Chapter 51: Competing For the Epic-rank Terrorized Dimension
The Information Hub was loud with excitement.
Hundreds of Hunters pressed toward the glowing boards, reading mission listings, arguing over tournament dates, tapping their Digicards against the panels. Everyone had somewhere to be and something to chase.
That was exactly the moment Aidan chose to leave.
He did not announce it. He simply drifted toward the back of the crowd, letting the noise swallow the space where he had been standing.
No one turned to look. The Earth Hunters were busy with their own plans, and the locals had no reason to watch a lone SSS-rank stranger.
’Perfect,’ Aidan thought. ’Let them stare at the boards. I have my own game to play.’
He slipped out through a side gate in the Shelter wall, where the barrier thinned for foot traffic, and walked into the open.
The moment the crowd was behind him, a small voice spoke from his shoulder.
"Done," Tom said, stretching. "Every footprint, every trace, every thread you left in there. Wiped clean. Nobody can follow you back."
"Good." Aidan let out a slow breath. "Especially him."
He did not have to say the name. Both of them were thinking of Ouja Sinclair, the Devil Prince, the man who had smiled at him on the ship and called him by his real name just to watch his face.
"He can’t track what isn’t there," Tom said smugly. "Relax and enjoy your little contest."
Aidan smiled faintly, then let Tom carry the two of them across the wild.
...
The wilderness beyond the Shelter was a hard and beautiful place.
Broken hills rolled out under a bruised orange sky. Strange trees with silver bark leaned in the wind, and in the far distance, the light of a Terror Tear pulsed like a slow heartbeat.
Aidan moved without a sound, hidden by Tom’s threads, until the land dipped into a wide, flat basin.
That basin was where the crowd had gathered.
He slowed and took it all in. Hundreds of Hunters stood in loose clusters across the open ground, their armor and robes marked with the crests of a dozen different worlds.
At the far end of the basin, a gate hung in the air like a wound cut into reality. A Terrorized Dimension. The prize.
That was what everyone had come to fight for. Whoever won the tournament would own that whole hidden world and everything of value inside it.
In the center of the basin sat two round battlefields, each one ringed with pale formation lines carved into the earth. The lines glowed softly, waiting.
Aidan let Tom set him down at the edge of the crowd and walked in on his own two feet, quiet and unremarkable.
’A good place,’ he thought, looking at the red glow ahead. ’A good prize. Let’s earn it.’
...
He had expected the crowd to be all Epic-rank Hunters.
It mostly was. But as he moved through it, he felt two auras that did not belong with the rest, two SSS-rank presences standing among the Epic-rank crowd just like him.
That was strange enough on its own. What was stranger was how the Epic-rank Hunters treated them.
The Epic-rank Hunters, all of them stronger in raw rank, were fawning over the two SSS-rank figures. They laughed at their jokes, offered them drinks, and leaned in close as if honored just to be near them.
Aidan watched for a moment, then turned to a lean Hunter standing beside him.
"Those two," he said quietly. "Why is everyone crowding around a pair of SSS-rankers? They’re a full rank below the Epic-rank folks here."
The Hunter looked at him, and his eyebrows rose in genuine surprise.
"You must be new here," he said. "Check the SSS-rank leaderboard on your Digicard. Those two sit in second and third place."
Aidan blinked. "Second and third."
"Both of them are pupils of a famous Divine-rank Hunter," the man went on, lowering his voice with real respect. "A man they call the Dragon Warlord. Being his student means resources, techniques, and a future almost nobody else can dream of."
’Interesting,’ Aidan thought.
He looked at the two again with fresh eyes. A tall woman with pale scales along her jaw, and a broad man whose eyes carried a slow, reptilian calm. Dragon-touched, both of them. Proud, and used to being adored.
’That woman did say stuff about Spirit Art, advanced techniques, and stuff. It looks like those two have it.’
...
Aidan did not go over to greet them.
Instead, he walked to the registration formation at the center of the basin, a simple stone pillar glowing with light, and pressed his Digicard against it.
The pillar read his card. Garen. SSS-rank.
His name appeared on a floating list above the pillar, joining the others.
The reaction was quiet, but he felt it at once.
A ripple of stink passed through the nearby Epic-rank Hunters. Their eyes slid over him, cool and dismissive, the way people look at someone who does not belong.
