Chương 53: Soul Reaper

Gray had grown so accustomed to entering his vapor form that he treated the skill as a mental oh-shit button, reserved exclusively for emergencies. This qualified. Wraith The roaring beam of fire punched straight through his gaseous chest, narrowly missing the space where his physical core just resided. But he didn't escape unscathed. The edges of the puncture hole in his misty torso began to glow, and within a second, the faint flicker rapidly intensified into a smoldering ember.

The flame spread outward, devouring the vapor until his entire smoky figure ignited. The blistering heat hit him all at once. Dropping to the ground to roll wasn't an option; movement in his ethereal state was strictly prohibited. Five seconds stretched into an agonizing eternity. He could only stand paralyzed, burning alive while he waited for the spell's duration to expire. Flesh and bone finally snapped back into reality. Gray collapsed to his knees, tearing a howling shriek from his blistered throat.

The pungent stench of charred cotton and roasted skin assaulted his senses, and his Nimbus Robe hadn't fared much better. The sleeves were incinerated down to the hems, and deep scorch marks riddled the back. What remained of the fabric clung to him in ragged, smoking patches. His enchanted shirt and pants immediately began to mend, knitting threads back together to conceal the ruined flesh beneath. blisters streaked across his entire body, turning his once-pale skin into a mottled, purplish mass of burns.

Across the field, Xinyi slowly backed away from Nabi, raising her open palms in surrender.

"Look, I don't support whatever decisions that hothead makes. Fighting here won't benefit either of us!"

"A little late for that, isn't it?" Nabi jerked her chin toward Gray who was lit on fire.

"Besides… aren't you curious to see who the superior Reaper is?" Nabi dashed forward, initiating the duel with a lateral strike. She closed the gap within seconds, and her Scarlet Scythe sheared cleanly through Xinyi's midsection. It sheared too cleanly. There was no resistance. No blood. The scepter simply phased through her body as if she were a ghost. Xinyi's ghastly scythe never even left her back. In response to the futile strike, she simply raised her hand high and brought it down in a diagonal chop.

A translucent scythe cleaved through Nabi from behind. It didn't tear through physical flesh; instead, it struck directly at her soul. Nabi let out a sharp, choked wheeze and collapsed inward, clutching her chest. Moments before Nabi's engagement, Xinyi had conjured a wraith behind her opponent. The phantom reaper—draped in a ragged cloak and wielding a spectral blade—had waited patiently for its master's order.

As the wraith pulled its weapon free from Nabi's soul, a trail of wispy white energy lingered on the tip of the ethereal steel. The phantom reached out, pinched the soul energy between two boney fingers, and flicked it toward its master. The wisp swirled through the air before streaming into Xinyi's core.

"A Blood Reaper relies on blood as a resource," Xinyi said, pressing a hand flat against her chest.

"But we Soul Reapers rely on souls." She extended both arms out and clenched her fists. In perfect unison, her phantom mirrored the motion, clamping its massive hands tight around Nabi's forearms. 15 Soul Charges expended 35/50 remaining The phantom violently jerked Nabi's arms upward, forcing them out to her sides like a crucifix. No matter how wildly she thrashed, the wraith's iron grip refused to yield. This wasn't the time to dwell on the agonizing heat still radiating from his charred skin.

Gritting his teeth, Gray pushed himself onto his knees, pulled a health potion from Rosie's dimensional ring, and downed the vial in three gulps. He let out a loud belch, wiping the residual liquid from his lips with the back of his hand.

"I've always deemed fire-bending the most useless element. How ironic that the affinity directly counters mine."

"A type advantage isn't the reason I'm gonna win this," Soren countered, dropping into a sprinter's crouch.

"Not when weight classes are still a thing." Flames burst from Soren's heels. He launched himself forward with an explosive crunch, kicking up a spray of scorched dirt. He drew an arm back, his brass knuckles igniting into a roaring inferno. The primary advantage of wielding a pointy stick was turning an enemy's kinetic energy against them. Gray held his ground, dug his heels into the grass, and held the Soul Blade forward like a makeshift spear. Soren's eyes widened as the lethal tip locked onto his chest.

He aborted the punch mid-swing, and crossed his forearms tight over his chest. His heels sparked again, erupting in a fiery blast that vaulted him up and over Gray's head. He tucked into a mid-air somersault, touching down a few feet behind him. Gray ignored the acrobatics. In his periphery, he spotted Xinyi's levitating wraith. Its translucent, skeletal hands were drenched in crimson liquid as it stared intently at a puddle of blood.

