Semifinals (4)
"Hoooooh…."
Hikaru let the breath out long and slow.
His face was still flooded with shock.
To think he'd been hiding a weapon that absurd.
His gut was still icy. The astonishment hadn't settled, and his body was still trembling from head to toe.
Ascension Breath.
That single skill hadn't just shredded every one of his summons to ribbons — the stage itself had blown apart, gouging out a colossal hall in its wake.
Gooooooo…!
It had been carved so deep that a pitch-black, bottomless chasm seemed to yawn right before his eyes.
Destructive power he had never once witnessed. Now that was what an S-rank summon was supposed to be.
"Kgh… kghk."
Hikaru's shoulders shook.
Why was it so funny — the sight of himself, still standing, undefeated even by that impossible attack?
Out in the open, against a monster like that, he would have lost one hundred times out of a hundred. But this was a player-versus-player match, a format where summons were limited.
And yet.
He was still alive.
Bringing the Phoenix was a stroke of genius.
The egg, sitting there untouched amid the wreckage of everything else.
Immortality.
Five minutes — that was all it took for the creature to be reborn at full health.
A summon that was straight-up broken!
"…Rachel."
Hikaru murmured the name.
But there was no answer.
Rachel stood frozen, eyes still wide, unable to twitch so much as a finger.
The tree spirit's paralytic venom had fully taken hold.
And even—
Grrrrr…
A low whimper. Even the Yellow Dragon looked utterly drained.
The penalty of Ascension Breath, probably.
Hikaru clenched his fist.
Finally! At long last!
Was he about to beat Rachel for the first time in four years?
Even if it wasn't a domination, even if Rachel had only fielded a single summon—
A win is a win.
It would go down as a towering achievement for Japan.
Maybe, once this league ended, his own name would be stamped onto the World Rank 1 slot.
"Rachel, you got way too careless."
Waiting out the five minutes until the Phoenix's rebirth, Hikaru kept talking.
"Come on — bringing only one summon against me of all people? That's just insulting. If you're going to look down on someone, at least do it in moderation. Am I right?"
Hoo.
Sitting himself down beside the Phoenix egg to wait out the paralyzed Rachel, Hikaru was quietly toasting his victory in his head.
"Wh-what is this!"
"Seriously? Rachel's actually losing like this?"
"No way!"
The guild members stared at the screen, faces frozen in disbelief.
This can't be happening!
Phoenix's immortality! Isn't that way too broken?!
And what about the tree spirit that paralyzes players straight through their barriers?!
Aaahh, this is a fatal blunder. Rachel paid the price for underestimating Japan's Hikaru! Even an S-rank can't handle five on its own!
The commentary booth was in an uproar, and the live chat had caught fire.
Frozen Rachel — and Hikaru, waiting on the Phoenix that would finish her off. Everyone watching that historic moment raised their voices.
"But."
Baek Jinwoo frowned.
"Hikaru honestly did everything right. It's just that one percent that's bugging me. I wouldn't have played it like that."
"Sorry?"
"What is it?"
The guild members perked up.
He had been the only person to predict Hikaru's victory even after the Yellow Dragon unleashed its breath. Had he spotted something else again?
"His vision."
"Sorry?"
"He never blocked her line of sight. Ha, that idiot sugoi bastard. He's got the win in the bag — what's he doing right now?"
Baek Jinwoo was beside himself with frustration.
There were two ways a player could summon: raise a hand, or shift their vision to operate the status window.
That was exactly why you bound a player's hands and covered their eyes when you took them prisoner.
"Paralyzed or not, her eyes are open. You don't get careless like that when she hasn't even shown her full roster yet."
If it had been him, he'd have sprinted straight at Rachel in that moment and covered her eyes with both palms for the full five minutes.
That would have been a flawless, total victory for Hikaru.
"Don't tell me — you think Rachel's going to pull out another summon from that state?"
Hong Ari asked, horrified.
Because if so, that was genuinely chilling…
"Watch. You'll see."
Somehow, Baek Jinwoo could see straight into Rachel's head.
If the person she's wary of isn't Hikaru — it's me.
Then of course she'd have a summon hidden away in reserve.
He would have done exactly the same.
At that very moment.
"…"
Rachel was sighing inwardly.
I thought the breath would end it. Instead, I got played completely.
And even as she thought it, she was already preparing to summon one more.
I really didn't want to show this one.
But there was no helping it.
She'd registered only two summons to her team, never once imagining she could lose to Hikaru.
Phew.
Rachel's second hidden summon!
For the record, not even Olivia or Veil — her fellow British national team members — knew it existed.
She was the only person in the entire world who knew of it, raising it in secret all this time.
I was saving it to spring as a surprise on Jinugod.
But if it had come to this, so be it.
Losing to Hikaru would be beyond absurd, wouldn't it?
Above all, she would sooner die than hand him the glory of facing Jinugod head-on.
Shk — shshshk!
With her vision unblocked, she could move the status window by will alone.
She had no idea what he was thinking, but there sat Hikaru, trembling from head to toe beside that Phoenix egg.
For her, a godsend of a situation!
She opened the summon window with ease.
Press!
She hit the Y button.
It was about a minute later, wasn't it?
"Hm?"
Hikaru shot to his feet.
He'd felt something rising around Rachel's body.
It was, unmistakably, the effect that flared whenever another summon was being called forth.
Oh no!
Only then did he grasp his blunder.
I never covered her eyes!
Rachel had shown only one summon.
Which meant he should have been counting the four more she still had!
The most obvious fundamental of fundamentals!
