Chương 61: Completion of the First Stage

The air around the Elf grew denser with every passing second, as though the very space itself were thickening, filling with an unseen weight, and the white void around him seemed to tremble faintly, like the surface of water before a storm. His beautiful green hair whipped upward, scattering like living vines, and a reflected green glint flashed in his blue eyes — a tiny echo of the light beginning to blaze within his blade.

The blue-haired Swordsman simply watched in silence, a faint, barely visible smirk tugging at his lips, as though anticipating something truly interesting for the first time in this long, exhausting day. Then the Elf began drawing his sword from its sheath, and the entire blade blazed with blinding light — so intense that it made even those standing a good ten meters from the duel squint.

The light pulsed as though alive, swelling in waves, like the beating of some colossal heart hidden somewhere within the steel itself. With every second the emerald glow grew brighter and brighter, and the gusts of wind grew stronger and stronger, kicking up invisible dust and making everyone's clothes snap like sails in a storm. Lloyd could barely keep his footing, his fingers digging into the invisible floor, feeling the wind trying to tear him off the ground and hurl him back into the crowd.

"And I'm supposed to fight a monster like that? His power is clearly way beyond first rank." The Elf gripped the hilt of his sword tighter and tensed his legs to the limit, crouching slightly, like a spring ready to snap loose at any moment, the muscles beneath his white garments straining visibly, taut as a bowstring drawn back for the shot. — Defend yourself.

An even wider grin spread across the Swordsman's face — almost predatory, full of genuine anticipation, and for the first time in the entire fight he bent his knees slightly, bracing himself to meet something truly worthy of his attention. Then the Elf simply vanished from sight, dissolving into the air without a sound, and instantly reappeared right in front of the Swordsman — so fast that even the most attentive spectators couldn't track the movement itself, only its result.

He swung and delivered a blinding strike, pouring into it, it seemed, all his built-up fury and the full force of his emerald glow at once. A blinding flash of light erupted, swallowing both figures whole, flooding the white void with such an intense green glare that for a moment it looked as though the air itself had caught fire.

Lloyd couldn't make out what was happening inside that flash — the gust of wind that followed nearly knocked him off his feet, forcing him to stumble back several steps and squeeze his eyes shut to spare them from the unbearable brightness. But the answer didn't take long to arrive.

A second later came a deafening crack, as though the very fabric of space had torn, and the Elf was hurled a good ten meters backward — he tumbled across the invisible ground, losing his balance with every roll, his white garments, spotless just a moment before, now marked with faint scorch marks, thin black streaks running across the fabric like cracks spreading through ice. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Lloyd shifted his gaze to the Swordsman.

The man stood exactly as he had in the very first second of the Exam — shoulders relaxed, posture careless, as though no true storm had just raged around him at all, his sword not even fully drawn from its sheath, only halfway bared, as though he'd used only a fraction of its power. No one had managed to move him even a millimeter, and the thought sent another chill down Lloyd's spine. But then Lloyd heard heavy, ragged gasping, thick with pain and despair. He turned and saw a striking, almost disturbing sight.

The Elf was throwing up — violently, as though everything he'd built up over the past few days, maybe even years, was pouring out of him all at once. His knees trembled, his arms, which just moments ago had held the sword with the confidence of a born warrior, now hung limp at his sides, faint sparks of fading emerald light still trickling from his fingertips, as though the very magic were draining out of his body along with his last reserves of strength.

But he refused to stop trying to rise, again and again, like a kitten with broken legs stubbornly clinging to life and to his own pride. And then he managed to rise onto one knee. He leaned on his sword, breathing heavily, his chest heaving in ragged bursts, a single drop of sweat sliding down his temple, mixed with something that might have been blood or grime.

Lloyd could practically feel how close the Elf was to losing consciousness — his hands trembled faintly, his face had taken on an unhealthy, pale tone, stripped of even a trace of his former otherworldly serenity, as though all his beauty had momentarily dimmed under the weight of exhaustion. Then Lloyd caught the Swordsman's muffled chuckle.

He turned and noticed a barely visible scratch on the man's face — a thin, almost imperceptible line, from which a tiny drop of blood welled up, trickling down his cheek and hanging off his chin. — Excellent. Great work, longears. Lloyd watched the scene unfold in complete shock, unable to utter a single word, feeling his mouth go completely dry.

"Are level six players nothing but monsters?" Before Lloyd could even begin to process what he'd just witnessed, his internal monologue was interrupted once again. The Swordsman drove his sword into the invisible floor, gripping the hilt with both hands, and for a moment his gaze swept slowly across the remaining crowd of Players, as though bidding them farewell, or perhaps judging which of them still deserved his attention.

The silence that followed that gaze felt to Lloyd heavier than all the crowd's earlier murmuring combined. — That concludes the first stage of the Exam. At those words, a group of Players began sinking straight into the void, their falls accompanied by frightened screams that cut off abruptly the moment the figures vanished from sight, dissolving into the whiteness without a trace, without so much as a ripple, as though they were simply being erased from a blank page.

But the invisible floor beneath Lloyd's feet never disappeared.

"No way..." He looked around, feeling his heart pound somewhere up in his throat. Some of the other Players remained standing in their places too, just as solidly as he did, exchanging bewildered glances with one another, the same confusion in their eyes that churned in Lloyd's own mind. That could only mean one thing — only the eliminated had fallen through...

"The eliminated." But then Lloyd's gaze caught on that same man wreathed in fire. He was still standing exactly where he'd been, whole and unharmed, as though he'd never fallen through at all, as though the white void had simply refused to take him into its embrace, passing him over for some unknown reason.

"I don't get it. He was eliminated too. Did I miss something?" Then came one final scream — distant, full of terror, gradually fading into the infinite — and all the eliminated Players vanished from the space of the Exam, leaving behind nothing but a ringing, almost tangible silence.