Chapter 125: Died without ever understanding
Seven hours after the survival round began, the city had been nearly demolished. Buildings that once stood shoulder to shoulder were now nothing but chunks of blackened concrete, roads cut through by massive craters, wrecked cars and debris piled into heaps. The electromagnetic dome overhead had shrunk to the point where a simple glance upward revealed blue-white currents crawling across its surface like countless snakes. The safe zone’s radius was just over five kilometers, and at the current pace, it would disappear entirely in another hour or two.
Cassian didn’t care. He was losing his mind.
BOOM! A concrete wall was punched clean through. Cassian tore through the room behind it, found no one, then kicked apart the remaining wall and leaped to the building across the way. S-rank Acceleration fired continuously, his body reduced to nothing but silver blurs streaking through the wreckage.
"Upstairs!"
A floor was smashed open, concrete dust raining down like a curtain. Empty. "Basement!" Cassian shot down the stairwell, and the steel door at the bottom had barely appeared before a metallized fist sent it flying off its frame. Still empty.
He stood in the middle of the pitch-dark parking garage, chest heaving, his breathing far heavier than before. The metal coating both arms was covered in scratches from countless battles, yet the aura radiating from his body was entirely different from a few hours ago.
One by one, they had died by his hand. Roamer. Irino. The geniuses of Zone 1, Zone 3, Zone 4, Zone 6. Even the two remaining members of his own Zone 7 were no exception. Some had extended a hand to propose cooperation, some had turned and fled, some had dropped to their knees and clutched his legs begging for mercy. Cassian killed them all.
Each body that dissolved left behind a portion of Trial Energy that flowed into him. At first the growth was obvious, but the further he went the less each person contributed. Still, over twenty geniuses combined had been enough to push Cassian’s body to the edge of a state he’d never touched before.
The notification before his eyes now showed only a single number.
[Representatives remaining: 2.]
One was him. The other was Ethan. But he couldn’t find Ethan.
Cassian slowly clenched both fists, metal joints grinding against each other with a grating screech. "Impossible."
He’d torn through nearly the entire remaining area: every building large enough to hide someone, every place a sound had echoed from. Several times he’d even deliberately created massive explosions in the open plazas to force a reaction, but the only answer was the sound of concrete collapsing. He’d spotted traces of crimson-violet electricity at the edge of the circle a few times, but when he arrived there was nothing left but scorched walls and glowing-red ground.
Cassian stepped out of the basement just as the dome in the distance shifted. Enormous currents of electricity poured down onto the newly excluded area, swallowing an entire row of buildings along the rim.
BOOM!
Blue-white light swept across his face. A thought had barely sparked before he crushed it: ’He can’t be out there.’ Outside the safe zone was a death trap; anyone who didn’t make it in died within seconds. Even if Laira had lightning-type power, Ethan couldn’t be insane enough to drag Ruo Yan out there too. So he had to be in here, just hiding.
"ETHAN!"
The roar tore through the city, bouncing off hollow building frames. No one answered.
"Weren’t you so good at pretending to be calm?!" He stomped down on the roof of a car. CRASH. The frame was crushed into a wad of scrap metal barely a handspan thick. "Get out here!"
Only the hum of electricity answered from the distance.
Cassian ground his teeth until the muscles in his jaw bulged. In his mind, Ethan’s face from the first round surfaced again. He’d scored over two million six hundred thousand, had used both of his abilities to overcome a trial deliberately designed to counter him. And that guy had just glanced over and dropped two words.
"That’s it?"
Those two words still sat in his chest like a shard of jagged metal. Then Ethan had gone and shattered the entire Measurement Sphere. Then Laira. Then Ruo Yan. Two Partners standing on either side of him, as if every good thing in the world just fell into that bastard’s hands on its own.
The more he thought, the heavier Cassian’s breathing grew. "He’s nothing without his Partners," he muttered. "Just riding on luck."
One hand reached into the pouch at his hip. When he pulled it out, in his palm sat a deep crimson orb the size of a thumb tip, the thing Marcus Vane had pressed into his hand before entering the Gate, an item capable of forcibly detonating his latent potential for a short time and pushing his combat power beyond its current limits. According to the original plan, it was meant only for an opponent he truly couldn’t handle.
