Chapter 283: A.S.S Invasion.

"What a wonderful day to be alive,"

I muttered, walking out of yet another match, the third one already and thankfully, this one had ended the same way as the last with my opponent giving up out of sheer terror.

Not that I could blame the poor, irrelevant demon whose name I hadn’t even bothered to learn. He had surrendered the instant the match started, same as his predecessor.

Today was only the second day of the rank reassignment, and I had already made it to the final of my own bracket. All that remained now was one last match against my final opponent, followed by matches against the winners of the other brackets.

Not that I minded the easy wins.

Creating terror was a skill in itself and given the trouble waiting for me soon, a little laziness now felt well earned.

I glanced once more at the trembling demon before stepping off the stage. My matches for today were done.

I have two more matches remaining for tomorrow and then, on the final day, the semifinal and the final will begin.

As I made my way toward the stands, my mind was already elsewhere, caught on the excitement of watching the battle between two natural enemies and unnatural friends.

Sylvie and Arthur.

The poor pair had ended up in the same bracket and were drawn against each other in the semifinals, which were about to begin any moment now.

Viola and Sera waved me over to the seats they haf saved.

I made my way to them, had a bit of small talk and sat down. Noah was there too, silent as ever. Arza, though, was nowhere to be found, she had been slipping away right after her matches lately and I still hadn’t figured out why.

Pushing the useless thoughts aside, I turned my attention to the stage as Sylvie and Arthur stepped up to face each other, both wearing pleasant smiles.

Arthur was a Dragon Slayer, holder of a unique Nexus, rare even within his own bloodline.

Unlike the rest of his family who carried only the Dragon Slayer Myth, like I did, he alone possessed the true Nexus itself. It was a broken kind of gift, one that made him proficient with nearly any weapon and granted him near-total mastery over aura control.

Sylvie, on the other hand, was a half-dragon whose Nexus was Chaosborne. The novel had never explained it in much depth, only that she was a strange existence, somehow both swordswoman and mage at once, her true power kept hidden since she was merely a stepping stone at earlier arcs.

She only awakened her true strength completely when she awakened her chaos seed, right before Noah and Arthur killed her.

That was exactly why I leaned forward now, more interested than I had been all day. This was the first time pre-chaos Sylvie would ever cross blades with Arthur.

The referee dropped the announcement as the match finally began.

Sylvie moved first, her sword sweeping low in a testing arc and Arthur met it with his blade, aura curling faintly along its edge.

Steel rang against steel as the crowd murmured its approval but something about it didn’t sit right with me.

I watched Sylvie’s footwork which seemed light and precise as always. While Arthur answered each advance competently, deflecting, redirecting and never once losing his footing. But at the same time, it felt like neither of them was actually trying to win.

It almost felt like they were moving as if they had memorised the whole thing.

Sylvie’s strikes, for all their speed, kept landing just a fraction short of committed and Arthur’s counters came too readable as if he already knew where she would be before she moved there.

I frowned, leaning closer without realizing it.

"They are really going at it, huh?" Viola said beside me.

"Yeah." I said, though the word came out slower than I meant it to.

Because it wasn’t just that they were holding back.

Friends often did hold back and I was sure Arthur had a crush on Sylvie, but he was the kind who cared for honor more than anyone and holding back against an opponent, no matter how close, went against that honour.

Which is exactly why it didn’t make any sense.

The match carried on for a few more minutes as the outcome became clear.

Sylvie had won.

I didn’t know what it meant, or whether Arthur had simply been off his rhythm, or whether there was something else going on beneath that too-clean, too-careful performance of his.

But I knew one thing, something was off and I just didn’t know what yet. He had been acting strange since the treasury, but... this was just too damn different.

Before I could think more about it, the whole arena started trembling as a scream suddenly snapped me out of my thoughts.

I turned towards the sky almost instinctively as four massive ships hovered overhead, and from them jumped a humanoid species clad in intricate alien attire.

A.S.S.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who they were, but the moment I recognised them, my expression twisted as a curse nearly escaped my lips.

Fuck you, fate.

This was barely the second day and the A.S.S. were already attacking when they were supposed to attack on the last day.

...but more than that, they had ruined my plan to punch the protagonist.

Before I could curse any further, the aliens, most of them the familiar degenerate elves, lunged at the nearby students like moths to a flame as chaos spread across the whole crowd.

Everything wasn’t as perfect as I had hoped, but oh well, when is everything perfect anyway.

With those thoughts, I moved because everything else, I had to do something else...

Like stealing some fuel.

***

Author’s Note:

If you noticed this arc felt a bit rushed... you would be right. To be completely honest, I started losing patience with it.

The story just wasn’t unfolding the way I had envisioned and I found myself struggling to get into Rael’s head.

That disconnect probably showed in the writing.

Rather than dragging it out even further, I decided to push through this arc so we could finally move on to the one I have been genuinely excited to write.

Thank you for sticking with the story, I really appreciate you reading and I hope you will enjoy what’s coming next even more. ❤️