Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 197 – Death!

"Finally got you, you little son of a bitch." Omar said with a cold, mocking smile on his face, his voice reverberating far and wide, reaching every single spectator.

Cassius’s brain froze for a brief instant at the insult, his mind trying to process what he had just heard.

However, that window of time was all Omar needed. He gripped Cassius’s leg hard and swung him straight toward the river below, increasing at the same time the density of the space around his body, sending him crashing into the water with resounding velocity.

The impact of his back against the water knocked the precious breath out of Cassius’s body, sending a wall of water spluttering upward and spraying droplets everywhere.

Then his body sank, dragged down by his increased weight, and with his mouth instinctively open from the pain of the impact, water surged inside him in a cascade, choking him from within.

Emrys Stormblessed looked at Omar, tempted to attack, but abandoned the idea at the last second. His opponent was not Omar.

It was Cassius.

And with that in mind, Emrys lifted his right hand high into the sky, then slashed downward in a slow, drawling motion.

The air sizzled and burned as dozens of golden bolts of lightning struck the river below repeatedly, transforming it into a river crackling with golden lightning here and there.

At that time, Theophane was levitating in the sky thanks to an artifact, holding the still-sleeping Esmeray in her right hand. She watched blankly, completely emotionless, at the sight of such terrible power.

She lifted her head and looked at Emrys, and saw in his handsome face the features of her own sister, Évangile. Her lips pursed into a tight line before she shook her head inwardly.

’As I expected, he didn’t bring his maid with him.’ Theophane thought. ’Océane Terre, that was her name, wasn’t it? The maid of Cassius Desdemona? That’s enough information to divine where a simple person like her would be.’

Theophane decided to disappear from this battlefield as fast as possible and go take Océane with her.

For some reason, she didn’t want Cassius to win. Something in her found an innate distaste for him, as though he was everything she hated combined into one person.

Her eyes went colder.

Omar, meanwhile, did not stop after his attack. Mouth wide open in loud, mocking laughter, he teleported just above the crackling water. He clicked his fingers, and dozens of space blades, invisible to the naked eye, manifested above him.

"Hahahah!" He laughed harder, then fired the space blades, perfectly pinpointing Cassius’s location thanks to the essence already on his body.

However, at that exact moment — just as the space blades were about to slice through the lightning-charged water and pierce Cassius all over — the Last Born of the Desdemona snapped his eyes wide open.

He ignored the numbing pain throughout his body, the burns and the lack of breath that were darkening his mind toward unconsciousness.

Yet even in that state, nothing existed in his mind except one single thought.

’Did... did he just call my mother... a bitch?’

His mother? Of him, Cassius Desdemona?

Someone had insulted his own mother?

As that thought settled deep within his mind, something Cassius had rarely felt in either of his lifetimes exploded inside his heart and spread through his body and mind.

A sea of anger, scorching and merciless, burned away all rationality within him.

At that point, the space blades were already upon him, and with his body partially paralysed by the lightning-water, Cassius was unable to evade all of them.

Five of the space blades pierced him, one landing straight in his left eye. However, the force of the attack was far too weak to destroy an eyepatch created by his Goddess.

Still, it was strong enough to detach the eyepatch from his face, sending it falling into the water, finally revealing Cassius’s left eye to the whole world.

And instantly, the hiss of a snake echoed across the entire Testing Ground. Then the roar of a dragon followed soon after, making Omar, Emrys, and Theophane — who had not yet left — freeze in place, feeling as though a dragon were poised at their necks.

The world was drowned in a suffocating silence.

And in that silence, Cassius’s voice echoed, cold and murderous.

"Burn."

A blistering crimson fire spawned and spread through the river immediately, evaporating it in a heartbeat as if it were nothing.

Crimson mist was born from that act, cloaking the surroundings in a sight worthy of a nightmare.

At that instant, Theophane’s eyes widened, and without any hesitation — guided by her Seer instinct — she threw Esmeray away from her and activated, for the first time ever, her Second Skill: Fate Concealment!

Her body literally melted away and became absolute nothingness. And that nothingness was absorbed back into the world, then into the threads of Fate of the Testing Ground itself.

Omar Ibn Omar, meanwhile, did not have the instinct of a Seer. So before his danger sense could howl, a tower of fire burst up from below. The fire died down almost immediately, and he found Cassius’s face in front of him before he could even blink.

