Chapter 135 - Trial Regional Tournament (Round 1) - [Part-6]
Due to the side effect of the skill <Frenzy>, Jay's eye white began to redden as aggressiveness began to take over his body.
At that moment, the only thing in Jay's mind was to rip apart the Arch Gargoyle, disregarding his safety.
However, before the frenziness could cloud his conscience, the skill <Harmony> took its effect and completely suppressed Jay's urge to go wild.
Along with that, Jay also gained perfect control over the improved stats. With that, Jay's perception of time and reaction speed increased from 19.8 times to 24 times.
Although, it was not enough to go toe-to-toe against the Arch Gargoyle, that still gave Jay enough window to lock on to the monster.
This time, the Arch Gargoyle wasn't able to see through the attack path of Thunder Flame as Jay initialised it and that made it way harder for the Arch Gargoyle to dodge the incoming ranged attacks.
Under the barrage of Thunder Flame spears, it was eventually pushed to a corner and even if it sometimes didn't take a direct hit from the attacks, the Arch Gargoyle still received damage amidst the violent explosions.
If the monster hadn't used its Darkness higher element to protect itself, the damage it received might have been a lot more devastating.
As a Tier-4 monster, the Arch Gargoyle's Darkness Innate Talent mastery was at Stage-4 and its Darkness element has a lethargic property added to it.
Anyone that enters the field of darkness that surrounded the Arch Gargoyle, would have their movement speed hindered and their Stamina exhaustion would increase substantially.
MJ analysed that in a moment and informed Jay to not come in contact with the Lethargic Darkness element.
The following minute, Jay cautiously launched various Thunder Flame attacks while maintaining his distance from the Arch Gargoyle and despite the monster's arduous efforts to defend itself, the Health bar over its head dropped until there was no more than 15%.
Meanwhile, the monster didn't stay empty-handed and engulfed almost the entirety of the Augmented Space with the Lethargic Darkness element.
At that rate, before Jay could defeat it, he would be affected by the Arch Gargoyle's higher darkness element and lose in its hands.
Seeing that he was pushed to a corner, Jay coated the <Stream Wind Sword> with Stage-3 <Sword Aura>, Thunder Flame and finally used the weapon's inbuilt skill <Stream Wind Edge> over all that.
He then took the initiative to jump into the darkness engulfed area before activating <Wind Clone Barrier> and sending several Wind Clones of himself at the monster.
To the Arch Gargoyle, that looked like a last-ditch effort and prepared itself to deal with the incoming Wind Clones, believing that Jay was in its grasp.
Unbeknownst to the monster, Jay used the Wind Clones as decoys and with the Grade-9 Darkness Innate Talent in hand, he was able to take advantage of the darkness-filled surroundings to activate the skill <Shadow Leap>.
Using that, Jay basically teleported himself behind the Arch Gargoyle and stabbed at it.
Despite the sudden attack, the Tier-4 monster reacted quickly and twirled its tail around the sword and stopped it before the sword could completely pierce through its stony hide.
Although the monster's tail was being burnt from the mix of Thunder Flame and two other forces, it still held on to the sword.
It was when 25 Wind Clones collided with the Arch Gargoyle one by one, giving Jay the room to use <Sword Aura Extension>.
From the tip of that sword, a four-meter extension of Stage-3 <Sword Aura> combined with sharp pressurised wind and Thunder Flame emerged, piercing through the monster in one fell swoop.
Then, Jay let go of the control he maintained to balance the three entities and with that, they became unstable and ran rampant in the Arch Gargoyle's body before blasting it apart.
Just like that, Jay cleared the 10 difficulty level. After that, he chose to take a recuperation break before starting the 11th difficulty level.
During then, he didn't use more than a minute to consume Grade-3 Spiritual fruits and recover the lost Spirit Energy as well as Stamina.
Jay wanted to see for himself how he would fare against a Tier-4 Mid-Phase monster despite knowing that he couldn't defeat it.
Since the skill <Frenzy> doesn't have a cooldown period, Jay once again activated it but against a monster that was at Lv.83, with around 1800 overall stats, his efforts didn't amount to much.
In less than a minute, the Health Bar over Jay's head dropped to zero, sending him out of the Reality Emulator.