Xinyi stood above the red pool, her massive scythe raised overhead for a plunging strike. Nabi didn't leave a blood signature, Gray realized. She had already siphoned the spilt blood off the field to heal herself earlier, stripping away her own escape route. She had zero counterplay. Gravity Well Gray targeted the empty space directly behind Xinyi. Unlike Nabi, this new foe hadn't seen the spell in action.

The sudden shift in gravity ripped Xinyi backward, and the sheer weight of her own weapon dragged her helplessly into the eye of the vortex. Nabi erupted from the blood pool, snatching her floating Scarlet Scythe out of the air. She extended her free hand, shooting Gray a quick thumbs-up. Liquid plasma coated the steel before she hurled the weapon directly into the localized anomaly. The intense gravitational pull caught the whirling blade, slingshotting it into orbit and accelerating it with devastating momentum.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The scythe cleaved cleanly through Xinyi's chest. This time, it didn't just phase through a phantom body. A massive diagonal gash opened across her torso, oozing a thick, viscous fluid that glowed in hues of white and purple. Another trick, Nabi thought. Xinyi didn't flinch. As the initial pull of the gravity spell faded, she casually stepped out of the vortex.

Her platinum hair and clothes drifted lazily in the residual breeze, entirely unbothered. The gaping wound immediately began to knit shut, but a glowing white tendril snapped into existence above Xinyi's head. Nabi traced the ethereal cord across the field. It tethered straight to Soren. Several feet away, the pugilist was in full sprint, his fist wreathed in a roar of flames as he charged at Gray. Then, his eyes rolled back, and he simply collapsed.

Nabi has slain participant 'Soren O' Riley' 22, 389 Contribution Points have been acquired The white tether linking the two held taut for a beat before snapping, dissolving into a mist of glowing sparks. Gray stood frozen, his katana raised in a high guard, braced to parry a man who now lay lifeless in the dirt at his feet. Nabi's gaze darted from the fallen brawler to the Soul Reaper.

"Did you just—""Yes, I did." Xinyi finished her sentence, smoothing out her clothes.

"And honestly, I don't feel bad about it. He's the one who dragged me into this mess to begin with." Nabi lowered her scythe, leaning casually on the haft.

"Hey, whatever lets you sleep at night. I've seen some messed-up things before, but transferring a fatal blow to your own teammate?" She glanced at the corpse.

"That takes first place." Xinyi scoffed.

"Oh, please. Do you know how incredibly creepy it is to liquefy yourself and siphon blood out of your opponents?" She gave an exaggerated, full-body shiver. Nabi arched an eyebrow.

"You think that's creepy? Have you looked at your hideous wraith?" She jerked a thumb toward the floating phantom. The summon let out a hollow groan and slumped its massive shoulders. Xinyi drifted over and comfortingly patted her wraith on its hooded head. Gray cautiously lowered his blade, raising a free hand to grab their attention.

"Uh, guys? Does this mean we're done fighting?" Nabi turned her attention to Gray, then back toward Xinyi. She offered a half-shrug.

"I'll consider this a spar. At least, until we meet again." A devious smirk curled her lips. Xinyi nodded in agreement.

"Same."

"It must feel surreal to liquefy your body like that," Xinyi mused, shifting the topic entirely as if they were old friends catching up.

"How can you even see when you're just a puddle?"

"It's less seeing, more sensing," Nabi explained, willing to share.

"I have a passive that tracks blood signatures in any living organism. But that's nothing compared to your ghost. How does he work?"

"A she, actually." Xinyi affectionately hooked an arm around the phantom's broad shoulder.

"Soul Reapers harvest souls as a resource. Just like how you use blood, we consume charges to command our familiars." She demonstrated the mechanics, mimicking her earlier movement by extending her arms and cupping her empty hands in the air.

"That grip was impossible to break," Nabi admitted.

"You would've had me dead to rights if my Crimson Pool was on cooldown."

"But it wasn't." Xinyi raised a finger.

"And your partner over there saved the day. I wish I had a duo as competent as him. Not like Soren. You wouldn't believe the amount of trouble he's caused me on the way here." She turned her gaze to the boy. Gray was scratching his back with the flat of his katana. Nabi shut her eyes and sighed, shaking her head.

