Chapter 454: A King’s Humiliation

[00:00.]

[The Final Stage has ended.]

[All battles have stopped.]

[Crown Holder at the moment of the end: Lian Vorhelm.]

[The Broken Crown Test has ended.]

The red light that had been reaching the sky from the Crown until a few moments ago disappeared in an instant.

Almost at the same time, all the active mana on the peak also died down.

Rodrick, who was still clenching his bloody fist, tried to take another step forward for a moment, but his body no longer obeyed him.

The simulated battle realm itself had stopped the battle.

It was over.

Lian was standing in front of him and the Crown was still between his armored fingers.

There were only a few meters between them.

But what had looked like a close competition a few minutes ago now had a clear result.

Rodrick looked at the Crown and then slowly raised his eyes toward Vorhelm’s face.

His usual control had mostly returned, but even now he could not completely hide the anger deep in his eyes.

"This isn’t over." He said in a low voice, there was no direct threat in his tone and it sounded more like a promise.

"Do you want to humiliate yourself even more? This time it ended in a draw, next time the result will be your defeat." Lian looked at him for a few moments.

The young Ashen’s face became stiff for a moment, he wanted to deny it but all the evidence showed that if another battle happened in the future, he would be the loser.

But would he accept such a result? No! No matter what happened, he would return today’s humiliation a thousand times over.

He would never accept losing to this bastard, such a thing would never become reality.

Lian Vorhelm always had to be under his feet, only this way could he continue to be a King.

And before he could say anything, white light formed around both of them.

The world disappeared.

When Lian could see again, the inverted mountain was gone.

The stone ground of the Academy’s central arena was under his feet and thousands of pillars of light appeared across the area one after another.

The students were returning from the simulated realm, some immediately fell to one knee.

Some took several deep breaths and some others just stood still for several seconds, as if their minds still had not accepted that they no longer needed to expect an attack at any moment.

A large part of the physical damage caused by the test had disappeared after leaving the realm, but mental exhaustion and mana consumption were real.

He raised his head and at that moment noticed that many eyes were fixed on him.

For several seconds, no one said anything, as if the shock of what they had experienced was not easy to accept, and they had every right to feel that way, they had seen something that should not have been possible in any way or by any logic.

Then the first whisper came.

"That’s him..."

Another voice came from a few meters away.

"He got two Seals by himself."

"Speed Seal and Spirit Seal."

"He also drew with Rodrick."

"A draw? He even took the Crown from him at the end."

"His Level is really 23?"

Then someone said a sentence that made several others immediately turn their heads away so their laughter would not be seen.

"Twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds..."

Lian raised the corner of his lips.

That number probably was not going to be forgotten anytime soon.

"Twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds."

A familiar voice came directly from in front of him this time.

Lian lowered his eyes.

Kain walked through several students and stood in front of him and only looked at him for several seconds....then slowly shook his head.

"You really waited until the last second to take the Crown? Was it luck? Had you already thought about it? Didn’t you think about what would happen if your calculations went wrong???" He asked with an expression between laughter and disbelief.

"I had thought about it, it was my plan from the beginning, I knew that defeating him in a direct battle was not easy, and I would have to reveal many things." Lian answered calmly.

"So you waited until the last second to take the Crown? Didn’t you think it might not work???"

"It was more painful this way." The young Vorhelm shrugged.

Kain stared directly at his face for several seconds, his mouth opened several times but each time he did not know what he should say and closed it again.

He wanted to teach Rodrick a lesson, but what this boy had done was not a physical lesson, he had destroyed his entire reputation.

He had destroyed all the power and charisma that bastard had built.

What he had not been able to do in nine months, Vorhelm had done in just a few days after his return.

At that moment, a short laugh came from behind Kain.

Liana and Selina approached them together with Marcus, Ethan, Cassian, and Seraphina.

Rindo was a few steps behind them and unlike Kain, he did not have a smile on his face.

His eyes first moved to Lian and then to the students who were still standing around them and talking about the result of the test.