Cassian stared at the orb for a few seconds, then tossed it straight into his mouth.
Crack.
His teeth crushed the shell, and dark red energy flooded down his throat. A second later, his back arched forward, every tendon in his neck rising like cords of rope.
"Ngh..."
BOOM! A wave of energy erupted from his body, blasting stone debris off the ground in a radius of dozens of meters. Body Metallization spread on its own, skin turning silver-gray, joints cracking in a continuous chain, muscles beneath the metal layer swelling as though pulled taut by some invisible force.
His base level was still Silver tier ten, but the energy now coursing through him had completely surpassed the limits of any Silver: energy plundered from over twenty geniuses, S-rank Acceleration, A-rank Body Metallization, plus Marcus’s burst orb.
Cassian slowly straightened up. A grin stretched across his metallic face.
"Hahaha..."
He raised one hand and squeezed lightly. The air around his fist popped. "Peak Gold?" He took stock of his body once more. Maybe even beyond that. Right now, even if a real Gold tier ten stood before him, he didn’t believe he’d lose.
"Ethan." Cassian looked up at the electrified sky. "Let’s see how much longer you can hide."
His legs buckled, Acceleration activated. BOOM! The ground exploded and Cassian launched skyward. It wasn’t a flight skill; he was simply using raw power to kick off chunks of concrete, wall surfaces, and even air compressed to the absolute limit beneath his feet to keep accelerating. A sonic boom rang out, a white shockwave blooming around his body.
At an altitude of several hundred meters, Cassian’s metal body reflected the lightning above. From this height, nearly the entire remaining safe zone lay beneath him, but the buildings still blocked too many angles.
Cassian looked down, the corner of his mouth curving. "If I can’t find him... then I’ll destroy everything."
Acceleration continued. His body changed direction in midair, head angled downward, both metal arms pressed tight against his chest. Every ounce of power accumulated through hours of fighting and the crimson orb was concentrated into a single point. From the ground looking up, he resembled a silver meteorite falling from the sky.
CRASH!!!
The entire area shook. The road surface was driven dozens of meters inward, the nearest buildings simultaneously lost their windows, concrete walls splitting open before collapsing. A ring of shockwave swept across the city, hurling dirt, stone, and vehicles into the air, cracks spreading outward from the central crater in all directions like a colossal spiderweb.
Cassian rose to his feet in the crater, eyes sweeping continuously through the rubble. A building toppled. A plaza overturned. Basement levels shattered by the tremor lay exposed under the light.
No Ethan.
The grin on his face froze. "...Where?" He turned left, then right, pupils jumping from one pile of rubble to the next with increasing speed. "What the..."
A chill ran down the back of his neck.
Cassian looked up. Very far away, a crimson-violet point of light had just appeared. Very small. But the speed...
His pupils contracted.
The beam crossed over five kilometers in nearly the blink of an eye. No time to dodge, S-rank Acceleration hadn’t even fully engaged, and all Cassian could do was cross both arms in front of his chest on instinct. Body Metallization was pushed to its absolute limit, the metal layer thickening one level, two levels, three levels.
Then the beam arrived.
Whoosh.
A sound so faint he almost didn’t hear it. His body remained standing. One second. Two seconds.
Cassian frowned. ’Blocked it?’
He slowly looked down. Between his crossed arms was a round hole the size of a thumb, the metal edges around it still glowing red. His gaze dropped lower. Behind both arms, his chest had an identical hole, and light from behind his back shone straight through it, a clean line, through both arms, through the ribcage, out the back.
Cassian opened his mouth. No sound came out.
The Metallization coating his body began receding, exposing pale white flesh beneath. ’What?’ He didn’t feel pain yet, only felt his body suddenly grow lighter, the strength that had just made him believe he could match peak Gold leaving him with every heartbeat.
Cassian’s knees buckled slightly.
In that very brief moment, countless images flooded back all at once. The day he awakened S-rank Acceleration, the eruption of cheers from his entire family. The day the Academy called his name among Zone 7’s strongest geniuses. The portions of resources always pushed in front of him first. The trainer bowing his head when speaking of his potential. Marcus Vane personally selecting him as a representative. Then Roamer, Irino, Serah, the over twenty geniuses who had just died by his hand in this trial, all of their power now residing in his body. He’d even used Marcus’s orb. He’d become strong enough to rival Gold tier ten.
