Chương 69: Finish Line

Gray stepped toward the fallen Vanguard. William was unconscious. With a mental tug, Gray ripped Tobari free from the man's leg and called the blade back into his hand. He stepped over the body, staring dead into William's hollow face. There was no fury in his eyes, no satisfaction—only a cold emptiness. Relief was impossible, not when he thought about the path Hyun was now forced to walk. Some deranged bastard, likely his mentor, had destroyed his brother's life, leaving him to live it out as a cripple.

Authority over the Guild and its Contribution Points was beyond Gray's control; it belonged to Hyun. With his brother incapacitated, Gray had no way to transfer anything himself. If he died here, those points would follow him to his grave, leaving Hyun with nothing. Lightening his brother's burden was the last thing Gray could still do for him. Which meant eliminating the final loose end: William. If he left him alive, the man would eventually come after Hyun again.

Gray flipped the katana point-down and raised it overhead, preparing to drive the blade straight through William's face— Something clamped around his leg. Gray jolted and snapped his gaze downward. Hyun's hand was wrapped tightly around his ankle. His brother still lay exactly where Gray had left him before the fight began, eyes fixed in that milky-white stare. But the gentle smile he'd worn earlier had vanished, replaced by a deep-set frown. Even unconscious, his hold over him was iron.

A scoff escaped Gray's lips, the absurdity of it all almost shattering his killing intent. But not quite. His fingers tightened around Tobari's hilt. I'm doing this for you, Hyun. His expression hardened, gaze snapping back to William's body. He deserves it. He deserves to die. Gray raised his arms overhead and drove the blade down. The tip of the steel plunged through William's forehead with a splintering crack. You have slain "William Johnson." The Alliance Master has received the Contribution Points…

52, 091 CP have been automatically allocated to Gray Kim. The lingering smoke of Shroud Domain began to thin, peeling away into wisps as pale moonlight spilled across the pavement. Gray released a long breath. It was over. His legs finally gave out beneath him. He collapsed onto his back and lay there for a moment, chest heaving, before turning his head toward Hyun. His eyes burned from the flames of his legacy, the black flames blurring the edges of his vision.

A dry, searing pain bloomed in the center of his chest and slowly crawled up his throat. Every breath rasped against his lungs. He let his eyelids drift shut, too exhausted to fight anymore, ready to let his own smoke drag him into the dark. Then something warm pulsed against his shoe. The bloodstain smeared across the canvas began to glow with a vivid scarlet light. Gray's eyes cracked open. Liquid tendrils burst from the mark and whipped upward, twisting around one another in a frantic double helix.

With every rotation, the strands thickened, weaving themselves into muscle, mass, and shape. Through the narrowing edges of his vision, a reaper-like silhouette took form above him. Ribbons of blood danced and coiled together until the towering figure fully emerged, looming over his sprawled body. Gray let out a wet cough, then managed a deep frown.

"I think your grim presence might've just jinxed my chances at heaven, Nabi. How'd you even get here?"

"Heaven?" Nabi snapped her gaze to the tank lying with a sword sticking out of his face, then dropped to one knee beside Gray.

"You're never crawling out of hell after what you did. Now shut up so I can save your life."

"I don't think a potion is going to—" Gray's sentence shattered into a visceral scream. Nabi plunged her hand straight into his chest. His body seized. Instinctively, Gray clamped both hands around her forearm and desperately tried to wrench it free.

"Do you want to live or not?" Nabi snapped, glaring at the fingers digging into her arm. Realization dawned on him. Gray's grip slowly loosened, and his arms dropped weakly to his sides. He turned his head toward Hyun, stared at him for a long moment, then looked back at Nabi.

"I do," he rasped.

"Please save me." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. She gave a sharp nod and pushed deeper until her fingertips hovered mere inches from his core. She spread her fingers wide, closed her eyes, and clenched her jaw. Now focus on the mana circuits feeding that corrupt smoke into his core, Ava's calm voice echoed through Nabi's mind. You don't have the finesse yet to manipulate the actual flow of his bloodstream, so you'll need an alternative. By flooding it?

Nabi projected back. By flooding it, Ava confirmed. A smirk tugged at the corner of Nabi's mouth. Hemorrhage. Under normal circumstances, the spell was a death sentence—a way to accelerate blood loss from an open wound while supplying the Blood Reaper with more ammunition. This time, Nabi used it as an explosive tourniquet. Deep inside Gray's chest, a localized eruption tore through his circulatory system. Veins and arteries ruptured under the sudden pressure, flooding the surrounding tissue with blood.

