Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Act 1 - 3 (7)
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Oheon and Shiron.
While the two of them were looking around the four-player arenas,
they stopped in their tracks at a particularly eye-catching battle.
A man was soaring through the air on the wind, toying with the other participants below.
His movements were unpredictable and incredibly fast.
It was my first time seeing someone fly around inside an arena.
I'd never heard of a job skill that allowed flight, so I assumed it was a unique ability. I focused even more intently on the ongoing match.
The man's ability to freely fly through the air astonished everyone.
But in contrast, the participants inside the arena remained calm.
Then,
The woman who had been standing quietly touched her dagger lightly and then charged forward.
She closed the distance to the man threatening from above with near-ambush speed.
The poison-coated dagger aimed at his vital point!
Swish—!
Unfortunately, it only grazed past.
The flying man seemed to have baited the attack on purpose, immediately riding an updraft higher into the sky.
The attack ended in mere seconds, but its momentary impact was intense.
The onlookers began analyzing it eagerly.
"That gesture just now, applying something to the weapon... looks like an Assassin's skill!"
"It's Assassin for sure. Our dimension has two, so I know it well."
"Round 7 now, right? Maybe we'll see the Assassin's third skill too?"
The Assassin job was one of the rarest among the basic jobs.
"Can that guy keep flying forever? There must be a limit..."
"If he could do ranged attacks from the air, the man would have it in the bag."
And the people watching this battle—
In other words, the survivors or those already through among the spectators—felt they had more say than the pure onlookers and were chattering excitedly.
Shiron, standing beside me, squinted and said,
"I probably... couldn't have handled that woman's speed."
Hearing that, I thought to myself,
'Even so, victory and defeat aren't decided that simply. Everyone just has their own strengths.'
Just as he said.
As long as the stat gap wasn't overwhelming, battles could produce any variable.
And variables fundamentally arose from differences between opponents. Whether those differences became advantages or weaknesses was a matter of skill.
The man who had been dominating from the air suddenly veered off course and plummeted to the ground.
Thud!
Crashing into trees, the man lay still as if struck by something.
I could see his face, and even in the heated battle, his expression looked dazed.
'A mental ability? Who did that?'
The female Assassin seized the opening, attacking the fallen man and eliminating him in an instant.
Just before he fell,
The middle-aged man who duplicated the man's gear quickly scanned its details.
'Damn, it looked good, but the stats don't match mine.'
He had duplicated the flying opponent's flashy sword but soon wore a disappointed expression.
At that moment, the last man, who had been standing idle, smashed through the blocking trees and charged at the middle-aged man.
This was the familiar Heavy Strike skill that everyone could recognize by now.
The middle-aged man barely defended, but soon the female Assassin joined the fray, turning it into a chaotic melee.
In the end, the last victor was the female Assassin, who used a new skill she'd been saving for the final moment to take everyone down.
It was an impressive match.
The more tournament battles I watched, the more countermeasures against various unique abilities I accumulated.
We moved to another arena where a match was already underway.
A four-player arena where two had already been eliminated.
The remaining two had exceptional equipped items and stood facing each other in combat stance.
Rankers?
...But rankers choosing a four-player match? That's rare.
Most rankers preferred the safer two-player matches, according to community info.
Lower-ranked folks, though, often aimed to fish in troubled waters during these melees and luck into advancement.
Of course, I couldn't confirm if they were really rankers.
Outside the arena, intuition about those inside was blocked, so I couldn't gauge their strength precisely.
As I speculated they were rankers, they began to move.
A deep, dark cloak like the night sky unfurled behind one man, dotted with dozens of twinkling starlights.
He fired swords formed from light shapes from the cloak, checking his opponent.
The light swords were extremely fast even to my eyes—hard to dodge at the same level.
His opponent, another apparent ranker, swung an axe to deflect the light swords and charged.
Endless light swords clashed against the massive axe, sending shockwaves that flattened the dense forest.
Dozens of light swords rained down, and the axe-wielder seemed to have defense skills too.
He barely blocked what seemed unblockable in a dazzling exchange of offense and defense.
This was it.
A true ranker battle that surpassed every match I'd seen so far.
Watching their fight, I gauged their level.
Those two were at least low-tier rankers, maybe mid-tier.
It was my first time seeing rankers fight, and it could help in the main tournament.
I might even face the winner there.
'But the outcome looks clear.'
His axe finally reached the opponent, but...
The attacks lost all power the moment they touched the cloak.
That thin cloak seemed to completely absorb all impacts.
The prolonged battle eventually ended.
Despite relentless attacks, the axe-user's accumulated wounds from his defense crumbling midway led to defeat.
The cloaked ability user claimed victory.
Shiron glanced at Oheon unconsciously upon seeing the result.
'How would Oheon fare against powerhouses like that? ...Still, it'd probably end in an instant against him. But what about top-tier rankers?'
I'd never seen him fight someone truly on his level.
Whether we'd see his full power in this tournament remained unknown.
The system still hadn't revealed the main tournament format.
'If it's like the prelims, the chances of seeing it are slim...'
Meanwhile, as Oheon moved again, Shiron snapped out of his thoughts and hurried after him.
As Round 7 drew to a close,
two rankers met discreetly.
