Chapter 435: Integrated Ranking (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 435: Integrated Ranking (2)
Kevin’s appearance was nothing like the rumors.
Mendes had expected a monster—a bloodthirsty evil ghost practically slavering for his opponent's life. Instead, the man standing before him looked like an ordinary young man you might pass on any given street. He had barely even shed his boyishness. Yet, despite his utterly unassuming appearance, Mendes felt his mouth go dry.
To face Dmitry's Evil Ghost in the very first round.
It was a dread shared by nearly every participant in the tournament.
They had all desperately prayed to avoid crossing paths with Chris or Kevin before securing a meaningful rank. But hoping for an easy path didn't mean they hadn't braced themselves for the worst. These were the figures everyone feared. Defeating Dmitry's Flash or the Evil Ghost would bring unimaginable glory, so while they dreaded the matchup, they had prepared for it all the same.
Fortunately, gathering information on Dmitry's Evil Ghost wasn't difficult.
From the Great Warrior Battle against Barco to the recent Continental War, Mendes had meticulously analyzed every available record.
Kevin's style is relentlessly aggressive. He is fast, wild, and instantly drives his opponents into a corner with an attack pattern that thrives on razor-thin margins. Furthermore, since this ranking match uses live blades, the very real threat of death only amplifies his strengths. To face a monster like him, I need absolute resolve.
Grip.
He squeezed the hilt of his sword. The pride of the Kronos Empire rested heavily on his shoulders. If he were eliminated in the very first round—regardless of who his opponent was—whispers of Kronos's downfall would inevitably follow.
I must stay calm. Even if he rages like a storm, I cannot step out of my calculated range. The moment he invades my domain, I’ll strike like lightning. But if I overreach to match his razor-thin spacing, it’ll devolve into a chaotic brawl. I will show everyone the true strength of Mendes, the representative of Kronos.
He gritted his teeth, acutely aware of the countless eyes fixed upon him. To the spectators looking at him with pity, he wanted to violently engrave the name Mendes into their minds.
It was then.
Swish.
The arbiter signaled the start of the match.
In that split second, Mendes ignited his aura, bracing his entire body for Kevin's imminent, explosive onslaught.
Kevin's pattern is always the same. He will press hard from the very first second, offering no room to breathe. First, I will deflect his relentless opening assault, then dictate my counterattack based on his reaction.
Rumble!
His aura erupted, adrenaline surging wildly through his veins. He was perfectly prepared to meet the charge.
But the scene unfolding before him utterly defied his expectations.
Murmurs rippled through the stands.
"What is he doing?"
"Why isn't he attacking?"
The crowd was bewildered, and with good reason. Contrary to every piece of gathered intelligence, Kevin hadn't budged a single inch from his starting position.
* * *
It made absolutely no sense.
This wasn't in the records. Kevin’s entire identity as a swordsman was built on seizing the initiative. Seeing him stand perfectly still threw Mendes's mind into complete disarray.
What is he thinking?
He couldn't fathom the reason. What was certain, however, was that Kevin was attempting something entirely new. If that was the case, Mendes needed to adapt immediately. He swallowed hard. This wasn't necessarily a bad situation. Whatever Kevin's reason for playing defensively, Mendes just had to take the initiative and end the match quickly.
His decision was made.
Having finished his mental warm-up, Mendes slowly closed the gap before suddenly kicking off the ground, exploding forward.
Swoosh!
Boom!
He was incredibly fast. The explosive power of his 6-Star Aura devoured the distance in an instant. Mendes kept his eyes dead-locked on Kevin. No matter how his opponent reacted, he intended to crush the man's intentions with a single, overwhelming blow.
Ten paces.
Nine paces.
Eight paces.
The distance shrank rapidly. But just as he reached a distance he still deemed slightly out of range, Mendes's eyes widened in sheer shock.
Flash!
Clang!
Rumble!
It was a purely instinctive defense. An attack had pierced through the empty space in a fraction of a second, forcing Mendes to throw his sword up to block without even thinking. His arms were violently knocked back, his insides churning from the impact.
He hadn't even seen Kevin move. By the time he sensed the strange, shifting flow of mana, Kevin's strike was already tearing through his personal space.
And that was only the beginning.
Kevin maintained a set distance from Mendes, unleashing a relentless barrage of strikes that rained down like a volley of arrows.
