"This round will eliminate two of our young elites, so stay on your toes!
"This is a game you've all heard of before, Rune Bump. Prepare yourselves!"
Sylas' eyes narrowed.
There was no explanation, no setup, no warning. He was left stranded, and a part of him had the feeling that it was done completely on purpose.
Maybe it was only natural that the other participants know, but how could he be aware of such things?
However, before he could even begin to grasp what was happening, Chase had vanished and the five participants faced off against one another, each taking up a section around the outer ring of the arena.
The cheers of the crowd faded from Sylas' ears as he reached an unprecedented state of focus. The reality of the gap between him and the group around him settled in.
But rather than carrying away, he leaned into it, his gaze reaching an unfathomable depth.
There was only one path that he would choose here.
Unbridled, uncontested, unfettered success.
There was a flash before his eyes and a Rune appeared. It wasn't too complex, just 40 Foundations. Compared to Sylas who had seen 70 Foundation Runes, this was truly nothing at all.
However, it was pumped full of Aether, making it far stronger than a Rune that Sylas could currently draw.
Sylas didn't move. Instead, his gaze sharpened as he watched the scene around him like a hawk. All of them represented some of the strongest young Rune Masters there were…
It seemed that it was about time that he learn what that truly meant.
All four of them grasped out with their Wills at the same time, pouring them into the Runes before them.
Sylas raised an eyebrow.
Were they trying to take control of these Runes? In that case, that was something that he could do in an instant.
Why were they taking so long?
Sylas' gaze flickered.
There was an issue here. Sylas had assumed that the leaderboard these few were on didn't necessarily represent their actual level.
Sylas, for example, was only on the Breath Master Leaderboard. He had performed too poorly to make it onto the Flesh Master Leaderboard although he had taken it.
As for the Soul Master and beyond, there were no under-50 leaderboards for them because none existed. As such, Sylas' performance wasn't even tracked and displayed.
Because of this, Sylas made the assumption that these few geniuses tended to wait and bide their time, surpassing the Breath and Flesh Master rankings by far, but only taking the Secret Realm challenge when they were the most confident.
This seemed logical to him.
But it was only now that Sylas realized that even if their Rune Mastery surpassed their leaderboard… it definitely wasn't by far.
Something as simple as taking control of a 40 Foundation Rune was actually taking them so long.
That was when Sylas finally seemed to realize that his place in the universe was far higher than he could have ever imagined.
He wasn't just the only under-50 Rune Vitality Master in the Skai Galaxy. He was the only Rune Vitality Master in Skai Galaxy…
Seeing Sylas stand there in a bit of a silent daze, observing everyone around him, those intelligent enough to catch the underworking of what was happening here grasped the "truth". Clearly, Sylas had been targeted again, and now he was suffering for it.
But it was the sort of targeting that no one could say anything about… because which of them didn't know what Rune Bump was? It was a game that they had all been playing since they were children.
Sylas continued to stand there as the seconds ticked by. Suddenly, there was a flash that came…
Then, right afterward, Lorien's Will encompassed her Rune. Sylas could tell that she had actually slowed on purpose, further confounding his instincts toward her and her actual outward displays.
Ulrik just stood there, arrogant and uncaring, while Lorien ignored Sylas entirely, her Rune shooting for Alric's Rune just as it was nearing completion.
Her move made sense, and it was actually expected by Sylas. He could tell exactly how long they had left to succeed, and he knew that if they were intelligent, they would take this opportunity to take out not someone they thought wasn't a threat, but instead someone that might actually give them a challenge.
Sylas knew that Lorien would make this choice despite the fact she didn't seem to care to win on the outside…
That was because while everyone here felt that it was a foregone conclusion that she would fold to the whims of Ulrik, Sylas, who didn't know her backstory, felt something entirely different.
Alaric "panicked", but it was clear there wasn't much desperation or unwillingness in his eyes.
Lorien's Rune crashed into Alaric's, but rather than exploding, the two intertwined in an odd dance. The Foundations and Strokes wiggled about like tentacles, but it was only Lorien's moving because Alaric had yet to take control of his.
Like a cancer spreading in an infectious tsunami, it latched onto every nook and cranny, snapping and breaking the connections and diffusing the opposing Foundations and Strokes like one would the wires of a bomb.
At that moment, Sebastian succeeded and he shot ahead, rushing toward Sylas.
This was also expected by the lone Human on the stage. Lorien might have ulterior motives, but Sebastian only had one goal in mind: Make sure Ulrik was the last and final winner.
To do that, the obvious choice was to remove the only wild card, the one variable that could ruin everything.
In an instant, Sebastian's Rune was upon Sylas.
It was then that Sylas slowly turned to meet his sneering gaze and Sebastian froze.
There was a flicker of glassy silvery-blue light and the 40 Foundation Rune was suppressed by Sylas in an instant.
A silence fell and Sebastian looked on in horror as his Rune stood frozen for a long while…
Before sprinkling down in a rain of neatly divided Foundations and Strokes.
Sylas stood stoically as though nothing at all had happened.