Chapter 222: The Competition 6
"FIRST TO OBTAIN A SPHERE, KAAL VON SANGUINE!!"
"What?!" Mayura instantly frowned upon hearing the announcement.
"What do you intend to do, I wonder, bat ears?" The distasteful human asked, still sitting on his chair.
"That’s none of your business, human." Mayura hissed at the new way of address. She hadn’t expected anyone to get a sphere this fast, and even if she did, it would be most probably herself, or her brother. She least of all expected a demon to get to it first.
"Indeed it isn’t." Damon shrugged and stood up from his chair, and with a wave of his arm, the chair disappeared. Then cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders, Damon began to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Mayura frowned.
"You know, this is the time where I tell you it’s none of your business." Damon turned back. "So... Its none of your business." He said before disappearing from his spot like a silent spectre.
A moment later, Damon reappeared from a puddle of water far on the ground, at the other side of the apocalyptic city. His mirror sense, or was it mirror sight?, had caught someone familiar through some of the reflections in the apocalyptic city.
And there, a few dozen meters away, stood the figure. But it seemed the figure also noticed Damon.
"You, come here." The figure made an inviting gesture with their fingers.
Damon obliged, and walk calmly towards the figure, even though inwardly, he was trying to stop himself from laughing.
He soon reached the figure. "You, what is your name?" The figure asked.
"My name is Lucas Gates." Damon replied.
"I am Calum Forge, a heir of House Forge." Calum remarked proudly. "Which Empire are you from?" Calum asked with the air of a high society socialite.
This time, however, Damon frowned.
"Why should I tell you? Who even are you?"
"You... I just said I’m a heir of House Forge , do you realize how high my status is?" Calum almost flew into a race, but controlled himself.
’A noble flaunting his status in front of a royal, that’s not something you see everyday.’ Damon thought amused.
"Why should I care about your status?" Damon smirked. "To me it doesn’t matter even if you’re the emperor of the Ashton empire, the overlord of the entire Drakara continent."
"..."
"What? Cat got your tongue?" Damon asked after rendering Calum speechless.
"Tch, you’re lucky we’re both humans." Calum’s body twitched as if he was barely suppressing the urge to get violent within him, which to be fair, he was. "Were you to be a member of another race, I would have punched your head off."
"Ohhh, I’m so scared." Damon raised both hands faux terror. "You think some little speech could scare me?" Damon’s smirk returned.
"You bastard, now I recognize you!" Calum pointed at Damon in recognition. "You were the idiot who dared to ask Rose and Anastasia for a dance during the banquet two days ago."
"I should have known you’re restarted." Calum continued with a smirk. "You think they’d ever want to dance with a toad like yourself? You wish."
At that, Damon put on a meek and wistful expression. "Sigh, at least I was only rejected for a dance. I asked some lover boy’s love was rejected, truly a cruel world." Damon wiped fake tears from the corner of his eyes.
"I was not rejected!" Calum exclaimed in protest.
"Really?" Damon’s smirk returned. "That wasn’t what I heard."
"That is not..." Calum began, but suddenly stopped mid sentence. His hand blurred towards his face in a grasping motion.
A small shockwave that blew Calum’s hair backwards echoed as his hand closed in front of his face.
Calum’s eyes narrowed as he opened his hand. There, a small insect with a pointed bottom lay crushed. And looking closely, it’s pointed bottom seemed to be tainted with a purple glossy substance.
’Poison.’ He thought grimly.
"Over there." Damon pointed, pulling Calum out of his thoughts.
Calum sprang his head in the direction Damon pointed at, and there, a vast number of the same poisoned insect crushed in his hand were flying towards their direction at full speed.
"It’s an elf at perched atop that building over there." Damon pointed at the top of a half destroyed building in the direction the swarm was coming from.
Calum didn’t need to be told twice. He clenched his hand, operating his technique at maximum capacity.
<Arise dragon: Piercing burst>
Calum took a stance and punched in the direction of the swarm, creating a massive air pressure that blew all the insects apart and razed the building the elf has been standing perched upon to crumbling debris. The elf did not survive that.
