Chapter 540: Powerful. Strong.
Kael was top ten leader board material, but he wasn’t one of the strongest ten in the tournament. Several competitors in the bracket sat above him on raw power.
For Kael to commit to this level of aggression, his target had to be someone really powerful or aggressive. Someone whose pillar was a direct threat to him, or someone Kael had reason to dislike personally.
After casting the barrage of powerful pyro strikes, Kael stopped attacking. Taking a moment to take a breather and let his mana recover a little.
He had cast an epic-rank offensive skills several times within a minute, and that was exhausting.
The smoke didn’t linger, slowly drifting away.
Across the grid, Moon squinted his eyes, trying to make out the figure on the opposing pillar.
A silhouette emerged through the haze.
Standing tall, with arms folded loosely across the chest. Not even bothering to take a defensive stance.
Kael’s eyes widened in shock.
The attacks he had just unleashed could have severely injured a Four-Star beast. He had committed his strongest sustained barrage, dumping mana reserves he had been carefully hoarding since the start of the round.
The pillar across from him hadn’t taken a scratch.
The pillar beneath the white-haired figure was completely spotless. The durability bar on the overhead display showed full health, not a single point of damage registered. Whatever defences Ace Morgan had around himself had absorbed the entire onslaught without flinching.
Across the grid, Moon’s eyes locked onto the figure as the smoke fully cleared.
"It’s him..."
A young man with white hair and eyes as dark as midnight. An expression that was calm and unreadable.
A face that gave nothing away.
"Ace Morgan..."
The mysterious second-place finisher from yesterday’s stage. The one who had no group, no faction, no clear backing. The one Moon had been wanting to investigate.
He was standing across from Kael, completely unbothered by the barrage that had just hammered his position.
Ace’s face slowly turned away from Kael.
Across the open space of the arena, Moon’s eyes met his.
For a long moment, the two pair of eyes were in a trance. Ace’s expression remained unreadable. Then, slowly, a faint smile crossed his lips.
Even from this distance, Moon could see it.
For a single instant, Moon felt immense danger from the white-haired young man. An ice cold pressure that pressed against his chest like a hand wrapped around his ribs. The air seemed to thicken between them, the distance between their pillars suddenly feeling much shorter than it actually was.
Then the pressure dispersed.
It vanished as if it had never existed at all. The air returned to normal. The arena’s noise resumed its usual rhythm. Ace’s smile remained, but the threat behind it had retracted completely, hidden away as smoothly as it had emerged.
Moon’s breathing slowed.
’He’s dangerous.’
When it came to assessing opponents and their threat levels, Moon’s instincts were the metric he trusted most.
Eye of Truth could show him classes, and skills. Battle Instinct could give him reaction speed in combat. But neither of those systems captured the deeper, harder-to-define quality of true danger. The intuition for which opponents could actually kill him versus which ones would merely be toppled by him.
That sixth sense had been built through countless life-or-death encounters.
Creatures of every rank, whether human or beast. Each fight had refined his ability to read the opponent standing across from him. To feel the depth of their commitment, their experience, and their threat.
Staring into Ace Morgan’s eyes, Moon felt weaker than he had in a long time.
Much weaker.
’He’s not a normal Evolver.’
Moon knew his own strength precisely. Despite having only ten acupoints filled, he carried the combat power of a Four-Star Evolver. With his True Elemental Physique, his evolved purple lightning, his Weaponmaster, and his other Epic-rank skills working in concert, he could probably push his effective output even further when he needed to.
He had measured himself against the bracket’s strongest. He knew where he stood.
But the power he was feeling from Ace was different. Ace’s combat power surpassed that of a Five-Star Evolver comfortably. And possibly reached something close to a Surpasser.
Surpassers couldn’t compete in the Spirit Art Tournament. The tournament was structured specifically for Second Order beings who hadn’t yet made official contact with the River of Paths.
Any Surpasser who entered would be immediately disqualified, their access to the River detectable by any of the Ascender officials overseeing the event.
And yet Moon’s instincts were telling him exactly that.
’His average acupoint power must be really high.’
The thought sent a small chill through Moon’s chest.
Ace’s smile widened by a fraction. As if he had noticed Moon’s analysis and was amused by it.
Ace turned his attention back to Kael, his head tilting slightly, his unreadable expression returning.
Kael stared at him for a long moment.
His barrage had done nothing. He had committed a considerable portion of his mana reserves to that series of attacks, expecting at least visible damage to the pillar in return. The result had been a perfectly intact target standing across from him, his clothing not even disheveled by the barrage.
Kael’s eyes searched Ace’s face for any sign of strain. Any subtle tell that suggested his next attack might finally break through.
Unfortunately, Ace looked exactly the same as he had before Kael’s barrage began. He stood calmly, his arms at his sides, his expression as composed as a statue.
The man wasn’t acting. He was genuinely unbothered.
Which meant that even if Kael had the mana to launch another barrage of the same intensity, it wouldn’t matter. The result would be identical, or perhaps worse.
Kael’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t have a follow-up plan.
Across the gap, Ace’s smile was gone. The faint, almost playful expression he had worn while looking at Moon had vanished entirely, replaced by an emotionless one.
As if the smile itself had been a courtesy extended exclusively to one person, and now that he was looking at someone else, the courtesy was withdrawn.
"My turn." Ace muttered.
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