Another SSS-rank nobody who thinks he can beat Epic-rank hunters, their faces said. Another weakling reaching above himself.
The two famous pupils noticed him too.
Neither of them walked over. Neither of them spoke. They simply glanced at his name on the list, then at his plain face, and looked away as if he were not worth the effort.
But the look lingered just long enough to say everything. They were measuring him, and they had already decided he was nothing.
Aidan felt it. The stink eyes. The quiet scorn. The certainty on every face that he was beneath them.
Something old and hot stirred low in his chest, the anger that always lived just under his skin.
’Easy,’ he told himself, and breathed it down slowly. ’They don’t know me. That’s the whole point. Let them think I’m nothing.’
Aidan grinned. ’I’ll just have more fun when I beat the shit out of you all.’
[Jovac: Indeed. This reminds me of my rise as well, though I kind of deserved all the stinks since I was a walking disaster, hahaha.]
[Arthur: You are a very scary uncle...]
[Tom: Stinky, you mean. Tsk.]
[Jovan: Q-Q]
’Stop bullying a Divine-rank senior.’ Aidan wryly smiled.
Aidan turned his mind to the rules, quieting himself the way a blade goes still before it is drawn.
Above the two battlefields, a projection of light took the shape of an overseer, an Alliance official who would govern the contest.
"One hundred and twenty-two of you have registered," the overseer announced, its voice carrying clearly to every corner of the basin. "One hundred and nineteen Epic-rank, from early stage to peak. And three SSS-rank. All at peak."
A few heads turned toward Aidan and the two pupils at that last count.
"Hear the rules, and hear them well," the overseer continued. "In this tournament, no items are permitted. None. Not a weapon, not an artifact, not a single treasure."
A murmur ran through the crowd.
"You will fight with your talents alone, with things you have learned and mastered, your techniques and spells," the overseer said. "Powers born from talents are true powers. They stay with you, they grow with you, and they can never be taken away. A Hunter must strive to hone their talents, so here, only talents decide the winner."
Aidan listened, and a slow, private smile touched his lips.
His Power Bonds were not items he carried. They lived inside him, bonded into his very being, flowing out as pure aspects through his talent.
Lightning, metal, burst, electromagnetism. Not tools in his hands. Powers in his blood.
’No items,’ he thought, almost amused. ’That rule was made for me.’
...
"The format is simple," the overseer went on. "You will be split into two groups. Within your group, you will be matched against a random opponent for a one-on-one fight."
Two rings of light brightened below, marking the two battlefields.
"When both fighters step into a field, the formation will grant each of you a Spirit Armor. Every Spirit Armor holds one hundred Hit Points."
A shimmer of pale armor flickered into being over the empty fields, showing the crowd what it meant.
"You win by striking your opponent’s Spirit Armor while protecting your own," the overseer said. "Each fight lasts exactly one minute. When the minute ends, whoever has fewer Hit Points remaining is the loser."
The overseer paused, then added, "And if you reduce your opponent’s Hit Points to zero before the minute is done, you win at once."
Aidan nodded slowly to himself. A clean system. Power mattered, but control and precision mattered just as much.
"There are two fields," the overseer finished. "So two battles will run at the same time. One minute each. We begin in twenty minutes. Prepare yourselves."
...
The twenty minutes passed slowly.
Around Aidan, Hunters stretched, meditated, and whispered last thoughts to their allies. The two pupils of the Dragon Warlord stood apart, calm and certain, already tasting a victory they believed was theirs.
Aidan simply stood still and breathed, feeling the aspects hum quietly inside him.
He did not need to warm up. He needed to hold back, to show only as much as he had to, and no more.
Then the light above the fields flared, and the overseer’s voice returned.
"The draw is complete. First battles, step forward."
Names bloomed in the air over each field. Aidan’s name shone above the first one.
His turn had come in the very first round.
He walked toward the glowing ring, calm on the outside, that old ember burning quietly on the inside.
His opponent stepped up across from him. A lean young man with nervous eyes and an early-stage Epic-rank aura, clearly hoping for an easy first win against a lowly SSS-rank stranger.
Aidan crossed the formation line, and pale Spirit Armor wrapped itself around his body, settling at one hundred Hit Points.
He rolled his shoulders once and looked across the field at the man who thought he was nothing.
"Alright," Aidan murmured, so soft only he could hear it. "Let’s begin."
