Chapter 2732 Harbor Malice <TOC> Chapter 2734 True Battle
Translator: SumTLMan
The aura of the giant shadow grew stronger as time passed.
It was like a spell that required a lengthy activation, needing time to charge.
By rights, the adjudicator should have called for the match to begin. Yet the black robed adjudicator suspended in mid-air said not a word, forcing the Gray Merchant and the others to watch helplessly as Angel’s aura became ever more powerful.
It even surpassed what they believed possible.
Only when Angel’s aura was about to reach its peak did the black robed adjudicator finally speak unhurriedly:「The second duel begins now…… Enter the preparation phase for both sides.」
The Gray Merchant, who had been ready to launch a surprise attack at any moment, nearly choked in anger.
Even the usually urbane and easy-going the Gray Merchant, whose loss of key memories had made him gentle, could not help but frown. On the other side, the group of apprentices showed expressions of indignation.
This was far too biased. They knew the adjudicator was on Angel’s side, but they had never imagined such blatant favoritism. Clearly, he did not want their side to win!
As the apprentices’ emotions flared, Angel, concealed within Eremy, could clearly sense that nearly all of them were beginning to harbor aversion toward him.
Where they had been strictly neutral before, they were now neutral tinged with malice.
Curiously, although they cursed the Sovereign of Wisdom in their hearts, their feelings toward the Sovereign of Wisdom remained neutral.
That, perhaps, is what knowing one’s place means.
Realizing that the Sovereign of Wisdom was so powerful the Bylron family could not oppose him even with all its might, they might resent others, but they dared not implicate the Sovereign of Wisdom.
It is worth mentioning that among the opposing apprentices there was a green-haired young man leaning against a black-faced ram whose emotional state remained absolutely neutral; even after witnessing the Sovereign of Wisdom’s unfairness, his outlook did not change.
Angel remembered that his codename seemed to be… Shepherd?
Judging from the aura of the black-faced ram behind him, it should be a summoned creature, meaning he was a summoner apprentice?
Shepherd… a summoner apprentice… The thought stirred memories in Angel’s mind.
Among the summoner apprentices of the Savage Grottoes, there was a group with a resounding nickname: The Three Useless and the Three Promising.
The term referred to the three apprentices with the greatest potential and the three deemed most hopeless.
This potential was judged by the summoned creatures they called forth.
Aubrey, for instance, belonged to the Useless Three.
The memory that surfaced in Angel’s mind was not of Aubrey, but of the “Dog Shepherd” among the Useless Three and the “Fox Shepherd” among the Promising Three, the latter of whom Angel had already slain on the arena stage.
Their nicknames were strikingly similar to Shepherd standing before him now.
Angel naturally did not think Shepherd was related to them; he merely found it amusing that summoners seemed to favor such similar codenames, perhaps a longstanding convention?
Speaking of which, Angel himself was well suited to disguise himself as a summoner, for Eremy was his summoned creature.
Should he adopt a codename, say, the Demon Shepherd?
While Angel’s thoughts drifted here and there, the expression on the Gray Merchant’s face grew increasingly grave.
For Eremy’s released aura had now reached a level the Gray Merchant scarcely dared imagine: the level of true knowledge!
Even though the aura carried no coercive pressure, it gave the Gray Merchant the chilling sense of being stared at by a natural predator. Even if Eremy was not a true knowledge wizard, he possessed at least true knowledge level combat power!
The Gray Merchant’s countenance became steadily more solemn. Facing a suspected illusionist was one thing; facing someone nearing the level of true knowledge, he had to tread with utmost caution.
Angel also noted the Gray Merchant’s emotional changes. The Gray Merchant was cautious and respectful; yet despite knowing the adjudicator’s favoritism, interestingly, his view of Angel remained unchanged, still tinged with mild goodwill.
Angel allowed Eremy to continue displaying his aura and even tried to release some pressure outward.
Eremy complied, but aside from making the Gray Merchant more alert, nothing happened.
“She,” who lurked in the shadows, still showed no trace.
While Angel observed, the Sovereign of Wisdom’s voice sounded softly in the mental connection:「How long do you plan to keep flexing your muscles?」
Angel replied:「We can begin right now. 」
The Sovereign of Wisdom snorted coldly and said no more.
Indeed, the Sovereign of Wisdom’s blatant partiality was something Angel had conspired with him to create.
By steadily increasing Eremy’s aura, Angel hoped to draw out whoever was spying from the dark. Therefore, he asked the Sovereign of Wisdom to delay the start.
The Sovereign of Wisdom obliged, giving rise to this little play and causing The Gray Merchant’s group to curse inwardly.
What they did not know was that Eremy’s own strength already approached true knowledge. He needed no “charging time”; that was merely for show. Their assumptions were nothing but self-deception.
「Preparation time is over. Now, the duel begins!」
The instant the words fell, Angel and the Gray Merchant almost simultaneously charged toward each other.
The giant shadow carried dim fragments in its wake, while The Gray Merchant’s hands turned into amethyst as he ran, leaving a violet stream of light.
Shadow and violet clashed.
They separated upon contact.
The energy ripple generated by the collision did not explode until both had landed, a sign of their staggering speed.
Just like the black mist and purple light produced by the blast, the ripples were two interwoven colors, canceling each other as they spread outward.
The spread was lightning-fast, almost in the blink of an eye it reached the arena’s edge.
The Sovereign of Wisdom intervened at once, severing the still-active ripples to prevent harm to the apprentices.
Yet even if he had not, nothing serious would have happened. The Black Count and Daus were on this side, and on the Gray Merchant’s side, Shrew had emerged from the Sunlight Sanctuary, her form fully restored to their first encounter, bandages fluttering in mid-air, shielding a few apprentices posed no problem.
