Chapter 390: Inter-Academy Tournament (XLII)

The moment those words fell, the world seemed to narrow into a single, perfect line.

There was no dramatic explosion of light or a roaring shockwave that shook the entire island.

The technique was simply quieter than that.

A thin, almost invisible arc of pure Severing force left the tip of Gray’s rapier and traveled forward in a straight line so precise it looked as if reality itself had been sliced with a razor.

The line passed through Vaelor first.

Vaelor’s eyes widened.

He tried to raise his greatsword in time, crimson draconic energy flaring desperately along the blade.

The Severing force met the greatsword, met the dense aura around it, and continued forward without slowing.

The heavy blade was cleanly cut through the middle.

The crimson energy coating it was severed as well, dissipating into scattered red sparks.

The cut continued into Vaelor’s shoulder and across his torso, not deep enough to permanently cripple under tournament rules, but more than enough to overwhelm his defenses and trigger the elimination threshold.

Vaelor’s body glowed with the light of forced withdrawal.

He vanished from the floating island a fraction of a second later.

The Severing line did not stop.

It continued through the exact path Gray had spent the entire fight creating.

The sticky mana nets in its path were sliced apart and collapsed.

The reflective barriers split cleanly down the middle and shattered into fading fragments.

The overlapping gravitational fields and mana-damping mist were cut through as if they were paper, the techniques unraveling the moment the Severing force passed through their cores.

Snap!

Sealing threads snapped.

Recovery-limiting seals split and lost their glow. Earth walls that had been raised to restrict movement were carved open with surgical precision.

Behind Vaelor, the support casters and barrier specialists who had been standing in that perfect alignment were caught in the same continuous line.

Their defensive constructs offered no resistance.

One after another, their auras were severed, their techniques broken, and their bodies registered the elimination threshold.

Glowing lights flared as student after student was forcibly teleported out of the trial.

The entire central spine of Vaelor’s carefully maintained formation was cut open in a single, uninterrupted stroke.

When the Severing force finally dissipated, a clean, straight scar remained carved into the rocky ground, running from Gray’s position through the heart of the camp and continuing several meters beyond the last fallen student.

Silence fell over the outcrop.

Then the reactions began.

On the battlefield, the surviving students who had not been standing in the line stared in complete shock.

Clang... clank!

Their weapons fell to the ground, their auras started flickering from pure fear before dying.

One of the remaining earth users dropped to one knee, staring at the clean cut that had just erased their captain and the core of their formation in a single motion.

"He... he cut through everything..."

"The barriers... the fields... Captain Vaelor... all of it..."

"It was a straight line... when did he create a straight line?"

None of them had noticed the gradual herding. Even now, looking at the scar on the ground, they could not fully understand how the positions had aligned so perfectly.

In the viewing hall, the crowd erupted.

The earlier noise of excitement and commentary turned into a chaotic roar of disbelief.

"DID YOU SEE THAT?!"

"One slash! One single slash cut through the entire formation!"

"He was being pressured the whole time... and it was all to set that up?!"

"Vaelor is gone! The third-highest token group just lost their core in one move!"

People stood on their seats.

Some clutched their heads.

Others laughed hysterically from pure shock.

The projection screens replayed the moment from multiple angles: the dark flare of aura, the blurred rapier, the thin, almost invisible line of Severing force traveling forward, and the sequential collapse of every technique and fighter in its path.

In the VIP section, the reactions were more restrained but no less intense.

Gloria had risen halfway out of her seat.

Her golden eyes were wide to the maximum, and her earlier teasing was completely gone. Her hands gripped the armrests hard enough that the wood creaked.

Aurora’s faint smile had widened into something openly proud.

The Emperor leaned forward seriously, trying to understand how the fuck the person in front of the projection was just a mere student.

The Northern Duchess, Evelyn, let out a low, appreciative whistle.

"Now... that was beautiful."

Several high-ranking nobles exchanged stunned glances.

