Chronicle of the Eternal: Volume 1 (23 page)

The announcer clears her
throat before saying in a loud and clear voice, “Participant 34 and participant
121 to the north stage. Participant 2 and participant 26 to the east stage.
Participant 223 and participant 96 to the south stage. Participant 55 and
participant 125 to the west stage.”

The pairings for the
tournament are completely random and they don’t know who they will be dueling
until both students are on the stage. Regal is completely taken by surprise
that he is in the first round of duels, and is the last participant to be
ready.

Regal’s opponent is a
young man who is average in every sense of the word. He has short brown hair
that is neither too long nor too short, casual dress with plain brown armor of
the common grade, and his eyes seem to almost lack the spark of life. He is the
type of person that if you took your eyes off him, his presence would slowly
fade away and he would be completely forgotten.

“My name is Hon, from Daggerwolf
Academy,” Regal’s opponent introduces himself briskly, yet politely.

“I’m Regal, Bluemist
Academy.”

Similar introductions are
said on the other three stages between the competitors. The announcer is kind
enough to hold off on beginning the matches to allow them this courtesy before
commencing the duels.

At the announcer’s signal,
Regal’s attention is completely fixated on his opponent. Regal draws his gun
and immediately fires the three ice bullets loaded into the gun before loading
three more into the hand cannon. At the same time, he activates ‘Foresight’ to
get a glimpse of two seconds in the future.

Hon acts immediately at
the beginning of the match, using an alchemy Divine Art to summon an octogram
shaped formula behind him.  The writing and symbols comprising the formula
are beyond anything Regal can create, filling the air behind Hon with a
menacing intensity.

Regal actually recognizes
this is actually a fifth tier Divine Art of ‘Ice Heart Alchemy’, ‘Five Star Ice
Hearts’. Having seen the next two seconds with his Divine Art, Regal has
already seen the five longsword sized ice blades materialize from the
alchemical formula. They immediately shoot off in different directions with an
icy white light, twisting and turning in the air before piercing through the
space where he stands.

The ice blades are locked
onto Regal and will chase him endlessly, each attack doing at least fifteen
points of damage. The weakness of this Divine Art is that the blades are
extremely fragile, even breaking before hitting the target if an obstruction is
in the way.

Knowing where the blades
are going to hit, Regal draws his combat knife and uses it in conjunction with
the hand cannon in his main hand to obstruct the white lights. He manages to
block three of the blades that are flying so fast it should have been
impossible to defend against, and loses thirty health as the final two lights
crash into his body.

While receiving the
attack, Regal points his hand cannon at Hon, who is stunned at more than half
of his attack being blocked. Aiming at Hon’s chest and firing, Regal is
surprised at the large amount of recoil the gun has, the weapon nearly jumping
out of his hand due to his being caught unaware.

Quickly adjusting his
posture to a better  stance, Regal fires the other two bullets already
loaded, the tip of the gun tracking Hon as he attempts to dodge to the side
while returning fire. Out of the three bullets, only the second was
successfully dodged.

The two opponents start
dashing around the field to avoid the other’s attacks. Regal uses ‘Foresight’
every time Hon starts to use a large skill. Using an alchemy Divine Art of the
fifth tier already uses a large amount of mana, and Hon fears that the skill
may be blocked or dodged so only uses those of the fourth tier.

The bullets from Regal’s
hand cannon chip away at Hon’s health, but being hit by a single large skill of
Hon’s could easily change the tide. Regal can only hold his own thanks to the
excessive health and stats the crafting and miscellaneous skills have granted
him.

As the duel reaches its
conclusion, Regal becomes aware of his greatest flaw; even with the improved
stats and more health than anyone else, he lacks firepower. The gun he borrowed
from the armory is good, but he does not have any of the higher tier alchemy
Divine Arts that can truly cause widespread destruction with a single attack.

Hon becomes desperate near
the end and uses ‘Five Star Ice Hearts’, using the last of his mana and staking
the match on it.

Regal doesn’t attempt to
block the attack at all, and instead focuses on shooting Hon and ending the
match before the crystalline white rays of light pierce through him.

Using ‘Foresight’ one last
time to look four seconds into the future at the expense of all his remaining
mana aside from a bare minimum to keep his mind clear, Regal pays attention to
how Hon dodges his next attack. Knowing where the target will be, he uses the
martial Divine Art ‘Curve’, firing two bullets at where he will jump to.

The attack is a success,
the two bullets piercing Hon’s chest and dropping his health below the duel’s
threshold before the five ice swords can pierce through Regal. The attack still
continues and hits Regal, but no damage is dealt and no pain felt as he has
already won the duel. If it had been a real situation and not a duel, he would
have definitely died.

The three judges
overlooking the west stage look down upon Regal and Hon and frown. They are
extremely displeased. Not with the match, but how they ended it.

The female judge on the
left taps her finger on her knee and solemnly says to the two of them in a
voice that the entire colosseum can hear, “Do you know where you went wrong?
You look confused, so allow me to explain. Participant number 55, you used the
last of your mana in a final attack hoping to settle it. You don’t have enough
left to keep a clear mind, so how are you going to continue fighting if another
enemy was to come out from the shadows? You would be dead. For this match, we
have given you a total score of 87.”

Hon is still in a daze so
it takes a moment for the judge’s words to sink in. Once they do, his
complexion pales and he looks ready to faint at any moment.

Next, the woman turns her
attention to Regal. “Participant number 125. You left yourself just enough mana
to maintain a clear head, excellent. You lack power, but your strategy was able
to overcome the large gap between the two of you, another pleasing experience.
However, you failed at the end.”

