Chapter 482: The Grand First-Year Combat Festival: End of the Sixth Round

Silence filled the whole arena for a while.

It was the kind of silence that came after something happened too quickly for the crowd to understand.

Patrick looked stunned, just like much of the audience.

Ezra’s sudden movement had definitely been too fast for the low-rank Alchemists and Non-Alchemists to properly follow, but the Holographic Screens had shown the slowed version of the fight.

Even with the replay slowed down, however, no one could fully understand what kind of movement Ezra had pulled off.

The two boys had somehow been thrown into the air together, and before Nate could even properly fall back onto the ground, Ezra had used the momentum of that spinning motion to bring his leg down.

His Axe Kick had slammed directly into Nate’s head.

The impact had happened so quickly that the arena had only truly understood what happened after seeing the replay.

At the first-year seating section in the stands on the right side of Ezra...

Priscilla covered part of her mouth.

Her eyes remained fixed on the stage.

Just watching the instant slam and the gunshots was enough for her to imagine the pain Nate must have felt.

It was clear from her expression that she was worried about Nate.

Vera, however, remained seated.

From where she was, she faintly smiled, pleased with the result of the fight.

Veda also looked at Ezra with an amazed expression.

His attention remained on the stage as if he were still trying to understand the movement Ezra had just used.

"Winner!!"

Patrick finally found his voice after Professor Liliana Galehart lightly tapped him.

The crowd also seemed to snap back from their shock at the same time.

"EZRA ASHENLOCKE!!!"

Patrick West’s voice sounded throughout the whole arena.

Immediately...

"WOOOOOOAHHHHHH!!"

The crowd responded with the same energy.

The silence was gone.

Hundreds of thousands of voices rose together, filling the arena with cheers as people stood, shouted, and pointed toward the stage.

A few of Ezra’s loyal fans, wearing his merchandise tops and holding banners with his picture, stood up brightly while cheering his name.

"I knew he was going to win!"

"What the hell was that gravity-defying move?"

"Is Ezra actually a Gravity Alchemist?"

"That was so cool!"

"Another cool moment from Ezra Ashenlocke!"

"Sir Ezra Ashenlocke!"

The voices of praise overlapped from different parts of the arena.

Some came from students.

Others came from ordinary spectators.

Some were simply people who had become interested in Ezra after watching his previous matches.

Ezra lightly waved toward the crowd while placing the Glock 19 back into his Space Bag.

His expression remained calm despite the noise surrounding him.

"Damn it."

Nate groaned again.

He was sitting on the stage while holding the backs of his knee joints, where Ezra had shot him.

Blood slowly dripped from the wounds.

His body was turned upward, and his nose also looked slightly hurt from Ezra slamming his face against the ground.

Nate looked toward Ezra with an irritated expression.

"Why would you shoot me when I was already down? Do you discriminate against boys? Because you didn’t do that to the Lady of Drakes."

Nate said it while looking pissed at Ezra.

Ezra looked back at him.

"I didn’t shoot the other people I fought after that round, though."

He replied plainly.

Then Ezra pointed toward his nose before calmly leaving the fight platform.

Nate watched Ezra quietly for a brief moment.

Then he shook his head helplessly.

In truth, Nate had already passed Cognis into his head, hardening the skin of his face so that he could absorb the impact from the crash.

He had prepared himself for the possibility of hitting the ground hard.

But who would have expected Ezra to swiftly shoot both of his joints once he had crashed onto the platform?

"Ahhh..."

Nate sighed while looking toward the first-year seating section.

"Priscilla is going to laugh hard at me for losing this badly."

He said to himself.

The Medic team had now walked up to him.

They moved toward Nate and began treating his injuries before eventually carrying him away from the fight platform.

After that, the Craft-Based Academy staff walked onto the stage and began cleaning the damaged areas in preparation for the remaining matches.