The breath… it was that breath.
That overwhelming spectacle had short-circuited his brain. And the desperate yearning to finally beat Rachel had made him fumble the basics.
So I was the careless one all along.
He tried to bolt over, even this late — but it was already too late.
Kwa-gagagagagak!
Casting its presence over the entire space, the being that appeared was a white tiger of monstrous size!
RRRROOOOAAAR!
At the beast's roar, Hikaru's body locked up solid.
His breath caught with a click.
Wh-what the hell is that…?
What summon was that supposed to be?
Even with a decade of experience pickled into his brain, it wasn't one he knew…
Kuso…!
It was S-rank. No question.
That unhinged Rachel had been carrying two S-ranks this whole time.
It was so absurd it circled all the way back around to being plain unfair.
Just how lucky did a person have to be to own two S-ranks?
"This doesn't make any sense!"
Hikaru shouted, but the White Tiger was already charging.
Its massive jaws spread wide.
"H-hey! Hold on! There's really no need to rush—!"
CRUNCH!
It bit straight through the very patch of ground where the Phoenix egg sat.
Sneering, as if to say — how dare you even dream of beating our master.
"Whoa, what the—!"
Baek Jinwoo jolted upright in shock.
"The White Tiger?"
That was the White Tiger, no doubt about it.
A summon that lived in Baek Jinwoo's memory.
It was around year three of Battle of Summoners, if he remembered right.
There had been one incredibly lucky bastard.
A Ukrainian user, he thought — who'd scored an Ultimate Summoning Scroll in a single drop, then turned around and smashed through the 1% odds on his very first pull…
The other old-guard veterans probably wouldn't know.
The guy had traded a few messages with Baek Jinwoo, then quit soon after — whining that even an S-rank pull got boring fast.
And what he'd pulled back then was the White Tiger.
The Azure Dragon of the East.
Suzaku of the South.
The White Tiger of the West.
The Black Tortoise of the North.
According to the information floating around back then, the Four Guardian Deities handed down in the East had all been implemented as S-rank.
"Wh-why? What's wrong?"
"What is it, Guild Master?"
The guild members asked, startled.
"That's an S-rank. The White Tiger. One of the Four Guardian Deities."
Baek Jinwoo explained.
"Whoa."
"Really? There was a summon like that?"
"So she had another S-rank on top of the Yellow Dragon this whole time? Hmm…"
Gasps of awe, almost groans, slipped from their lips.
Rachel was currently holding the World Rank 1 seat with the Yellow Dragon alone.
And now there was another S-rank stacked on top of that?
They'd thought she was simply a monster — turns out she was a monster who'd been hiding her strength.
A hidden-power monster…
This is honestly going too far.
With a single move, Rachel had obliterated the hopes of Hikaru and every last citizen of Japan.
She'd proclaimed to the entire world that Britain wasn't just still standing — it was pulling further ahead.
A-Aaagh…!
What summon is THAT supposed to be?
No idea. We'll have to wait for the post-match interview to find out.
One thing's certain — it's a type of summon even today's experts don't recognize.
Either way.
Hikaru had lost to Rachel, so the outcome was obvious.
Winner of Britain vs. Japan: Britain!
"WAAAAAAAH!"
"UWOOOOOOOH!"
A cheer like rolling thunder erupted from a world that had sunk into a brief, stunned silence.
South Korea's live chat was ablaze, too.
Kya, Rachel's on a whole other level, as expected.
I curse my idiot gut instinct for thinking, even for a second, that Hikaru might win.
Exactly. It'd be weirder if Rachel LOST to Hikaru. She's the real deal even among the Five Emperors.
But what IS that white tiger? It looks insanely strong?
Rumor says S-rank summon. Not confirmed yet though?
Another S-rank?!
Is that even possible?
Fr, that's insane. Wasn't Rachel the only player in the whole world with an S-rank summon?
Yep, on record anyway.
"Ha."
Baek Jinwoo laughed.
A hollow laugh that escaped purely out of disbelief.
She's actually insane.
Two S-ranks?
Even a heavyweight weight class should have its limits.
Who hands a second S-rank to someone who already has one?
This goddamn world!
A world fucked by luck itself!
Since when did rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer apply to summons, of all things?
Granted, Baek Jinwoo, who'd started out with EX-rank summons, was in no position to talk — but still! The absurdity stung all the same.
What I got was closer to a perk. What she's got is pure, dumb luck.
If her luck ran this deep, there was no telling what else she had.
Baek Jinwoo had nearly every summon skill up through A-rank filed away in his head — but almost nothing at S-rank.
How was he supposed to memorize things that hadn't even existed back in Battle of Summoners?
Fighting with an opponent's skills and patterns laid bare, versus fighting blind on instinct alone, produced results as different as heaven and earth.
"Whew."
Baek Jinwoo closed his eyes.
Get it together.
Look at it a different way.
This was actually a good thing.
The harder an opponent was to face, the sweeter the thrill of breaking them — and it multiplied!
That was always my creed, wasn't it?
"Everyone."
Baek Jinwoo's gaze swept the room.
Every guild member wore a grave expression.
"We've seen all there is to see of today's matches. Let's get ready for tomorrow's — against the US."
Right.
For now, Britain could wait.
First, America's Xenos needed putting in his place.
"We came all this way to the final four. We should at least punch through the semifinals, shouldn't we?"
Baek Jinwoo's eyes sank, cold.
And he turned to go.
To give the rune setup he'd been preparing for the semifinal matches one more round of fine-tuning.