Chaos Cycle: The Eye of Genesis

The next morning in the tournament was far in moderation than yesterday—after all, all the audience as well as the guardians of the students were sent away, nor were the press here today. The matches of today will not be telecasted throughout the world. Only the students of the institute, with a handful of people from all over the world, will be seeing the matches.

They couldn't just announce the secret abilities of the elite students to the world after all. 

The second round started with the 16 participants coming on the stage while the dean congratulated them. After completing a couple of other stuff, the tournament was about to begin. And in the first match, it was between Elior and Gaivan. 

The two contestants came on the stage amongst the watchful gazes of the students. The students cheered, especially the freshmen, seeing one of their own on the large stage, but it still could not challenge the cacophony created by all the audience yesterday. 

"I must say, I am getting excited even before my matches," Shin commented, eyes glued to the screen. The figure of Elior was shown in it as well as the proud upperclassman he would be facing. Unlike yesterday, Elior currently had light armours on his body, and a spear created by him—not anything special.

They were currently in the dressing room, and it was not only the two of shin or Leroy. Other participants who had failed to get into the second round were there too with the additional of Enna, who was currently checking all her healing ingredients as well. And then there was Aanya. 

"Should I make the bed ready?" Enna said and found the match was about to start. 

"Bed for whom?" Shin snorted. "Brother won't need it, and I think the upperclassmen have their own healer." 

"I was talking about you," Enna said with a hint of a smile on her lips and it only broadened. 

Shin should have been angry at the response, yet he was smiling too. There were three of us, and she only prepared a bed for me—something like this was going through his head currently. "So nice of you," he said to her. "Already thinking for me before even . . ." 

"That's because you will be in the direst need of bed than the other two," Enna snorted, and Shin heard a couple of giggles around him.

Shin snorted at them too. Could they not just let him live with his dilutions?

"But seriously, I don't expect any miracle today," Enna said. "I heard from my sis that Gaivan advanced to the second-order over a year ago, and he should be close to level 80 now. How can anyone of the freshmen compete against him?"

"With a spear and boundless awesomeness?" Shin could not help but say. And the match began. Level 80 was surely not anything to scruff off as many of the academy staff were of that level, but Gaivan is an elite of the academy and has boundless prospects about him. As for Elior, Shin did not know what level his brother was. Elior never answered as he never lies. But what Shin knew was Elior could crush his heart without even lifting his fingers. That was not something any level 80 apprentice could do, not many actual guardians either.

"Aanya, what do you think?" Ileana asked, knitting her brows at the match. Even though the match started, the two of the contestants had not started moving, and seemed to converse among themselves. Elior had a smile on his lips, while his opponent was not so merry, stiff and cold.

"Hmm, what?" Aanya asked, out of her trance.

Ileana raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you think about the match?" she elaborated. "Does El have a chance?"

"Didn't he say he will be back soon?" Aanya replied. 

"Yes, El did say that, but that doesn't mean he will come back winning," Ileana, the best friend who was the most oblivious of Elior's power, asked. 

"Are you joking?" Shin laughed out. "There was no way Elior would lose this match. He promised me a big surprise if I made it here and faced him. I'm sure he will not back out of his word."

Ileana frowned and carried on with the match. 

The two contestants did not converse for longer. Soon, the temperature of the dulling ground decreased by a large margin and snowflakes started to drift in the air. It looked just beautiful to watch, but what happened next became the focal point of everyone's attention. 

This was the contest between the best.

Gaivan charged at Elior with his giant icy sword, wherever his feet went, leaving a path of ice behind. It was kind of weird, as he was doing both. The icy was moving along with his feet, giving him a swift speed and he was moving with his feet just the same. Without considering for a second, Gaivan made a large lump of ice before him to charge at his opponent, swinging the huge sword.

All the emotions from Elior's eyes were vacated by then, and the spearhead was blazing with a slow flow of shockwave. Elior blocked the swing of the sword just as easily, but the duel was just starting. All the icy components from Gaivan's sword rose further and just when Elior's spearhead made a contract, it broke into hundreds of smaller sharp projectiles to move towards Elior. It was only at hand's distance, and Elior was open wide. Even if the attack could not deal that much damage, it could disable him of the armament defence and leave a few marks. 

