Chapter 79: Chapter 79: Assessment Conclusion

Twenty minutes later.

The clone was getting bored.

He’d been sitting on the hull for twenty minutes watching other people fight. Twenty minutes felt like an eternity when you operated at near light-speed perception and had already finished your own part in seven seconds.

Celestia had her eyes closed, not sleeping but conserving energy. Her head tilted back slightly, silver hair drifting in the zero-gravity environment. She looked peaceful. Bored, but peaceful.

“Marcus just hit five hundred thousand,” she said without opening her eyes.

The clone checked the leaderboard. “Khan’s at four-twenty. Lyra’s at six hundred.”

“Lyra’s smart. Going for high-value targets only.”

“Efficient.”

They sat in silence for another thirty seconds. In the distance, a candidate deployed a massive fire technique that turned three hundred pirates into ash. Flashy. Effective. Slow.

“This is taking forever,” the clone said.

“They’re fighting at normal speeds.”

“I know. It’s painful to watch.”

A pirate formation tried sneaking past their exclusion zone, staying just outside the five-kilometer radius. The pirates were clearly terrified, flying in tight formation, keeping maximum distance while still trying to reach other parts of the ship.

One of them glanced in their direction. Made eye contact with the clone.

The pirate immediately accelerated in the opposite direction, abandoning his formation entirely. His comrades followed without question.

“They’re still scared of us,” Celestia observed.

“We killed fifteen thousand of them in five seconds. I’d be scared too.”

“Only five. You’re exaggerating the time again.”

“Fine. Seven seconds. Even worse for them.”

The clone grinned. After sixteen years together, her precision still amused him.

A notification appeared in his vision:

**COMBAT ASSESSMENT – FINAL PHASE**

**Time Remaining: 3 minutes**

**Current Rankings:**

1. Runar Cross – 10,000,000

2. Celestia Stormwind – 10,000,000

3. Lyra Moon – 687,000

4. Marcus Sunfire – 623,000

5. Khan Storm – 534,000

“Three minutes left,” the clone said.

Celestia opened her eyes. “Finally.”

Around the Absolute Infinity, the battle intensity increased. Candidates who were close to point thresholds started fighting more aggressively, trying to secure their rankings before time ran out.

The Star Fusion pirates who’d been hiding in the rear formations finally pushed forward. Not because they wanted to—the clone could sense their reluctance through his spatial awareness—but because they had no choice. The domains deployed by hundreds of candidates and the ship’s own defensive formations had created overlapping barriers that sealed the entire battlefield. A cage of compressed space and Law-level energy that nothing could escape without breaking through.

The pirates were trapped just as completely as they’d trapped themselves in the Kaelen System. Fight or surrender. Those were the only options.

Most chose to fight.

The clone watched a Star Fusion pirate charge directly at Marcus Sunfire’s position. Marcus saw him coming, tried to create distance, realized immediately that running was pointless.

The pirate closed the gap in under a second, massive war hammer raised. Flames wreathed the weapon—Fire Law at 100% mastery, technique refined through decades of combat.

Marcus threw everything he had into a defensive technique. Solar flames erupted around him, condensing into a barrier that blazed with power beyond normal Satellite Orbit realm.

The hammer went through it anyway.

Marcus’s eyes went wide. He raised his arms instinctively.

Then something changed.

The clone felt it through his spatial sense—a sudden surge in Marcus’s energy signature. Not qi alone. Something deeper. Bloodline activation.

Marcus’s flames changed quality. Orange-gold became white-hot plasma. The temperature spiked so dramatically that space itself started warping from the heat. His eyes blazed with light that came from genetic inheritance expressing itself under mortal threat.

More than that. His Fire Law and Solar Law comprehension were deepening rapidly. Life-and-death pressure forcing breakthroughs that would normally take months. The clone could sense it—Marcus’s Fire Law jumping from 29% to 32%, Solar Law surging from 24% to 28%. Not huge increases, but happening in seconds instead of through careful meditation.

The hammer struck Marcus’s hastily-reformed barrier.

Held.

The Star Fusion pirate’s eyes widened in shock. His weapon, channeling 100% Fire Law mastery, had been stopped by a Satellite Orbit cultivator’s technique.

Marcus wasn’t done. His flames intensified further as bloodline power flooded through his body. The plasma around him began exhibiting properties beyond normal fire—fusion reactions, radiation bursts, gravitational distortions from sheer heat density.

He launched himself at the Star Fusion pirate with technique that shouldn’t be possible for his realm. The pirate raised his hammer to block, confidence returning—bloodline activation or not, there was still a fundamental gap in cultivation.

The battle became a blur. Hammer strikes met plasma techniques. Perfect Fire Law mastery collided with imperfect-but-rapidly-improving Solar Law. The Star Fusion pirate had experience and superior cultivation. Marcus had desperation and bloodline power burning itself out for temporary strength that pushed his Solar Law comprehension higher with every exchange.

They fought to a standstill.

Not a victory for Marcus. Not a loss either. Just two combatants locked in mutual destruction, neither able to overcome the other, both pushing themselves to absolute limits.

The three-minute countdown hit zero.

Captain Vael’s voice boomed across every communication channel:

“Combat assessment concluded. All candidates cease fighting and return to designated shuttle bay ports immediately.”

Pressure descended.

Massive, overwhelming, absolute pressure that froze every pirate in place. Neutron Star realm cultivation unleashed in a controlled burst that didn’t harm the candidates but locked down everything else within the battlefield.

The Star Fusion pirate fighting Marcus stopped mid-swing, his entire body rigid. Around the Absolute Infinity, thousands of pirates froze simultaneously—some in mid-attack, others trying to flee, all of them completely immobilized by pressure that made their cultivation look like a candle compared to a star.

Captain Vael stood on the ship’s hull, one hand raised casually. Her domain extended across the entire battlefield, overlapping with the existing barriers but operating on a completely different scale. Neutron Star realm versus Star Fusion and below wasn’t a fight. It was hierarchy.

“Students, withdraw,” she said calmly.

Candidates disengaged immediately. Marcus’s bloodline flames extinguished as he stopped channeling power, his body visibly exhausted. The clone could see him shaking from the strain.

Spatial formations activated across the Absolute Infinity’s hull. Blue light traced geometric patterns, creating teleportation zones. Candidates stepped into them and vanished, transported back inside the ship.

The clone stood up, offering Celestia a hand. She took it and rose smoothly.

“Marcus did well,” she said.

“Pushed his Solar Law comprehension higher under pressure. Probably hit 58% or so.”

“He’ll be insufferable about it later.”

“Probably.”

They stepped into a teleportation zone together.

Reality folded.

—

The shuttle bay looked different from when they’d left.

Twenty minutes ago, it had been organized chaos—candidates preparing for combat, nervous energy, anticipation. Now it was dead silent. Three hundred candidates standing in loose clusters, all of them staring at the same two people.

The clone and Celestia materialized near the back of the bay. Every head turned.

Nobody said anything. Just stared.

It was like being the only two people who’d shown up to a party wearing completely different clothes than everyone else. Technically they belonged. Practically they existed on a different level.

“This is awkward,” the clone muttered.

“You get used to it,” Celestia said calmly.

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