Chapter 191: A katana [@Thomasinho Golden Ticket Bonus - ]

The scene shifted to a Bioluminescent Fungal Canopy.

It was a subterranean twilight jungle made entirely of giant, glowing mushrooms.

Soft blue and green light pulsed from the caps and stems, casting shifting shadows across the uneven ground.

Spores hung thick in the air, creating patches of low visibility that could trigger status effects if breathed too deeply.

Some of the larger fungal caps were soft enough to act as natural trampolines or elevated perches, while the smaller ones released clouds of luminous dust when disturbed.

BANG!

In this biome, Felin Winterfang had just finished killing another creature.

Its body lay still behind him as he straightened and checked the live rankings out of habit.

1. Alexander Abyss : 12700 Points.

"—!?"

"—I knew he was strong, but not this strong..."

Felin had seen the Third Prince in action himself during the last major spar in the training hall.

That fight had already been the talk of the palace and the capital for days afterward.

He had walked away from it certain that Alexander Abyss was far too strong for anyone his age.

Even so, the version of the prince that Felin remembered had still been clearly weaker than him at the time.

Then what in the hell had happened?

"...Just what in the hell happened for him to suddenly climb to the first rank in the live points ranking?"

Felin would be lying if he claimed he was not shocked out of his mind.

He dusted his hands free of the grit and residue left from the previous fight, the soft glow of the surrounding mushrooms painting everything in shifting blue-green light.

At any other time he would have been thrilled to find himself already inside the top ten this early.

Right now, though, his attention was locked on the unexpected name sitting at the very top.

The spores drifting through the air made the ranking display shimmer slightly whenever he focused on it.

Then the Third Prince's points began climbing again, and the rate was alarming.

Numbers jumped in steady bursts that should not have been possible for someone supposedly still adjusting to the Proving.

"Just what the hell is that guy doing?!"

The thought of Bloodworth participants and fighters from other kingdoms already moving to target the Third Prince settled heavily in Felin's mind.

A determined expression replaced the earlier surprise.

He could not afford to stay here collecting easy points while the real threats, and the real responsibility, moved farther away.

"I have to get to him before those others get there."

Suddenly the device in his pocket glowed once, bright and clear.

Felin pulled it out, oriented himself toward the signal, and soon spotted a bright blue light high in the sky that was already beginning to dim.

"There..."

He rushed toward it without further hesitation.

***

In another biome, Hema Bloodworth watched the live points ranking rewrite itself in real time as an unexpected name shot to the top.

It was the same name she hated with every part of her being.

Her eyes burned with pure hatred as Alexander Abyss claimed first place.

"This guy! Just what in the hell are the CBI doing?! Have the CBI been bribed?!"

She could not bring herself to accept that the boy who should have been placed in the worst possible conditions had somehow risen to the absolute top of the rankings.

This was the same boy who had humiliated her in front of every commoner and noble present on registration day, and he had not even spoken a single word while doing it.

The memory of that silent pressure still burned.

"NO! No! No! NO!"

She could not let this continue.

Every point he gained felt like another personal insult layered on top of the orders she had already received.

Hema had not forgotten the orders relayed through her parents, orders that had come directly from their Matriarch, Valeriana Bloodworth.

Many noble houses and royal households had found a practical way to raise their qualification rates over the last few decades.

The CBI had never banned the method either, because it did not care or because the practice simply fell outside its current concerns.

The method itself was simple.

Although every participant started separated, they could use Runic Pointers, Rune Signals, or bright Runic fireworks to gather their own people once the Proving began.

For this particular year the Bloodworth side had prepared something special with Alexander Abyss in mind.

'Once we get to you, you are a dead man.'

Hema's thought was dark and absolute.

***

The scene shifted again, this time to a Carnivorous Overgrowth.

It was a living, predatory jungle where the flora itself hunted combatants.

Vines lashed out at any fast movement.

Pitch-black pitcher plants waited to trap anyone who fell.

Pressure-sensitive ground leaves acted as natural springboards or digestion pits depending on where a foot landed.