Clap! Clap!
A clapping sound echoed next to Calum.
"Wow, who would have thought that your strength is high enough to cope with your big mouth? I certainly didn’t expect that." Damon nodded in mock acknowledgedment.
Though, inwardly, he was slightly amazed at the power of the strike, and he managed to gain a few more insights to add to his own copied technique.
’Tch, I shouldn’t have controlled my attack in such a way that this human wouldn’t be hurt.’ Calum thought darkly, looking at the annoying face of the young man next to him.
In order not to hurt Damon, Calum had controlled his attack so it only went in one direction, rather than omnidirectional. But he was clearly starting to regret that choice.
"Good, now that you’ve successfully killed an elf in front of the Elven princess, she rushing over here, and I guess, not to just give you a piece of her mind." Damon chuckled. He could see Mayura rushing here due to the commotion.
Of course Damon knew she definitely didn’t know about the elf’s death, and from her personality in the novel, she most likely wouldn’t care about it even if she knew, but Calum didn’t know that.
"What do you mean?" Calum asked, puzzled.
"What I mean is, the elf princess is rushing here, and guessing from your visit to the information hub a day earlier, I’m guessing you know she’s at the Zeta rank." Damon smirked.
Calum’s eyes narrowed at that. He couldn’t afford getting entangled with a Zeta- ranked this early in the game.
"But of course, if you’re willing to show me the hidden nuances of that technique of yours, I might consider helping." Damon said.
"Absolutely not!" Calum instantly protested. "Don you think I’m stupid?"
’Well, I do kind of consider you stupid.’ Damon thought, but voices out nothing.
"I can smell your greediness from a mile away, and no, I’m not teaching you anything." Calum disagreed.
At that point, Mayura reached the two, but stayed quite a distance away. Even if she felt both humans could do nothing to her, she still had to be cautious.
Apart from the commotion from earlier, another reason why she headed here was that she had checked the map, a sphere was shooting towards this direction, and she had to be here if she wanted to get it.
"Look who’s finally here." The human from before turned in her direction with a smile.
Shw ignored him completely and instead turned to the other humans in the vicinity. ’Tsk, another vile human.’ She clicked her tongue. It would have been better if it were those horned fools, or one of those fish people. At least then, it could be every man, or, rather, woman for themselves when the sphere reached here.
But now, she was no doubt sure that both humans would team up to fight her together for it. Not that she was afraid, just that it would become too much of a hassle.
Damon meanwhile, noticing Mayura’s silence felt something was wrong, as if she was stalking for time. He quickly spread his mirror awareness to its limits in search for anything unusual, or.perhaps another elf coming to aid Mayura, but found nothing.
’What could she possibly be standing there for?’ he thought.
"Hey, what are you lost in?" Calum suddenly asked, breaking Damon out of his thoughts. "It doesn’t look like that elf is going to attack, we had better off go looking for those spheres."
As soon as Calum said that, it was like a lightning bolt had gone off in Damon’s mins..That was it, the spheres.
"Map." Damon muttered without hesitation. In a blink, the map appeared before his eyes. He took but a moment to gaze at it, before he suddenly turned to Mayura with a broad smile.
"Very sly of you indeed, bat ears."
"What do you mean?" She frowned, a premonition coming over her.
"A sphere is heading towards this place, and you couldn’t in good faith tell us?" Damon asked feigning a hurt expression. "God, you wound me."
"What?!" Calum suddenly called for his own map and confirmed for himself. Almost instantly, he from on a combat stance.
"It’s almost here, get out of here!" He said to Damon and faced Mayura.
"While the sentiments are quite appreciated," Damon stepped forward. "I am far from defenseless.
"I didn’t want to kill anyone this early in the game." Mayura muttered as she straightened. "But I guess you both will be first blood." Her rapier appeared in her hand.
Damon smiled.
"By all means, you are welcome to try, bat ears."
******
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