The broken sections of the platform were dealt with, while the arena staff made sure the stage was ready for the next fighters.

The next fight after Ezra and Nate’s match saw Grace Evergrey face Lavinia Burns.

The fight wasn’t one-sided in the sense that Lavinia was unable to fight back, but there was still one student who controlled the fight from beginning to end.

That student was Grace Evergrey.

She overpowered Lavinia Burns through her quick switching of Novice, Binder and Adept rank Gun Alchemy, and the fact that Grace was an Alchemist Rank above Lavinia made the difference even greater.

The last match of the sixth round had Priscilla Ashenlocke facing a Mainline member of the Duke House Burnwick.

Liam Burnwick.

The fight started with both fighters evenly matched.

Very evenly matched.

Both Priscilla and Liam were Binder Alchemists, although Liam had the edge in Alchemy ignition speed because of his Flame Alchemy.

Priscilla made up for that with her natural speed, boosted further through Cognis enhancement, allowing her to fight back against his faster Alchemy ignition.

Explosions occurred on numerous occasions as the fight continued and eventually reached a massive point.

The sound of each explosion rolled through the arena, followed by flames and smoke spreading across different sections of the stage before being pushed away by the force field surrounding the battlefield.

Priscilla made use of the AA-12.

Then she switched to the E.V 26 MK.II before creating the CS-01 Ballista.

The fight continued to push both Alchemists toward their limits.

At one point of the fight, Priscilla was on the losing end.

Her Cognis Pool was running low, and her body was covered with injuries and burns from Liam’s flames.

Liam was injured as well, but not as badly as Priscilla.

His Cognis Pool was also running low, just like hers.

Neither of them had much left.

Yet the fight continued.

The battle went on for close to an hour of fast combat and Alchemy attacks.

By the end, the stage had already been damaged from their repeated exchanges, and both fighters were showing the effects of the long battle.

At the end of the fight, Priscilla pulled off Adept-rank Gun Alchemy, creating a Dual Barrel Shotgun.

It was a crazy move to make, especially when she was already low on Cognis.

But luckily—or, to be more precise...

Just like how she had planned.

Priscilla made use of her Alchemy Accessories, which she hadn’t utilized since the match began.

She had been saving them.

Liam, on the other hand, had already finished utilizing all of his own Alchemy Accessories that stored Cognis.

Priscilla now used the reserves she had kept to perform the Alchemy, while Liam used his remaining Cognis to create a Flame Barrier.

He needed to block.

He was afraid of the possible pain and injuries his body could suffer from the Dual Barrel Shotgun pellets.

The Flame Barrier successfully blocked the attack.

The shotgun Priscilla created was only a first-grade gun, after all.

But even though Liam had successfully blocked it, his body had become too weak to move again.

Priscilla also had almost nothing left.

Still, she forced her body to move.

She used the last strength she had to punch Liam in the face.

The punch knocked him to the ground.

Snow fell gently across the stage while Priscilla remained kneeling on the ground.

Liam didn’t move.

So did Priscilla.

For a moment, it was difficult for many people to tell who had won the match.

The spectators who had been cheering for both young Alchemists looked worried as they waited for an answer.

But then...

Priscilla’s hand rose.

She pointed toward the position where Vera was seated, all the way in the first-year section of the stands.

To Priscilla, this was a message to the one person she had been chasing all her life.

She hadn’t given up yet.

Even though she hadn’t truly shown herself like usual, and even though the gap between them had increased immensely, she was still fighting to catch up.

And in this Combat Festival...

She was going to do her best to catch up to Vera.

Vera looked toward the stage.

She was already bored from watching the fight.

Even though Priscilla’s movement made the crowd cheer her name excitedly, Vera didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Her expression remained calm, almost as if the cheers around her had nothing to do with her.

The only reason she hadn’t left the arena yet was because she simply felt like watching the end of the matches of the sixth round.

And like that...

The Sixth Round finally came to an end.