"It’s my prey. Leave."
Katherine’s voice was calm, but the pressure behind it was unmistakable.
Her crimson eyes were locked onto the looming figure standing across from her, her fingers resting lightly on the hilt of her dagger as if she could draw it at any mont.
The air around her carried a faint chill mixed with the tallic scent of blood, subtle yet oppressive.
Gaelion barely spared her a glance.
"Don’t get in my way, Vampire Princess," he said, his tone flat and dismissive, as if he were brushing aside a kid rather than addressing royalty.
His gaze road the clearing instead, scanning the grass, the wind, and the faint distortions in mana. He was searching for sothing specific, and Katherine was clearly not it.
The tension between them thickened, but before it could erupt,
"You both... Don’t you feel sothing is strange?"
Ethan’s voice cut through the standoff, low and grim. His grip tightened around the hilt of his sword as his eyes swept across the clearing with growing unease.
Ever since he had entered this area, an uncomfortable sensation had settled in his chest, like a warning he could not explain. Sothing deep inside him whispered that events were deviating from the natural flow.
During his hunt, he had clearly sensed the presence of an A-ranked beast. That alone was enough reason to pursue it without hesitation.
A-ranked monsters carried significant points, and he had imdiately followed the trail the mont he detected it.
At first, the presence had been faint, almost elusive, as if deliberately pulling him along. He followed it steadily, step by step, until the terrain suddenly opened up into an enormous clearing.
That alone had caught him off guard.
The land here was unnaturally flat, covered in dense green grass that swayed gently under the breeze.
It was too open, too exposed, and completely unlike the forested terrain surrounding it. A place like this must not naturally exist within this domain.
And yet, here they were.
When he had arrived, the two figures had already arrived at the center of the clearing, a vampire and a titan, arguing over the sa prey.
Ethan’s eyes dropped briefly to the ground. He noticed the trail of footsteps etched faintly into the soil.
Katherine’s path ca from one direction. Gaelion’s from the opposite side. Neither aligned with Ethan’s own route.
They had all been drawn here independently.
By the sa presence.
His unease deepened.
Sothing was very wrong.
Before he could voice that thought again, movent flickered at the edges of the clearing.
Another figure erged.
A dragonoid stepped forward, a long halberd resting casually against his shoulder, scales faintly glinting under the filtered light.
From another direction, a female Phoenix descended gracefully, her royal robes fluttering as residual heat shimred around her form.
Monts later, Leila, the ice queen appeared, stepping out from the tree line with a bow in her hands, she looked at Ethan and nodded.
Both of them had t before.
An elf clad in deep purple robes erged next, moving with an innocent expression. Ethan’s gaze softened. It was Seraphine, the disciple of Tower Master.
Katherine’s eyes narrowed.
Gaelion finally stopped scanning the clearing and turned his head, his eyes narrowed.
There were too many.
Too many high-ranking candidates appearing at the exact sa location was no coincidence.
More figures arrived, one after another. So spoke in hushed voices, others remained silent, but the pattern was identical for all of them.
They had seen sothing.
A dark shadow, and instinctively they had followed it.
Almost all of them belonged to the top fifty in the rankings.
Murmurs rippled across the clearing, uncertainty spreading like a disease. Then, slowly, the chatter died down.
An oppressive presence began to descend upon the area, the air thickened, and many participants shivered.
The mood beca heavy, and mana fluctuations intensified. Instinctively, every participant straightened, weapons half-raised, getting ready to attack.
From the sky above, a massive green, horned wyvern descended, its wings slicing through the air with deafening force. The pressure it exuded crashed down like a physical weight.
SSS-rank.
The suppression alone made breathing harder, but at the sa ti, the sheer number of points such a beast represented made the eyes of so lunatics gleam despite the danger.
Fiona Ashfall stepped forward, flas gathering at her fingertips as she began to form a spell.
"STOP!"
Leila’s shout rang out sharply, halting her mid-action.
"There’s soone on top of it!"
Every gaze snapped upward.
At first, it was difficult to make out anything beyond the massive silhouette of the wyvern. Then, gradually, a human figure ca into focus, seated casually atop the beast’s back.
As the wyvern descended further, the figure beca unmistakably clear.
Blue hair that caught the light. Sapphire eyes that reflected calm confidence. A handso face set on a lean yet muscular fra.
Gaelion’s fists clenched.
A strange, instinctive thrill coursed through his veins. His divine physique reacted on its own, resonating sharply as it recognized another of its kind. A slow smirk crept onto his face.
Will t his gaze and returned the expression without hesitation.
"Him?" Ethan breathed, disbelief flashing across his face.
Seraphine stiffened beside him, eyes widening slightly as recognition struck.
anwhile, Katherine stood frozen.
Her cheeks flushed as she stared at the familiar figure, fingers tightening around the few broken strands of blue hair clutched in her hands.
"It’s him," she murmured, biting her lip as she fought down the instinctive surge of desire that flared within her. The craving for his blood twisted painfully in her chest.
The wyvern landed heavily. The gathered participants instinctively stepped back, creating space.
From the beast’s back, the human figure leapt down, landing smoothly on the grass.
Most of them still did not fully understand who he was.
Then he spoke.
"I am William Kaiser," he said calmly, his voice carrying across the clearing without effort. "The first rank."
A ripple of shock spread instantly through the crowd.
"The shadows you saw," Will continued evenly, "were one of my tricks. I brought you all here on purpose."
Recognition dawned fully now. His na alone was enough.
Yet confusion followed imdiately after.
Why was he here?
Why gather them like this?
***
A Few Minutes Earlier...
Will stood over the massive corpse of the wyvern, its lifeless body steaming faintly as residual energy dissipated into the air. Even for an SSS-rank beast, it had eventually fallen after sustained effort.
Without wasting ti, Will activated the Aeon Blade’s invisibility and vanished from sight, sprinting toward a nearby cave. If there was a chance that outside the domain, the people had not yet realized the situation and were still watching the screens, and if he was being watched by the outside world, then he wanted to divert that attention as soon as he could.
Usually the recording arrays were present in the sky, so if he was in a cave, he would be isolated from their field of vision.
Inside the cave he found after searching for a while, he retrieved a stamp-like artifact.
The Array Hijacking Stamp, a divine artifact.
It was one of the free purchases he had made two years ago, specifically reserved for the mont when demons or cults made their move inside the academy.
The academy domain was enormous, layered with countless formations and arrays operating simultaneously, so the stamp was perfect to use in here.
This trial domain was no different; its foundation was an illusion array, and layered above it were countless other formations.
Will placed the stamp against the cave floor and channeled mana into it.
Energy burst outward, rippling through the environnt as a massive spectral stamp ford in midair, hovering above the artifact.
Will raised his hand and placed it against the glowing halo, his intent clear.
He began altering the flow of several formations within the domain, changing the rules and laws placed on it that had been unchanged for centuries.
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