Chapter 99: The 30 Legendary-rank Chosen
One hundred Legendary-rank Hunters stood in a single long row across the same platform that had broken five hundred Epic-rank hopefuls, and the five stand devices waited exactly where they’d been left.
"Last filter, folks." Vann Corel’s voice rang out with none of his usual playfulness. "One hundred of you. Thirty of you walk away with a seat on the Origin Tomb Expedition."
[FINAL ROUND: SIMULATED COMBAT TRIAL. Each participant faces a VR construct of an Early-stage Divine-rank Terror. Survive as long as possible, or defeat it outright.]
’Huh? Same type of selection process as the Epic-rank Hunters?’ Aidan raised his eyebrows. ’Looks like this won’t let me impede Ouja’s selection.’
’But the Origin Tomb sounds like a good place to bury him too.’
[Only comprehended powers and owned talents may be used. No summons. No borrowed strength.]
[Ranking determined by survival time or victory. Top thirty advance.]
"An Early-stage Divine-rank construct," Vann continued, "against Legendary-rank Hunters. That’s not an unfair fight, folks, that’s a slaughter waiting to happen unless somebody in this row is genuinely exceptional." He paused. "Let’s find out who is."
The first construct materialized, and it looked nothing like the humanoid brute the Epic-rankers had faced. This one stood cloaked in drifting violet mist, four arms ending in curved talons, a crown of black flame guttering above a face with too many eyes.
The first Hunter lasted six seconds.
...
Isolde Marr’s turn came in the second batch, and she made it count.
She didn’t try to trade blows with something a full rank above her own. She kited instead, her aspect threading around the construct’s talon-strikes with the patient discipline of a woman who’d survived a Wolfshadow war-pack on nothing but positioning.
Minute after minute ticked by, her Spirit Armor bleeding down in careful increments while she chipped the construct’s own bar down inch by inch.
At two minutes forty, she finally opened a gap wide enough to drive her signature strike home, and the construct’s armor collapsed to zero in one committed exchange.
[CONSTRUCT DEFEATED. Time: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.]
The crowd roared, and Vann’s voice cracked with genuine respect. "THAT is how you fight above your rank, folks! No shortcuts, just discipline!"
A handful of others managed the same feat across the following hour. Each one ground out victory through clever use of exactly the tools they had, a Spirit Art here, a talent’s full combo there, and none of it came fast or easy. Far more simply lost, Spirit Armor caving under four-armed violence they had no answer for.
Dorian Bullcroft of the Bullcroft Dominion earned a genuine ovation, surviving a full three minutes of pure evasion before landing a Wrathspiral-style finish that dropped the construct in a shower of violet light.
...
Ouja Sinclair’s name lit up not long after, and Aidan straightened where he stood, watching with far more attention than he let show on his face.
’Finally.’ He crossed his arms. ’Let’s see exactly what you’re hiding under that coat.’
The construct opened aggressively, four talons raking in from every side, and Ouja didn’t fold away from it the way Vyra would, and didn’t tank it the way Beatrix might have either.
He simply let it pass through him.
His whole body unraveled into black smoke at the moment of contact, the talons finding nothing but drifting dark, and he reformed a half-step to the construct’s flank with two fingers already raised, almost lazy.
Crimson lines bloomed across the space between his fingers and the construct’s exposed side.
They didn’t cut cleanly the way a blade would. They divided, dozens of thin red seams tracing themselves across muscle and mist alike, and the construct’s whole flank came apart along those seams in the same instant. Hundreds of small, fizzing fragments broke free of the whole.
The fragments didn’t fall. They dissolved into red mist, and the mist poured back toward Ouja’s open palm, drawn in like a held breath finally exhaling in reverse.
[CONSTRUCT DEFEATED. Time: 9 seconds.]
The construct’s Spirit Armor didn’t drain in a bar. It simply ceased, all at once, the moment the last fragment finished being absorbed.
Aidan watched the whole exchange with his jaw tight, filing away every piece of it with the same patience he’d once used cataloguing sword forms he intended to eventually cut through.
’Not just a defense. A weapon that eats what it cuts.’ His eyes narrowed slightly. ’That’s why he’s never in a hurry. He’s not avoiding fights. He’s skipping the ones that wouldn’t feed him anything worth having.’
