Chapter 41: The Entrance Exam (VIII)

Shhhk!

The purple pears crackling in the air shot forward. They split mid-flight, twisting in the air before darting at Maelis from every angle.

Maelis stepped back, face calm, and slammed her staff into the dirt.

Booom!

The earth sank under her feet, the pull of gravity bending the spears off course.

“You think you can overwhelm me?” she said, her voice dripping with superiority.

Two spears fought against the pull, zigzagging through the air.

“Dammit!” Maelis gritted her teeth, jerking her staff to form a crushing sphere.

Thud!

Thud!

The spears shattered into fragments, but her shoulders tightened at the force.

Leon vanished in a blur.

Fwip!

He reappeared behind Lyra, his sword slicing in a clean horizontal arc toward her back.

CRACK!

A spear shot upward from the floor, slamming into his swing.

“Ugh!” The impact made his grip tremble.

Lyra spun, her heel snapping up and striking his wrist hard enough to throw his attack wide.

“—Tch!” Leon clicked his tongue and blinked away before a follow-up could land.

“RAAAH!” Dexter roared as he barreled in from the side.

His twin axes blazed with gold energy, veins bulging on his arms. He swung the left axe low toward her ribs, the right straight down for her head.

Lyra ducked under the first, hand snapping up to catch the second by the handle.

ZRAK-CRACK!

Lightning burst from her palm, golden arcs crawling over the metal.

“Fuck—!” Dexter snarled, jerking back.

Lyra stepped in and slammed her other hand into his stomach.

BZZZZZT!

Lightning surged point-blank.

“AGHHH!”

Dexter’s body jolted, and he slid backward, boots tearing the dirt.

Smoke curled from his shirt, but soon enough, his grin returned, getting even more crooked than before.

“Heh… I’ll fucking gut you,” he growled, spitting to the side before charging again.

At the same time, two other people from Maelis’s group, a lean boy with daggers and a girl wielding a green mana blade, rushed her flanks.

Fwoop!

The boy lunged for her neck, while the girl swept low for her knees.

Lyra stepped forward, letting both swings miss by inches.

Thack, thack, thack!

Her fingers flicked, and three spears erupted from the ground, smashing into their stomachs and sending them sprawling.

“Agh..!”

“Fucking hell!”

They cursed aloud.

BOOOOM!

Suddenly, Maelis slammed her staff down, causing the air to thicken, as the ground cracked under the weight of her spell.

Lyra’s spears slowed, their flight dipping under the crushing pull.

Fwip!

Leon appeared above her again, his sword wrapped in warped space.

He came down fast, but a pillar of golden lightning exploded upward from Lyra’s body, forcing him to blink away mid-swing.

Dexter came from behind with a bellow.

“HAAAH!” He swung his axes, making a vicious cross cut.

CLANG!

CLANG!

Two spears shot up to block, sparks spitting out on contact.

BAAM!

The air shook with each impact.

Purple light streaked past like meteors, golden lightning hissed across the ground, and the reek of ozone mixed with the sound of metal screaming under strain.

“Stop struggling!” Maelis snapped, pulling the gravity tighter as her breath came short.

It was crazy to think that the five of them were losing against a single girl.

But suddenly…

“RRRRRAAAAHHHH!”

Dexter’s roar ripped through the battlefield.

His eyes went bloodshot, veins bulging in his neck and arms.

Crack, crack!

Bone cracked under his skin, as his frame shot up, growing nearly twenty centimeters taller. Muscles swelled, stretching the fabric of his shirt until seams tore at the shoulders.

“Shit—he’s going berserk!” The lean boy shouted, stumbling back.

“Three times faster… she won’t be able to touch him now!” the girl yelled, her voice shaking in surprise.

Dexter’s grin twisted into something animal. Saliva dripped from his mouth as he stomped forward, and then vanished in a blur.

Vwssh!

The ground split under the force of his launch.

He reappeared right in front of Lyra, axes already mid-swing, the air shrieking around them from the speed.

But then…

Lyra spoke.

“Bow down.”

The tone of her voice was sharp, commanding, drenched in an authority that felt older than the air they breathed.

THUD!

Dexter’s entire body froze mid-motion.

His knees buckled without a sound, his forehead smashing into the dirt hard enough to leave a crater.

The impact threw up a spray of dust and loose stone, his axes slipping from his hands with a metallic clang-clang.

A heavy silence swept over the fight.

“…the fuck—?”

“He… he just—he just obeyed?”

