Free Web NovelChapter 117: Chapter 116: The Exam’s Heartbreak Brigade
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The combat had been so brief that most observers hadn’t fully processed it before it ended. The afterimage of Sistermon Noir’s impossible gunwork still lingered in their minds.
With the Frost Archer and Snow Crystal Queen both eliminated, Awakened Noir held her dual pistols Anthony loosely, the barrels drifting, almost idly, toward Serena Frost herself. The message in the casual aim was unmistakable: forfeit, or the next shot finds you.
Serena’s mouth twitched into a wry expression. Beneath it ran a current of deep, quiet resignation.
She’d known, walking into the arena, that she wasn’t Luke’s match. Knowing it intellectually and watching her same-tier Snow Crystal Queen and Frost Archer get dismantled in seconds were two different experiences. The ease of the loss landed harder than she’d expected.
She’d felt Seven-Star-tier power up close at the Youth Training Competition. By that benchmark, she could tell that Luke’s current card spirit hadn’t crossed into the high-tier brackets yet. Noir was strong, but she wasn’t a high-tier monster. That fact, oddly, made the loss sting more. Serena had been beaten by a card spirit that was still operating below the ceiling she’d personally witnessed at the tournament.
"I hope you go on to represent our Capital and take first place in this exam," Serena said, holding Luke’s gaze for a long moment. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
A loss was a loss. She wasn’t someone who couldn’t handle defeat. But she still wanted the person who’d beaten her to win the rest of the way, specifically to beat the candidates from Stormvale and Mistvale.
If Luke hadn’t appeared, the Capital’s strongest candidate this year would have been Elise Hargrove. But Elise had also lost to Luke at the Youth Training Competition. With both Capital frontrunners outclassed by the same person, Luke’s main competition for the Eastern Region’s first-place finish would come from Stormvale and Mistvale.
If Luke and Elise both advanced to the final, the question of which of them placed first would be, from the Capital’s standpoint, immaterial. Either outcome kept the title in the Capital.
"She comes across as cold, but she’s got this side to her too," Luke murmured, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as Serena’s figure dissolved into white light.
He didn’t actually need the encouragement. He’d already intended to take first place. Crescent Moon Land, and the Crescent Moon Blessing that came with the Eastern Region’s first-place reward, were prizes he had a genuine interest in.
The rest interval passed. Luke stepped through the next portal with Noir at his side.
"Huh. Isn’t this a bit of a coincidence?"
He regarded the new opponent with a faintly exasperated expression. After drawing Serena one round ago, he had now drawn another familiar face from the Youth Training Competition’s broader cohort. The remaining candidate pool was small at this depth of the exam, but two consecutive familiar faces still felt statistically unreasonable.
Are these two a package deal or something?
The girl across the arena had an ethereal, otherworldly quality, a delicate presence that made her seem half a step removed from the rest of the world.
「 Lyra Sinclair 」 「 Affiliation: Ashenmere, Mooncrest City 」
"You’ve been running into other people too?" Lyra asked, equally surprised. Then curiosity flickered across her face.
"The round before this, I drew Serena Frost." Luke nodded, then gestured Noir forward a step. "Are we fighting?"
"I’d like to test myself," Lyra said, shaking her head slowly. "But I think I’ll pass."
The decision was pragmatic. At this depth in Phase Two, the candidates still remaining had essentially already secured placements at the Four Great Academies. Winning or losing now only affected exam ranking, not academy admission.
Against any other opponent, even against Serena, Lyra would have committed to a real fight. Against Luke, the calculus was different. Luke had just eliminated Serena, and Lyra’s strength was roughly comparable to Serena’s. Fighting would produce the same outcome, just with more wasted effort. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Better to talk. People didn’t have to force themselves into comparisons against a freak of nature. Step back, relax, accept the situation. There was a certain peace in not struggling against the unwinnable.
Luke shrugged. Fighting or not fighting genuinely didn’t matter to him either way.
Watching the feed from Mooncrest City, Helena Brooks sighed quietly. She’d been tracking Lyra’s exam from the start, and she knew the girl’s decision wasn’t wrong. It was the rational call.
It was just that Lyra had been Mooncrest City’s last realistic hope this year, and watching that hope quietly fold rather than break against Luke carried its own particular weight.
After Lyra raised her white flag, the remaining shared time was short. The two of them exchanged a few more sentences, and then Lyra’s figure began to fade.
"Luke, good luck from here on out," Lyra called as the teleport took hold, waving at him with the easy cheer of an old friend saying goodbye. "Definitely take the final victory."
Not a trace of tension in her. Just a wave, and a smile, and then she was gone.
The eliminated candidates’ plaza.
"What the hell. This is the entrance exam."
"Why are they so friendly with each other?! Aren’t they supposed to be fighting tooth and nail?!"
"Honestly? I’d happily lose if a girl that pretty wished me good luck afterward."
"Get to Luke’s level of strength and it won’t just be girls. Grown men will line up to clear the road for you."
The eliminated candidates watching the feeds wore an assortment of complicated expressions. Only a handful of candidates remained in Phase Two now, which meant nearly every spectator’s attention was concentrated on the same few monitoring feeds.
They had watched Luke’s interactions with Serena and Lyra in full, and the casual friendliness of those exchanges was, for the assembled crowd of single, recently-eliminated young Card Masters, almost physically painful to witness.
"Lyra Sinclair, Serena Frost, both that caliber, both eliminated already," one candidate muttered. "Next up should be someone at Elise Hargrove’s level."
"This is a problem."
On a different battlefield, Elise Hargrove frowned at the situation in front of her.
The deeper Phase Two progressed, the stronger the opposing candidates became. Elise had anticipated that pattern early. What she hadn’t anticipated was drawing a candidate whose strength was nearly identical to her own, this late in the exam, when most of the matchmaking variance should have settled.
Worse, the opponent was from Mistvale. A cross-capital matchup at this level meant the engagement was going to be genuinely fierce.
Elise drew a slow breath. A new card appeared in her hand. The sprawling flora domain she’d spread across the battlefield contracted abruptly, the plant life withdrawing and concentrating, the green expanse folding inward toward a single focal point.
"Looks like it’s your turn to take the field."
Elise flicked the new card forward.
The great river’s waters pour down from the heavens. But what descended from above was not a river. It was the dark current of the underworld itself, welling up from below.
As the underworld river surged into being, a path of crimson, like a road paved in blood, swayed in a phantom wind. A young woman in a vivid red bridal gown walked along that path, an orb cradled in her hands, advancing out of the underworld’s dark waters to take her place at Elise’s side.
This was the Seven-Star Rare card Elise had successfully crafted during the entrance exam itself, fueled by the pressure of competing against Luke.
「 Lethe Spider Lily 」
"A decisive match, then? That suits me."
Cassian Reeves felt the pressure radiating from the Lethe Spider Lily and responded in kind. His expression sharpened. The card spirit he’d previously had on the field dissolved back into his storage, and he drew a new card of his own.
"Roar."
A furious sound rolled across the entire battlefield. A savage shape erupted upward from a fissure in the cracked earth, planting itself in front of Cassian, its sheer presence scattering the oppressive aura the Lethe Spider Lily had been projecting.
「 Abyssal Nether Tiger 」
"Your Lethe Spider Lily and my Abyssal Nether Tiger are equal quality," Cassian said. "Both Seven-Star Rare. So this comes down to which of us is the better Card Master."
He didn’t wait for a reply. The Abyssal Nether Tiger was already moving.
Elise sent the Lethe Spider Lily forward to meet it.