One older duke shook his head slowly.

"He manipulated an entire combat formation into a single killing line... while fighting under multi-layered suppression... and none of them noticed until it was too late."

Another noble clenched his jaw, thinking of his own son currently participating in a different year.

"My boy could train for ten years and still not read a battlefield like that."

A countess nearby, whose daughter was a talented 3rd-year, pressed her lips into a thin line.

"That level of spatial awareness and long-term setup... it’s not something you can teach. Either you have it, or you don’t."

The Saintess, who had remained mostly quiet throughout the earlier exchanges, finally spoke.

Her soft, refined voice carried clearly in the VIP section.

"His battle qi is remarkably pure," she said, her luminous silver eyes still fixed on Gray’s figure on the screen.

"Even under heavy suppression, the Severing force remained stable and absolute. There was no waste, no excess emotion, no hesitation in the cut. That is not merely talent with a sword. That is a level of combat clarity most adults never reach."

Her words made several nearby nobles grit their teeth.

They knew she was right.

Their own sons and daughters, many of them praised as geniuses within their territories, could not have done what Gray had just done.

They could not have endured layered debuffs while simultaneously herding an entire group of elite 4th-years into a perfect straight line, then ended the fight with a single, decisive technique.

The comparison was simply too damn painful.

Gray did not bother asking for tokens this time.

He looked at the remaining students still standing among the ruined formation.

The will to fight had already left their eyes.

There was no need for further conversation.

Gray raised his rapier once.

Fwip!

A series of short pulses of Soul Chaining Qi shot outward. Each one struck a remaining student cleanly in the chest or shoulder.

One after another, their bodies glowed with the light of forced elimination.

Within seconds, the last members of Vaelor’s group vanished from the floating island, teleported out of the trial.

The rocky outcrop fell silent.

Only the clean scar from [Severing Pursuit] and the scattered remnants of broken barriers remained.

Gray lowered his rapier and reached into his spatial storage.

He pulled out another communication stone, one of the spares he had prepared in advance, and poured a small amount of mana into it.

"Seraph."

A moment later, her voice came through, still carrying residual tension.

"Gray? What is it?"

"Rankings?"

There was a brief, confused pause on the other end. Seraph clearly had not expected that question so soon.

The faint sound of her checking the shared ranking board came through the stone. Then her voice returned, completely different, high with pure disbelief.

"G-Gray...?! W-we... we are in first place!?!?! How?!"

Gray’s expression did not change.

"I got the three largest groups that hold the most tokens... as I expected, that was enough."

Silence.

When Seraph spoke again, her voice was quieter, almost trailing off in shock.

"In one hour and twenty-four minutes, you actually..."

"Mhm," Gray nodded lightly, even though she could not see it.

"I’ll send you my location. Come to me. I’ll protect everyone since first place is obviously more than enough to qualify."

"Mhm!" Seraph’s reply was firm this time; the earlier hesitation was completely replaced by clear resolve.

Gray ended the connection.

Then, without ceremony, he closed his fist.

Crack!

The communication stone shattered into glowing fragments that scattered across the scarred ground.

He looked around the empty outcrop one last time, then walked over to a sturdy tree at the edge of the clearing.

Then, he sat down against the trunk, resting his back against the bark, and let out a small, quiet sigh.

"Haah..."

[Are you tired?]

Jasmine asked curiously, wondering the reason for his sigh.

"Well... I’d rather not have shown much of my strength right now. I’m trying to hide the maximum possible for the Royal Banquet."

[Oh... you mentioned that. But are you sure you can kill the Emperor?]

"Not really," Gray shook his head.

Even with his whole power, he wouldn’t be able to do so; after all, Gloria’s Daddy would be present during the banquet.

Of course, Gray had his own big sister to deal with the daddy, but even so, he didn’t know if he could actually deal with multiple Sovereigns against him.

[Then what are you going to do?]

"Mhm... I’ll contact the abyss for help."