The blaze of white light receded and I found myself standing on one side of the battle arena. 

The crowd had gone completely silent. At the beginning of every other fight, there had been uproars and wild applause, this time you would probably be able to hear a pin drop if you listened hard enough. 

On the other side of the arena stood my opponent. The alien I was facing off against was another bipedal, with two arms and two legs just like a human. They stood slightly taller than a human, though, at least seven-foot tall. 

They were also thinner than any human I had ever seen, with spindly legs and arms that looked as if they would break with nothing more than a tap. I'd long since learned not to underestimate my opponents like that, however. 

That was about where their similarities to humanity ended. While they had two arms, those arms ended in six-fingered hands, and those fingers seemed to have three knuckles instead of a human's two. Their heads were completely different. Visually they had no eyes or a nose. Instead, they had a heavy brow of bone and narrow cheeks that jutted out in an X formation. I was guessing that the alien used some kind of manna sense, or at the very least electrical fields like a hammerhead shark. The alien's mouth was beak-like, similar to that of an octopus or squid. 

At the end of the day, it didn't matter how the alien looked. I was going to beat it into the ground either way. 

"It's our final fight of the Grand Entry Tournament's first round!" Belana announced through the comm system of the arena. "Finishing off this first set of battles we have Tresourian of the Embra! While they don't have eyes, you can bet that once they find their opponent they wont let up the assault! 

Meanwhile, on the other end of the ring, we have Jacob Lyre of the Humans!"

The crowd immediately erupted into booing and jeering. I jutted my chin out and held my head high. I wasn't going to let the crowd get me down. I was here to fight, and that was exactly what I was going to do. 

"I know, I know, it's highly unorthodox to have a Human joining the Guard," Belana all but yelled, struggling to break over the noise coming from the stands. "We have done due diligence in researching Jacob's position, and we know for a fact that he means no harm to us all, so please let us show our support for our last contender!" 

While the outraged yells died down, no one in the crowd decided to turn their derision into outright support. That was okay. I hadn't expected anyone to suddenly start jumping up and down in support of me. That would have been far too much to ask. Sure, they may have been excited about seeing a human battle a giant mecha, but the attitude toward me had clearly changed over the past few days. 

"Okay, let the match commence in three… two… one… Begin!" 

Tresourian lept forward on their nimble legs as soon as the call for the match to begin had been made. I hadn't made a sound or even made a move to activate my manna, so that narrowed down their range of vision to either some kind of heat sense, some kind of echolocation, or the ability to sense the electrical charges of other beings. 

That certainly narrowed it down. 

I activated my anti-gravity fields on my own feet and used my propulsion to blast myself away and to the side. Even though my perception had been increased by the speed I was suddenly moving, it was still obvious that Tresourian was keeping up with me. While slightly slower, their head snapped toward me and their course changed immediately. 

Okay then, that made it clear that I wasn't going to be able to outspeed my opponent. They had the ability to perceive just as fast as I could move, and make changes to their own movement accordingly. That could be troublesome going forward. 

My next test once again relied on my anti-gravity fields. This time I encased the alien's right foot in one of the fields. The reaction was instant. As Tresourian placed their right foot down on the ground they slipped and crashed into the floor hard. The momentum they had caused them to go spinning out into the wall of the arena. They could react fast, but they couldn't react fast enough to stop attacks that were invisible or otherwise instant. 

Unfortunately holding an anti-gravity field on another being was much harder than holding one on myself, and the alien managed to shake it off and climb back to its feet before I could really take advantage of the situation. 

"It is unusual for a human to be so adept at using their manna," The alien said, its beak-like mouth clacking with every word. 

"Well, considering I'm in this tournament to join the Guard, I guess you could say I'm not your usual human," I shot back before summoning the beginnings of my energy beams to wreath my hands. "Now, enough chatter, I thought we were here to fight!"

My propulsion shot me forward and across the arena, closing the distance between myself and my enemy in moments even to my enhanced perception times. I discharged the energy beam in my left hand as I went, forcing my alien opponent to dodge to the right. But I was there, ready and waiting with a right cross. 

My fist connected with the Alien's torso and knocked them back, the hit was hard, and was made even harder when I discharged my other energy beam directly into the same spot. The alien flew across the arena once more and was blasted straight into the wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in its wake. 

This was actually starting to look pretty fun, I had to admit.