Novel Full Chapter 496: Opening Round Has Officially Ended!
Chapter 496: Opening Round Has Officially Ended!
"Of course. I respect that." He gave a small nod. "Good luck out there, Miss Selene. Stay safe, let’s meet up in the next stages of the tournament. Till then, take care of your self."
He turned and began walking in the opposite direction. Sarah followed without a word, her expression as unreadable as ever.
Selene watched them until they disappeared back into the trees.
Her wolf relaxed beside her, though its ears stayed swiveled in the direction the two had gone.
Selene let out a slow breath and turned back to her own path.
Another hour passed, and a sharp beep echoed simultaneously across every watch within the active battlefield.
[The Opening Round has officially ended!]
[Two Hundred Participants have officially qualified! Congratulations!]
Moon glanced at his watch.
Rank: 1st
Score: 1,820 Points
He had maintained his top one ranking through the final stretch. But what caught his attention wasn’t his own position. It was the gap behind him.
Rank: 2nd
Score: 1,720 Points
A hundred points behind. After everything.
Moon had started the tournament with a five-hundred-point lead courtesy of the Elephantos kill. That advantage should have been insurmountable. Yet someone had clawed nearly the entire gap closed in the second half of the tournament, accumulating points at a pace that dwarfed anything Moon had seen on the leaderboard.
"This person is strong." Moon muttered. "Everyone in the top ten is."
He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that only the top ten posed a threat. The bracket of two hundred contained plenty of dangerous fighters who had deliberately stayed off the leaderboard, accumulating just enough points to qualify while hiding their true strength from the cameras. Those were the ones Moon was more wary of. The ones who would surface in later stages with skills nobody had seen, fighting at a level nobody had anticipated.
His own approach had been calculated. He had shown his blue fire and his purple lightning, but he had deliberately kept his Cryomancy, his Dual Wielding, his Weaponmaster, and the full breadth of his Runemaster work under wraps.
The audience and the other competitors had seen the headlines. They hadn’t seen the depth.
Others would have done the same.
The tournament’s next stage was a day away. He had twenty-four hours to rest, recover, and prepare.
During that time, he needed to study. Watch the footage. Identify the ones who had revealed too much and the ones who had revealed too little. Build a mental list of who to watch for and who to avoid in the brackets ahead.
His watch beeped again with an update.
[Please proceed back to the central grounds of the tournament.]
A holographic arrow projected from the display, pointing toward the closest exit. Moon followed it.
The first round was over.
The real tournament was about to begin.
Moon and Selene crossed paths at the transportation exit. Both of them recognized each other from a distance, and neither was particularly surprised to find the other one walking the same way.
They fell into step together as they moved toward one of the many small orbitals that would carry them back to the central tournament grounds.
The tournament holders were considerate enough to not make them run the way back to the central grounds, like how they arrived at this site at first.
"So." Selene glanced at him sideways. "Did you keep first place?"
Moon tilted his head, a small smirk tugging at his lips. "What do you think?"
"My hearts tells me that you did."
He raised an eyebrow. Selene didn’t look at him, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward in a way that made it clear she knew exactly what she had just said.
Moon nodded. "I did. What about you?"
"I ended up third." She paused, her expression growing thoughtful. "But second place... whoever that is, they’re a monster. They were just numbers on the screen the entire time. Climbing fast. I’m really curious who that is."
Moon nodded silently. He had been thinking the same thing.
They boarded the small orbital together. The ride back to the central grounds was short and quiet, both of them content to sit in comfortable silence after the chaos of the past twenty-four hours.
When they arrived at the central tournament area, the place was nearly empty. Only a handful of competitors had returned before them, the early finishers from various corners of the play zone trickling in one by one. Most of the qualifying two hundred were still en route.
The central stage was a wide, raised platform surrounded by tiered seating. Hundreds of thousands of spectators filled the stands, their voices rolling across the open space.
Above them all, hovering effortlessly in the air, was Klein. His green eyes scanned the arriving competitors with the same interest he had shown during the opening round.
Moon and Selene took their positions in the holding area designated for qualified participants. From here, they could see the rest of the competitors arrive in waves, the holding area gradually filling with the survivors of the first round.
Selene stood just a few feet away, looking at Moon.
"What’s next?" Selene asked.
Moon glanced up at Klein, then around at the arena.
"Not sure. But since we haven’t been dismissed, there must be some kind of announcement coming. They wouldn’t keep two hundred Evolvers, and hundreds of thousands of spectators standing around without a reason."
A few minutes later, Kael arrived from his own orbital. He spotted Moon and Selene in the area and walked toward them, his red hair easy to pick out, even from a distance.
He stopped a few feet away.
"You made it." He said simply.
Moon nodded, "How was it? Did you reach your goal?"
Kael nodded. "Top ten. Barely, but I got there. What about you?"
"We’re in the top ten too." Moon gestured between himself and Selene.
Kael’s eyes moved between the two of them, his expression unreadable for a brief moment. Then he nodded again.
"I see."
He fell into silence beside them as more of the two hundred Evolvers began to approach, and amongst them two Evolvers that Moon and Selene had interacted with before.
Marcus and Sarah arrived at the area. Marcus scanned the holding area as he walked in, his eyes sweeping across the crowd looking for the blonde haired girl he had in mind. He spotted Selene’s glossy hair and graceful clothes from a distance, even with her back turned toward him.
"Miss Selene!" Marcus waved from a distance, as he began to approach the group of three alongside Sarah.
His face lit up immediately.
"Miss Selene!" He called out, raising his hand and waving.
He began making his way toward the group of three, Sarah walking calmly at his side as always, her expression as unreadable as ever.
Selene turned at the sound of her name.