Free Web NovelChapter 119: Chapter 118: An Angel Descends, Angewomon!
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On the monitoring feed, the Lethe Spider Lily landed a clean strike on the Abyssal Nether Tiger’s heart. In the same instant, the tiger’s claw raked across the Spider Lily’s body and hurled her backward.
Both card spirits dissolved into light almost simultaneously, returning to their respective Card Masters’ storage.
Elise and Cassian were both in poor condition. Fighting through the entire length of Phase Two, and then summoning and sustaining Seven-Star card spirits in the final stretch, had drained both of them catastrophically. Seven-Star spirits demanded an enormous ongoing mana commitment, and neither candidate had the reserves left to continue.
In the end, both of them collapsed at the same time, mana fully exhausted, and were eliminated simultaneously.
"A draw? Nobody expected the match to end like that."
The result drew a burst of surprised exclamations across the eliminated candidates’ plaza. "Then doesn’t that mean Luke and Iris Dawnford’s match decides everything? Whoever wins that one is the exam’s overall first place."
"This exam has had so many surprises. It’s incredible."
"Incredible? The really incredible part is still coming. Look, the goddess is descending!"
The crowd, still processing Elise and Cassian’s mutual elimination, turned back toward Luke’s feed.
"Seven-Star Rare Polaris Whale. Size-wise, it’s not far off from Red-Eyes Black Star Dragon, or from the Legendary Dragon Timaeus." frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Luke studied the colossal card spirit looming over the arena, its body genuinely blotting out half the sky above him.
"In that case, I’ll use you to test out Ultimate-tier strength."
His hand turned, and the D-Ark reappeared in its handheld configuration, along with the second of the two evolution cards he’d crafted at the end of Phase One. At the same time, Sistermon Noir exited her Awakened state, her form compressing back from the tall mature silhouette into her standard Champion configuration.
"This feels familiar somehow." At the Ashenvale City Lord’s Mansion, Victor Ashford and the assembled principals exchanged glances. The same disbelief was visible in every pair of eyes.
"Father. Can Luke’s card spirit evolve again?" At the Capital Card Master Association, Roland Hargrove sucked in a sharp breath. The shock momentarily pushed even his daughter’s elimination to the back of his mind.
"Nobody ever stated that card spirits can only evolve once," Edmund Hargrove said. He had quietly produced a small medicinal pill, a heart-steadying remedy, and was turning it over in his fingers. His own heart, he’d decided, could not take many more shocks of this magnitude. "Perhaps we’re about to witness history."
"Card Swipe! Blue Card!"
Exactly as he had with the Hyper Evolution Unit S, Luke swiped the Blue Card through the D-Ark’s reader slot. An even more enormous torrent of data poured out of the device, sweeping over Sistermon Noir and condensing into a Digital Egg. The pressure radiating from the egg this time was extreme, dense enough to weigh on the entire arena.
The super-evolution sequence music began to play.
Iris Dawnford, who had been radiating absolute confidence since summoning the Polaris Whale, felt her expression turn grave. She could sense the threat incubating inside the egg-shaped object, something with the potential to genuinely endanger her Polaris Whale.
"Polaris Whale, attack!"
She gave the order without hesitation. Also, she thought, with a flicker of bewilderment, what is that sudden music echoing across the entire arena?
"Hmmmm."
The Polaris Whale released a resonant whale-song that rolled through the entire combat space. Its two immense fins beat downward, and a colossal waterspout twisted into being, a churning column of water that connected the ground to the sky, surging directly toward the Digital Egg encasing Noir.
The waterspout was a spectacle of overwhelming, world-ending force. Every spectator’s eyes went wide.
"That waterspout’s power is genuine. Even my Lethe Spider Lily would have to brace for it, or risk taking real damage." Elise Hargrove, having been eliminated alongside Cassian, had located Lyra and Serena in the spectator crowd, and now watched the last active match alongside them.
The three young women wore matching, slightly peculiar expressions. The evolution music was, admittedly, atmospheric and oddly compelling. They simply hadn’t expected Luke, of all people, to have constructed a card with a built-in soundtrack.
In a corner of the eliminated candidates’ plaza, Cassian Reeves was also watching intently. The Polaris Whale’s strength was, by his assessment, no less than his own Abyssal Nether Tiger’s.
If Iris won this match, she would almost certainly take the exam’s first-place finish, an outcome Cassian didn’t want to see. He’d much rather watch Luke and Iris replicate the mutual-elimination draw that he and Elise had produced, which would force the exam into some kind of overtime.
"It’s useless," Luke said, considerably calmer than anyone watching. He listened to the evolution music with something close to appreciation. "A Digimon mid-evolution is invulnerable."
Reality confirmed his statement. The waterspout, for all its apocalyptic presentation, struck the Digital Egg’s surface and simply dispersed, scattered apart the instant it made contact. The exam space erupted with holy light, and a clear, resonant chime rang through the air.
A figure flew up out of the Digital Egg.
She was a woman of near-impossible beauty, her proportions flawless, descending into the arena on slow-beating wings.
Her attire was white, lending her a sacred quality. A golden holy ring was clasped around her left thigh, adding a distinctive accent to the silhouette. Her long hair was a cascade of gold, vivid enough to catch the eye even without sunlight to illuminate it. The upper half of her face was concealed behind a covering, but even with only the lower half visible, her delicate jaw and her full, vivid red lips made it unmistakable that the face behind the covering was a beauty capable of toppling kingdoms.
Most striking of all were the wings. Four pairs, eight in total, sweeping out from her back in arcs of pure white, some furled and some extended.
The wings told every observer exactly what they were looking at.
An angel.
「 Angewomon 」
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"It’s an angel! Yes! I actually saw an angel!"
"So this is why they said the really incredible part was still coming. An angel beats the other three card spirits hands down for sheer appeal." freewebnøvel.com
"My mind is made up. From this day forward, that card spirit is my goddess. Anyone who has designs on her answers to me."
"How many drinks did you have? You’re completely gone."
The eliminated candidates’ plaza erupted as the angelic figure descended into view, the discussion surging into a fresh peak of intensity.
"My intuition was right after all." Lyra Sinclair rubbed her temple as she watched the angel arrive. "Why does it feel like every single time I see Luke, he’s in the middle of making history?"
The way the angelic card spirit had casually dispersed the waterspout’s attack indicated, conservatively, a Seven-Star tier of strength. Counting the dragon-knight fusion from the Youth Training Competition, Luke now held at least two Seven-Star card spirits.
Unless Iris Dawnford had a second Seven-Star card behind the Polaris Whale, her defeat was now only a matter of time.
"For our Capital, though, this is good news." Serena Frost spoke quietly, but the look in her eyes as they rested on Luke was full of fighting spirit. She wasn’t someone who gave up easily.
"Luke’s talent is genuinely terrifying." Elise Hargrove pressed a hand lightly against her own chest, her beautiful eyes fixed on Luke, a flicker of profound shock moving in their depths.
She was beginning to understand why Edmund had encouraged her to spend more time around Luke. It wasn’t only the gap in raw strength. It was the gap in talent, in vision, in the sheer scope of what Luke seemed able to imagine and then make real.
"He actually pulled it off!"
At the Capital City Lord’s Mansion, the moment the card spirit evolved into the angelic form, Selene Dawnford shot to her feet. In terms of composure, she still lagged well behind both Lilith and Aldric.
But neither Aldric Ashford, the Capital’s Governor, nor Lilith Crescent, the Eastern Region’s Governor, made any move to reproach her for the outburst.
In fact, neither of them paid Selene any attention at all.
Both of them were entirely fixed on the angel descending across the monitoring feed.
