Chapter 91: Round End, Top 3
"Nineteen crowns for the mystery man from Earth," Vann announced past the second hour. "And folks, that number would be a career highlight for most competitors in this arena, but he’s treating it like a warm-up. Somebody get this man a sponsorship, I don’t even care what he drinks."
Nineteen wasn’t the number to watch, though.
A separate leaderboard scrolled along the broadcast’s edge, and one name had held the top of it since the round’s second hour while everyone else fought to keep pace.
Vyra Ashgrove. Crowns: 31.
Up on the viewing terrace, Kyrsa leaned forward fast enough to nearly upend her drink.
"That’s a stupid number," she said. "That’s a genuinely stupid number for this stage of the round."
"Your friend’s is stupider," Ordun pointed out, nodding at Aidan’s climbing tally. "Nineteen and rising like the crowd’s a buffet."
"Two stupid numbers," Kyrsa allowed. "Fine. This is a good broadcast."
Down in the chaos, Aidan’s hum caught on Vyra the same way it had caught on Ouja, resonating against his awareness on a frequency he recognized instantly. This time the recognition ran both directions at once.
A kilometer away, a young woman with storm-grey eyes and hair like poured silver stopped mid-strike, turned her head, and looked directly at him as though she’d heard her own name spoken aloud.
’A third one.’ Aidan’s grin spread wide and genuine. ’Two of us from Earth is a coincidence. Three in the same arena is a pattern.’
Vyra didn’t approach, and she didn’t posture either. She held his gaze for one long, measuring moment, then returned to her fight and cut down a pair of ambushers with a technique that folded space around her blade in tight, economical arcs.
’Not interested in a clash. Interested in the count.’ Aidan turned back toward his own hunting ground, thoroughly entertained now. ’Then let’s see who finishes ahead.’
He hunted harder after that, driven by nothing more complicated than the delight of finally finding a race worth running.
A squad of six working a rotating shield formation lost the concept of formation entirely when Silence ate their commands, and he picked them apart one at a time in the confusion.
A Spirit Art user answered him with a full elemental storm, so Aidan waded straight into the center of it. Shadowfrost ate the storm’s heat from the inside until the whole thing guttered into freezing mist.
A stubborn duo tried a corrosive talent built to eat through armor and resolve alike, which was almost funny. Aidan met their rot with his own borrowed Disgust until their technique curdled and consumed itself, and the pair stared down at their dissolving hands with matching expressions of betrayal.
An old, grizzled veteran lasted longer than anyone else, trading real blows for nearly a full minute before a Wrathspiral Lance held to a whisper of its true power finally cracked his guard.
"Good round," the man wheezed, sitting down where he’d been standing.
"You too, senior," Aidan said, and meant it.
[Crown earned. Total: 22.]
[Crown earned. Total: 24.]
[Crown earned. Total: 27.]
The arena thinned steadily after that. Hundreds became dozens, and dozens became a scattered, wary handful as every survivor grew painfully aware that three names on the leaderboard belonged to something the rest of them weren’t equipped to compete with.
Once the count crossed eleven hundred, most Hunters stopped hunting each other entirely and started very sensibly avoiding all three leaders, running out the clock in the arena’s furthest corners instead.
Aidan let them. There was a certain mercy in not making a slaughter out of people who had already conceded.
The final hour wound down with the top three locked in place and crowns climbing in smaller increments as targets grew scarce. When the containment array finally chimed its closing signal, one hundred exhausted Hunters stood scattered across a battlefield that looked like it had survived a small war.
[SECOND ROUND CONCLUDED. One hundred Legendary-rank Hunters advance.]
[Final Crown Standings.]
[1st: Vyra Ashgrove. Crowns: 47.]
[2nd: Garen. Crowns: 44.]
[3rd: Dorian Bullcroft. Crowns: 39.]
"FORTY-SEVEN," Vann’s voice rang across every screen in Cloud Whirl space, cracking with disbelief. "Vyra Ashgrove takes it by the narrowest of margins over our mystery man Garen, and young Dorian Bullcroft of the Bullcroft Dominion rounds out a genuinely historic top three!
"I have never seen a spread like this in nine seasons of calling this tournament, folks. That Library invitation just became very, very interesting."
Up on the terrace, Sella whistled low. "Forty-four crowns and he still lost."
"By three." Veshan shook his head slowly. "Whoever this Vyra is, remind me never to owe her money."
"Remind me to buy her a drink," Kyrsa said, already draining her own.
Aidan stood amid the wreckage and breathed easy, then glanced across the ruined arena to where Vyra Ashgrove watched him from her own shattered pillar.
She was no odinary folk. Nope.
Aidan couldn’t inspect her, and that’d make her a Transcendent Player.
She inclined her head, slow and deliberate, and there was something like respect in it.
’I suppose there’s no need for us to form an enmity.’
Aidan returned the gesture and let himself grin.
He didn’t really want to hunt other Transcendent Players right now. He was still in one of the thousands of small realms. There were also way stronger Transcendent Players already in the upper realms, so he had to survive until he reach there first.
Of course, Ouja Sinclair was a different case. That man schemed against him, and he could do that again, so Aidan wanted to eliminate him at an opportunity.
Somewhere far behind him, at the very edge of his senses, a thin curl of black smoke drifted across empty air and thinned away before he could turn toward it.
’Heh, he left already. But he got himself a spot in top 100.’ Aidan’s eyes glinted.
However, there was one more filter remaining. Out of 100 Legendary-rank Hunters that passed today, only 30 would enter the Origin Tomb.
’I suppose I’ll make sure that you are not one of the top 30. That’d be fun.’