novelraw Chapter 214: The Anomaly
Chapter 214: The Anomaly
The legendary swords, artifacts of immense gravity and weight, were proving to be an impossible burden for the team’s lower-level members. That is, until Carl stepped forward.
"So that’s it?" Carl asked, swinging the sword easily. The blade, which had felt like forged neutronium to the others, cut through the air in his hands with a light, effortless whistle. He didn’t even seem to be straining his baseline physical stats.
"Hey!!! You just said we are weak, but he’s not even Lv60!! He’s already using the sword!!" Austin yelled, pointing his finger at Carl, his warrior pride deeply stung by the systemic contradiction playing out before his eyes.
"...This?"
Even Hitachi and Mirabella were dumbfounded, both staring at Carl like he had grown extra heads. The absolute laws of Galaxy Fall dictated that gear requirements were non-negotiable. A sub-Lv60 player shouldn’t even be able to equip an item radiating that much sheer power, let alone swing it like a wooden practice stick.
"I also don’t understand." Hitachi confessed, his usually sharp mind failing to calculate the variables of Carl’s hidden parameters.
’Is Carl hiding some kind of powers in him?’ Mirabella thought, her instincts flaring. In a world governed by stats, a broken rule usually meant a terrifying hidden class or a suppressed bloodline. She filed the anomaly away for later analysis and lightly shook her head:
"Forget all that, you all got your weapons, if you can’t use it, then keep it in your storage... Now, listen up." Mirabella said, drawing their attention back to the immediate reality of the tournament.
"Nine of you will scatter in all directions, at least five thousand miles away, once you closed this distance..." She looked at them over her shoulder, her eyes cold and calculating, plotting a map of the entire southern sector in her mind:
"Draw out any monster you can find, no matter their levels and rank. Direct them all back here." She said seriously. It was a massive, insane aggro-pull strategy that would normally spell absolute death for a party of their level.
"Hmm... I understand. You plan to kill them for points." Hitachi nodded, instantly catching onto the ruthless efficiency of her plan. The Academy’s tournament grading system heavily favored raw kill counts.
"Correct." Mirabella nodded her head.
"Ok, but what if we encounter a very powerful monster? This is the southern region we’re talking about." Kent asked, his Knight’s instincts rightfully cautious. The southern region’s spawn tables were notoriously unpredictable, often dropping mid-tier boss variants without warning.
"If we encounter any, we can still escape... You all have trump cards up your sleeves." Rose answered, her arms crossed on her chest, her legendary class staff hovering beside her, radiating a faint, protective energy field.
The group nodded their heads, their confidence bolstered by their newly acquired gear and Mirabella’s overwhelming buffs.
"Ok, do we have a set time?" Casey asked, turning to Mirabella.
"You have one hour... I plan to complete this first round in three hours, we already used thirty minutes in that cave." Mirabella answered, her internal clock ticking down the optimal timeframe for maximum point extraction, and waved her hand at them:
"Get going, you’re still in my team, so you all gained buffs to help in this mission, complete it!"
"Yes!!"
WHOOSH!!!
The nine shot out in different directions, moving with their fastest speed, deliberately not concealing their presence. Their auras flared like beacons, designed to aggro every hostile mob within a five-thousand-mile radius.
"As for you?"
Two wings burst out from Mirabella’s back, woven from pure, condensed energy, as she flew into the air, bypassing the terrain entirely and reaching the tops in seconds.
___
[South - The Peak]
"....??"
Sitting in the center of the hill, right before the tournament flag that fluttered in the warm southern wind, was an old woman with long black hair, and long nails. She was in black clothes, her very presence warping the ambient energy into a dark, corrosive miasma. The system didn’t need to display her stats; the sheer density of her killing intent announced her as a catastrophe-class entity.
"Why are you here, Fifth Elite guard, and fifth pillar of the demon Emperor?" Mirabella calmly asked, Landing on the flat surface. The stone hissed beneath her boots, as her feathers retracted.
The old woman raised her head, her red eyes fixed on Mirabella, burning with centuries of hoarded malice:
"You must be Spectral, I am 100% sure we haven’t met, then how do you know I’m the fifth pillar?" She asked, her eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the veil of Mirabella’s seemingly calm demeanor.
"Of course, I can’t forget that old ugly face of yours... Anyway, get out of my way, I need that flag behind you." Mirabella said, not even bothered about the woman. Her tone was casual, treating a Lv400 nightmare like a minor obstacle in a fetch quest.
’The demon emperor has 25 Elite guards, with the top five being the five pillars... Why would a Pillar be outside the Abyssal?’ She thought. The Abyss factions rarely breached the mortal servers unless summoned.
"I can’t do that child." She stood up, and pointed a long nail at Mirabella, dark energy crackling at its tip:
"I am here to avenge the thousands of demons you killed in the Abyss." She said coldly, referring to Mirabella’s past massacres that had single-handedly depleted the Demon Emperor’s forces.
"Funny, because I was about to say that." The twins swords appeared in Mirabella’s hands, their Epic-class auras flaring to life.
"I was thinking of ways to gain good points, but you just helped me out... Killing you will earn us Good points!" She pointed one of the blade at the old demon, perfectly calculating the massive experience and tournament score a Lv400 Elite would yield.
"Last warning... What am I saying, it’s not like I will spare you even if you made way." She muttered with a smile, her God-level stats humming beneath the surface, ready to be unleashed.
"You!!!"
The Fifth Guard screamed, her demonic pride completely shattered by the sheer disrespect. Her long hair elongated, transforming into razor-sharp threads of dark demonic energy, and shot towards Mirabella with deadly speed, capable of slicing through adamantium.
WHOOSH!!!
"....?!!"
The Fifth demon was stunned, watching as all her hair dropped to the ground, neatly severed. She looked at her hair before Mirabella, then at the lady in absolute horror. The systemic math wasn’t adding up.
"You?! Those swords are just Epic class, how could they cut through my hair?" She asked in shock, her invulnerability frames completely ignored by the twin blades.
"Don’t underestimate yourself... In my hands, any weapon can become a Legendary class... Don’t blame your foolishness on anyone." Mirabella’s raw, overwhelming physical attack stats—numbering in the millions—were being channeled directly through the Epic weapons, forcing their cutting power far beyond their programmed limits.
BAM!!!!
An invisible punch—the unseen, devastating strike of one of Mirabella’s Lv500 Celestial Guardians acting on her silent command—smashed into the fifth demon’s face, sending her flying to the edge of the hill with a sickening crunch of bone.
PIFF!!
She vomited a mouthful of black, demonic blood, her jaw dislocated, her HP bar plummeting into the red zone from a single, indirect blow.
Mirabella calmly walked towards her, a smile on her face that promised absolute ruin: "It seems I will have to pay the demons another visit." She stopped in front of the old demon, who was still on the ground, paralyzed by the overwhelming suppression of Mirabella’s aura.
"You... You...?"
Mirabella raised her leg, and placed it on her cheek, pinning the ancient horror to the dirt like an insect: "The moment you picked me at your opponent, you are already dead."
BAM!!!!
She shattered the skull her with leg. The force behind the stomp was so catastrophic that the flat surface cracked from the pressure, spreading all over the place, turning the summit into a crater.
{Congratulations, Host Killed a Lv400 Elite Demon. Gained 5,000,000 Exp.}
{Team gained 400,000 Points.}