"I wouldn't exactly use the word 'competent.' I will say he has his uses, though." Xinyi floated closer to Gray.

"That was a fascinating tornado spell you cast. Can you explain exactly what it does?" The sudden voice startled Gray. He jerked, nicking his back with the sharp point of his blade.

"Oh, that." He winced, hurriedly sliding the sword back into its scabbard.

"Pretty neat, right?"

"It's amazing!" Xinyi tilted her head, a genuine smile contrasting her eerie aura.

"So? How does it work?"

"Well, you know. You will the spell in your mind like you do with any other, and… ta-da!" Gray spread his arms wide with an awkward, deflective grin, completely unwilling to divulge the actual mechanics of his kit. Taking the hint, Xinyi politely coughed into her fist and pivoted back to Nabi.

"Well, it was fun fighting you. I assume you'll be taking the Kaiser Academy Entrance Exam after you complete this race?"

"Absolutely," Nabi said.

"Securing my Kaiser License as soon as possible is the plan." Her gaze snapped over to Gray.

"What about you?" Gray rubbed his jaw, staring at Soren's body.

"Nah, I think I'm good. I've reconsidered this whole Kaiser deal, and I realized it's just not for me. My goal right now is to secure my autonomy by reaching the top 100, but I'm not sure fighting monsters for a living is the path I want to go down."

"Are you sure?" Nabi closed the distance, stepping into his personal space.

"Yes, you can make an honest living doing something other than killing the Riftborn, but why would you? Especially with a class as capable as yours?"

"This class is the root of all my problems. It's too much. I think I'm just going to step away from it all." Gray dropped his gaze to his feet.

"I completely understand the pressure," Nabi murmured, her voice losing its usual sharp edge.

"When I spawned onto this planet, I was overwhelmed, too."

"How did you ever overcome it?" Gray asked.

"Opportunity." Her gaze hardened.

"After reading the System prompt, I figured out immediately that I belonged here. This world, this reality… it trumps my previous one. I'm going to make the most of it. You only live once, after all."

"Yeah… I guess so," Gray replied, his voice still distraught.

"I agree with Nabi," Xinyi said.

"Hopefully, I'll see you at the Kaiser Exam!" Her physical form faded into transparency. Without another word, she sank straight down, phasing effortlessly through the earth until she disappeared entirely. Gray's mouth rounded in surprise. Beside him, Nabi let out an annoyed click of her tongue.

"I never stood a chance."

"What do you mean?" Gray asked.

"She's completely out of my league."

"I wouldn't go that far," Gray countered.

"The fight looked pretty even from my angle."

"It wasn't," she replied flatly.

"If I had to guess, she purposely let me cleave through her body just so she could get rid of Soren to de-escalate the battle." Gray's gaze snapped back to the pugilist's corpse.

"I can believe that. But what makes you so certain you couldn't take her in a real fight?"

"I just know, Gray," she muttered. She'd been coasting through the competition up until now. Before crossing paths with Xinyi, nobody had truly pushed her to the breaking point. Nabi knew for a fact she could take on Gwen. She was even confident about her odds against the top-ranked participant, Shota. But experiencing such a casual, one-sided defeat by her counterpart—a Reaper merely one rank above her on the ladder—shattered her confidence more than she cared to admit.

She shelved the thought, bottling the insecurity to use as fuel for her future rampage.

"Anyway, think long and hard about what you want for yourself." She turned to face him fully.

"Just because you possess a formidable power doesn't mean you have to make it your entire existence. But do you really want to live the same mundane life here as you did back on Earth, working for the circus?" She reached out and honked an imaginary red clown nose on his face. Gray didn't take the jab as an insult. Instead, the childish gesture managed to pierce the suffocating pressure of his thoughts. A light chuckle escaped him.

"Thanks for everything. I mean it. So, what are your plans now?"

"Well, I just gained two new rivals I have to stay ahead of, didn't I?" Nabi lightly punched his shoulder.

"It's time I kill everything in sight before the fifth level starts." Her body levitated off the ground. In the next beat, she rocketed upward, clearing the open rim of the stadium before launching herself into the night sky. Gray traced her departure.

"Huh. I guess she finally mastered flight. That would be a useful trick to have." He didn't want the power of flight for combat or convenient transportation. He just wanted a way to fly far, far away from the burdens and cosmic expectations suddenly forced upon him.