Read Novel Full Chapter 523: Grim Student Examination (7)
Chapter 523: Grim Student Examination (7)
Round 11.
Round 12.
The Regalons kept climbing, their performance sharpening like tempered steel, but still not enough to enter the cosmic leaderboard.
Every round came with greater trials. Gravity warped, enemies multiplied, and the challenges demanded insight as much as strength. Some Regalons staggered. Others bared their teeth and grew stronger.
And then came Round 13.
The battlefield was a colossal canyon cracked open like the jaw of a sleeping titan. Below, a molten river flowed, glowing like a second sun in the depths, its heat warping the air.
This time, the challenge was not just endurance or killing power — but survival against what could not be seen.
Invisible predators stalked the canyon, their killing intent sharp as needles, their attacks timed to perfection.
Almond stood at the edge of the cliff, twin swords hanging loosely in his hands. His breath was calm — unnervingly calm.
In the last rounds, he had fought with desperation. Swinging harder, faster, as if brute strength could force the world to yield to him.
But this time, he stopped chasing.
He simply... stood.
The world fell silent.
Then he heard it. Not with ears, but with something deeper.
A phenomenon began to manifest around him, as if the world was ackowleding the truth he shaped.
The sound of air shifting. The tension of space warping around him. The subtle hiss of mystical sand grinding against the fabric of reality.
And in that moment, it clicked..
Lightning flickered across his skin — not bright, but sharp, snapping between the grains of sand at his feet.
Void rippled around him, swallowing the heat, muting the noise, sharpening his focus.
The ground trembled.
Sand rose into the air, spiraling around him like a miniature storm, forming intricate shapes before being drawn into his body.
And then —
The Rune appeared.
It burned into existence on his chest, a jagged, shifting sigil of black and gold.
Its lines pulsed like veins of molten metal, its center a hollow void that seemed to drink the light around it.
Rune of Power: [Ashenveil Rift].
A unique fusion consisting of the aspects of Void, Space, Lightning, and Sand, weaved together into a passive power that shaped into a rift around him, having a comprehensive power for him to wield alongside his techniques and skills.
Almond opened his eyes. They glowed faintly, like two black stars wreathed in gold.
The first assassin struck from behind.
Space twisted.
The strike landed a meter away from where Almond stood, as though the world itself had bent to protect him.
He moved.
He moved — but it was not a step.
The space he occupied fractured, like a mirror breaking without sound, and he simply appeared behind the assassin.
His twin swords cut through the air, and the very air screamed — a shriek of lightning tearing reality open for an instant. The predator was gone, erased in a streak of sand-laced lightning that left a burning scar on the canyon wall.
The Rune pulsed, its power feeding him, thrumming with chaotic rhythm.
Void was no longer just an absence — it was a blade. Space no longer a boundary — it was his hunting ground. Lightning arced in thin, feral strands across his arms, leaping from grain to grain as the sand storm around him became sharper, denser, like a living weapon.
Another predator lunged.
The air buckled, sand hissed, lightning cracked — and then silence.
A rift tore open just in front of Almond, swallowing the creature’s strike entirely before spitting the predator back out, twisted and broken, to crash against the far wall.
Almond’s breathing was steady, too steady, his heartbeat synchronizing with the pulse of the Rune.
He slashed again, not at an enemy, but at empty air.
Reality tore.
A wave of molten sand shot forward like a storm surge, riding a web of black lightning. The ground itself seemed to tilt as space bent, compressing the attack into a thin, blinding arc.
When it struck, it detonated, creating a glowing rift in the canyon floor that vomited destructive dust and shards of molten glass into the air, creating a deadly zone.
Sand swirled, forming a sphere of glittering storm around him. Lightning webbed through it like veins, and every time a predator crossed its edge, they were caught — suspended for an instant in a tiny warped bubble of space before being shredded by lightning-infused sand shaped like blades, where his Grim Tree’s effects also applied, enhancing his offense to a whole new height.
It was beautiful. Terrible.
And it was just the beginning.
’Rune of Power. To think it could give me such a significant boost in power.’
Almond clenched his grip on his swords tightly for a moment before he let them go.
Both fused into one, and then, it started cracking, glowing, and ultimately, dispersing into his domain.
Almond then stood motionless, hands folded behind his back, the faint glow of the [Ashenveil Rift] rune pulsing like a second heartbeat on his chest.
His swords were gone, no longer for his hands to wield. They had dissolved into his domain, its power woven into the essence of Ashenveil Rift.
The round wasn’t over yet.
The predators arrived again out of nowhere. They were perfect killers. Swift, merciless, unseen. But perfection shattered the moment it crossed within ten meters of him.
The first one breached the threshold.
The air shattered.
Space split open like wet parchment, folding in on itself, and the predator was sliced into a dozen glowing fragments suspended midair, each one frozen in place for a single, blinding instant before the sandstorm devoured them, reducing the creature to glimmering dust.
The next wave came faster, their killing intent flaring like spikes. Almond didn’t even open his eyes.
His storm reacted for him.
Grains of chaotic sand sharpened into microscopic lightening-laden micro blades, having space as its domain, and void as its edge.
Each predator that drew near was caught in a sudden spatial twist, dragged sideways into invisible corridors where the terror of his Ashenveil Shredder roared through them like a judgment.
In but an instant after entering his 10-meter domain, whether it was themselves or some of their long-range attacks, all of them met the same fate.
Utter annihilation with impunity.
[Round 13 is over.]
Almond’s eyes finally opened, displaying anticipation as he was greeted by the second notification that he was most eager to see.
[Round 13 leaderboard]
Rank 1: