Time marched forward—slow, yet unrelenting. One by one, the participants stepped into the arena. Some fell swiftly, others clung on for a brief moment before succumbing to their limits. Each failure etched an invisible pressure into the air, like scars on the silence.
Then, without warning, a name was called.
"Next participant: Raka Wirabumi."
The name tore through the hush like a blade dragged across stone. The murmurs in the stands evaporated instantly. Silence stiffened. Then came hushed whispers, like winds bearing the sting of old wounds. Some faces tensed, others sneered—his name resurrected a disgrace long buried, yet never forgotten.
And amid it all, Raka stepped forward.
"The traitor's bloodline?"
"The exile's son?"
"He's no warrior."
"Is that... just a pen he's holding?"
In the center of the arena stood the Brahmandhala golem—a titan thrice the height of a man, forged of Éra-metal and bound by ancient incantations. It bore no face, only burning red lights where eyes should be.
Raka entered, wearing tattered clothes, no charms, no heirlooms. In his hand was nothing but an Éra pen—the same one he had used in the written trial before.
"He doesn't even have a weapon."
"This is a joke."
"Is he here to die?"
The scoffs and laughter that greeted Raka didn't take him seriously—an absurdity in what should be a battle of life and death.
The gong rang.
The timer began.
The trial had started.
The golem moved. The ground trembled. A massive hammer sprouted from its arm, and with terrifying speed, it struck.
Raka didn't ready a stance.
He didn't brace.
He simply ran.
Laughter exploded from the audience.
"Look at him run!"
"This isn't a race, idiot!"
The golem chased him, each step cleaving through air. Raka slid, leapt, dodged—narrowly escaping the deathblow of the hammer again and again.
He never struck back. Never countered. Never cast a spell.
Only dodged. Only endured.
His face was streaked with dust and sweat. His breath came in sharp bursts.
Yet his eyes... were calm.
They calculated.
His steps seemed erratic—circling, doubling back, zigzagging. At times he bent down, scratching at the dirt or rocks beneath him. It looked random. Like he was stumbling or searching for footing.
The crowd sneered.
"He's clueless."
"What a pathetic end. He'll be expelled for sure."
Seconds passed. Then minutes.
The golem kept swinging, more violently with each attack, as if trying to crush a pest that refused to die.
Raka's final dodge left him tumbling into a corner. Blood dripped from his scraped knees.
The golem approached for the final blow, hammer raised high.
The air held its breath.
"It's over..."
"He's done for."
Raka did not move.
Frozen in place as the hammer descended—
BOOM!
The hammer struck the ground, shaking the arena.
But it never touched Raka.
Not because he had dodged.
But because... the golem never completed the swing.
It stood frozen, mid-motion. Rigid like a statue. The red glow in its eyes dimmed. Its body quivered—subtle tremors crawling across its frame, like logic itself had fractured deep inside its core.
Then—collapse.
Without warning, the golem crumbled. Plates of metal fell away, joints dislocated, and Éra energy hissed from its broken seams like a dying breath.
The arena was silent.
Not in celebration, but confusion.
No one understood what had just happened.
The crowd was speechless.
The examiners exchanged glances.
"What… happened?"
"Why did it stop?"
Raka slowly turned, looking back at the ground he had traced with his erratic path.
Now faint lines glowed and shimmered—forming patterns.
Circles.
And suddenly, they understood.
He hadn't just run.
He had been writing.
Spellwork not spoken, not cast—but written. An ancient method. Without chant or charm.
A massive Éra circle had formed beneath the golem's feet—nearly invisible before. Crafted from the pen's strokes, the dirt, and the precision of his every step.
Raka had studied the golem's movements from earlier battles. He saw its repeating patterns—like a machine on prewritten code. He had identified the points where its energy flared, and using that knowledge, he rewrote the battlefield.
Wiping the blood from his temple, Raka spoke—without pride:
"I couldn't defeat it by strength.
So I made it defeat itself."
He pointed toward the fallen golem.
"I disrupted its magical logic.
I lured it into a trap—an Éra path designed to collapse its own thought circuit.
When it stepped into the circle, every command within its system clashed.
