Chapter 205: Drowning Dominion [Entrance Exam 4]
Chapter 205:Drowning Dominion
Entrance Exam:4
Silence covered the environment. After the crushed body on the ground turned into particles of light and disappeared, the mocking and arrogant expression on Daemon’s face shattered.
Daemon swallowed hard, trying to hide the tension that began to gnaw at his insides.
He slowly pointed his trident at Cassian, leaving a distance of a few meters between them which he believed to be safe.
"Another talented nobody..." Daemon said, trying to keep his voice steady. He did not take his eyes off Cassian’s face. "What is your name, strange boy?"
No response came from Cassian. He continued to sit on the stump, resting his hands loosely on his knees.
However, the truly maddening part was that Cassian’s gaze was not even on Daemon.
Those blood red eyes completely ignored Daemon, locking onto a distant point over his shoulder, deep within the trees of the forest.
Daemon’s eyebrows twitched with anger. Being ignored as a nobleman was the greatest blow dealt to his arrogance. "Do you not hear me?!" he shouted, the fake politeness in his voice completely gone. "I asked you a question! Are those ears just for decoration?!"
Still, Daemon was not stupid. No matter how much his anger swelled, he forced himself to maintain his composure. He might be arrogant, but after seeing the incident just now, he could never lower his guard against someone whose strength and limits he did not know.
"Fine then," Daemon hissed, striking his spear against the ground. He nodded to his bewildered team members waiting behind him. "Teach that thing a lesson. Let us see how durable he is."
At Daemon’s command, the two mages standing behind the team quickly raised their staffs into the air. One channeled the wind, and the other the earth element. Within seconds, two devastating magic attacks consisting of a massive spinning wind blade and sharp, heavy masses of rock were launched simultaneously toward the stump where Cassian was sitting.
*BOOOOM!*
The two spells hit Cassian with perfect accuracy and created a massive explosion that shook the clearing.
Earth, splinters, and a dense cloud of smoke rose into the air. Celine and Veris stepped back a few more paces, shielding their faces with their arms to protect themselves from the force of the blast.
Daemon narrowed his eyes as he waited for the smoke to clear. "It cannot be this simple..." he murmured.
And it was not.
When the smoke slowly cleared, the scene that emerged surprised everyone.
Cassian had stood up. However, his body was engulfed in pitch black flames that no one had ever seen before, flames that swallowed even the ambient light.
These flames were not burning the forest or radiating heat; on the contrary, they emitted a strange sensation.
There was not a single speck of dust on Cassian’s tattered clothes.
"Black flames...?" Daemon whispered, his unease growing with every passing second. "What... What kind of mana is this?"
Cassian slowly took his sword in his right hand and began to walk toward Daemon while the black flames enveloped his body.
His steps were slow, silent. Yet with every step he took, Daemon stood frozen. His body felt as if it were paralyzed. The thing walking toward him was not a human, but a monster. Daemon felt as if the gaze of an absolute, hungry beast was upon him; his heart pounded against his ribcage, and his pupils trembled with fear.
"Freak!" Daemon roared, trying to suppress his fear with anger. Gathering his mana, he swung his spear in a wide arc through the air.
A massive torrential flood erupted from the tip of the spear, turning that part of the forest into a giant river in seconds and covering everything. Tons of water surged forward to swallow Cassian. However, just as the water was about to hit Cassian, Daemon thrust his spear into the ground. "FREEZE!"
The roaring floodwaters turned to ice at an incomprehensible speed, in mere fractions of a second. The soft water waves instantly transformed into massive ice spikes as sharp as razors, closing in from all directions to skewer Cassian.
But Cassian’s steps did not stop. The wrist gripping his sword only twitched slightly. He executed a flawless diagonal slash, like black lightning striking through the air.
*CRACK!*
The solid wave of ice shattered, a perfect X carved right through its center. Cassian glided swiftly over the shattered blocks of ice and water with a gravity defying grace, dodging the deadly spikes by mere millimeters.
Within seconds, he appeared right beside Daemon. His eyes were level with Daemon’s astonishment filled blue eyes. He swung his sword horizontally without mercy, aiming to take his head off.
Daemon managed to block the sword by raising his spear.
*CLAAAANG!*
The sheer force of the collision created a sonic boom in the forest. Waves of black and blue mana scattered from the point where the two weapons intersected.
Cassian did not hesitate. He pulled his sword back and delivered a blow descending from above like a hammer.
Gritting his teeth, Daemon held his spear diagonally to meet the strike, but his knees buckled.
Cassian quickly slid his sword over the spear, striking sparks, and targeted Daemon’s fingers. Daemon was forced to retreat in panic, unleashing three rapid consecutive thrusts with the tip of his spear.