They had arranged meetings like this several times using dimension natives.
"Eliminated? ...That's a shame."
"At least you advanced. Someone from our dimension has to make mains."
"Just got lucky."
They were comrades from the same dimension—a rare one with two rankers.
Their unarmored attire blended in, but people mostly cleared paths for them.
Spectators in semi-transparent observer mode made up over 99% of the crowd now, treating all who had advanced as rankers and proceeding cautiously.
The atmosphere was a far cry from early rounds when everyone ignored each other.
The fellow ranker spoke to Teleos, the cloak ability user.
"That ridiculous cloak... you took quite a hit, huh?"
"You noticed? Lost a lot of swords this time and ate some attacks. Opponent was a ranker."
"Can you recharge before the next match?"
"Yeah. Won a four-player, so time till the one after. Should fully recharge by then."
Teleos's [Galactic Phantom Cloak] consumed one starlight per light sword generation or momentum-nullifying defense activation. No recharge mid-battle.
The already-eliminated ranker shared known info to help.
"There are some annoying ones. The abilities I saw..."
They exchanged intel, preparing for the next round.
After Round 7 ended,
alone again in the space, I quietly awaited the next step.
Time flowed relentlessly.
With each round, participant numbers dropped sharply.
77 advanced in Round 8, only 51 in Round 9.
Participant levels noticeably rose.
But it meant little to me.
I dominated Round 8 just like Round 7, overwhelmingly.
My opponent couldn't even block the crystal shards from my ring, let alone counter.
Even in a round where non-rankers would be odd, one-shot kills remained the norm for me.
And now, Round 9—the near-final prelim round—began.
Bam!!
Round 9 ended with a single strike to my opponent's solar plexus.
I returned immediately, so I couldn't hear the crowd's reaction. But I could guess.
"It's that guy again. One-shot..."
"Top-tier at least. Mains are a lock."
"Crystal or ice, whatever—counts as one of the top ranged powerhouses."
"Heard on the community too. Guessing top 10?"
People were probably calling me a crystal mage or ice shaman, arbitrarily pinning down my identity.
The community was buzzing with speculations about top rankers including me.
The farther their guesses from truth, the more my plan succeeded halfway.
Plan targets were main qualifiers, but community info couldn't be ignored.
Back on the street, I spectated nearby arenas.
Arenas grew larger with advancing rounds, crowds swelling too.
Naturally, more people meant more rankers.
'My matches have probably been seen by rankers by now.'
And at this moment,
Oheon's just-finished match.
A bit away, someone still stood.
Deep in focus.
Black helmet, body clad in red armor.
He stared at the emptily ended arena for a while, then turned and vanished into the crowd.
No way...
How? It can't end like this? I'm a ranker...
Marje, absolute ruler of Dimension 71, knelt ruminating on defeat.
Rank 61 powerhouse,
untouchable top dog in his dimension.
Yet in Round 9, he fell pathetically to one attack.
Couldn't even see his opponent properly.
Something approached, and when he came to, he was outside the arena.
Only the lingering solar plexus pain proved it real.
One shot.
Everything ended.
'A league apart. Bad luck... A bit further, and mains were possible!!'
Dazed in the street's center, a shadow fell over him.
"Scram."
Rage flared at the sudden insult. Marje looked up at the speaker.
Brown-haired man.
Cold, piercing aura like seeing through everything.
Ranker instinct screamed,
despite unseen face, overwhelming pressure he couldn't resist.
He scrambled up, staggering aside to clear the path.
The once-ruler now a pitiful loser.
Up close, that eerie feeling birthed a chilling guess.
'No way he saw my eyes? ...10 levels above me?'
Normally impossible, but fresh off one-shot defeat,
he felt viscerally this brown-haired man was untouchable.
Hands trembling, he stared at the man's back.
"Who...?"
The brown-haired man Marje wondered about
was also searching for someone.
The only one ranked above him.
"You must win."
"Of course."
Teleos, cloaked specially, entered Round 9 arena with his comrade's cheer.
Round 9 resembled an ancient temple.
Towering pillars reached the sky, floor marble like early prelims.
As the match started, a sword wreathed in red lightning appeared mid-air opposite him.
The sword swam through the air like a living thing, shooting toward Teleos.
Confident his cloak would block any attack, he unflinchingly unfurled the Galactic Phantom Cloak.
Clang!
'Guh!'
Overwhelming destructive power.
Since it hit the cloak,
it should've absorbed everything, but this was new.
Still, the cloak blocked most damage—no major injury.
The sword lost momentum and fell.
Teleos thought,
'Lucky. One-off.'
But only briefly.
The sword floated up again, prepping a second strike.
Teleos realized the dire situation.
As the red-lightning sword flew faster, he sensed the match's end.
The moment it neared his face,
the sword halted mid-air.
Before confusion set in,
Teleos's body was crushed by invisible force, lifted airborne.
Perfect suppression.
Essentially, the match ended one-sidedly.
Then,
a man slowly emerged from behind a pillar.
With a gesture, the airborne sword flew to his hand—its owner.
Community already had rankers revealing names and feats; this was one.
Black helmet, red armor.
And the circling red-lightning sword.
People recognized his signature and shouted,
"Rank 7, Monster!!"