Guild Wars

Chapter 835: Core Members Tournament 12

With that over and done with, Draco closed the portal and returned to his meditation. While he and Eva were both interested in watching the fight between Umbra's core members, solidifying their bloodline breakthrough and reaching level 1 'mastery' of their new power was paramount.

Before that, they did not dare to use any of their bloodline powers, forced to stick to plain old Bloodline Energy. Using raw energy to attack, instead of processing it into something more capable, was obviously a crass and ugly method of attack that would normally be far beneath them, yet it was far better than accidentally blowing up Boundless World.

The core members similarly settled down once Hera respawned among them, looking aloof as usual. It would take more than this to break this kuudere loli, and that made many sigh with relief. However, as friends of Hera, Sublime, Keira and Lucia couldn't help but glare at Tunder.

The fellow simply smiled and walked over to placate the ladies with some words and promises while the next fight went on.

10th Battle: Tunder wins!

11th Battle: Cobra vs Happy Scholar, begin!

Cobra leapt onto the stage dexterously, facing off against a silent Happy Scholar whose expression was not too good. After all, everyone knew Cobra was the second strongest among the Five Generals in terms of potential, talent and skill, right after Kiran.

Admittedly, Rina was strong, but take away the staff that had allowed her to Class Up into a Divine Class, then what is she?

While the two faced off, intellectuals with 1 billion IQ naturally would want to know their improved class details.

Naturally.

?Slayer - Legendary Class (Rank 4)

Skills: Blood World (Active), Blood Clones (Active).

Exp gain rate: 70%

Rank up difficulty: 50%

Class weapons: Any small

Class skills: Any assassin?

?Blood World – Active skill

Effect: Submerge an area of 1 kilometer around the user in a domain of blood, where the same substance within the body of all enemies is forcibly drawn out if they are one Rank below the user, or disturbed to varying degrees if they are at the same Rank and above that of the user.

Duration: 1 hour

Cooldown: 1 day.?

?Blood Clones – Active skill

Effect: Create two clones made of blood spawned from yourself or your enemy. Blood clones possess 40% of your HP, stats and power, but take 120% more damage. They last until they are destroyed.

Cooldown: 1 hour.?

?Rune Grandmaster - Legendary Class (Rank 4)

Skills:

Rank 1: Rune Mastery (Passive), Battle Enchanting (Passive), Word of Power (Active), Written Word (Active)

Rank 2: Knowledge Rune (Active), Wisdom Rune (Active)

Rank 3: Immaculate Writing (Passive), Legendary Source Origin (Passive)

Rank 4: Instant Rune (Active), Special Rune (Active)

Exp gain rate: 110%

Rank up difficulty: 35%

Class weapons: None.

Class skills: Any Rune.?

?Rune Mastery – Passive skill

Effect: As a Rune Grandmaster, you naturally possess access to the Rune God's Tome of Runes, though yours is only a clone. Still, this allows you to use any and all the Runes within the tome to their fullest abilities.?

?Battle Enchanting – Passive skill

Effect: You are of the same breed as a Tradeskill Enchanter, but have honed your craft not for imbuing runes into items, but generating them out of thin air itself. Mana is used to empower Runes and allows them to have life.?

?Word of Power – Active skill

Effect: Speak out a selected word and turn it into a Rune that will affect its literary meaning upon a foe. The effectiveness of this varies per word chosen, the strength of the enemy and the amount of mana invested into the skill.

Cooldown: 30 seconds.?

?Written Word – Active skill

Effect: Write down a word or phrase that will become a single Rune, affecting itself in reality to perform what it states. The effectiveness of this depends on the circumstances, the amount of mana divulged to the spell and the length of the phrase.

Cooldown: 45 seconds.?

?Knowledge Rune – Active skill

Effect: Eject a Rune from your memories that works in tandem with other offensive of defensive runes to increase their effects. The amount of increment depends on the amount of mana invested.

Cooldown: 1 minute.?

?Wisdom Rune – Active skill

Effect: Manually craft a Rune with any effect. The Rune works based on the parameters described and its effectiveness will be based solely on the amount of mana placed within.

Cooldown: 3 minutes.?

?Immaculate Writing – Passive skill

Effect: You have mastered the ability to write upon reality itself, using the world as a canvas for your Runes to have existence. All rune casting is now instant and possess 300% more power while requiring 70% less resources to cast.?

?Legendary Source Origin – Passive skill

Effect: You have gained a unique Legendary Source Origin due to your experiments in rune work. You can now supply Runes with mana or Worldly Energy ambient in the world. However, all Runes powered by Worldly Energy require 1,000% more cast time and are 400% weaker than mana-infused runes.?

?Instant Rune – Active skill

Effect: Immediately create a Rune with energy filled up to the parameters you've set. The Rune is subject to the usual limitations, but its power is truly one to behold.

Cooldown: 1 day.?

?Special Rune – Active skill

Effect: Craft a unique Rune that is fixed to this skill, and can be used repeatedly as long as there is enough mana or Worldly Energy present. The cooldown of this skill is decided by the attached rune.

Attached Rune: Barrier.

Cooldown: 5 seconds.?

Cobra immediately entered his Extreme Stealth, disappearing from the senses of everyone without bloodlines. Tier 3 or Tier 4 Control alone was not enough to to detect him, as the combination of his Slayer class and his own use of his pinnacle Tier 3 Control allowed him to negate the power of Control against stealth.

