Chapter 191: Chapter 191: A lovely greeting
Chapter 191 – A lovely greeting
"What will you offer me?" Anesthesia asked, her smile beautiful as she activated her Skill, resonating with the poor man.
In an instant, the man — whose willpower was already at rock bottom after Cassius’s demonstration of power — became entranced by Anesthesia.
His eyes began to glow with an intense longing to do anything to please her.
Cassius sensed the use of the Skill as easily as breathing, thanks to his high affinity with Essence itself.
He turned his head toward her, raising an eyebrow.
"Sister-in-law, who invited you? Don’t interfere while I am conducting my business. I am trying to earn here."
"You just said it yourself." Anesthesia replied coolly. "I am your sister-in-law. We are family now. Shouldn’t family share everything?"
"Only when you gain something from it."
"Of course. I need to earn something from being related to you."
"Do you realise how many people in this Kingdom would die to be in your position?"
"Let them come and take it then." She replied nonchalantly. "But the worrying thing is, how can that even happen? You are obsessed with that sister of mine. And she is nothing but a woman who follows a man."
"That woman who follows a man can beat your ass, by the way."
"Only because she is older."
"Nah, sister-in-law. She will stay stronger than you." He spared her a glance, smiling coldly. "I will make sure of that."
Anesthesia opened her mouth to respond but Cassius continued swiftly.
"Enough talk. Let’s make a deal." He said, pointing at the man drooling over Anesthesia. "Your power is more convenient in this situation. So I will break their will and you will use your power to make them hand over everything they have. Have them even swear an Oath to give us all the points they earn in their first month at the Academy. Of course, we split it equally."
He smiled faintly. "What do you think?"
"For once," Anesthesia said, mirroring his smile, "I have no choice but to agree with you. Let’s do it."
"Perfect." Cassius said, then pointed at the man. "Shall we?"
"Sweetheart." Anesthesia said to the man, her face in that instant like the moon to the eyes of a mortal. "Would you give me everything you have on you?"
There was no hesitation.
"Yes! I will give you everything!"
And he did exactly that.
And by everything, the man went so far as to strip himself naked to offer his clothes to Anesthesia.
However, Cassius had no interest in seeing a naked man, nor the naked body of anyone other than his wife.
And Anesthesia even less so. So they stopped the man before he got fully undressed, and mercifully ordered him to forfeit.
He obeyed.
Anesthesia and Cassius looked at the artifacts laid out in front of them, then threw their heads back and began to cackle like demons.
Just like that, the two began threatening anyone who came to the Safe Zone, breaking their will and taking everything from them.
Sometimes they made them forfeit. Other times they let them stay. And those they let stay all shook Cassius’s hand, as if to seal the deal.
Cassius and Anesthesia didn’t want to make all of them forfeit. After all, they didn’t know what they would face in the Second Test.
For all they knew, they would need all fifteen people.
So they kept the most promising ones and disqualified the rest.
All the while, the spectators watched with aghast faces.
Even Morenna Hood, who had designed the test herself, had never expected such a thing.
The teachers of the Academy were all laughing and cackling, enjoying the way Cassius was using the test to gather tools and even Elysia Points in advance.
This was exactly the kind of cunning the teachers wanted to see in their Academy.
The most interested of all was his aunt herself, Seraphim Hood, who saw her own features in every part of Cassius’s face.
Cassius looked exactly like her. Because Cassius looked very much like Sefira.
And Sefira and Seraphim were twin sisters.
Still, there was one more being who watched Cassius and Anesthesia with an even deeper layer of interest.
And it was none other than the Dean herself, seeing in Cassius the memory of someone long past.
’...how odd. Why does he think like you? Act like you? And...’ she looked at his left eye hidden behind the eyepatch, ’...why can I feel a trace of you inside that eye?’ She thought, clenching her hand tightly on her armrest, her silver eyes hardening.
...
While Cassius and Anesthesia were dominating the black dune, the other zones too had their own overlords rising.
In the zone of the Rocky Mountains, Klaus was high in the sky, his arms crossed over his chest.
His green hair, tied into a ponytail, fluttered rapidly under the whispering wind.
His spirit, Windy, was perched atop his head. With such a bird’s-eye view, Klaus was easily able to locate the Safe Zone.
But besides the Safe Zone, he also witnessed an interesting sight.
It was the scene of Love de Bayard fighting two Tier Six White Apes. These apes were strange. Their heads were white while the rest of their bodies were black with scarlet feet. Their tails resembled those of a tiger.
One of them had stripes across its chest, and was clearly the stronger of the two.
They were abnormally powerful, and Klaus could see that they wielded the power of earthquakes.
Each of their attacks caused the ground to shatter, crack and writhe upon itself.
Unable to keep her footing, and with her physical strength deeply lacking, Love de Bayard was suffering heavily.
"But not enough." Klaus said as he raised both hands. "It’s been a while. Let’s offer a proper greeting. Right, Windy?"
Understanding his intentions, Windy chirped excitedly and transformed into a green elemental bow.
This was Klaus’s Second Skill.
He took hold of the bow and drew his right hand back. In an instant, all the wind around him surged toward him in a cascade and formed a large, spear-like arrow with a tip so sharp it glimmered.
The wind making up the spear constantly turned upon itself, increasing the arrow’s velocity more and more.
Klaus’s black eyes went dead cold as he locked onto Love with perfect accuracy, and loosed the arrow.
A detonating boom echoed through the surroundings, creating an intense shockwave that churned the space around it, as the arrow shot toward Love with harrowing speed.
In the midst of her battle, Love’s whole body shivered with the premonition of death. She snapped her head toward the feeling, and saw a green spear-like arrow flying straight at her head.
She was going to die, Love realised instantly, her heart freezing.
Then her pink eyes snapped wide open, flooded with incomprehensible runes. She pushed her Aspect — Runic Body — far beyond anything she had ever done before, and swept her right hand downward toward the space in front of her.
The space glowed, then became inscribed with runes.
She then poured almost all her remaining essence — ignoring the strike of the White Ape on her left flank that broke her bones and filled her mouth with blood — and fuelled the runes.
It was at that exact moment that the arrow reached her. But the instant it arrived in front of the runes, the arrow vanished — swallowed by Love’s teleportation runes.
In the same motion, her nose bleeding from exhaustion and her head aching, Love used the same teleportation runes on the White Apes and made them all disappear, transported elsewhere.
A moment later, the sound of an explosion boomed somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.
Love collapsed to the ground, her legs shaking, her breathing shallow, her eyes hazy. Yet amid all that, she lifted her head and looked toward where the attack had come from.
Empty.
She found no one there. Yet she didn’t need to.
She knew there was only one being capable of such a powerful wind attack.
"Klaus." Love growled, her eyes burning with an anger so hot it was slowly becoming hatred. "KLAUSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"
...
And far in the distance from Love, Klaus walked leisurely into the Safe Zone, hands in his pockets, thinking he was the first to reach it, and the only one worthy of going up against Cassius.
However, he halted abruptly the moment he stepped inside and found two women sitting leisurely on the green field.
Esmeray and Sarah smiled slowly at the crumbling expression on Klaus’s face.
"You took your time," Esmeray drawled, "number three most handsome man of the Kingdom."
—End of Chapter 191—
