Chapter 58: Aftermath

  The participants from Argent Flame had been standing closest to Alexander when the Shardburst spell had activated, causing them to desperately scramble away while filled with trepidation. Thankfully, they managed to escape the range of the blast, yet the following shockwave caused them to tumble across the arena grounds.

  Similarly, the cultivators from the other Towers had been pushed away, some falling and rolling along the ground as well. The Initiates from the Arcane and Military Academies fared best, as they stood behind Damon. The explosive shockwaves settled into just a strong wind by the time it reached him, and only their clothes and hair were ruffled from the blowing air.

  The audience was unaffected by the aftermath as a shiny dome of colorful lights had manifested in a column around the arena, separating the stands from the center.

  Claire had not been affected by Damon’s battle at all. Even then winds caused by the shockwave did not reach her, splitting away directly in front of her. Every strand of hair on her head remained in place, and her clothes were uncrinkled. She stood in place and looked up at Damon’s back, with his long black hair billowing from the remaining breeze. In her vision, his figure grew smaller as though he were flying away.

  Can I handle that technique? No… If I didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything against it. Have you… Already gone far ahead of me?

  With bulging eyes, reddened from the copious amount of dust that had entered them, Thomas stared at Damon standing atop the platform. Damon’s robes fluttered in the wind, the vibrant green and sleek black silk outlining his tall and robust body. The atmosphere around him right now caused Thomas to shudder and grind his teeth.

  Shit. If I win my match today… I’ll have to fight Damon in the next round. Should I just forfeit?

  Lilith could not take her gaze off Damon. Her arms and legs trembled, and her breathing quickened. She bit her bottom lip as she clasped her hands together so tightly that it hurt. But she couldn’t even feel the pain right now. As all her attention was focused on Damon, the shine in her eyes transformed. Before, it was dull with just a hint of interest. Now, it glowed like an amber jewel under sunlight.

  That’s it. I’m so looking forward to our duel. Can I withstand that attack? I want to test it right now!

  Nox and Erik had both previously dismissed Damon as a top contender and did not take him seriously. However, the look in both their eyes had changed as well. Erik glared at him with solemnity with his brows furrowed deep, and his lips pursed into a thin line. Nox, on the other hand, did not look stern. He still had a smug smile on his face, yet his dark eyes flickered with a sinister light. In his sleeves, a black dagger that glistened with an inky sheen was held tight within his grasp.

  While every spectator in the stands continued silently staring at Damon with their mouths wide open, one person burst into a crazed commentary.

  “WHAT. WAS. THAT? What was that! Where did Damon suddenly pull that out from? I’ve never seen a spell like that! Just a moment ago, both of them looked completely burnt out! The duel had been evenly matched from the start, trading blows back and forth. And then… BAM! Alan, did you know about Damon’s technique? Is that why you were so confident? Alan? Hey, Alan!”

  Wesley looked next to him and saw Alan had actually stood up and had leaned over the table to get a closer look at the arena with his jaw dropped as well. His reaction was not much different from the rest of the crowd. Because Alan did not respond, Wesley grabbed his arm and shook him. At that moment, a wooden slip fell out of Alan’s sleeve.

  Before Alan could react, Wesley had already stooped down and picked up the slip. Without announcing it to the Colosseum, he read the engraved words.

  “Damon to win… 100 second-tier essence stones..?” Wesley looked up and met Alan’s eyes, with his own filled with shock.

  Alan snatched the slip from Wesley’s hands. “Not a single word. You never saw this.”

  Although he had tried to say that in a menacing tone, his voice cracked at the end as he couldn’t suppress his erupting joy. A smirk filled with more smugness than Wesley had ever seen before in his life appeared on the face in front of him.

  Turning away from Wesley, Alan placed a hand on the crystal orb in front of him and began his own commentary. “No, I have never seen him use that spell before. I also have never seen such a spell before, but did you get a close look at the ice shards just before they began glowing red? It looked like a rune. Damon is, after all, a Runemaster.”

  Snapping back to reality, Wesley grabbed the crystal orb in front of him as he yelled out again. “Runes? So it’s a unique spell he created using runes? What ingenuity! He even managed to injure two of the four Adjudicators with a single spell, even though he’s currently just at the mid stage of Node Awakening! Look, the healing cultivators are tending to them now! Damon is both a Runeology genius and a combat prodigy! Maybe he can even go all the way and win the entire Convergence!”