Kerin Vectorian stood over the carcass of a four-meter mountain tiger mana beast he had just killed.

1. Alexander Abyss : 12700 Points.

He could not help rethinking everything he had heard about the Third Prince until now.

"Were the rumours true?"

He shook his head firmly a moment later.

"No, most of them were still too absurd to be believable."

Not all of them had been false, however.

Some stories claimed the Third Prince was already at Rank 2 Mastery who had defeated great monsters in secret.

Those were clearly fabricated bullshit.

Yet the quieter claims, that he could fight mid-Awaken rank cultivators and perhaps even hold his own against high-Awaken stage fighters, no longer seemed completely wrong.

Alex's points were suddenly climbing at an even higher rate.

"I need to take this more seriously now, I can't be playing this passively..."

He drew his sharp polearm, stepped away from the tiger's body, and rushed off to find his next prey.

***

Alex immediately saw another participant come into view while he was moving.

This one shared the same general features as the last Sakura-branch fighter he had encountered.

The girl noticed him the moment he turned toward her.

She did not even attempt to fight.

Her hand snapped toward her pocket and she tried to draw out the same type of small device.

Before she could press it—

SHIIING!

A gleaming curved blade appeared near her midsection, already committed to cleaving her in half.

WHOOSH!

She vanished instantly, extracted the same way as the previous one.

"Tch..."

Alex did not linger.

He activated [Eye of Flesh] again and rushed in a new direction.

***

It happened again...

***

Again...

***

And again...

***

"Ugh... How long is this going to keep happening!?"

***

...

...

...

...

***

"FUCKING BASTARDS! I will skin the next one alive!" Alex was no longer amused.

Whatever these people were thinking, the repeated pattern of drawing a device and vanishing the moment he closed in had worn his patience thin.

Each extraction left him with no information, only the faint residual scent of displaced air and the knowledge that they were trying something.

'Hey Zara! What the hell is this button-like object these people keep trying to press? It's getting on my nerves.'

He sent the question through the Shadow Bond at once, wanting a clear answer before the next one appeared.

'Must be some kind of Runic Signal device,' Zara replied without delay.

'They use them to alert nearby participants who share a similar signature, warning them about danger or calling for a gathering.'

'The light in the sky is another way to send the same signal, but not many people used them before because it was seen as a sign of weakness and they used to cost a fortune.'

'In recent years the advancements in runic sorcery made them much more accessible, so their usage became popular.' She continued in the same practical tone.

'If you are running into these things, you should bolt out of the area the moment they press one, there is no need to risk getting teamed up on.'

'And we at Abyss did not do it because...' Alex already had a fair idea why.

'...our signal would just get the participant who used it targeted,' Zara finished.

'You are already on the radar of almost every participant in the Proving this year, and before you start suggesting different colours or other clever ideas, you were the highest authority for the Abyss group this year, so that means the preparation and distribution would have fallen on you, but you barely even registered on the last day, so there was no time for any of that.'

'And then there is the fact that the Abyss participants almost never rely on these tactics during the Proving anyway, I could keep listing reasons—'

'Alright! Alright! Gosh! You don't need to start lecturing me, I was just curious...'

Alex accepted the explanation and kept moving.

"[Eye of Flesh]"

Mana pressure.

He felt it immediately, a strong, concentrated presence cutting through the background currents of the biome.

Someone had either used a high-cost skill or killed something that held a large amount of mana.

The signature was sharp and deliberate.

Then something entered the edge of his perception range.

A sharp blade surged toward the back of his neck at bottleneck speed.

'A katana-shaped blade?'

Alex could not see the weapon itself because it was coming from directly behind him, yet he did not need to.

The Eye of Flesh gave him the sensation of a second set of eyes at his back.

The trajectory, the speed, and the dense mana wrapped around the edge were all clear.

Whoever was attacking had timed the strike for the exact moment his attention was spread across the wider area.

'It's fast...'

There was no time for a full turn!

Mana flooded from his Mana Heart toward his legs in a single concentrated surge—!

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End of Chapter 191: A katana

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