Yegun Fastblade moved in for the kill, a blur of focused intent. He saw the opening, the F-Rank stumbling from the kick, guard shattered. Victory was milliseconds away, a clean, decisive strike to the shoulder as mandated by Borin. The timer was irrelevant. Confidence, amplified by the lingering thrum of the Haste spell, radiated from him. His right shortsword traced a silver arc, aimed with practiced, lethal precision.

  But William wasn't executing the expected, panicked parry. His mind, overclocked on adrenaline and EMMA's grim probability forecasts, was running a different script entirely. A desperate, counter-intuitive protocol bordering on suicidal lunacy. Analysis: Conventional defence yields 100% failure rate. Hypothesis: If standard interaction fails, disrupt input parameters at the source. Time for some applied denial-of-service, black hat hacker style.

  As Yegun’s blade sliced inwards, William didn't block. In a move that violated every principle of swordplay Edward had tried to teach him, he twisted towards the incoming attack. His practice longsword slipped deliberately from numb, trembling fingers, clattering onto the packed earth with a dull thud, the universally recognized sound of disarmament, of surrender. Feint Complete. Simultaneously, he lunged forward and left, not away from the blade, but ducking under Yegun’s extended sword arm, ignoring the agony flaring in his injured shin.

  His left hand shot out, not to parry, but to grab. Fingers clamped desperately around the leather bracer covering Yegun’s sword forearm.

  The sheer, unexpected audacity of it, the unarmed target initiating a grapple during the finishing blow, made Yegun flinch. A micro-second of cognitive dissonance, a fractional stutter in his Haste-fueled rhythm as his brain tried desperately to parse the impossible input. Error: Unexpected user action. Threat assessment conflict... target initiating close-contact?

  That micro-second was the entire operational window William had gambled everything on.

  Using the desperate grip on Yegun’s arm as leverage, William hauled himself closer, bringing his own body almost chest-to-chest with the momentarily bewildered B-Rank. He ignored the immediate threat of Yegun’s other sword arm starting to move, ignored the screaming protest from his damaged leg, ignored the frantic low-mana warnings now flashing insistently from the dying EMMA overlay. His right hand, knuckles bone-white around the smooth river stone, shot upwards, not a fist, but an open palm aimed directly at Yegun’s face, specifically his eyes.

  Initiating unscheduled mana discharge. Target: 'Light' focus medium. Input Power: Maximum Available (58 Units). Output: Hopefully not self-immolation. A detached corner of William's mind registered the clinical absurdity even as raw instinct took over. He whispered the single, familiar activation word he’d practiced countless times, “Light!”, while simultaneously ramming every last dreg of his mana into the simple, unprepared runic structure bound to the stone.

  EMMA’s internal display went supernova. MANA RESERVES CRITICAL: 45… 25… 10… 2… 0. WARNING: CATASTROPHIC DEPLETION EVENT. BACKLASH PROTOCOL ENGAGED (IMPACT: MINOR EST.). EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED. The shimmering overlay dissolved into static and vanished, plunging William’s perception back into baseline, unassisted reality just as his hand reached the apex, inches from Yegun’s wide, startled eyes.

  The world didn't just go white, it ceased to exist behind a silent detonation of pure, incandescent light.

  It wasn't the gentle candlelight glow of his practice sessions. This was a raw, uncontrolled eruption of mana forced through a system never designed to contain it. An impossibly brilliant, searing flare burst from the river stone, silent but overwhelming. For one infinite heartbeat, the training yard was bleached of all colour, shadows annihilated, every grain of dust, every bead of sweat, every wide, terrified eye starkly illuminated in merciless detail.

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  Yegun screamed. A raw, animal sound torn from his throat, pure agony, shock, and sensory overload. The sudden, blinding assault at point-blank range was physically devastating. He instinctively recoiled, ripping his arm free from William's now-weakening grasp, stumbling backward as if shoved by an invisible giant. Both practice swords flew from nerveless fingers, clattering harmlessly onto the packed earth. His hands flew up to claw at his eyes, his body convulsing, his world reduced to searing pain and swirling, phosphene chaos. The Haste spell, its caster neurologically overwhelmed, sputtered and died completely.

  From the sidelines, Julia gasped audibly, her hand clamped over her mouth, eyes wide with disbelief. She’d seen William drop his sword, seen the insane lunge, braced for the inevitable impact, only to witness that. A flare so intense it left spots dancing in her own vision, followed by Yegun’s agonized cry. What was that?

  Beside her, Borin physically flinched back, his jaw slack, his usual impassivity utterly shattered. Decades of Guild command, of witnessing raw magical power, hadn't prepared him for the sheer, unexpected violence of this. It wasn't spellcasting. It was like watching someone detonate a miniature sun using pocket lint and willpower.

  The blinding light vanished as quickly as it had appeared, plunging the yard back into the deepening afternoon shadows, leaving afterimages swimming in everyone's vision. The river stone, now just a mundane piece of rock, warm to the touch, fell from William's limp fingers, landing softly in the dust.

  The backlash from the total mana depletion hit William like a physical fist. The “minor” impact EMMA predicted felt significantly less minor from the inside. A wave of vertigo slammed into him, nausea churning violently in his stomach. A bone-deep exhaustion radiated outwards from his core, turning muscles to water, limbs to lead. His vision tunnelled, greying out at the edges. The world tilted, spun, dissolved. With a low groan, his legs gave out completely, and he collapsed like a house of cards onto the dusty ground, consciousness flickering, sputtering like a dying EMMA display.

  His last coherent thought before the darkness swallowed him whole was a fuzzy, detached observation: Experiment successful... though catastrophic energy depletion and participant incapacitation are significant adverse side effects... Recommend further study before wide deployment...

  Silence descended once more upon the training yard, profound and absolute, broken only by Yegun’s ragged, pain-filled gasps as he stumbled blindly, shaking his head, trying desperately to clear his vision, and the faint, almost imperceptible sound of William’s shallow breathing against the dirt.

  Across the yard, unnoticed in the immediate, stunning aftermath, the last few grains of sand slipped through the neck of the ornate timer. Ten minutes had passed.

  Borin stared, his mind struggling to categorize the raw, unexpected event he’d just witnessed. He looked from William’s still form, sprawled face down like a discarded puppet, to Yegun, clearly disoriented, weaponless, and effectively neutralized. William hadn't won. He hadn't yielded. He hadn't been conventionally incapacitated before the time ran out. He had, against all probability, survived, and taken down his opponent in the process, albeit via self-incapacitation.

  Slowly, Borin regained a semblance of composure, though the astonishment remained etched on his face. A low whistle escaped his lips, sharp with disbelief and a heavy dose of grudging respect. He strode forward, heavy boots crunching on the dirt, stopping midway between the two downed figures. Julia was already rushing past him towards William, healer’s instincts kicking in, kneeling beside his still form, checking his pulse, her expression a mask of worry and utter confusion.

  Borin glanced down at the simple river stone near William's outstretched hand, then looked towards Julia, his brow deeply furrowed. He gestured vaguely, first at William, then at the blinking, staggering Yegun.

  “Julia,” he began, his voice rough, the incredulity thick and undeniable, the question hanging heavy in the suddenly still air, echoing the shock felt by all three conscious observers. “That was a Light spell?”