The mana circuits in his bloodstream burst apart. Without those channels to act as a bridge, the corrupt smoke could no longer feed into Gray's core. What corruption remained trapped inside the domain of his core consumed the last scraps of mana stored within his Shroud Mastery pocket. Once starved of anything left to devour, the smoke of Shroud flickered out. Gray's eyes rolled back. His body went limp, and what little color remained in his face rapidly drained away.

The last trails of black smoke clinging to his skin thinned into wisps before dissolving into the air. Fatal blood loss was one of the surest ways to kill an Awakened—second only to destroying the brain or shattering the core. Ava hadn't deliberately hidden that fact from Gray. She simply had a habit of withholding such information. With the corruption extinguished, stabilizing him was the final step. Fortunately, the same affinity Nabi had used to bleed him dry could replenish what he had lost.

This world's altered biology spared her the complications of blood types, transfusion compatibility, and precise intravenous access. All she had to do was put the blood back—but first, she needed to stop him from losing any more. Blood had already flooded Gray's chest cavity and was streaming upward from the wound around Nabi's embedded arm. Drawing on her manipulation, she gathered the excess into writhing crimson strands and siphoned them through her palm, storing the blood safely within her core.

Once she had siphoned enough, there would be only one thing left to do: force it back into Gray's system before his body shut down for good. Nabi seized his core. Her forearm glowed crimson as she fed his blood directly back into his core, flooding the domain with his own blood.

Mana circuits connected to the core would gradually recover on their own, and with the stockpile of blood now contained inside the core, it would slowly drip-feed the liquid back into those circuits as it re-established that bridge throughout his body. Blind to the process unfolding inside him, Nabi could only trust the strange mechanics of this magical heart—and her mentor's instructions. Once the last drop had been returned, she pulled her hand from Gray's chest with a wet squelch.

Nabi slumped backward onto the pavement, drained, and wiped a forearm across her sweat-slick brow. Then she realized which arm she had used.

"Fuck!" Nabi recoiled and peeled the streak of Gray's blood from her forehead. With a disgusted flick of her wrist, she sent the glob splattering across the concrete. The transfusion had worked. There was only the matter of the gaping hole in Gray's chest. Regenerating flesh was far beyond Nabi's abilities, but fortunately, the enchantment woven into Gray's shirt activated on its own—the torn fabric crawled across the wound, threads knitting together until the bloody opening disappeared beneath the repaired cloth.

Out of sight, out of mind, Nabi thought as she pushed herself upright and dusted the grit from her hands. Don't worry about the wound. Althea can patch that up later, Ava's voice resonated through her mind. Right now, I need you to establish a blood signature on Gray and his brother. Oh, alright, Nabi replied. She extended two fingers. A bead of blood gathered at each fingertip, hovering like a pair of crimson pearls.

Nabi flicked her index finger toward Hyun, then deliberately raised her middle finger at Gray before snapping it forward. The droplets struck the center of each brother's forehead. Before she could do anything else, a triumphant trumpet fanfare blared from the sky. The familiar translucent blue window expanded across Nabi's vision, accompanied by the system's voice—this time carrying a distinct edge of irritation. That concludes this year's Natural Selection!

There hasn't been a race this competitive since the 873rd! Filled with bloodshed, messy politics, and even a little sibling camaraderie… I hope everyone who participated excels in this new world of theirs. Of course, we can't say the same for those who failed to reach the Top 100 threshold. I sincerely wish the dropouts good luck out there. But know this: you had the means to take control of your own fate, and you threw it away. You brought this upon yourselves. Now, on to more positive matters. Your rewards!

The Top 100 will preserve their classes as promised, and each of you will receive an Advancement Stone. As your mentors may have explained, these stones will allow you to advance into the Elite Rank. You must first meet the Level 5 requirement with 99% EXP, but surely the experience gained from conquering the final stage should have pushed all of you beyond that minimum! Participants who placed in the Top 10 will also receive the following bonus rewards, as promised!

Tier Upgrade Shard Soul Shard Astral Rift Bypass Ticket All rewards will be deposited directly into your dimensional storage rings. If you don't have one—or somehow lost it… catch. Good luck on your journey to Kaiser, and welcome to the beautiful world of Astoria. I hope you enjoy your stay. Top 10 Leaderboard Gray Kim Ivan Petrov Gwan Kim Xinyi Wang Cecilia Clark Jun Song Shota Kotetsu Gwen Altair Nabi Yoon Darius Castillo