Clang!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
This is insane.
Sparks and clashes erupted from all directions. Though he barely managed to parry the strikes, Mendes was utterly bewildered by this bizarre, unexpected fighting style.
He couldn't understand it. Between the two of them, Mendes held the physical advantage. By all logic, he should have been the one dominating the attack range. Yet, Kevin was pouring down devastating attacks from a distance that should have been impossible to reach from.
There was only one explanation. Kevin had flawlessly calculated Mendes's attack range and was darting in to strike before Mendes could establish his own footing. It was a terrifying pattern that rendered an opponent's reach completely useless—a theoretical style that could only exist with absolutely perfect distance calculation.
I have to close the gap.
It was an absurd thought. To think he had to force close-quarters combat against Kevin. Close-quarters was supposed to be Kevin's specialty, but since Mendes was being completely outmatched in distance control, he couldn't just stand there and be whittled down.
Step, step.
Rumble!
He lunged forward with all his might. But reality refused to align with his expectations. He had clearly propelled himself forward, yet the gap between him and Kevin remained exactly the same.
And then...
Flash!
Boom!
Another attack struck.
Kevin maintained the distance as if he were merely toying with Mendes, slipping seamlessly through space to unleash a strike the moment even a millimeter of an opening appeared. It was downright uncanny. This was absolutely not Kevin's style. There was no record anywhere of the Evil Ghost fighting like this. Seeing him slip away like a greased eel while perfectly maintaining his spacing made Mendes's blood boil.
If only they had clashed head-on. He would have readily accepted defeat in a contest of raw strength. But against this suffocating pattern, Mendes couldn't even utilize a fraction of his true skills.
He lost his composure.
It was a microscopic error, but the moment Mendes took half a step too far forward, the price was devastating.
Slash!
Blood splattered across the arena floor. His thigh was laid open, causing his leg to violently buckle. With wide, panicked eyes, Mendes hurriedly raised his sword.
Clang!
Rumble!
The powerful impact stole the breath from his lungs. Gritting his teeth, he frantically tried to block the inevitable follow-up, but Kevin—who had been as elusive as a phantom just a second ago—was suddenly standing right in front of him.
Tap.
The cold steel of a blade rested lightly against his throat.
Kevin looked down at him with dead, emotionless eyes. Kneeling on one knee, blood pooling beneath him, Mendes knew exactly what he had to do.
"……I surrender."
It was, truly, the most humiliating outcome he could have ever imagined.
* * *
It was a shocking defeat.
For those rooting for an underdog, Mendes had been the dark horse carrying the highest expectations. Yet, he had been completely and utterly toyed with. He had accomplished absolutely nothing throughout the duel, and his abrupt surrender made him look like a man of weak resolve to the ignorant masses.
However, those with true martial insight knew the terrifying truth. Kevin had suppressed Mendes with such overwhelming, suffocating skill that a master of the 6-Star Realm had been made to look like a clumsy amateur.
Mendes was carried out of the arena. As healers hurriedly moved in to staunch the bleeding from his thigh, a high-ranking noble of Kronos approached with a bewildered face.
"What on earth happened?"
Mendes's defeat was devastating to their faction, but the noble lacked the martial discernment to see what had actually transpired. Meeting the man's panicked gaze, Mendes spoke, his expression entirely hollow.
"Can you not see even after watching it with your own eyes? I was utterly defeated. In that duel, Kevin didn't even consider me an opponent."
Emotion suddenly welled up in his throat. A bitter surge of anger and impotence washed over him.
The 6-Star Realm. Mendes had felt an immense sense of pride upon breaking into this new realm of power, but today, he had been slammed into a shocking reality. Kevin had just proven that the realm of aura was not everything. Before Mendes could even properly unleash the destructive power of his aura, Kevin had toyed with the very concept of distance, leaving him completely helpless.
The real problem was Kevin's intention. When Mendes pondered why Kevin had chosen such a bizarre method, he could only arrive at one despair-inducing conclusion.
"Dmitry's Evil Ghost doesn't consider anyone other than Chris to be his rival right now. The same goes for our duel. He didn't prepare that strategy to defeat me; he was merely conducting a live experiment to prepare for Chris. That is the truth. People called me the hope of Kronos, but I couldn't even reach Kevin's feet, let alone His Majesty Emperor Roman Dmitry."
