Chapter 751: Ranked Three (2)
The hall remained silent now.
Not because everyone had suddenly become comfortable with Liam’s rank, but because the footage gave them no room to dismiss what was being said. Some students who had felt satisfied moments earlier now found themselves watching with reluctant tension as the screen displayed the kind of first day most of them would not have survived.
Regulus continued, "You also accomplished something no other student managed during this assessment. You restored part of your Myst reserves within a heavily unstable zone. Even if the amount was small, the act itself required focus, control, and an understanding of Myst flow that many students here still lack. The environment was working against you, and yet you adapted."
The screen showed Liam seated in deep stillness inside the hollow chamber of the outcrop, restoring Myst slowly through the night, his body unmoving while the chamber remained dark around him. Then it shifted forward to his movements through the forest with Charlotte, the signs of Berserker activity, the corpses with missing cores, the damaged clearings, and the growing pressure within the eastern region.
Regulus’s eyes remained fixed on Liam. "Beyond that, you did what no one else dared to do."
The screen darkened slightly as the footage shifted.
The Berserker appeared.
Several students reacted despite themselves.
Some stiffened at the sight of the eight-foot-tall grotesque humanoid demon stepping through the smoke, dark red lightning crackling across its body. Others looked confused at first, as though hoping the image was not what they thought it was. But when the footage showed the demon speaking, even brokenly, and when Regulus said the name aloud, the hall’s silence became something heavier.
"You engaged a Berserker demon directly," Regulus said. "And you won."
This time, the students reacted again.
A few whispers broke out instantly, though they were much quieter than before. Some stared at the screen, visibly unwilling to believe what they were hearing. Others looked toward Liam as if seeing him differently, even if they did not want to.