SSS-Ranked Talent: Endless Adaptation

Chapter 37: The Dreaded Finale

The quarter-finals and semi-finals came to a swift, chilling conclusion.

Just like Sabrina, Julian’s quarter-final and semi-final opponents both immediately forfeited their matches. The mere threat of his space-collapsing Crimson Void was enough to force the remaining High-bloods to step down, completely unwilling to risk having their mana cores or internal circuits turned into crushed gravity metrics. With the preliminary structures cleared away, the day officially ended.

Thomas walked down the dim, torch-lit corridors beneath the grand stadium, his left leg still dragging slightly and his chest bound in blood-stained linen wraps.

He rounded a heavily shadowed corner near the lower exit and stopped dead in his tracks.

Leaning comfortably against a cold stone pillar was the mysterious senior girl from the library. Her raven-black hair was falling out of its signature messy bun, and her ebony eyes looked down at him through her glasses with that familiar, lazy curiosity.

Thomas paused, his farm-boy mask smooth as glass. "Still lingering in the shadows, Senior?"

She let out a soft, raspy chuckle, a faint smirk playing on her pale features as she smoothed down her senior jacket. "I watched Sabrina hand you a free pass. Weird girl that one."

Her smirk slowly faded, her tone dipping into that quiet, serious weight that always made the air around her feel heavy. She stepped away from the pillar, stopping just a few paces away from him.

"Tomorrow morning is the final match. You against Julian beneath the open sky in front of thousand of High-blood spectators."

"I know," Thomas said calmly. "But putting that aside when are you going to finally tell me who you are?"

"You will get my name tomorrow after your match," she murmured softly, her sharp gaze locking onto his eyes. "Win or lose. I promise."

With that final parting shot, she turned on her heel and glided seamlessly into the darkness of the corridors, leaving the faint scent of old paper and ink behind.

Thomas returned to his room in Unit 112. The dormitory was quiet, the single mana stone on the centre table casting dim shadows against the walls as his roommates rested. He sat cross-legged on the edge of his mattress, staring down at his calloused palms. For a long time, he started thinking about how he would fight Julian. He weighed the raw, devastating scale of the Crimson Void, trying to calculate how his Endless Adaptation could possibly map a talent that collapsed reality itself.

But after a few minutes of circular, frustrating thoughts, Thomas shook his head and let out a slow, controlled breath.

He decided that it simply wasn’t worth the hassle to think about it. No amount of planning could prepare his unrefined biology for an existential threat of that magnitude. He couldn’t predict a void. He should just head out there tomorrow, stand his ground on the black sand, and try his absolute best. If Julian wanted to break him, Thomas would simply force his body to endure the impact until his genetic code rewrote the rules of the board.

He closed his eyes counting down the final hours to the ultimate bloodbath.

...

Thomas woke up before the early morning bells even began to ring.

Sitting on the edge of his mattress, he blinked, allowing the cold, translucent blue lines of the system interface to stabilize directly beneath his eyes. The floating text mapped out his baseline attributes, completely devoid of any emotional flavor, serving as a mechanical reminder that his vessel was fully integrated and optimized for the trial ahead.

[ INITIALIZING FINAL MATRIX OVERDRIVE ]

* Status: Internal Tissue Damage Fully Absorbed

* Current Condition: Optimal Baseline Efficiency

He stood up, and went to clean himself up. Minutes late he was standing in front of a mirror adjusting the collar of his uniform jacket, and then he left Unit 112 to head toward the summit.

The walk to the Arena felt entirely different today. As he stepped past the heavy iron security gates and onto the stone ramp, the intense glare from the High-blood students lining the corridors was thick enough to slice with a knife. They watched him with a venomous, unyielding hostility, their eyes boring into his side as he walked past.

Right at the threshold of the arena entrance, his friends were waiting to see him off. Ryan and Lina stepped forward, their faces still carrying a lingering trace of anxiety, but their eyes were fiercely determined. They tightly gripped his shoulders, wishing him luck in low, intense whispers. Mina stepped closer than the rest. Without a single word, she leaned in and gave him a soft peck on the cheek, her hazel eyes burning with an unspoken demand for him to survive what was coming.

Thomas gave them a single, firm nod, stepped past the final barrier, and walked fully out onto the black sand.

The moment his boots touched the grains, he noticed just how catastrophically packed the stadium was today. The thousands of vaulted stone benches climbing up the tower walls were overflowing, not just with standard students, but with powerful High-bloods who had traveled directly from the inner rings of the Holy City, alongside wealthy delegates from various other regions of the kingdom. The noise was a deafening, thunderous roar. Some of the nobles immediately leaned over the stone railings, yelling harsh profanities and insults down at him, while others simply looked at his tattered uniform with cold, condescending pity, viewing him as a lamb walking into a slaughterhouse.

Right in the exact center of the arena floor, the massive, monolithic awakening crystal stood tall, its crystalline structure catching the harsh morning sun and refracting a faint, eerie light across the sand.

Thomas raised his head, his sharp gaze shifting toward the grand upper structures. On an elevated platform far above the standard seating tiers, four figures sat perfectly still in ornate stone chairs. He suspected these were the high-ranking administrators and instructors who held the real, supreme power in the academy. They wore long, flowing robes that drifted in the high-altitude gale, looking far more like ancient, wise sages than academy instructors.

His eyes continued their sweep, landing on a completely isolated section of the stands where only five people sat. The Horsemen of Calamity were gathered in full force, here to witness the two freshmen who were going to join their elite team duke it out for the ultimate crown. Sitting right at the front of that exclusive tier was the Midnight Valkyrie. She was encased in her terrifying, signature ebony armor the dark, law-defying metal intricately etched with those glowing silver runes that pulsed slowly in sync with the atmospheric pressure of the tower apex. Her smooth, faceless runic helm completely concealed her features.

Across the wide-open field, the gates ground open, and Julian stepped onto the sand. He wasn’t wearing his spectacles today. His white uniform was immaculate, his striking ebony eyes entirely bare as he looked across the field, his presence causing the air pressure in the Arena to instantly plummet.

Thomas stood his ground, his fingers resting loosely at his sides completely ready for the absolute finale to begin.