So why?
Cassian tried to raise his head, wanting to see who had struck. In his field of vision there were only ruined buildings and a horizon more than five kilometers away.
’I haven’t even...’
He hadn’t even seen Ethan, hadn’t seen Laira, hadn’t gotten to start the battle he’d waited seven hours for. One strike. Just one strike from a distance he couldn’t even see. Both arms with triple-layered Metallization pierced through like paper.
’This isn’t right.’ Cassian wanted to shake his head, but his body no longer obeyed. ’I’m...’
Thud. Both knees hit the ground, then his entire body collapsed forward, face slamming into the cracked stone.
His eyes were still open, the disbelief in them fully intact. White light began enveloping his body, and up until the very moment consciousness sank entirely into darkness, Cassian still couldn’t understand one thing: he had become that powerful, so why had he died so easily?
Outside the Trial Gate, nobody spoke.
The central screen was split in two. One side showed Cassian lying face-down in the impact crater, his body gradually dissolving into light. The other showed Laira, standing on the rooftop of a building over five kilometers away, her long red hair blown back by the wind, her frame of nearly two meters twenty striking against the shrinking electromagnetic dome.
Half of her Thunder Wing unfurled behind her, its metallic feathers brimming with electrical radiance. Her right hand was still raised, index and middle fingers pressed together and pointed into the distance like a gun barrel, the tips still trailing wisps of crimson-violet Thunder Flame that hadn’t fully dissipated.
Ethan stood a few steps behind her, Ruo Yan at his side. None of the three looked like people who had just been through a fight, because they truly hadn’t been through one.
A representative in the observation room swallowed hard. "The distance..."
The person beside him glanced at the readout. "Over five kilometers."
"Cassian just used a burst item."
"I know."
"His Metallization..." The man left the sentence hanging. There was no need to finish; the entire room had already seen it: both arms pierced clean through, the chest as well, not a single fraction of resistance.
The gazes in the room slowly shifted toward the Silver Moon City section, where Xue Ji was seated. This time even she needed a few seconds to fully recover her composure. The dark-haired secretary beside her had completely forgotten about maintaining appearances, her mouth hanging open at the screen before she turned to stare at Xue Ji.
"You..."
"Yeah." Xue Ji answered first. "I know."
The secretary watched her for a few more seconds. "You just flinched."
"No I didn’t."
"I saw it."
"You saw wrong."
The secretary: "..."
In the Zone 7 section, Marcus Vane didn’t say a single word. His face shifted continuously, from shock to disbelief, then settling into something cold, his eyes finally darkening to the point where they seemed ready to bore through the screen.
Cassian had used the orb, and Marcus knew exactly how powerful the thing he’d given was, and on top of that had absorbed the energy of nearly every participant. Yet he’d still died. A single strike.
He slowly turned toward Adrian Cole, who was still watching Ethan on screen. A long time passed before Marcus spoke.
"You’ve got a fine student there."
His tone was ordinary to the point of being bland, but the chill in every word made Cole turn his head. Marcus had already risen to his feet. Without waiting for a reply, he turned and left the observation room, the door closing behind him. Cole watched for a few seconds, then silently returned his gaze to the screen.
The other representatives gradually regained themselves as well, and the way they looked toward Xue Ji had changed, there was envy, wariness, and a touch of anxiety. A Silver Moon City that had only been regarded as an emerging faction now possessed a representative like Ethan.
If he died early, there’d be nothing worth discussing. But if he lived, five years from now, ten years from now, who knew what that place would become.
At the chairman’s seat, Thanh Lien remained still, her teacup held between slender fingers. Her gaze rested on Ethan’s screen, shifted to Laira, then returned to Ethan. The corner of her mouth curved involuntarily, a real smile, very faint, but distinctly clearer than all the times before.
Only a few seconds later she caught herself, and the smile vanished at once. Thanh Lien calmly raised the tea to her lips, as though nothing had ever happened.