landbeastnovel Chapter 340: Annihilation
Chapter 340: Annihilation
Ethan knelt heavily on his knee, desperately supporting his trembling body with his cracked broadsword. He looked up, his breath ragged, at Carl, who was calmly staring down at him without a single scratch. The demonic aura that had previously surged through Ethan was entirely suppressed by the sheer, imposing presence of his own golden aura.
"You are as crazy as your sister!" He spat at him, his voice lacing with venom and absolute exhaustion.
"Maybe... But don’t you know me?" Carl asked in genuine confusion, staring at Ethan with a slight frown. His now golden eyes tried to pierce through the arrogance to find the boy he once knew.
"Why would I know you?!!" Ethan yelled at him, his pride refusing to accept defeat as he was violently forcing himself back to his feet.
Carl stared at him for a long, silent moment, and moved his calculating gaze around the blood-soaked arena, staring at the torn corpses of the first and second waves monsters scattered across the pristine white stone. Something fundamental had shifted in Ethan’s soul, twisted by the dark energy he had just wielded.
"I don’t know what happened to you, but at least you have more backbone than your previous self. So I won’t kill you..." He turned around, and walked away, his posture entirely relaxed:
"I will repeat what you said to me. Surrender and save yourself."
[Third and Final Wave.]
BOOOOM!!
The dimensional locks shattered. The remaining 20 heavy cages—their bars forged from dense, energy-suppressing runes—violently opened wide, and more than twenty Lv300 and above World Bosses walked out from the dark confines. Massive, grotesque hybrids of scale and shadow, they possessed the raw stats to flatten a city.
Ethan moved his gaze around, utterly horrified by the sheer volume of high-tier monsters, which without hesitation lunged aggressively towards them, the ground quaking under their unified stampede.
Carl calmly closed his eyes, tapping into the absolute depths of his new bloodline. The next moment, two massive, ethereal golden wings burst out from his back. The divine manifestation sent blinding golden energy waves all over the arena, violently throwing Ethan backward, and completely stopping the charging World Bosses dead in their tracks, their primal instincts overridden by his superior authority.
"What is this?" Ethan was completely dumbfounded, watching the weak commoner transform into a celestial entity.
Carl kept his epic-class dagger in his spatial inventory and smoothly brought out his trump card: the Supreme Class artifact. The intricately carved golden Angel dagger glowed blindingly under his expanding Aura, resonating with his soaring energy levels.
"Soul-Wind Daggers Annihilation."
BOOOOM!!
The ambient wind instantly picked up, violently swirling and compressing, forming a towering, lethal tornado around him made entirely of millions of microscopic, condensed wind daggers:
"Kill."
BOOOOM!!!
The golden tornado instantly expanded, spreading wide across the arena with the speed of sound, brutally smashing into the paralyzed World Bosses, effortlessly slashing their impenetrable hides into countless, unrecognizable parts. Ethan watched in absolute horror, as the catastrophic Area-of-Effect attack moved flawlessly past him, ignoring him directly, showcasing Carl’s terrifying mastery over his own lethality.
He slowly turned his gaze back to the monsters, only seeing shredded, pixelating Bodies dropping heavily on the ground:
"You actually killed them all?" He muttered in sheer, hollow disbelief.
"They’re just trained monsters, they lack the aggressiveness of wild ones." Carl said, calmly storing his Supreme dagger back in his spatial storage, his golden wings dissipating into motes of light:
’Compare to the monsters we fought in Big Sister’s training, these are kids.’ He thought.
____
[Arena.]
[First team completed the fourth round, and both Ethan from the sword academy, and Carl from the Dragon academy passed, and both advanced to the fifth round.]
Everyone in the grand Arena immediately turned their heads to Carl and Ethan, who materialized back on the central stage in a flash of light. Carl simply walked towards his academy section with a confident stride, while Ethan knelt there, completely speechless, his uniform covered in monster blood, his broadsword fundamentally cracked.
"Um... We don’t know what happened in there, but Ethan and Carl advanced to the next stage." Davy said, his voice echoing with slight hesitation before he recovered his professional enthusiasm, and added:
"Out of the five, two teams remain inside, one team is done, and two teams are wiped out... Let’s see who will come out next." He yelled.
Carl got to Mirabella’s side with a proud smirk: "I didn’t disappoint, Big sister." He said.
"You did good." Mirabella nodded her head at him, acknowledging his flawless victory.
__
[Second Battlefield.]
Jessica sat in the dead center of the isolated Arena, her eyes closed in deep meditation, her unsheathed sword resting quietly on her lap. Around her, pooling in a massive circle of fresh blood, were the brutally severed dead bodies of the other 9 members from hers and the Eagle Academy. She had eliminated her own team to secure the points and remove dead weight.
[First wave start.]
She slowly raised her head to the heavy iron cages, as they aggressively opened up, her cold, dead eyes staring at the massive, drooling Wolves walking out from the dark confines.
"Pathetic."
She drew her sword, not even bothering getting up from her seated position, and swung it horizontally with a flick of her wrist, sending a highly compressed, crescent-shaped wave of dark energy towards the surrounding cages.
BOOOOM!!!
The 360-degree sword attack expanded instantly. It effortlessly slashed through all the charging monsters, the heavily reinforced cages, and even sliced deep into the indestructible wall of the battlefield itself, cleanly splitting everything in its path into perfect halves.
[...]
[First, second, and third waves cleared.]
____
[Arena.]
[Third Team completed the fourth round, and Jessica from the sword academy passed advanced to the fifth round.]
"She is the only survivor?" Davy was completely stunned, his voice slipping from its usual boisterous tone.
’This?! With her strength, she could save the whole team, then how come she is the only one?’ His eyes widened in dawning horror, staring down at Jessica, who was walking calmly towards her academy’s section, her expression entirely flat and devoid of human empathy.
’Did she kill everyone in there? Including her own Academy’s students? No... I must be overthinking.’ Davy thought, trying to rationalize the bloodshed, and quickly added to the silent crowd:
"Let’s see the last team." He said.
Mirabella, however, saw right through the results. She turned her piercing blue gaze directly to Jessica: ’The Jessica I know is compassionate, kind, and loving, but this person here... She is the opposite. Seems I will have to investigate when I travel to the Sword Empire.’ She thought, and turned her head back to the fifth teleportation spot, as five battered people appeared.
[Fifth team completed the fourth round, and both Honky from the sword academy, and Aurelia from the Dragon academy passed, advanced to the fifth round.]
"Thank you for your help." Aurelia said, wiping sweat from her brow, staring gratefully at Honky’s massive, imposing frame.
The big guy simply nodded his head:
"No need to thank me... I simply just defended, you were the one who attacked." Honky answered, perfectly summarizing their teamwork.
"See you in the fifth round." He said, walking toward the Sword Academy’s ranks.