But none of that happened. The icy projectiles could not even come in contract with Elior before it turned into thin waves of mana. Gaivan raised an eyebrow and the icy below their feet moved up in an arc. He was trying to out-balance Elior and take advantage of him, but it was only an old trick.

Elior rose to one foot and stepped on the icy violently. A sharp force of spatial waves undulated there, breaking all ice before it turned into thin mana again. There was no water or vapour in between.

His spear moved in a high arc, releasing shape warping of shock into he thin air. Gaivan blocked with his sword, but the spear made a sharp turn in its path, feinting a heavy swing on the side of Gaivan's chest. The upperclassmen were thrown away a couple of meters, though he balanced himself using his icy control. 

There was no stopping of the cheering from the freshmen, and not stopping for Elior either. He had the advantage here, and he had no intention of losing it. 

Elior shot from his spot directly toward Gaivan who tried to intercept it with the swing of his huge icy sword that regained its shape and form. 

Elior had not gone to Gaivan's interception. He shoved the blunt end of his spear on the high icy, as it turned to thin mana yet again. That was not the end. Carrying his weight on the spear shaft, Elior pushed down a heavy dropkick on his opponent, who was still in the midst of losing his balance.

Gaivan could not dodge the kick as he felt a hammering foot strike his chest, and there was something else too that broke all the armament defence all over his body.

The dropkick connected as anyone had imagined it from the audience box, as the upperclassman was flung dozens of metres away, but that was not the end of it either.

Before Gaivan could shoot himself up, a spear came for him, shooting in with sharp speed. Gaivan barely stopped it through his sword, but Elior followed closely behind. Currently, he has two sleek daggers in his arm. He shot one at the thigh of his opponent, piercing right where he had wanted before swiping another move in the reverse grip.

In his dilemma, Gaivan could only throw away large projectiles of ice, one big enough to crush any normal human. Even many first-order apprentices will have problems keeping themselves safe. Amazingly, Elior was none of those.

All of the projectiles of icy that came his way became thin mana, as if there was no contest. Elior's eyes were narrowed, and it became even more vacant, as if there was no pain that could touch him.

With a swift turn, he jerked his dagger on the shoulder of his opponent. It went straight as elior twisted it to pull it, and with that he also pulled back the other knife from Gaivan's knife thigh before starting his berserking dagger skills.

The blade rose all over the place and within a blink of an eye, Gaivan felt a sharp impaling pain on his shoulder—the very one Elior destroyed the armament first. Gaivan tried to withdraw, condensing a large portion of icy under his feet, but that hardly mattered. With a swift manoeuvre of his dagger, sharp horizontal spatial waves broke the rising icy. It had not succeeded in turning all the icy to mana, but it did succeed, bringing Gaivan back to the earth again.

Gaivan stumbled and tried to put back his armament defence, but it wasn't as easy as he had thought. Other than the shoulder where Elior already made it worse with repeated assault, he felt more restriction on his mana as well. As if something was stopping him from getting hold of it. 

Then he saw Elior's eyes, and he froze.

If before it was without emotion, vacant of any earthly emotions, then currently it was filled with only one thing. A murderous intention. 

Gaivan felt his spirit collapse as he looked at the savage predatory eyes. An unknown fear that he was never meant to feel against an underclassman got its root into his spirit and he only managed to fall on his back, trying to flee in every way he could. 

But before then came Elior's dagger, one stuck right in the middle of his chest, piercing the light armor to give a sharp tingle of pain. 

"I concede," Gaivan screamed loudly, swallowing.

Elior stopped and eliminated all the effects of the title of Predator. It was only the second time he was using it in this timeline, and in both times, it made things easy for him. The first time he had used it more subtly, only to sip a little fear into Aanya's mind to flee away from her chase. 

But here he brought out everything. Every savagery thought turned into emotion and assaulted Gaivan's spirit, and so far the result was more than what he had hoped for.

Ford announced the result, but for a couple of seconds, there was no cheering. 

It was a pin drop silence.