[Uh, they were supposed to turn invisible there. Pretend you can't see them.]
It was painfully obvious which of the three was real. The others looked like flat drawings, and he was the only one with depth. The two illusions ran around, rustling grass and pretending to release clouds of green fog, while the real one actually generated poisonous gas and crouched, motionless and supposedly invisible, amidst the grass.
Poison and illusions.
At the center of the poison gas, Lindon sighed. Then he speared the creature through the mask with a lance of dragon's breath.
Dross coughed. [Well, that one was free.]
~~~
Charity watched Lindon finish the tenth test in eighteen seconds.
He was first in the trial by a wide margin. This enemy toyed with the competitors using venom and dreams, immobilizing and entrancing them into wasting time. Even Sopharanatoth, first place overall, was trapped for six minutes in the fight before she managed to shake loose.
Lindon's place flipped up to tenth.
Now he had finally gathered attention. Behind Charity, some of the other members of her family highly ranked enough to join her on the Monarch’s platform began to mutter, and she caught Lindon's name from more than one voice.
The Ninecloud Soul brought up Lindon's image five times. She had even speculated for the entire arena to hear about how Lindon had done so well in trial ten; did he have eyes that could pierce illusions? A spiritual sense developed far beyond his peers? Perhaps he had brought a Divine Treasure that could reveal the truth to him?
That was the closest to the truth, Charity knew. His mind-spirit must have held off the illusion for long enough that Lindon could destroy the real body.
Anyone with enough knowledge could make a similar guess, so that made four things he had now revealed. His Soul Cloak, his dragon's breath, his hunger binding, and his mind-spirit.
In her estimation, her niece and nephew were performing much better.
Mercy mixed her techniques together into her arrows, so they were hard to analyze, and had yet to reveal her Dream of Darkness technique or her bloodline armor. The Akura armor was common knowledge, but her command of it would not be. Their enemies would have to test her limits for themselves. The only ability Mercy had fully revealed was her proficiency with Striker techniques, which couldn't be helped.
Currently, she was placed seventh. Very respectable; her mother was likely proud. Malice was watching now, Charity knew; the Monarch had slipped in just as Northstrider arrived and now observed from the top of her floating mountain, though Charity had not been invited to join her.
Pride had used part of his armor but had revealed only two of his four Enforcer techniques. As a result, he’d taken a little too long and fallen to twenty-second place, but someone who specialized only in Enforcer techniques would have problems with such flexible scenarios as these. He would redeem himself in the duels.
Sophara was the real problem.
The champion of the gold dragons maintained a strong lead. If Charity hadn't known better, she would have suspected the woman had actually reached Overlord. Her madra was so dense and powerful that, combined with her strong dragon's body, she simply tore through most tests.
She held onto first place with an iron grip, which was inconvenient for Charity. If she actually won the tournament, Sophara’s name would become commonplace all around the world, which would make it difficult to assassinate her.
In second place was Sha Miara. She publicly claimed to be an Underlady from a distant branch of the royal family, but Charity doubted that. Based on her level of command over royal madra, she suspected the girl might be the Monarch's daughter.
The only other one Charity spent time contemplating was Yerin Arelius from the Blackflame Empire team. The real House Arelius had caused a stir when Yerin and Lindon were revealed as adopted members of their clan, and she was sure they were watching intently.
No fewer than three members of their Blackflame branch were participating in the tournament. Even if two were only adopted disciples, the Arelius clan wasn’t in a position to turn down any potential source of strength.
Yerin had cut her way to eleventh, coincidentally only one place behind Lindon. She flagged on the tests that required flexibility but excelled in anything that could be solved with combat. That boded well for future rounds.
In all, Charity was pleased with her faction competitors. The Frozen Blade students were ranked in the thirties, except for their one replacement, who was struggling to maintain eightieth place. He wouldn't make it into the second round.
Their second Akura team was, on average, doing well enough. Grace held on to thirty-second place while her teammates were fifty-third and fifty-eighth. For a team Charity had arranged at the last minute, they were doing her proud.
All in all, she was satisfied.
If only the dragons hadn't been performing so well.
Only two of the twelve total dragon competitors were even in danger of elimination. The gold dragons were all in the top sixteen, and led by Sophara...they would be a deadly force in the second round.
That would be the real test. The first time when her humans would come to face their enemies.
She ran her eyes down the list, looking at the last person who was currently in a position to pass. Eithan Arelius.
Charity had thought his potential would be much greater than this. His command over his bloodline ability alone should have gotten him a higher position, but he was staying in sixty-fourth. He had been sixty-fourth in the ninth trial as well. And in the eighth...
Raising an eyebrow, Charity looked back over the results. In the eighth test, he’d been sixty-second. Seventh…sixty-third.
Eithan had bounced between sixty-fourth and sixtieth since the beginning of the round.
~~~
In the fifteenth and final trial, Lindon was forced to use the Void Dragon's Dance.
He fought five of the masked giants this time, in a wide-open arena that shot bursts of flames randomly from the ground. The air was full of fire aura, so it was easy to use his Ruler technique, but he had been determined not to.
After failing to clear all five enemies the first time and being painlessly sliced in half—a disorienting experience—he had decided he couldn't waste any more time. As far as he knew, he was ranked near the bottom, and he had a clear method of winning. He only had to reveal one more of his abilities.
Reluctantly, Lindon gathered up the fire and destruction aura in the air, calling down a swirling vortex of flame. It consumed three of the giants, scorching the other two, leaving Lindon to slice them in half with dragon's breath.
As soon as they fell, a pair of golden characters appeared in the air.
“The End,” they said.
Then the gold fire grew. It swallowed everything in an instant, erasing the world.
Lindon emerged, blinking, into the sunlight of the arena. He was seated on his knees, just where he had begun.
Less than a dozen people sat around him.
[Huh. I guess we didn't manage to avoid attention, did we?]
Lindon's heart fluttered with nerves. He had stood out. Now they were going to look him up. He'd have a harder time from here on out because he had misjudged his timing.
But then again...he had proven himself. Even if he failed in the next round, he had shown that he could compete with some of the best in the world.
It was a rush of emotion that Lindon had never felt before.
The crowd erupted into cheers, and the Ninecloud Soul shouted his name, but he was looking around at his competitors.
Sophara, the gold dragon, fixed him with the eyes of a serpent. She looked ready to blast him apart from there.
The red-haired girl from the Ninecloud section ignored him, cycling on the ground, but once again he had missed the announcement of her name. He turned to look at the list, to see the names of the people who had ranked ahead of him.