Chapter 1472 (1/2)

Randidly watched the final moments of the match without expectation or judgment, simply experiencing the heights to which humanity could now reach. These would be the people on the front lines against the First Calamity.

Alana’s hand of pale flames slammed against Kayle’s defensive Skill. In the air above Kayle, his image manifested with a vivid intensity that surpassed his previous usage by far; he was currently giving it his all. That simple white divide in a sea of blackness warped the surrounding air, somehow shifting before Randidly’s eyes until the colors flip-flopped. Now a black line divided a sea of white. Kayle’s face was twisted into the most pained grimace that Randidly had ever seen.

The two Skills clashed. And in the end…

...Kayle’s Absolute Divide endured while Alana’s flaming hand faltered and dissipated. For a second, the two stared at each other. The low roar of the crowd was like the static on an old television that was poorly tuned. It added a sense of unreality to the two rigidly staring fighters.

They both sagged at the same moment.

“Dammit… I wanted to win…!” Kayle muttered. Then his eyelids fluttered and he fell forward, having completely overdrawn his mental energy to defend against that last attack.

Randidly felt a great deal of sympathy for the man; the headache he must be experiencing right now was undoubtedly brutal. Plus, Alana had tricked him. The hand of white fire she had conjured looked intimidating, especially after she had sliced Paolo, but it hadn’t possessed any real bite. Randidly unleashed a bit of Yggdrasil’s image to lessen Kayle’s pain.

There were now only two active participants left in the finals.

With a grunt, Alana pulled Kayle’s knife out of her right thigh. Then she rolled onto her belly and slapped the ground with her left hand, pushed her body of a couple of meters off the ground. She twisted midair and managed to land on her good leg. She swayed for a second, then turned toward Paolo while she ripped off his hand’s grip on her face and tossed it to the side.

“An excellent fight,” Paolo announced from a growing pool of blood. “One worthy of crowning a champion.”

Alana simply stared at him, appearing too exhausted to muster the words. But as she held the knife aloft, her arm didn’t waver.

Chuckling Paolo looked down at his own limbs. Blood oozed from the stumps of the fingers on his right hand and gushed spiritedly from the severed end of his left forearm. In front of him and a few meters to the left, his limbs twitched. “Yes, it should be exactly like this. Alana Donal, I want to show you one last Skill.”

He raised his right arm. The silk wisps of images that he took from the audience flowed in faster and faster, weaving themselves together where Alana’s Want had severed his flesh. Very quickly, the missing fingers were replaced by a ghastly phantasm of those fingers. His hand glowed with meaning and Paolo clenched those spectral fingers into a fist.

“The Right Hand of the Challenger.”

Paolo lightly threw a punch forward. The spectral fist shot not toward Alana, but directly up into the air, gleaming like freshly polished silver.

Then he shrugged at Alana. “But the fact I need to make a challenger’s fist means that it is already my loss. We concede.”

The crowd was silent until the words that Paolo had said seemed to sink in. Randidly tilted his head and considered the slate grey sky; hopefully, they could finish the award ceremony before it began to snow.

Then the audience caught up to Paolo's words and exploded.

*****

King Phirun watched the award ceremony with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. Some of the best doctors from the various Zones had rushed down to the arena and made sure that all the contestants were recuperating without any issues. But aside from having their images roughed up a bit, even the hemorrhaging Wivanya was quickly returned to prime form so that the ceremony could begin.

That was the benefit of the System: as long as there were no extenuating circumstances, even severed or annihilated limbs could be replaced. So that now, only thirty minutes after being pronounced out of the final, Wivanya sat primly on her hind legs while her rapidly wagging tail revealed her cheery mood. Alana Donal actually had to whisper something to the dragon so that she wouldn’t injure any of the other duos with her tail.

The sight only served to worsen King Phirun’s mood. Beside him, Huang Shou glanced sideways at him in amusement. “You are disappointed with the result?”

“Pah.” King Phirun spat to the side. Next to him, his Zone’s duo that made it the farthest in the tournament, Kadir and Tosam, visibly flinched. But then King Phirun shook his head. “No, Alana Donal deserves this victory. Paolo and Kayle are also impressive fighters. The only problem… I wish they would have a little decorum. They act so carelessly.”

Huang Shou’s smile quirked upward at the corner and he adjusted his grip on his cane. “Oh?”