Cassian tilted his head slightly to the side on the first thrust, bent his waist backward on the second, and on the third, he parried the attack by gently tapping the tip of the spear with the flat of his sword.
Frustrated by his consecutive attacks hitting empty air, Daemon thought he saw a momentary opening when Cassian swung his sword.
Taking advantage of this perceived gap, he lunged forward to thrust his spear with all his might into Cassian’s defenseless flank.
Just as the spear was about to pierce his flank, Cassian spun a half turn on his own axis with incredible agility and dodged at the last moment. As the spear tore through the empty air, Cassian quickly reached out and caught Daemon’s right arm, which held the spear, by the wrist.
"Wha?!"
Daemon struggled to break free, but Cassian pulled him forward with tremendous force and, launching himself into the air, drove his right knee into Daemon’s stomach, which was left defenseless from holding the spear.
*THUD!*
Daemon’s eyes widened in agony. Bitter vomit mixed with blood and saliva shot from his mouth. He felt as if all the air in his lungs had been emptied, and his stomach had been pressed against his spine. His body doubled over.
Just as Cassian raised his sword into the air to finish off the agonizing Daemon, the tank with the shield intervened. The shield clashed with Cassian’s sword, and as the boy flew backward, simultaneous earth and lightning attacks from the two mages in the back targeted Cassian.
Cassian raised his left hand into the air and created a shield made of black flames, swallowing both spells in midair.
This few seconds of distraction bought Daemon the time he needed. Despite writhing in pain, the prince’s pride and survival instinct kicked in.
"JUST DIE!" Daemon roared, slamming his hand onto the ground. "WATER TOMB!"
A massive sphere of water suddenly erupting from beneath the earth completely engulfed Cassian, who was busy blocking the spells.
Within seconds, the sphere froze solid with a freezing cold, turning into a colossal, unbreakable iceberg. Cassian was trapped right in the center of the ice, his sword suspended in the air.
Daemon fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He was covered in blood and sweat. Doubled over from the pain in his stomach, he began to laugh. "Hah... Hahaha! Finally... I froze you, freak!"
However, when Daemon raised his head and looked at the massive ice to celebrate his victory... His smile froze on his lips. His eyes widened as if they were going to pop out of their sockets.
The inside of the ice... was completely empty. Cassian was not there. Only a dark, black remnant of flame was slowly fading.
"No..." Daemon whispered. His heart turned to ice.
When he turned around in panic at the muffled sound of bodies falling behind him, he saw his two mages, who had just cast spells at Cassian, collapse to the ground with huge bloody gashes on their backs, eliminated and scattering sparkles of light.
"BE QUICK, SHADOW!" Daemon shouted to someone in his team.
The fastest member of the team, the assassin boy, shot out from the shadows and lunged right at Cassian.
His speed was truly phenomenal; leaving only a blue trail around, he began to circle Cassian, pressuring him from all directions.
*Swish! Swish! Cling!*
The dagger user made deadly moves from the right, left, and above. His targets were Cassian’s neck, eyes, and heart.
However, Cassian did not even bother to use his sword.
When the dagger was about to graze his face, he simply pulled his head back half a centimeter. When the dagger aimed for his neck, he dropped his shoulders and slipped under it. The assassin pushed the limits of his own speed, attacking with somersaults in the air, but his daggers cut nothing but air. The look of absolute boredom on Cassian’s face was driving the dagger user mad.
"WHY CAN I NOT HIT YOU?!" the assassin shouted, lunging forward with all his body weight in anger to plunge both of his daggers into Cassian’s chest at once.
As the deadly attack came, Cassian slid to the side and shot his hands forward like a snake. With his left hand, he caught the boy’s right wrist, and with his right hand, he caught his left wrist in midair.
And mercilessly, he twisted them in opposite directions.
*SNAAAAAP!*
The bones of both arms shattered, bursting out from the elbows. The moment the boy’s shrill scream tore through the forest, Cassian let go of his arms. He thrust his right hand forward with great speed and grabbed the boy’s screaming face in his palm.
And then, lifting the boy into the air face down, he smashed him directly into the hard, rocky ground below with an inconceivable violence.
*BOOOM!*
The earth shook, the rocks on the ground shattered. The boy’s neck was broken, his skull crushed. Before he even had the chance to suffer, his body turned into particles of light and vanished from beneath Cassian’s palms.
Seeing his team crushed like insects one by one right before his eyes, Daemon was about to lose his mind. His pride, anger, and despair mixed together. His eyes had turned bloodshot.
"YOU DAMN MONSTER!" Daemon roared. Gritting his teeth so hard they might break, he channeled all his mana into his spear and lunged at Cassian.
Cassian raised his sword without showing any expression. The two clashed with great force in the middle of the forest.