“Sacrificing yourself to
land the finishing blow is foolish. What’s the point of winning if you are
killed, losing half of your money and risking any equipment? Our forefathers,
the humans, taught us that death is bad in more ways than one. Even if we don’t
experience true death as they described, a small piece of ourselves is said to
be lost each time we die. Seeing someone overlook that disgusts me. We, as
impartial judges, assign you a total score of 121.”

Regal’s mind seems to halt
all processes after the shock of getting such a low score and being humiliated
in front of the entire crowd. He had done everything he could have to win, and
nothing more. If this was a situation outside the city walls, he would
definitely do it differently. His face turns red in anger and he wants to
refute the judge as they clearly significantly lowered his score due to that.
Seeing that the faces of the judges are stone cold, he feels an unknown
pressure, like the intuition when facing against an enemy he can’t hope to
defeat, and immediately lets such thoughts go.

Hon and Regal leave the
stage together, each as depressed as the other. Surprisingly, the two
immediately become good friends and speak about the unfairness of their judges
from a position where they can’t possibly be overheard. The two students end up
having the fifth and sixth lowest scores. Using Hon and Regal as examples, not
a single student dared repeat their mistakes.

The first round of duels
takes the entire first day, Hazel did quite well in her first round and scored
a win and 195 points, while Lawe outshone that with a massive score of 251
along with a win, placing him in the top ten of the first round.

After descending back down
to Grand Theore’s first floor, all the students began to leave for home
directly from the lift. Regal watches Hazel and Lawe walk away, Lawe trying
once again to spark up a conversation. Perhaps it is due to how impressive he
was during the first round of the tournament, but she begins speaking back to
him and taking part in the conversation.

“What are you looking at?”
Veronica asks from beside Regal, looking in the same direction as him.

“Hazel and Lawe. They are
so completely different from me that there is no comparison.”

Veronica moves closer to
Regal, hooking her arm around his and softly saying, “My mother once told me
that every single person in different and unique. It’s a reminder in situations
like this to show that you are not that person.”

Hearing Veronica say
something that seems inexplicably philosophical, Regal is at a loss for words
and doesn’t even notice her arm around his, at first. He does notice shortly
after, and his ears flush red much to Piora’s amusement, who walks close and
whispers how once upon a time he declared his love for Veronica.

Not even Astore or Kilde
would come to his rescue at a time like this, simply stating, “But you did
declare your love for her. Nothing can change that it happened.”

Despite his embarrassment,
Regal is slowly getting used to Veronica’s closeness. At the same time,
unbeknownst to Regal, Veronica is becoming fond of being close to Regal as
well.

***************************************************

The next day at the arena,
everyone returns eager to continue the competition. Even the participants who
lost in the first round are in attendance, sitting at the tables around the
perimeter of the arena and chatting amongst themselves. With the number of
participants having now become half that of yesterday, two rounds of duels are
scheduled for the day. Tomorrow will be the same, and the third day will be the
top eight, semifinals, and final all in one.

Regal’s match this time is
towards the end of the second round. His opponent is a girl called Damira,
whose gunmanship and close quarters combat is at an advanced level. Regal felt
like he was using a toy knife when fighting against someone who is specialized
in it. In order to win, he was forced to use ‘Foresight’ constantly in short
bursts of a single second along with his higher stats to narrowly avoid her
eighth tier martial Divine Art which literally twisted space and could attack
from any angle and distance. His victory was extremely narrow, but the judges
this time were much more pleased, awarding him 231 points for an impressive
performance and turning the odds upside down.

In the third round, Regal
faces off against a boy named Caius, an alchemy genius. Halfway through the
match, Caius only has fifty percent health while Regal has sixty. Alternatively,
Regal has used most of his mana while Caius has only used early tier alchemy
Divine Arts and relies on his mastery of the skill to increase the damage.

Furrowing his brow, Caius
raises his gun and points it at Regal, but Regal doesn’t dodge. Regal’s
‘Foresight’ showed that he would not shoot and is only pointing the gun at him.
Five seconds later Regal uses ‘Foresight’ again and sees that Caius will shoot,
so he dodges moments before the gun is fired.

Caius’ brow rises suddenly
and he says incredulously, “So you have the skill ‘Future Sight’, no wonder I
kept missing. To be able to use it so well, you must have trained it up a
considerable extent. I am honestly impressed, but it won’t help you anymore now
that I know you are using it.”

“What do you mean?” Regal
asks, a little alarmed that the opponent figured out he was using ‘Foresight’.

“There’s no harm in
telling you now. I have been holding myself back trying to figure out how you
kept dodging; not using a sure hit Divine Art in case you had some strange way
of dodging anyway, causing me to waste all my mana on a miss. But now I
understand. You can see the future, and react to it, but you cannot dodge an
attack that should be impossible to avoid. Never mind, allow me to show you.”

Caius sweeps his arm and
in front of him a massive alchemy circle is formed by a twisting golden light.
Regal feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and an oppressive
fear assaults his body. He had learned about this fear in class. It is a
feeling brought about by the body’s natural instinct when facing an attack or
enemy far above it in power.

Within the alchemy circle,
countless alchemical formula and symbols are given birth, filling the circle to
the brim and exploding with power. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.
Alchemical formulae are still materializing and spill outside the circle,
losing their organization as they randomly extend into the surrounding world.
Regal doesn’t know what Divine Art he is staring at, but he knows that its rank
is that of an over-tier.

Regal helplessly activates
‘Foresight’ and feels utter despair at the situation. Just as he predicted, the
alchemy Divine Art sparks with electricity and without any warning, fires
hundreds, if not thousands, of thin sparks of electricity in all directions. It
is an omnidirectional attack that leaves no room for avoidance.