"Today you didn’t just get first place, you also broke something else; something Rodrick spent months building."

"His image of being unbeatable?"

"Exactly, until today many people thought the only question was who could stand behind Rodrick, but now for the first time they saw that someone could also stand in front of him and I have to thank you for that...I guess there won’t be any more problems for the Student Council’s position."

"Someone who is sixteen Levels lower than him." Kain gave a crooked smile.

"That part probably hurts the most, but I guess now you are becoming what Rodrick wanted to be." Rindo gave him a quick look.

It seemed that just saying Rodrick’s name was enough, the crowd a few meters away slowly moved aside.

And the person they were talking about appeared.

Elena was walking on his right and several members of his faction were also behind them.

Darren was also among them, this time the way people opened a path for Rodrick was different from before.

There was still respect, there were still many people who admired his power and position but the looks directed at him were no longer all the same.

Curiosity.

Comparison.

Even something like pity in a few cases.

The matter was not just a battle between two young men, both sides were well-known, one was a young man whose name had been known for almost two years because of his four-star Class and S-Rank Talent.

He was from a great family and had managed to become part of one of the five great Guilds of the country, Guilds that had a name, reputation, and power across the entire continent.

A person who called himself a King and had ruled over the entire Academy and Base #3 like a King for nine full months.

And the other? Lian Vorhelm, until not long ago he was known as a loser and even as someone who had been exiled from his own family.

Especially since there had already been conflicts between the two in the past, and even the girl who was now beside Rodrick had once been Vorhelm’s fiancée.

"He almost won."

"But their Level difference was sixteen, if you can’t defeat someone like that with one hit, then how are you any different from being a loser?" one of the students said quietly.

"Rodrick even activated that trait that took the power of his people, right?"

"He borrowed it."

"Whatever, in the end he still couldn’t defeat Vorhelm."

Rodrick’s right hand clenched for a moment, only for a moment and then opened again, his steps did not change at all.

But Lian noticed that small movement from several meters away, their eyes met for a moment and this time neither of them said anything.

Elena also turned her eyes toward him, it lasted only a few seconds but there was something in her eyes that was not easy to read.

It was a complicated feeling.

One year ago, Lian was known to many as nothing more than the loser who had failed Awakening.

Now that same person, at Level 23, had taken two Seals, stood in a direct battle against Rodrick at Level 39, and pulled the Crown from his hand at the last second.

Lian saw Elena’s gaze but only for a moment and then took his attention away from her.

The girl pressed her lips together very slightly.

Less than ten minutes later, all the participants were moved to the Academy’s main arena.

The wide seats around the arena were also full and students from other years, professors, and guests who had come to watch the test were all present.

In the special section of the seats, dozens of representatives from different Guilds could also be seen.

Some of them had been quietly talking to each other since the moment the students returned.

But when Professor Silas appeared on the central platform, the voices quickly became silent.

The man pushed his glasses slightly higher and looked at the crowd.

"First of all, congratulations, even if you did not get the rank you wanted, those who lasted until the end of the Broken Crown at least proved that they are ready to make decisions under pressure."

Several huge screens appeared above the arena.

"Before announcing the results, let me make one thing clear, points were not the only thing that determined your final rank."

The words appeared one after another.

[Final Evaluation Criteria:]

[Points.]

[Adaptive Difficulty.]

[Combat Performance.]

[Decision-Making Quality.]

[Leadership.]

[Exploration.]

[Unconventional Solutions.]

Silas gave the screen a quick look.

"Someone who collected one thousand points is not necessarily better than someone who got eight hundred points. If the second person faced higher difficulty, fewer resources, and made better decisions to reach those same eight hundred points, the final evaluation takes this difference into account."

Now many eyes unconsciously moved toward Lian, they were probably curious about the number of his points.

There was no doubt that he would get first place, but they had no idea how many points he had.

Silas gave a very faint smile.

"Anyway, let’s move on to the rankings."

The main screen changed.

[Top Ten Rankings of the Broken Crown Test.]