Daemon seemed to have lost his mind. From that moment on, he forgot about the exam, the points, and everything else; he only wanted to wipe Cassian off the face of the earth. He raised his spear into the air and unleashed the most devastating attack of his life.
**"Drowning Dominion"**
A massive water tsunami, meters high, with giant ice cogs and spikes spinning inside it, erupted from where Daemon stood and began to expand in all directions. This attack was so enormous that it uprooted centuries old trees in the vicinity, crushed rocks, and destroyed everything in its path.
Watching this horror from the edge of the forest, Celine instantly realized the magnitude of the danger.
"He has gone mad! He will kill us too! Veris, we are retreating, RUN NOW!" she shouted, and together with her team, she began to run desperately in the opposite direction to escape the massive destruction.
The tsunami leveled a huge section of the forest and spread water everywhere before slowly subsiding.
When the attack ended, Daemon’s knees gave way. Clinging to his spear, he could barely stay on his feet. He was drenched from head to toe and had consumed almost all of his mana. His lungs burned for air as he panted heavily.
"Hah... Hah... I killed you... I finally killed you," he whispered, trembling.
However, when he looked at the destroyed, flooded forest terrain around him... there was no trace of Cassian.
In a panic, Daemon looked at the black bracelet on his arm, at the points screen.
His points had not increased! He had not eliminated him! That white haired monster had brutally eliminated four of Daemon’s team members right before his eyes, played with him like a toy, and disappeared.
Looking up at the sky, Daemon let out a scream full of pain, despair, and anger. As he had a nervous breakdown all alone in the middle of the forest, the sound of a footstep was heard from among the trees behind him.
Daemon quickly turned in that direction.
### A New Challenger
With his strange straw hat on his head, loose eastern clothes on him, and the long katana like sword in his hand, Lunox stood there. His eyes were extremely cold and emotionless as he looked at the water and destruction on the ground.
Daemon hissed with his already exhausted nerves. "Oh, God... This was the only thing missing! My whole day is ruined, and now an Eastern femboy appears before me!"
Lunox did not react in the slightest to Daemon’s insult. He just fixed his cold eyes, burning with the desire to fight, on Daemon.
"Where is he?" Lunox asked, his voice like ice.
Daemon ground his teeth in frustration. Despite his depleted mana, he gripped his spear with both hands and took a combat stance. "God... Do all the crazy people really find me today?! Come and let me show you where he is!"
---
### The Shadow Under the Tree
Meanwhile, in a very distant, peaceful corner of the map...
Felix, with his yellow hair and the warm aura that radiated peace around him, and his childhood friend Layla were resting with their backs against a tree after defeating a Rank C Monster.
Right at that moment, the sounds of a massive explosion and breaking trees coming from far away, from the depths of the forest, reached their ears. It even made the ground tremble slightly. Both of them involuntarily turned toward the direction the noise came from.
Felix’s blue and yellow eyes sparkled with excitement. Even though he was out of breath, a large, brave smile spread across his lips.
"Wow..." Felix said, resting his sword on the ground. "Looks like someone is fighting really hard. That explosion was incredible. They must definitely be quite strong. Let us go find them."
Layla gently smacked the top of Felix’s head with her staff. "Have you lost your mind, idiot?! Look at those sounds! If we go there, we will be instantly eliminated like ants crushed under the feet of giants! If we want to pass the exam, we have to go to the safe zones in the center!"
Felix rubbed his head and pouted. "But... it could have been so much fun," he murmured sadly. However, Layla had already turned her back and begun to walk away angrily, in the exact opposite direction of where those terrifying sounds were coming from.
With a sigh, Felix shouldered his sword. "Wait Layla, do not leave me alone!" he said, running after her.
The pair continued to advance, scanning their surroundings on the narrow path they thought was safe. A few minutes later, right in the middle of their path, they saw a massive, dark tree appear, its trunk much wider than all the other trees, its leaves blocking out the sky.
In the dim area where the tree’s shadow fell... someone was standing.
A silhouette leaning his back against the trunk of the colossal tree, his arms crossed over his chest, his face hidden in the shadows. He had not turned his back to them. He was facing them, waiting with his head slightly bowed forward. It was as if... he had been waiting for them to come this way from the very beginning.
Felix slowed his steps. The cheerful, bright smile on his face slowly faded. For the first time, the mana inside him had begun to ring alarm bells, squeezing his heart. Layla must have felt this too, for she stopped her steps and gripped her staff tightly.
The silhouette in the shadow of the tree slowly raised his head upwards. From among the shadows, a pair of eyes piercing the pitch black darkness around them shone.
A pair of blood red eyes, devoid of any emotion, as cold as death itself and as deep as the abyss, were looking directly at the Child of Dawn.
Comments