And it broke."
One of the elder examiners gasped. "A logic conflict..."
"Yes," Raka nodded.
"It was told to keep moving.
And told to stop.
Both commands written into its core Éra matrix.
Two absolute orders with no reconciliation.
The system locked itself out."
The golem twitched once, then fell still—lifeless.
There was no cheer.
Only silence.
Because what had just happened defied all expectations.
From the judges' box, Reswara stared down at Raka—half in awe, half in worry.
"No one… has ever defeated that golem.
We thought you were simply running.
But from the very beginning…
You had already trapped the giant."
Raka bowed slightly, replying softly:
"Forgive me… for breaking your golem."
The gong rang again.
Trial complete.
In the control room beyond the arena, chaos erupted.
Alarms blared. Éra symbols blinked erratically on the crystal control panels. The instructors froze as they watched Brahmandhala unravel—cracks blooming like lightning across its body before an internal energy burst shook its remains.
"This... This can't be!" one evaluator cried, pale with disbelief.
"The control artifact isn't responding! The Éra flow is off-track!"
Another frantically tapped runes—no effect. Seals melted. Defensive wards collapsed.
Brahmandhala had lost all control.
"Who is that boy?" whispered a woman, eyes fixed on the screen where Raka stood amid the wreckage—calm, like the eye of a storm.
"How did he manipulate Éra without triggering Sawat Éra?"
The oldest examiner shook his head. "No backlash… no signs of overload. Yet that kind of magic should've triggered it—uncontrollable energy recoil."
"And he spoke no spell," another added.
"No invocation, no hand seals.
Yet the Éra obeyed him… as if the world itself read his commands."
"He wrote them," someone whispered.
"Not aloud. Not by movement.
But through the pen—inscribing spells into the world itself.
Old magic. Forgotten magic.
Carved into the battlefield."
The woman fell silent, finally understanding.
"That's why he didn't suffer backlash.
Because it wasn't his body that bore the Éra flow.
It was the world that carried the weight."
The control room fell silent—not from fear, but realization.
That boy was not merely a wielder of Éra.
He was rewriting the very way it was understood.
Raka stepped across the shattered pieces of the golem—stone, metal, and Éra mist still lingering like a ghost. Every eye in the arena watched him. No applause. Only stunned silence.
No one had expected this.
The invincible Brahmandhala, felled.
A trial undefeated for generations… undone by a single boy no one had considered.
Among the crowd, Laras stood frozen.
Doubt vanished from her gaze.
A quiet certainty bloomed within her heart:
Raka Wirabumi… is no ordinary boy.
And they all knew—
Today, it wasn't just the golem that fell.
But also the pride of those who believed themselves untouchable.
Raka bowed his head.
Dust clung to his robe. His breath still labored.
But in his mind, gears spun faster than his feet had just moments ago.
"Éra magic is like quantum coding—commands written into the flow of energy.
Where I come from, it's like embedding IF and WHILE logic into a closed loop.
If you understand the system's thinking…
You don't need to destroy it.
You just give it a contradiction."
"I remember logic paradoxes from computer science.
Commands like: 'Stop if moving' and 'Move if stopped.'
When inserted into a circuit with no resolution, the system doesn't explode.
It freezes."
"Éra flows like electricity mixed with awareness.
So if you understand its soul's architecture…
You can plant contradictions inside its movement.
My circle wasn't destruction—it was a map of conflicting logic.
Designed to intercept the golem's magical pathways."
"Old Éra systems lack priority sorting.
When two equal commands clash—
The body enters an infinite loop."
"If this had an override AI, the golem might've survived.
But it didn't.
Which makes it vulnerable."
He made his way toward the medical ward.
His steps light—not because his body was strong, but because the logic he planted had landed perfectly.
"They think magic is about power.
But sometimes… it's just like science.
And science is most easily undone
By a single false assumption."
"And no system is easier to break…
Than one that believes it's unbreakable."
Raka smiled faintly.
Today was not a victory over a golem.
It was proof—
That even in a world of spells, charms, and metal giants,
Reason and logic from his former world…
Still had a place.
Perhaps more than he ever imagined.