“That’s… that’s not possible. That’s Dexter…”

Leon’s brow furrowed, his sword lowering slightly as his gaze locked on Lyra.

Maelis’s lips parted, her face gradually turning pale.

“…What… w-hat was that?”

And then they all saw it, thin streams of red sliding from the corner of Lyra’s mouth.

The crimson caught the light, dripping down her chin and staining the collar of her clothes.

Her breathing was steady, but her eyes… her eyes were sharper than ever, fixed on Dexter as though he were no more than a kneeling dog.

However, just as her gaze grew colder, her face turned paler, almost sickly, like her own power was draining her life away.

And at that moment…

“…Oooh~, that was a nice rest~”

A lazy voice cut through the tense silence.

More specifically… it was Gray’s calm and lazy voice.

He stretched his arms as if waking from a nap, shoulders rolling back in slow, languid arcs.

His half-lidded eyes wandered across the group without urgency… until a faint, scarlet mist began curling off his skin, twisting upward like smoke from fresh embers.

“He brokethrough…?” the lean boy muttered under his breath.

“Seems like it…” the other girl admitted, her tone tinged with surprise.

They all sounded surprised, but then Leon quickly stepped in, his lips curling up to a faint smirk.

“He’s just at the late stage of the Elementary Realm now… he continues to be the weakling from before…”

And annoyingly enough… Leon was telling the truth.

Because Gray would only be able to reach their strength level if he were at the late-stage of the Intermediate Realm, and that was simply because he was a Vessel.

“That’s true,” Maelis sneered.

“A trash will always remain a trash, nonetheless.” Her lips curled up in some kind of cruel satisfaction upon seeing Gray’s misery.

But Gray ignored them all, slowly stepping closer to Lyra.

“…Gray…” she murmured in a soft voice, almost drowsy.

“I… I’m s-sorry… I c-can’t beat them alone…” Her eyes fluttered weakly, drained from using so much magic; the glowing symbols on her eyes, the command spell, whatever it was, had cost her dearly.

But to her words, Gray smiled charmingly.

A smile that made her face flush in an instant, and even the girl in Maelis’s group glanced away, her cheeks turning red in an instant.

“No worries…” he whispered softly, his lips curling up slighly.

And instead…

His charming smile turned into that devilish smile instead.

“All I need…”

He slowly cracked his head towards Maelis’s group, and that crazy appearance even made them shudder.

“Is a single head…”

He uttered ominously, but in contrast to his scary words, Dexter suddenly roared with excitement, shaking off the weight crushing his shoulders.

“OH, HELL YEAH! THAT’S WHAT I WANNA HEAR!”

“LET’S GO, OLD GENIUS!” He swung his twin axes, aiming at Gray, but Gray shook his head.

“Nah… currently…”

Gray said softly.

“You’re not my target.”

“Huh?” Dexter’s voice faltered as he cocked his head in confusion.

And that’s when a thin, black thread shimmered into existence behind Maelis’s group, wrapping around the neck of one of the boys before anyone noticed.

Gray’s hypnotic eyes glimmered instantly, his pupils shrinking with excitement.

“Swap.”

He instantly reappeared in the middle of the group and extended his arms in the same ’X’ manner as always.

Fwip, fwip, fwip!

The threads tightened instantly. For an instant, the boy’s eyes widened, his hand twitching toward his neck…

Shhhk!

The black cords slid cleanly through flesh and bone, parting everything as if the resistance didn’t exist.

A thin red line bloomed along the boy’s throat before gravity claimed him. His head slipped from his shoulders, the skin parting without a sound…

Splat!

A geyser of blood fanned upward, warm droplets scattering through the air like rain.

The metallic scent hit first, followed by the dull thump of the head hitting the ground, rolling twice before coming to rest at Gray’s feet.

There was silence for a moment… as they wondered…

How Gray got there in an instant.

And how… they didn’t notice his strings…

Only the faint afterimage of black threads remained, dancing in the air before dissolving into nothing.

Fwip!

Maelis, Leon, and Dexter exploded toward him in unison, weapons raised.

But Gray… simply spun on his heel, his coat flaring with the motion. He dipped into a graceful flourish, as if bowing on a stage.

“Hope you enjoyed my performance~,” he said, his voice dripping with unhinged mockery.

And then…

Fwoom!

“Huh?”

“The fuck? What is happening?!”

Everyone’s eyes widened as a strong wind suddenly pulled their bodies into the air, and then, their body slowly started turning into wisps, making them realize the reason why they were suddenly pulled away…

And that was because…

The entrance exam… had finally…

Ended.

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