Ouja stepped off his stand without acknowledging the crowd’s noise at all, and for one brief moment across the plaza, his gaze found Aidan’s and held it.
The look carried no threat in it. Just the same lazy, knowing amusement from before, like a man confirming he’d been watched and didn’t mind in the slightest.
’Nine seconds and a free meal.’ Aidan’s smile turned thin. ’Noted, Ouja. Filed away right next to everything else.’
...
Then Vyra Ashgrove stepped onto her stand.
...
The construct materialized already lunging, four talons converging on her from every angle at once, the kind of opening strike meant to end lesser Hunters before they finished registering the fight had started.
Vyra didn’t dodge it. She simply wasn’t where the strike expected her to be.
Space folded around her blade in one tight, economical arc, the same technique she’d used to cut down ambushers in the crown-count round.
Except this time she didn’t stop at deflection. The fold carried her blade straight through the gap between one heartbeat and the next, and it came out the other side of the construct’s chest before the talons finished closing on empty air.
[CONSTRUCT DEFEATED. Time: 4 seconds.]
The plaza went dead silent for a full second before it exploded.
"FOUR SECONDS." Vann’s voice actually broke. "Folks, I need you to understand what just happened, that construct did not get to attack ONCE, Vyra Ashgrove just folded reality and walked out the other side of a Divine-rank Terror!"
Vyra stepped off her stand without any visible reaction at all, sheathing her blade like she’d finished a chore rather than a legend.
...
Aidan’s name lit up two batches later, and he rolled his shoulders as he stepped onto the stand, Solenne and Beatrix watching from the crowd with matching expressions of complete confidence.
The construct materialized snarling, violet mist curling off its four arms, and Aidan met its eyes with the particular calm of a man who had personally dismantled thirty of this thing’s older, stronger cousins less than a day ago.
’Early-stage.’ He rolled his neck. ’Cute.’
He didn’t wait for it to move.
The Duskrend Scythe unfolded into his grip, and Silence swallowed his approach before the construct’s many eyes could track him crossing the distance between them. Shadowfrost met its exposed throat in a single, unhurried arc, cold and dark folding through violet mist and corded muscle alike.
The construct didn’t finish its first swing. It simply stopped, frozen mid-motion, ice climbing up through its four raised arms in branching white veins before the whole thing crumbled into harmless motes.
[CONSTRUCT DEFEATED. Time: 3 seconds.]
The plaza’s reaction hit even louder than it had for Vyra, disbelief chasing delight chasing disbelief again.
"THREE SECONDS." Vann sounded like he’d forgotten how his own voice worked. "Garen beats Vyra Ashgrove’s time by a single second, folks, and now we have TWO Hunters who just one-shot a Divine-rank construct in this entire round, out of a hundred competitors! I have never called a match like this in my life!"
Aidan stepped off the platform, scythe dissolving back into latent light, and caught Vyra’s eye across the crowd. She inclined her head, the same measured respect from before, and he returned it with an easy grin.
...
[FINAL RESULTS: TOP THIRTY ADVANCE.]
The names scrolled across every screen on the branch, and the plaza erupted into thirty distinct celebrations and seventy quieter kinds of grief.
Isolde’s name sat solidly inside the thirty. So did Dorian Bullcroft’s, and Ouja’s, and Vyra’s, and Aidan’s own, sitting at the very top of the list beside a time that would apparently be replayed for the rest of the tournament season.
...
The invitation arrived within the hour, a ring of gold light unfolding at the edge of the plaza, and the newly selected thirty stepped through it together into an upper branch entirely unlike anything below.
The space opened into a vast, warm hall wrapped in floating lanterns, with long tables groaning under food and drink. A hundred and thirty-nine Divine-rank powerhouses sat scattered among them, laughing and eating and sizing up the newcomers with the easy confidence of people who had already survived worse than any tournament.
"Garen!" Kyrsa’s voice cut through the noise first. She’d already spotted him from a crowded table with Ordun, Veshan, and Sella, all four of them waving him over with cups raised.
"Three seconds," Ordun called out, grinning wide. "We saw. Get over here and explain yourself."
Aidan grinned back, and started making his way through the hall toward familiar faces.