His voice seethed with raw despair. Despite analyzing Kevin thoroughly for months in preparation for this tournament, Mendes had been used as nothing more than a convenient training dummy before being casually discarded.
Dmitry's Flash.
Rumors dictated that failing to control the distance against Chris would result in one's head flying off in an instant. Knowing that, Kevin's intention in facing Mendes became glaringly obvious. It was a form of shadowboxing. To quickly close the distance against Chris, and to gauge the exact millimeter of space to maintain, Kevin had simply projected Chris's image onto Mendes.
Mendes. He, too, was the kind of person hailed as a once-in-a-generation genius, but right now, he could not suppress his crushing despair.
"Everyone's expectations for this tournament were wrong. This isn't about how many top rankings the nations outside of Dmitry can claim. If even a single person can surpass Dmitry to claim one of the top sixteen spots, we should applaud them for that miracle alone."
The high-ranking noble's eyes trembled. Only then did the sheer scale of the gap dawn on him.
The Dmitry Empire. Having unified the continent, they had ascended to an existence that could no longer be challenged with the mindsets of the past.
* * *
Meanwhile, on another stage, a result that perfectly aligned with everyone's expectations was unfolding.
"Haaah!"
Swoosh!
Rumble!
His momentum was fierce. Hailed as the greatest swordsman in Frank, he attempted to seize the initiative right out of the gate by fully unleashing his 5-Star Aura. However, not a single person in the stands expected him to win. Since his opponent was Chris—Dmitry's Flash—the crowd's only interest lay in seeing exactly how many seconds the Frankish swordsman could survive.
And exactly as expected...
Flash!
Thud.
Just three seconds.
The Frankish swordsman staggered wildly. Following a blinding flash of light, the man was struck cleanly on the back of the neck and collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.
"Match 21, Chris wins!"
"Whoaaaa!"
"As expected of Chris!"
The crowd went absolutely wild. Leaving the deafening roars behind, Chris stepped down from the stage, his expression perfectly calm.
There is no need to be intoxicated by a victory of this level.
The Continental War had changed everything. Dmitry's swordsmen had stepped into an entirely different dimension of power. While aura remained a crucial factor in determining raw destructive force, ever since the Aura Revolution, a swordsman's individual fundamentals and martial comprehension had been heavily emphasized.
The duel between Kevin and Mendes was a prime example. In terms of raw aura capacity, there hadn't been a massive gap between the two. But Kevin had seen, heard, and experienced things by Roman Dmitry's side that ordinary people could never even dream of. Because of that, Chris knew that a duel against Kevin would not end nearly as easily as this one.
Even so, Chris hadn't prepared any special tricks for a duel with him. He would simply temper his own fundamentals, fully intending to prove that his absolute speed and skill could secure victory without needing a tailor-made strategy against Kevin's presence.
For that reason, he had ended his own match in a flash. There was no reason to drag out a foregone conclusion.
It was then.
Just as he stepped down from the stage and turned to leave, a massive, earth-shaking roar erupted from another arena in the distance.
Was there a match in the first round that warranted such a reaction?
His curiosity was piqued. Seeing the dense crowd swarming the distant stage and hearing the unusual intensity of the cheers, he stopped a staff member managing the brackets.
"What match is going on over there right now?"
"Ah, people can't help but be drawn to that one. Do you know Raymon of the Valhalla Empire? He was once a prominent figure on the continental rankings, but after being presumed dead, he reappeared during the Continental War, declaring his absolute allegiance to Baron Airn. It turns out he had been living in deep seclusion all this time, dedicating himself solely to the sword. Since he has reached the 6-Star Realm and possesses incredible skill, he was highly anticipated, much like Mendes of Kronos. But the real draw is his opponent..."
In truth, Raymon's name alone wasn't enough to garner this level of frenzied attention. No matter how great of a master he was, the true protagonists of this tournament were on a different level. Yet, the reason people had flocked to his arena the moment the first-round lineup was announced was because his opponent was truly special.
Raymon's opponent. He was none other than...
"Prince Edwin Hector. Raymon has run into an absolute powerhouse right from the first round."
The participation of mages.
The entire crowd’s focus was locked onto the stage, desperate to see exactly what kind of overwhelming power Edwin Hector—currently revered as the continent's greatest mage—would display.