They even wanted to feel the ripples; that way they could more intuitively gauge the energy gap between the two sides. But midway, the Sovereign of Wisdom cut them off, leaving them slightly disappointed.
Still, changes on the arena told who gained the upper hand in the first clash.
At the instant both sides landed, the giant shadow still retained its original size. Yet two seconds later the outer shadows began to burn. Though the blue lantern flower atop its head swayed ceaselessly to stabilize its form, a full third of the gigantic body nonetheless dissipated.
The entity of shadow remained a giant but was clearly weaker.
There was no doubt: Angel’s side had fallen behind in this exchange.
But the Gray Merchant had not seized the full advantage either. Upon landing, he rolled several times, bounced up, fell again, and only then halted.
Though he seemed uninjured, the distance over which he lost control was at least four or five meters; had this happened at the arena’s edge, the Gray Merchant might already have been sent out of bounds.
Another point was unknown to the Gray Merchant and company.
The opponent who had just clashed with him had appeared to be Angel but was actually the Panic World demon Eremy.
As a bloodline wizard, the Gray Merchant seemed to have activated only the bloodline in his hands, yet pulling one hair moved his entire being: his blood boiled; he had unleashed at least half of his full-bloodline state.
Usually, a bloodline wizard at half power still surpasses peers in melee combat.
And Eremy had withstood the Gray Merchant’s blow with his body alone, a testament to the terrifying toughness of his flesh.
Moreover, Eremy was using a shadow form. His true form and elemental form had yet to emerge. Most crucially, Angel had not acted at all. Apart from directing Eremy to attack, Angel appeared to do nothing.
In fact, observers guessed wrong: Angel had not merely refrained from acting; he had not even issued commands to Eremy.
Who was Eremy? An awakened demon of the Panic World! A demon’s greatest strength is combat instinct.
Because that instinct is unparalleled, Rhine had immediately thought of demons when he first heard of the Seed of Distortion’s effects. Even without sentience, their battle instinct alone surpassed many wizards who painstakingly studied tactics.
Angel did not believe he had any right to direct Eremy. Therefore, he did absolutely nothing… or rather, he was sensing the malice around him, though that had nothing to do with the duel. As for the fight itself, Angel had left it entirely to Eremy.
After the first exchange, the Gray Merchant roughly understood his opponent’s “strength.”
Thus, turning again to face the now smaller giant shadow, the Gray Merchant grew even more solemn than before, yet his wariness lessened.
Wariness comes from the unknown; once contact is made, the unknown begins to dissolve.
In the second clash, the giant shadow charged first. This time the Gray Merchant did not budge. He crossed his arms, forming a translucent amber rhombic gem shield. From his coccyx sprouted a tail covered with crystalline barbs that plunged deep into the floor, giving him an unshakable fulcrum. Plainly, the Gray Merchant intended to resist head-on.
The Sovereign of Wisdom did not ask the Gray Merchant to compensate for damage to the floor. This indicated that the Gemstone Earth Dragon tail had fused directly into the arena instead of destroying it.
That signaled something: the tail might serve not only as a fulcrum but also as a blade.
Were Angel in the Gray Merchant’s shoes, he might have sensed this from the Sovereign of Wisdom’s silence.
If it was Eremy… he sensed it more keenly still. He did not need the Sovereign of Wisdom’s reaction; able to mimic various elements, Eremy was as attuned to the ground’s vibrations as any earth wizard.
Although the Gray Merchant had the Gemstone Earth Dragon bloodline, barely qualifying as half a practitioner of Gem Magic, he was still a notch weaker than a true earth wizard.
Thus, earth wizard cantrips against Eremy were pointless.
Even seeing through the Gray Merchant’s ploys, Eremy did not slow. The giant shadow charged at great speed.
Black mist coiled; a massive fist simulated by the giant shadow smashed down upon the Gray Merchant’s shield.
The Gray Merchant trusted his gem shield; even if it broke, he would have time to react. Thus he ignored the fist and instead controlled the tail lurking underground, which burst from the floor behind the giant shadow.
The Gemstone Earth Dragon’s tail was studded with sharp crystals that could pierce clean through a man.
Yet the Gray Merchant did not choose to impale. Not because of mercy, but because he still had uncertainties about the giant. To this moment he did not even know what link existed between the giant shadow and the red-haired, golden-eyed wizard from earlier, was it this wizard’s ability or a summoned creature?
Moreover, when they brushed past earlier, the Gray Merchant sensed that the giant shadow’s initial charge bore genuine “shadow” traits. Had his fist lacked bloodline energy, it would likely have been nullified.
If the giant shadow were in shadow state, skewering it might cause little harm. At most, the crystalline spikes’ energy would cause a penetrating wound, yet shadow’s famed ability is damage transfer; shifting the wound to a non-vital spot would negate its impact.
Thus the Gray Merchant chose not to stab but to let the tail blossom.
Quite literally blossom.
The amber tail suddenly split open like a pitcher plant, forming four petals. Inside were no teeth but countless gems of various colors, sizes, and elemental attributes.
Under the Gray Merchant’s control, these gems rose silently into the air and, while the giant shadow was unprepared, turned into streaks of multicolored light that shot toward it!
Each gem contained elemental power and was already unstable in flight. The Gemstone Earth Dragon shell restrained this instability so they would not detonate at once.
But once that shell touched any energy or physical impact, it would shatter instantly.
One could imagine: once these gems struck the giant shadow, there would be a tremendous explosion.
Against a wide-area blast, the giant shadow’s damage-transfer ability would be useless.
What the Gray Merchant did not know was that Eremy was not merely a shadow creature, he did not possess only shadow-melding ability.
If an initial judgment is erroneous, every subsequent result deviates. In combat, such deviations are magnified without limit.
They can even decide the ultimate outcome.