  By this point, Wesley’s loud and lively voice had roused the stunned audience out of their daze. Slowly, but surely, they stood up and began clapping. Soon, the applause converted to subdued cheering and then finally evolved into a full-blown tumultuous cacophony of chaos. Within the frenzied yelling, one person started chanting.

  “Damon. Damon. Damon.”

  The commotion died down as the majority of the spectators followed along and chanted as well.

  “Damon! Damon! Damon!”

  The one yelling the hardest was Wesley, his hoarse voice ringing out over the entire Colosseum.

  Within the private room, Gabriel had shot to his feet when Shardburst had activated. Even though he did not show any signs of further movement, a muscular arm blocked his path. He glanced sideways at Zoltan, who smiled back at him.

  “Why are you reacting so seriously? It’s just a little tournament for the children to play in. It would be unbecoming of an Adept like yourself to intervene, would it not?” Zoltan’s playful smile contrasted with his fierce eyes, taunting Gabriel to try something.

  Gabriel coldly stared at Zoltan for a couple of minutes before sitting back down in his chair. He grasped the armrest on the chair tightly with one hand while knocking with the other.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  That child… He is no ordinary boy. A Runemaster at his age? And that level of combat talent? Shit, we practically threw away a genius. Even worse, it was the Assembly that picked him up.

  Ignoring the amused expressions on everyone else’s faces, Gabriel fixated his glare on Damon. The boy who got away. He was disinclined to allow the child to grow into a thorn in his side.

  Atop the platform, several cultivators specialized in healing were tending to the injured Adjudicators and checking Alexander for any injuries. After confirming he was fine, they helped the Adjudicators get off the stage and transported them to private rooms where they had set up makeshift infirmaries.

  Alexander walked down the stairs, his eyes clouded and his face blank. When he reached the bottom, he found a pair of black boots in his way. He looked up to find Damon standing in front of him with his hand outstretched. There was no smugness or pride on his face or in his eyes. He only looked back with a friendly smile.

  “It was a good duel, Alexander.”

  He stared at the scarred and calloused hand hovering in front of him for a while before he looked down at his own. Even though he was the Auron, his hands looked soft and smooth compared to Damon’s. He reached out and grasped the hand that had been steadily waiting for him.

  “Thanks, Damon. I just have one question.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why… Why did you wait until the end to use your final spell? You would have destroyed me early on if you used it at the start. So, why did you wait?”

  Alexander looked deep into Damon’s eyes, awaiting the answer to his question. He shivered as a breeze drifted past. Although the weather was warm, the wind felt abnormally cold to him. He was afraid of the answer. He was afraid Damon had been toying with him from the start.

  Damon tilted his head, as his brows furrowed slightly in confusion. “Why? Isn’t it obvious? I was trying to beat you without using it so I could keep it a secret. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t defeat you without it, so I had no choice but to use it in the end.”

  A glimmer of light returned to Alexander’s eyes. So, THAT was the reason. He wasn’t looking down on me. He was trying his best, and he had no choice but to reveal his trump card. I am not useless. I… Can still catch up to him.

  “Thanks, Damon. I enjoyed the duel. I hope we can do it again in the future.”

  “Me, too. It was fun!” Damon smiled and turned around. Suddenly, Alexander called out for him to stop.

  “Wait! Before you go, I wanted to tell you something. It’s about Jon and Raina.”

  Damon turned around, his smile remained on his face, but his eyes narrowed.

  “Jon… He is walking a dark path under Master Lorenzo. I don’t know much, but I’ve heard that it’s a path that trades his morality for strength. Raina, on the other hand, does not leave her training chamber. Not even for a second. Honestly, those two are probably stronger than I am. They’re doing this… To get revenge for Raina’s grandfather. To kill YOU. I just wanted to warn you.”

  Without saying anything, Damon just responded with a curt nod before walking away.

  Alexander watched him leave before exhaling a heavy breath.

  When Damon returned to the Academy’s group, his face was tense with worry. Everyone had been ready to run to him and cheer, yet they hesitated upon seeing his expression. Claire approached him and asked, “Are you okay?”

