Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

Half-an-hour ago, none of the spectators from outside Misty City had expected much from Celestina’s Disciples, thinking they were all too young and weak to go very far in this sudden tournament, but Eris Newton had just displayed incredible fighting spirit and abnormal strength for a girl her size, age, and cultivation.

Her opponent may have been taken by surprise, but a one-sided beating like that couldn’t be explained purely by luck, especially with Eris being at such a huge disadvantage in terms of raw specs.

The young descendant of Marquess Balfour clearly had a natural gift for combat. She was a born warrior who also trained incredibly hard.

The real masters present, the ones with a hundred or more years of life-and-death fighting experience, could tell from that single match that as long as Eris was allowed to grow and reach her full potential, she could become a terrifying monster on the battlefield.

With one such example already having been shown to them, many now couldn’t help wondering just what Eris’ Senior Brother was capable of.

Lucas was young, short, and ’supposedly’ weak, but no one dared to underestimate him now, especially not his opponent, a 16-years-old Sixth Step Vein Opening Realm girl named Brynn from the Northern Province.

Ordinarily, the outcome of this match would not be in question, but from the tense look on the older girl’s face, she was taking this battle extremely seriously, not allowing her opponent’s child-like image to distract her.

For his part, Lucas was grumbling to himself that he had to fight in the last round after Eris had shown off her strength, making everyone wary of what he might do.

Still, this was the lot he drew, literally, so he just had to deal with it.

Checking his opponent and seeing her wielding an axe and shield, Lucas rapidly tried to anticipate her strength and fighting style while coming up with a plan.

(Illustration in Chapter Comments)

Unfortunately, he hadn’t interacted much with Brynn before today, so the data available to him was woefully inadequate.

Guess I’ll just have to wing it and hope for the best, Lucas thought to himself before performing the opening salute and drawing a standard sword from his waist.

Why a sword, one might ask?

Because it was the weapon he was most familiar with. That’s all.

Seeing that the two combatants were prepared, the referee gave the signal to begin and... nothing happened.

Lucas remained where he was in a classic hanging-right defensive stance.

It was a daring gambit, allowing Brynn who was bigger, stronger, and faster than him to make the first move, but having been beaten up by Eris, Christina, Allina, his Master Celestina, and so many others who were much stronger than him over the past few months, Lucas had developed his own set of tactics for dealing with situations like this.

Brynn, on the other hand, was initially confused, but then became angry, thinking Lucas was looking down on her by remaining passive.

Frowning deeply, she gripped her axe tightly, lifted her shield, and charged forward.

Even if this boy was really despising her, Brynn wasn’t going to take Lucas lightly and intended to go all-out from the start.

Watching the older girl dash towards him, seemingly intending to bash him with her shield before finishing him off with her axe, Lucas quietly channeled his Soul Qi, enhancing his perception and senses to their limits.

5 steps away...

3 steps...

2 steps...

1 step...

Just as Brynn’s shield was about to make contact with his sword, Lucas surprisingly kicked hard off the ground with his leading leg, shifting his weight slightly to the side and allowing the girl’s momentum to help push him off her rounded buckler and pivot around to her left.

Now behind Brynn’s guard, on the opposite side she was holding her axe, Lucas allowed his sword to sweep upwards into an overhead stance and then slashed down with all his strength.

The whole sequence was completed in a single, fluid motion in less time than it took to blink, and for a moment, it looked like Lucas’ blade might just slip through the opening he had created and strike Brynn’s head, automatically making him the victor, but in a nearly feral feat of agility, the older girl managed to shift all of her weight to her right while still mid-charge and crash to the stage’s floor.

Lucas’ sword struck the very top of Brynn’s shield, its tip landing just shy of her now bulging eyes.

After having performed a heavy downward slash, Lucas wasn’t able to reset fast enough to deliver another strike before Brynn swung her axe low across the ground towards his feat, forcing him to retreat lest he have his legs chopped off.

At the same time Lucas withdrew, Brynn curled her back and swung her legs to perform a kip and return to her feet, sweat now dripping from her delicate brow as she realized how close she had come to being eliminated.

From the brief contact they made, Brynn was now certain she was at least twice as strong as Lucas, and more than 10% faster than him, but none of that had mattered in their clash.

If anything, Lucas had used her supposed strengths against her, taking advantage of her momentum to dodge her bash and then utilizing the opening created when she raced past him to strike behind her defences.

The timing for such an attack had to be perfect, with absolutely no margin for error, but Lucas had pulled that off like it was nothing, and there was a good reason for that.

"That boy just used Sense Projection, didn’t he?" Former King Hayden Rockwell asked incredulously.

"En," Celestina nodded casually, seemingly unbothered by this ridiculous truth.

"Would you mind telling us how exactly that’s possible?" Ava Dalton inquired pointedly, following up with the obvious, "I understand that he somehow managed to open his Soul Sea, but that still doesn’t explain why he can use Sense Projection."

Sense Projection, or Soul Sense Projection as it was formally known, was an ability that, just like it sounded, allowed an individual to fill the space around themselves with their Soul Sense, greatly increasing their ability to monitor their surroundings and react to threats.

Most cultivators learned to do this after breaking through to the Mid-Rank Soul Initiate Realm, but some more talented individuals could do so at the Low-Rank.

Lucas, however, was a Fourth Step Sea Establishment Practitioner, so by all conventional wisdom, he shouldn’t be able to use Sense Projection at all.

Many of the masters gathered in the audience turned to Celestina, silently asking her to explain.

Unfortunately for them, Celestina just shrugged her shoulders and answered flatly, "I have no idea."

"Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?" Natasha Summers gawked in a rare display of incredulity.

"Just as I said, I don’t know when or how he learned to do that," Celestina snickered, "I certainly didn’t teach him, nor did anyone else. As far as I can tell, he just figured it out on his own."