Chapter 51: Rank 2 Achieved
The vent spat him out behind a collapsed section of bleachers.
Holden landed in a crouch on the arena floor. The black mist curled around him like living smoke, thick enough to choke on, dark enough to blind anyone without enhanced senses.
Good thing he wasn’t anyone.
His 1,000x multiplier didn’t just amplify his training. It processed sensory information at impossible speeds. The mist was full of sound if you knew how to listen. The faint vibration of legs on the ground. The subtle shift in air pressure when something large moved.
He could see them.
Not with his eyes but with everything else.
Six Abyssal Hounds were circling the ice wall Lyra had built. They pawed at the frozen surface, testing it, finding the cracks. Three Crawlers were creeping along the rubble to the east. And somewhere in the the arena, close to the rift, something massive was moving with slow, thundering steps.
Holden drew his Star-Forged sword.
He moved.
He moved through the darkness like a ghost. His gale-Step activated at full power, but he hid the visual effect. There was no blur and no streak of light.
The first hound didn’t hear him coming.
Swish.
Its head separated from its body before it could turn. The corpse dropped without a sound.
[Ding! +80 KP]
The second hound jumped at the ice wall. Holden was already behind it.
Swish.
[Ding! +80 KP]
Third. Fourth. Fifth.
The hounds died in the span of four seconds without making a sound loud enough to echo.
[Ding! +80 KP]
[Ding! +80 KP]
[Ding! +80 KP]
The Crawlers were next. They were harder to approach silently because of their many legs clicking against the floor. Holden adapted. He timed his movements to the rhythm of their steps, closing the gap during the tiny gaps between clicks.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
Three Crawlers dead. Not enough.
[Ding! +100 KP]
[Ding! +100 KP]
[Ding! +100 KP]
More beasts were scattered across the arena floor. He could feel them. He could sense the distortions they made in the mist as they moved. He picked them off one by one as he moved toward the center of the ruined stage.
A pack of five smaller Abyssal Stalkers near the eastern bleachers. He killed them with quick, quiet swings of his sword.
[Ding! +60 KP] x5
He found two armored Sentinels guarding some rubble. He broke through their thick armor with flawless aim, targeting the exact joint gaps Maeve had described from her Bestiary research.
[Ding! +150 KP] x2
Then he found what he was lookng for.
The championship display pedestal had been thrown on its side by the shockwave. The reinforced glass case was shattered, but the contents had barely moved. Inside was a single core that pulsed with warm, golden light.
The Rank 2 Thunder-Ape Core.
First Place prize. His ticket to Rank 2.
He picked it up. The core buzzed in his palm, its internal lightning channels flickering like tiny veins of captured thunder.
His foundation was at 100 percent. Fully stabilized and ready.
He swallowed it.
The effect was instant.
A roaring wave of energy exploded from his stomach and flooded every channel in his body. Lightning and astra energy merged into a single violent current that screamed through his meridians like a hurricane.
His 1,000x multiplier caught it.
The system compressed the breakthrough energy perfectly. What should have been a blinding light show visible through the mist was crushed down to a faint inner glow that never reached his skin. The lightning channels inside the core aligned with his meridians, guiding the energy into perfect formation.
His bones hardened all at once. They felt like metal cables being fused together under extreme heat. His muscles compacted. His skin tightened. Every cell in his body upgraded in an instant.
[Ding!]
[Rank 2 Thunder-Ape Core absorbed.]
[Lightning-channel alignment: Perfect.]
[Meridian restructuring: Complete.]
[BREAKTHROUGH ACHIEVED.]
[Welcome to Rank 2 (1-Star).]
The notification burned bright in his mind and faded.
Holden flexed his hand.
The air cracked.
A tiny spark of gold lightning flickered between his fingers, vanishing before it could even cast a shadow. Despite how small it was, the force behind it was incredible. He felt the change in every muscle and bone. He wasn’t just stronger. He was operating on a completely different scale now.
A roar shook the arena.
The massive thing he’d sensed near the rift was moving. Fast. The mist parted around its body as it pushed forward blindly, enraged and searching for prey.
Abyssal Titan. Rank 2, 9-Star. The biggest thing in the arena.
Holden moved toward it.
He ran this time. His new Rank 2 speed turned the dark arena into a blur of motion. The Titan saw him too late. It swung a massive arm the size of a tree trunk.
Holden jumped.
He rose above the arm, above the Titan’s head, above the mist itself for a single moment. His Star-Forged sword burned with Asura’s Ignition, red and gold energy wrapping around the metal like a living flame.
He brought the sword down.
Swish.
The flawless strike sliced through the Titan’s skull from crown to jaw. The blade didn’t slow down. It kept going, splitting the beast’s entire upper body in a single vertical line that exited through its chest.
The Titan’s roar cut off mid-sound.
It hit the ground like a collapsed building.
BOOM.
[Ding!]
[Abyssal Titan (Rank 2, 9-Star) eliminated.]
[+1,000 KP]
[Balance: 5,790 KP]
The ground shook from the impact. The mist rippled outward in a ring.
Then, from outside the barrier, a sound like thunder.
CRACK.
The golden barrier shattered. Instructor Vespera’s Rank 4 punch finally broke through the corrupted ward. Fresh air flooded into the arena like a tidal wave, blowing the pitch-black mist aside in massive rolling clouds.
Light returned.
Holden was already gone.
He’d slipped back through the maintenance vent the moment the Titan fell. By the time the mist cleared enough for anyone to see the arena floor, he was dropping through the vent grate into the underground tunnel, landing silently behind his team.
He kept his sword and wiped a smear of dark blood off his jacket.
The tunnel was full of light now. Emergency crystals embedded in the ceiling had activated when the barrier broke. Renna and Emric were helping freshmen to their feet. Maeve was still pressed against Lyra’s side, holding her hand.
Renna spun around when she heard him land.
"Holden! You’re back! What happened out there? We heard that huge crash!"
Holden shrugged.
"Guess the monster tripped in the dark."