Happy Scholar knew that the moment Cobra disappeared, his life was on countdown, so he first activated his Special Rune: Barrier!

A crisp blue barrier appeared around him made of 3% of his mana reserves. It should be obvious, but his class allocation mostly favored his Spirit stat, and all his equipment possessed enchantments that increased either his mana pool, mana regen or lowered his mana costs.

Happy Scholar was likely the only core member with more raw mana than even Eva, and that was a great achievement!

However, just having mana wasn't enough, because Runes were reality bending magic. To bend reality, the kind of energy needed was massive, and it could be seen from how Eva usually strained to do so herself.

Relying on just huge mana to bend reality freely was impossible, so Happy Scholar was not as overpowered as he could have been if he had an 'infinite mana' skill like Draco and Eva did.

However, he had still invested quite a bit into the barrier, which instantly deformed as Cobra struck from behind Happy Scholar the very next second. The barrier took severe damage but did not break, granting the Rune Grandmaster the opportunity to retaliate!

Word of Power: Armor!

Written Word: Fog!

Instant Rune: True Sight!

First, Happy Scholar coated himself in a set of ethereal armor that draped over his typical mage-like robes, then filled the arena with a thick fog that could not be seen through easily, but still allowed the VoPs of the combatants and onlookers to view the scene.

He then gave himself True Sight, which did not allow him to break Cobra's Extreme Stealth since that would be too broken, but allowed him to perfectly see through the fog.

The byproduct of all this was that Happy Scholar now had a bit more protection on his fragile life, able to make our Cobra's outline roughly through the fog. Extreme Stealth was not the same as disappearing visually, but also disappearing from all other five senses.

Nevertheless, it was a far cry from the Ultima Sunt's Perfect Stealth which made one totally invisible to all forms of senses until the Ultima Sunt struck first. That was just one of the reasons why even Origin Gods felt fear towards this race.

It didn't matter what kind of power you had, if you fell into the range of an Ultima Sunt's Perfect Stealth, you would not see them until they got in a free sucker punch.

That King fellow had only died to Draco because the retard had allowed his hatred for Draco to manifest. His Dark Angel side had instantly sensed that, allowing him to pinpoint the general area where King had been hiding.

There had been no need to see King, Draco had simply continued swinging at the air around King because he knew something had to be there that was feeding him hate. Eventually, he used the air currents that brushed off King's body from his actions to finally decapitate the fellow.

Truth be told, to this day fuckboy Draco did not appreciate just how lucky he had been that King was a a retard and that he had coincidentally unlocked his bloodline at the time. The Flora and Fauna Quest would have been 10,000% times harder and more stress inducing had King escaped that day and the plot followed its natural course.

Likewise, Happy Scholar was using every means he could to negate the Extreme Stealth which was Cobra's biggest advantage. However, he was surprised when the Slayer suddenly appeared before him with a lazy posture, smiling plainly.

"You do realize that I am not just a suped up Assassin, right? The depth of my abilities surpass just crouch walking while invisible." Cobra teased.

Suddenly, Happy Scholar felt the aura of death upon him. He only understood how much he had fucked up when Cobra had opened his mouth. He had completely forgotten the exra set of powers that made his opponent into something akin to a Sanguinemancer, with the ability to manipulate blood to a certain degree!

Happy Scholar smiled bitterly as he coughed out a huge wad of blood, feeling the blood within his body suddenly reverse its flow and become chaotic. He no longer had the capacity to cast runes, trying to use his Tier 3 Body of Godliness to control his blood flow and regulate it properly.

This actually proved extremely fruitful, as Tier 3 and above Body of Godliness gave elementary control over blood flow in the body to regulate healing, among other things. This greatly weakened Cobra's class' power, but one had to remember, this was a battlefield, not a party.

The lapse of focus Happy Scholar used to correct his blood flow was more than enough time for Cobra to stab him a hundred times over with his level of speed. Happy Scholar could only sigh at being turned into a sieve as his body exploded into blood mist after Cobra accelerated his blood flow to unacceptable degrees.

11th Battle: Cobra wins!

12th Battle: Gentle Flower vs Shadowheart, begin!

Gentle Flower smiled softly as she floated onstage, her body radiating an aura of purity and freshness that could leave anyone of both sexes extremely pleased.

On the other side, Shadowheart slowly walked up the stage with his staff in hand, casually fixing his suave suit with his black cloak billowing behind him. Coupled with his immaculate goatee, slicked back black hair and sharp black eyes, he looked like a powerful Count reincarnated into the modern day.

Gentle Flower greeted Shadowheart with a pleasant smile. "Greetings, Sir Shadowheart. Let's have an enjoyable fight."

Shadowheart smiled politely, ever the gentleman. "It would be my pleasure, beautiful Miss Gentle Flower."

Gentle Flower had already possessed a Legendary Class from the onset, but paired up with Shadowheart who had both his bloodline and his Divine Class, the female Guildmaster knew she was facing an impossible task.

Yet like those that came before, she was determined to scale this wall and scrape her knees on it, for it was the only way to prove her mettle and establish where she stood on the scale of power!

Shadowheart responded to Gentle Flower's determination by allowing her to maximize the use of her power before he crushed her completely. She was allowed to maintain her dignity of course, but she needed to understand the gap in power before she made a mistake in future and thought she could actually match up to someone of his level.