Devouring Dragon Heir-Chapter 86: Ch Wind Empress
At the start of the battle, Klaus had just appeared above the sky like everyone else.
He hung in the air for a brief moment, the sunlight embraced his face.
His expression was somber, focused. He immediately declared, "System, scan the expanse with Omniscient Tracking."
A detailed, three-dimensional map of a five-kilometer radius instantly appeared around him, overlaid directly onto his vision.
This map covered almost a quarter of the vast expanse of the virtual forest below. It displayed terrain, trees, hills, and the subtle movements of monsters.
He could see his initial spawning location, a random point high above the simulated ground.
Klaus decided to not use the parachute that was provided to every participant. He wanted to land quickly. He initiated a controlled dive, dropping headfirst towards the virtual ground to speed up his descent.
As he reached the ground rapidly, he quickly stabilized his body midair with a precise maneuver.
Lost Echo appeared in his hands. He used the third form of the stellar sword descent skill, Star Sword’s Cry, to unleash a beam of star energy directly against the ground below him.
This powerful beam, striking the earth, created a counter-force that helped him slow down and land safely, a precise application of his power.
In the audience, some spectators cheered, impressed by the dramatic descent.
Others, however, mocked. "Tch, useless aura farming" one scoffed, dismissing Klaus’s powerful landing.
"He is only exhausting his mana early for a dramatic entrance." They believed he was being careless in a bid to showoff.
As Klaus had unleashed the beam, a significant amount of dust and debris had risen from the point of impact.
A thick cloud of smoke covered the ground around his landing zone. Inside the cover of this temporary dust cloud, Klaus immediately activated Phantasmal Veil and Apex Velocity.
His form blurred, becoming utterly invisible as he disappeared from that place without a sound.
When the dust settled a few seconds later, the audience was left shocked. Klaus was nowhere to be seen in the now clear landing zone. He had simply vanished.
Klaus, now completely hidden, moved swiftly. He traveled towards the few SSS-rank monsters he had spotted on his Omniscient Tracking map.
He considered these monsters worth farming points for, as they offered the highest score rewards in the competition.
On his way to the nearest SSS-rank monster, he passed by another participant.
The participant was standing on a small patch, looking around, trying to get his bearings in the vast map.
He had a look of concentration on his face.
Klaus passed by him, moving at an incredibly high speed. The participant did not sense him. He remained unaware of Klaus’s appearance.
But suddenly, a notification appeared in front of that boy, overlaying his vision.
It showed his score balance as 0 points and Klaus’s name listed in the side panel as the one who had eliminated him.
The boy was utterly confused. He had just landed on the ground, and he hadn’t even moved from his spawn point.
He hadn’t fought anyone. He had not felt any pain or impact, and also he had not felt the usual respawn sensation that came with being eliminated.
Thinking that the system had been hacked, the boy immediately started shouting towards the main broadcast screen.
"Hey! The VR is bugging! This is a hack! I just spawned!" His voice was filled with frustration and disbelief.
He quickly pressed the "Report Bug" button on his score panel, hoping to rectify the perceived error.
However, his report was immediately rejected by the System, and a warning for submitting a false report appeared on his screen.
In the observation areas, where the Academy’s professors and technical staff monitored the entire competition, they had their own advanced ways of assessing a situation.
They had seen Klaus’s movement.
Although the visible spectacle on the main screens might have been confusing to the public, and the boy’s eyes had lied to him, the VR’s complex algorithm had detected Klaus’s every step easily.
The System had also registered a slash of Klaus’s sword in a high-speed movement against the boy’s avatar.
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A few hundred kilometers away from Klaus’s location, Julie had been engaged in a battle with one of the SSS-rank monsters earlier pointed out by Gale, the Wind Spirit.
The monster was a colossal, three-headed griffin, its virtual feathers shimmering, its roars shook the air.
Although her individual powers as the Spirit Queen were suppressed by the Heavenly law of this world, the strength of even one Elder Spirit, channeled through her body, could easily crush anyone on the planet.
Her access to their power was also almost limitless due to her being the spirit queen.
Julie, however, refrained from using direct annihilation skills.
She intended for more fancy and less damaging skills which focussed on small repeated damage so that she could blend with the crowd of participants, not stand out as an anomaly.
Her aim in the tournament was to earn the same class as Klaus and to do that she had to at least meet up with him and follow him so that she could estimate how many points she needed,
although she knew Klaus was quite powerful his last expressions in the hall outside still worried her, as to how she will engage in a conversation??
well she didn’t have to since she could not speak she will just nod and answer his questions.
she thought that she will eventually figure everything out and decided to focus on the current fight.
But she might not have expected that even the weakest skills in the Spirit Queen’s arsenal, when channeled through her suppressed form, would be too overwhelming for normal mortals of Earth. She had underestimated the sheer power of the Elder Spirits.
"Wind Storm," she spelled in her mind. She channeled Gale’s immense powers through her body, invoking the skill.
She chose the common elements, like wind, to hide her true nature, hoping to appear as a powerful, but still mortal, elemental user. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
But her attempt was useless. As soon as she summoned the storm, the sheer scale of it was unprecedented.
The virtual environment responded instantly. The sky above them turned dark, heavy clouds rolling in from all directions with impossible speed.
The winds began to accelerate, rapidly increasing their velocity. Within seconds, a swirling vortex of air formed, expanding outwards from Julie’s position.
Almost 10% of the vast virtual map, hundreds of square kilometers of dense tropical forest, suddenly got covered with dark, churning clouds.
The winds inside this colossal storm reached speeds that became unbearable for the SSS-rank griffin monster.
Trees uprooted, their massive forms tearing from the ground and flying through the air like splinters.
Huge rock formations broke apart, shattered by the sheer force of the gale.
Any participants caught within the expanding storm front were not simply buffeted, many were just blown away, their bodies exploding by the sheer force of the storm winds. Their point counts on the leaderboard turned to zero.
Raphael was speechless. She had not intended to kill the beings in the surroundings.
Her goal was to defeat one SSS-rank monster, not to obliterate a section of the map and accidentally eliminate other players.
But she had just done points farming in bulk. She looked at the 1,100 points on her virtual window with a bit of nervousness, realizing the unintended destruction she had caused.
This was far more attention than she desired.
Meanwhile, outside in the real world, everyone’s jaw dropped to the ground. The hundreds of thousands of spectators watching the live broadcast saw the massive weather anomaly unfold.
Just one skill, cast by a young girl, and a major chunk of the vast map had been completely obliterated, as if nothing.
The SSS-rank griffin simply vanished within the maelstrom.
Soon, the initial gasps turned into utter worship. People began cheering wildly.
"Ahhh! Julie is my queen from now on! I will worship her daily!" a man shouted from the crowd, his voice hoarse with adoration.
"Julie! The Wind Empress!" another yelled, giving her a new, spontaneous title.
"Wind Empress!" "Wind Empress!" The whole crowd, energized by the display of overwhelming power, shouted in unison, their voices echoing through the World Heritage Centre and across the globe.
Today, Julie earned a new nickname, one that would be remembered for quite a long time, etched into the collective memory of humanity.
