist that would only associate with those she deemed skilled enough. That thought was reinforced by the fact that her friends were all in the top 50, with two being in the top ten.

For whatever reason, many admired this about her. Caeden had asked some of the Forged who held this opinion, and the answer surprised him.

"It's true neutrality. She doesn't judge anyone based on where they came from, only how powerful they are now. It's kinda encouraging, you know? Normally we wouldn't dream of approaching a daughter of the Meteoris house, but if we get strong enough, she might acknowledge us." One had told him.

Regardless, the crowd loved her. It held that her power was well known and widely acknowledged, which led many to admire her. Especially because her combat style made every victory seem effortless. Whenever she fought, the arena would fill with fog, only to clear moments later, revealing Lily standing victoriously over her defeated opponent, just as cold as ever.

So Lily was very, very popular.

Then her opponent emerged.

"Brendan!!!!" "PRINCE OF PLANTS!!!!!" "MARRY ME!!!!!" Every woman, and a number of men, went wild. Each of the Nutrimens brothers had their hair color changed to be easily identifiable from each other. Brendan's hair was a rich, lustrous green. He was also, along with his identical brothers, the most handsome man Caeden had ever seen, period. His skin was a rich shade of chocolate brown, his features refined and regal. He was the kind of physical perfection that made you feel bad for looking at him.

Lily's accolades were immediately overshadowed by the Twilight Guard co-leader. Caeden could only shake his head and laugh. This was not the first round he, and his brothers had appeared in, but the response from the crowd was the same every time. Brendan ate it up, waving and winking, blowing kisses in the direction of especially enthusiastic declarations of love. He was a true showman if nothing else.

"We have a true celebrity match this time!" Elune began her spiel, "From the Forged, we have the Ice Queen herself, Liliana Meteoris. She's the second-highest ranked in the entire Academy. More than that, her Cloud shroud is evolved, a rare sight! You're in for a treat with this fight! She has one splinter, Ice."

"On the other side, we have Brendan Nutrimens, the Prince of Plants and co-leader of Twilight Guard. His rank is eleven. His shroud is Bounty, with the Growth splinter."

“AAAAAAND BEGIN!”

Immediately, Brendan casually threw a seed into the air, wrapping it in his shroud. Suddenly, there were a hundred seeds where one had been before. Bounty was a modifier type that could multiply any physical object. Used properly, it was a powerful support to most aura users. On its own, it lacked much attack potential. Brendan's use was about as good as you could get.

He switched over to his other splinter, Growth, and forced the seeds to mature rapidly and beyond their natural capacity. In seconds he was surrounded by a bramble patch several feet thick and unnaturally durable. It was a decent defense.

Too bad he was facing Lily.

The arena flooded with fog, and Lily vanished into it. Caeden couldn't track her no matter what he tried. Her command of concealment sense was masterful. He had no doubt Brendan was just as blind. What Caeden could track was the results of Lily's actions. Seconds after she vanished, a section of Brendan's bramble shell began to freeze at an alarming rate. No doubt Lily was applying the effects of Frost Break.

The glove on her right hand infused every object she touched that Lily chose with the ability to cause frost to grow over anything it touched. That obviously applied to plants as well. The bramble wasn't handling the cold well. In moments a large portion of the defensive growth had become dead and brittle, frozen through.

Then that section shattered. Caeden would guess Lily was using the gap to get to Brendan. For his part, the Nutrimens was looking more than a little concerned with the new development. Caeden had been observing all this through his aura. All his eyes could see was a giant mass of fluffy white clouds covering the entire arena, so thick you couldn't see anything else. No doubt, Brendan was in a similar situation inside his plant fortress. He would have heard the frozen bramble shatter, but he wouldn't be able to see it. Depending on how competent he was with investigative sense, he might not even know what that sound was.

Either way, Brendan was looking around pensively, trying to see through the impenetrable fog bank that subsumed him. Caeden had to wonder if he knew he was seconds from losing the match. Suddenly, and for no discernible reason, Brendan cried out and jerked his arm across himself. Caeden would bet he had felt a sharp stab, followed by a creeping chill crawling up his arm, numbing as it went. He wouldn't be able to feel the following stabs that injected further Chillvein poison into his body.

It didn't take long for the Twilight Guard to collapse, clutching his temples. And the fight was over. Lily dispersed the fog, revealing her standing right next to Brendan, looking exactly the same as she had when the match started. Some part of Caeden recognized how horrifying fighting Lily must be for most people. There was no response, no avenue to respond. She just won.

The crowd was split after the fight. On the one hand, anyone without solid investigative sense skills saw nothing, and those with it didn't see much more. On the other hand, seeing Lily so coldly and dispassionately disassemble her opponent, a competent and powerful shrouded in his own right, in the span of a few minutes was oddly thrilling. There were boos and cheers in equal measure.

The audience's opinion would continue through the next match. Zander Nutrimens used his Subjugation splinter to bring a host of animals with him in the arena. All of them were equally incapable of resisting Chillvein and finding Lily in the fog. Caeden would guess she had used formshift to blend into the clouds, eliminating any sound or scent she might have had. If she created an ice dagger ahead of time, she could inflict all the creatures without them being able to do a single thing. Zander lost just as fast as his brother.

Only the final brother, Logan, managed to make things interesting.

"The final co-leader, Logan Nutrimens, Prince of Power, and tenth place in the rankings. We'll see how the strongest of the brothers deals with Liliana's campaign of uncontested victory. His shroud is, of course, Bounty with the Condense splinter. AAAAAAAND BEGIN!”

Logan, with his red hair, looked supremely confident when Lily flooded the arena with fog. That confidence proved to be more than just empty bravado when a sphere of space around him cleared up. Hovering over his palm was a small ball of water, the contents of the vanished fog. The crowd cheered, finally able to see some of the action.

Lily walked out of the fog, equally unperturbed. Logan multiplied his water balls until over a dozen were floating in front of him. Then, he ruptured a ball, sending a heavily pressurized jet of water right at Lily's face. She didn't pause or slow down. Instead, her hand flicked up, moving through a series of gestures at lightning speed. Instantly, she had a longsword of deep blue ice in her right hand. Using the blade, she blocked the water jet, which froze at the contact, forming a line of ice suspended in the air heading right back to Logan.

Confidence fading fast, Logan seemed to realize the situation he had placed himself in. He fired several more water balls, attempting to cut up the ice. To his horror, these froze as well. The glove Lily wore transferred its infusion to anything she touched; this included the ice it could create. Logan had successfully surrounded himself with Lily's domain.

Expression unchanged, Lily caused the ice to grow further, causing spikes to jut out, reaching toward Logan. He leapt back, putting distance between himself and the encroaching ice. Lily didn't give him an inch, rushing forward to close the distance. The lines of ice created by Frost Break's effects vanished, no longer necessary. Lily absorbed them to recover some shroud.

The air above Logan's head became pitch black upon contact with a cloud of shroud he sent upward. A sphere of brilliant light formed over his hand before firing off toward Lily. Automatically, she formshifted into clouds and allowed the beam of compressed light to pass through her. Shifting back, Lily continued onward unabated. She ran the Twilight Guard down, her command of infusion obviously much better than his.

In moments, she had stabbed him repeatedly with the point of the longsword, now held in her left hand. Panicked, Logan threw a wild punch at her, compressing the very air around his hand and producing a boom of released pressure as his attack went wide over Lily's head. Her form rippled, formshifting along with the shock, receiving no damage.

Less than thirty seconds and Logan was on the ground, like his brothers.