  After blinking several times, Damon’s glum face turned normal. “Yeah, I’m fine!”

  While squinting, Claire circled Damon a few times as she poked him in various places. With a final glance up and down, she confirmed there was no physical problem with him.

  “Okay… Looks like you’re okay… Why do you seem so down after showing such an incredible performance and defeating the first seed of your bracket?”

  Upon hearing Claire’s words, reality washed over Damon as he looked at her with a silly expression. She was right. Why was he worrying about Jon and Raina? He had just defeated the first seed from the Arcane Tower of Argent Flame! He didn’t even use any mind abilities. He should be joyfully celebrating his accomplishment, rather than stressing about something he had no control over.

  When this realization washed over him, he finally heard the audience chanting his name. A large grin formed on his face as he looked around at the others from the Academies.

  “I’m not feeling down. I was just worried that I would outshine the rest of you with my performance. But it seems like none of you are worried. You’re up next, Thomas. You’d better show us something good!”

  Everyone except Thomas laughed and began chanting Damon’s name along with the crowd. Thomas’s face fell, and now he was the dispirited one. Damon had just poked him in his sore spot.

  After the chanting stopped, Wesley lifted a notebook with cues written on it and motioned for Alan to read it out loud. He was currently resting his throat for a while because he had completely lost his voice.

  With a sigh, Alan began talking in a deadpan voice. “Wow. What an upset. That truly was the most spectacular performance so far. The first seed from bracket one has fallen already. I hope we see more surprising outcomes. Now, we have Thomas Blight from our Arcane Academy on stage next, against the second seed from Lunarsol, Eloise.”

  Wesley frowned at Alan and glared at him. Alan faced the other side of the arena to avoid looking at his co-commentator. With a slightly cheerier tone, Alan continued.

  “The platform has finally finished being restored. The next pair of contestants is climbing up to the stage. Now, let’s give it up for Thomas. Hopefully, he shows us something as interesting as the last fight.”

  On the platform, Thomas had his teeth clenched tight. It wasn’t due to nervousness about his match, but rather going on stage right after that stellar performance. So many people had mentioned showing off that it was putting pressure on him to unleash his own trump cards. However, he needed to hold back. Otherwise, Damon would know how to counter him during their duel.

  Wait, should I really just give up? No, I can’t do that. If I did that, Grandfather would actually kill me for losing the Assembly’s face. Why did I have to be placed in bracket one with that freak, Damon?

  While grumbling inwardly, he did not even send a single glance toward his opponent. Eloise had even greeted him from the opposite side of the platform, yet she was completely disregarded. With an expression full of scorn, she withdrew a black quarterstaff and twirled it in her hands before settling into a battle stance. It was not embellished with any jewels and just looked like a long, black stick.

  Thomas had stopped whispering under his breath and now just looked up at the passing clouds, drifting by in the sky. His shoulders were loose and his back slightly hunched. His blank expression showed he did not take the duel seriously.

  The Adjudicator waited for a little while, hoping that Thomas would snap out of his daze. He called out to him three times, but he did not reply. The audience even began booing loudly, yet even that did not elicit a response. Slightly annoyed, the Adjudicator just started the match. Regardless of Thomas’s background, he should know better than to daydream during a duel.

  Eloise was flushed red with anger, her nostrils flared with every furious breath. She roared as she grasped the quarterstaff with two hands and leaped into the air. The black staff slammed into the arena, causing dark spikes to erupt in a line heading straight for Thomas. Even now, he had not moved at all.

  The spikes had reached Thomas and cut into him. She grinned at the sight before being blanketed by a sense of unease. The fight had ended too quickly… No, that was wrong. The barriers did not even react, so how did her Shadow Spikes cut through Thomas? A breeze drifted past and caused her hair to flutter. The flowing wind glittered with golden-green light. Why was the air sparkly?

  At this moment, the bracers on her arms radiated a bright verdant light before they broke in half with a pitiful whine. She turned around, her pale face awash with confusion, and saw Thomas standing behind her with a smile. Countless vines surrounded his body, wriggling and thrashing about.

  “How was that? Impressive enough?”

  Aftermath of Damon's duel!