Although he almost died within the Augmented Space, there were just some minor injuries on him. Thanks to his increased regeneration rate, they healed visibly.
Meanwhile, Jay took a look at the evaluation score and was satisfied to see his Reality Emulator displaying 24,000 Points blinking beside his name.
Jay's score by the end of the 10th difficulty level was 19,435 Points and the remaining 4,565 Points were given for inflicting a certain amount of damage on the Tier-4 Mid-Phase monster.
After looking around, Jay realised that he was the first one to finish Round-1 among the 8th batch.
He also found that other than the Atlans, no others paid attention to him or his evaluation score and were immersed in watching the screen Olivia was being displayed on.
It was understandable since they haven't seen what Jay was capable of. Moreover, Jay had the passive skill <Nihilty Mask> on him at all times, so even if they were to know how strong Jay was, they would have trouble recognising him.
The Atlans were only able to recognise him since Jay set that skill in a way so that they could recognise him like the Earth's Alpha Chosen.
To Jay, it doesn't matter even if everyone in the colosseum watched his Round-1 Performance. After all, he didn't intend to hide his strength in the first place.
It just so happened that he was not ranked 1st among the Earth's Alpha Chosen due to his low level and because of that, Jay wasn't shown on one of the 100 screens and no one was able to witness his capabilities.
Soon after his Reality Emulator vanished from the podium ground, Jay returned to the seating area under everyone's inconspicuous eyes and took a seat beside the Atlans, who were still dumbfounded after peeking at Jay's evaluation score.
Akor's expression didn't hide his worship for Jay as he approached and praised him, "My Liege is unrivalled. Just his evaluation score alone is enough to triumph over any Trial Zone team's combined score."
The dazed Atlans nodded absentmindedly while still in disbelief.
Jay ignored them and watched the screen that was displaying Olivia, who was using Spiritual Fruits to recover her lost Stamina and Spirit Energy.
It was obvious that she wanted to try out the 10th difficulty level and fight a Tier-4 Low-Phase monster despite the difference in strength.
Jay could relate with her since he himself was curious after crossing the 10th difficulty level and wanted to see how he would fare against a Tier-4 Mid-Phase monster even when the result would be his loss.
However, it wouldn't be all for nothing as that will bring awareness to one's own strength and limits.
While Olivia was recovering, the Alpha Chosen of the 8th batch began to come out of their Reality Emulators one by one.
By the time Olivia entered the 10th difficulty level, that scene soon changed to having several Alpha Chosen coming out in droves onto the podium ground.
When they noticed that someone was fighting a Tier-4 Low-Phase monster, they didn't return to their respective seating spots and instead stood right there on the podium ground as they continued to watch the topmost screen.
Although Olivia lost in the 10th difficulty level, she left a deep impression on everyone.
When was sent out of her Reality Emulator and her evaluation score was displayed on it, there was still silence in the entire Colosseum.
Although Olivia scored just half the amount of Jay's points, it was still overwhelming for others. One could only imagine how everyone would be like if they were to know of Jay's performance.
Ignoring the jaw-dropped spectators around her, she walked back to the Earth's Alpha Chosen seating area as every Alpha Chosen on the podium ground gave way to her.
This time, the 3rd Prince didn't approach to congratulate and instead decided to inform Olivia of the proposal offer privately, once the Round-1 ends.
Contrary to others views, Olivia didn't think highly of herself for scoring 12,000 Points but instead felt bad that she couldn't even put up a good fight against the Tier-4 Low-Phase monster she faced.
If not for her using the Omega-Chosen's exclusive ability, <Innate Talent Suppression> to suppress the monster's Innate Talent abilities by 50%, she knew lasting as much as she did wouldn't have been possible.
With such thoughts, Olivia sat a few feet beside Jay and then something she didn't expect happened.
"Don't beat yourself up. You did well."
For a second, Olivia froze in her seat. It was her first time receiving appreciation from Jay.
That strangely brought a sense of comfort to her, almost as if she was craving for his approval.
Olivia knew that it was due to the imprinted Moon origin Sigil on her soul but couldn't help being pissed at the thought of having the urge to please Jay like a little kid seeking approval from their parents.
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