Omar took a step back, his heart pounding as he looked at Cassius’s face literally burning with a wild, almost living crimson fire. Nothing of his body could be seen except his left eye.

And that was not the eye of a human being.

It was the eye of a dragon.

No thought flashed through Omar’s mind before a mind-blowing punch struck his right eye. His eye exploded, and the flesh around it burned completely.

The punch was so strong that the impact echoed like an explosion, propelling Omar backward like a loosed arrow, faster than anything.

Yet Cassius was even faster. He followed Omar closely and appeared in front of him again.

He punched again, but this time Omar had time to teleport out of his attack range.

Cassius snapped his head to the side like a monstrous beast, seeing Omar appear in complete fright, half his face cracked and burned.

Wordlessly, his body flickered like a candle blown out by wind, and manifested behind his opponent. His hand shot out to seize his neck, but he had barely touched his clothes when Omar teleported again, this time shouting in fear.

However, this time, before Omar even reappeared, Cassius’s left eye glowed, and for an instant, he was able to see the flow of essence all around him.

Cassius turned his head toward a spot where the essence was gathering strangely, and arrived there just in time to see Omar reappear.

Omar opened his mouth to scream, only for Cassius’s hands to snap forward and grip his mouth at each side, top and bottom.

The Last Born then forcefully pried Omar’s mouth wider and wider, until it felt as though the man would split apart. But before it reached that point, Cassius stopped.

His left eye glowed brighter and brighter, so bright it seemed his eye had become nothing but fire. Then a small sphere of yellow fire appeared at the entrance of Omar’s mouth.

Death!

’I’M GOING TO DIE!’ Omar bellowed inwardly, his eyes bulging with existential terror as the sphere of fire dropped into his mouth.

Then a pain never before felt seized his mind, and he blanked out completely as death grasped his soul and began dragging him toward the Gate of Death.

It was faster than anything.

Omar’s body burned to complete ash in seconds...and as the ashes began to scatter into the wind, time around Omar came to a complete halt.

The voice echoed, this time carrying a note of shock that had not been present since the beginning.

<Omar Ibn Omar has been eliminated from the Test by Cassius Desdemona. He will hold the 22nd spot... after being resurrected by the Vice Dean.>

<Cassius has eliminated the owner of one of the keys he possesses. He gains 5,000 EP.>

<The Key of Nourou Faim is now in the hands of Cassius Desdemona.>

Then the voice stopped.

And before him, Cassius watched time rewind — Omar’s body reforming from ashes back into his full body.

Afterward, he disappeared, transported out of the Testing Ground.

The spectators watching the scene were completely silent, dazed, their hearts shuddering at the sight of Cassius’s current appearance.

The nobles said nothing, speechless, while Ulrich wore a tight frown.

The Desdemona showed no emotion this time, all of them wearing a face just like Cassius.

Cold and expressionless.

Back in the Testing Ground, the crimson mist had already vanished, now revealing the harrowing sight of the barren land.

But Cassius paid no mind to any of that. He lifted his head and stared at Emrys Stormblessed, who was staring down at him.

The two young men said nothing, only looking at each other.

After a moment, as if realizing something, Emrys sighed under his breath and pulled off his shirt, revealing his forearms and his whole body riddled with golden tattoos of an unknown language.

His sword spawned in his right hand, already drawn from its black cloth: the beautiful, living sword now visible to the whole Kingdom.

Then Emrys took his stance and stared at Cassius’s face, or more accurately, at the only place where no crimson fire obscured his vision.

His left eye.

Emrys Stormblessed smiled faintly, sensing a faint tremor within his body.

’A Characteristic, huh?’

"Nice eye you’ve got there." He said, lightning slowly covering his entire body, growing stronger and stronger. "I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back today, Cassius."

The heavens darkened.

Lightning began to dance across them, and rain started to pour.

A storm was slowly coming.

Cassius Desdemona, meanwhile, said nothing at all.

Instead, with a flick of his finger, a harmless cloud of fire scooped up Esmeray from the ground, still unconscious.

He sent her away from the battlefield after making sure she was unharmed, then refocused on Emrys Stormblessed.

He took his stance, and behind him, dozens of crimson portals opened, spilling out crimson chains that slithered around him like snakes.

He parted his lips and spoke, his voice like hundreds of wrathful dragons speaking in unison:

"Round Two."

—End of Chapter 197—