Free Web NovelChapter 118: Chapter 117: Holy Crap, It’s Huge!
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"After this match, the entrance exam will probably be over soon."
At the Capital Card Master Association, Roland Hargrove drew a deep breath as he watched his daughter summon the Lethe Spider Lily on the monitoring feed. Only four candidates remained active in the exam now. Elise and Cassian Reeves were two of them.
"Luke’s match is starting too. As anticipated, he reached the final stage." Edmund Hargrove was considerably calmer than his son. "The only open question is which two candidates the final engagement comes down to."
Not far from the displays broadcasting Elise and Cassian’s battle, another feed showed Luke facing off against the last remaining candidate from Stormvale.
"Selene. If I recall correctly, this is one of your family’s younger generation."
At the Capital City Lord’s Mansion, Lilith Crescent’s voice carried a thread of interest. In front of her, two feeds played side by side, broadcasting both semifinal engagements.
"Yes, Master." Selene Dawnford nodded, her tone carrying a faint trace of awkwardness. "By generational ranking, she’s my niece."
She felt slightly absurd saying it. She wasn’t even married, and she somehow already had a niece. Her parents, she reflected, had been productive.
Still, she supposed it could be worse. Some people had a whole brood of grandchildren before they ever married. A single niece was, comparatively, a modest surplus.
"Iris completed her Seven-Star card concept before the exam," Selene continued. "She intended to use the exam’s pressure to push the actual Seven-Star construction through."
Since Selene had become Lilith’s sole personal disciple, the Dawnford family’s standing had risen accordingly. The family had already been a major house in Stormvale, and the resource allocation that followed Selene’s elevation had only deepened their position. Iris Dawnford’s standing in Stormvale was roughly equivalent to Elise Hargrove’s standing in the Capital.
"Seven-Star, is it?" Aldric Ashford raised an eyebrow at the description.
He had a personal stake in the outcome. He wanted a Capital candidate to take the exam’s first-place finish, and two of the four semifinalists were Capital candidates: Luke and Elise. If both of them advanced to a final against each other, the result would be recorded in the Capital’s history, and arguably the Eastern Region’s. He would have considerable bragging rights in front of the Stormvale and Mistvale Governors.
At their level, raw strength had largely plateaued. Comparative prestige came from other avenues, and a Capital sweep of the exam’s top placements was exactly that kind of avenue.
Still, recalling what his old friend Edmund had told him about Luke’s Youth Training Competition performance, Aldric felt reasonably reassured. Where Seven-Star cards were concerned, Luke had possessed a Seven-Star card spirit before the exam even started. He wasn’t outmatched against Iris Dawnford’s Seven-Star construction. If anything, he held the advantage.
The eliminated candidates’ plaza.
"It’s match point. So who do you all think takes first place this year?"
Nearly every eliminated candidate had transformed into an enthusiastic spectator. But the spectators had divided into factions.
"Obviously the Capital. Did you not notice we have two candidates in the semifinals?"
"As if. Two semifinalists doesn’t mean anything if they both crash out. Imagine the comedy if both of them lose."
"Say that again. I dare you."
"Come on then, come over here."
"Argue all you want. Stormvale takes this one. Iris Dawnford is Lady Dawnford’s niece. The rest of you couldn’t catch up on horseback."
The bickering escalated steadily, factional pride sharpening every exchange, until an oppressive pressure suddenly descended over the entire plaza, accompanied by a system announcement.
「 Warning issued. A second incident will result in immediate removal from the exam dimension and forfeiture of Phase Two scores. 」
The eliminated candidates, however unhappy, abruptly remembered their manners. Missing the final match was one thing. Having their Phase Two scores wiped over a shouting match would be genuinely idiotic.
The plaza quieted.
"The Capital? So you’re the Capital’s strongest candidate this year."
Iris Dawnford studied Luke across the arena, basic identification data surfacing in her awareness. As usual, the information was minimal: a name and a city of origin, nothing tactically useful.
"That’s just what you’re saying." Luke shrugged and gestured Noir into a ready stance.
Iris Dawnford’s appearance was on par with Elise, Lyra, and Serena, the latest in a series of strikingly beautiful candidates Luke had drawn. But he was long past the point where a beautiful face froze him in place. He’d encountered enough Card Masters at this caliber that he’d developed, in a sense, an immunity.
"Whether it’s true or not, we’ll know once we’ve fought," Iris said. She swept her hand through the air, and an enormous shape rose into being, dominating the entire field of view. "Regardless, I’m taking first place in this exam."
"Holy crap. It’s huge."
「 Polaris Whale 」
The card spirit that materialized was a whale of titanic proportions. Its body, pale blue-white and marbled with constellation-like patterns of light, was large enough to physically blot out half the visible sky of the arena. Two immense fins extended from its flanks like the wings of a continent. Faint starlight drifted along its hide in slow, glittering currents.
"That’s the Polaris Whale, said to be the single largest Seven-Star card spirit in existence!"
"The sheer size alone screams combat power. I half believe it wouldn’t even need to attack. Just dropping its body down on an opponent would settle the fight."
"Unless Luke has a card spirit comparable to the Polaris Whale in size, he’s already lost on the size matchup." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
"Don’t be stupid. The ’largest Seven-Star’ title isn’t decorative, sure, but who decided big equals strong? Size and strength aren’t the same axis."
"See that? That’s the real strength of Stormvale’s frontrunner this year!"
The Polaris Whale’s appearance set off a fresh wave of exclamations across the eliminated candidates’ plaza, the loudest of them from the Stormvale faction. The Lethe Spider Lily and Abyssal Nether Tiger had both made memorable entrances in the parallel match, but the Polaris Whale’s overwhelming scale outclassed both for pure visual impact. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
"A Seven-Star card. Luke’s in danger this time." Brielle Hanson and Walter Pence wore matching expressions of concern. Neither of them had attended the Youth Training Competition, so neither of them knew that Luke also possessed Seven-Star card spirits.
"He may need to summon the dragon-knight fusion from the Youth Training Competition to handle this," Serena Frost murmured. At some point she had drifted over to stand beside Lyra Sinclair in the spectator crowd.
"If it’s that fusion, it can match the Polaris Whale on both strength and size," Lyra agreed, picking up the thread. Dragon-class card spirits had naturally enormous bodies. "Though I have a feeling Luke might have another way to handle this."
Her eyes stayed locked on Luke as she spoke. She couldn’t detect even a flicker of tension in him. But she couldn’t tell whether that calm came from holding the dragon-knight fusion as a trump card, or from some other reason entirely.
"You sense it too?" Serena glanced at her. "When I was fighting Luke, I felt his card spirit was unusual in some way. I just couldn’t put it into words."
"Look! Elise and Cassian’s match has a result!"
The crowd, which had been fixated on the Polaris Whale, startled and turned in unison toward the feed showing Elise and Cassian, whose engagement had reached its conclusion a step ahead of Luke’s.
