Chapter 1680
Chapter 1680: Victor [8]
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7 min read
BOOM!
𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
August refracted another burst of light and returned fire with another tsunami of foaming water.
He was using mainly brute strength against Mikael. For one, this force was his strongest ability. It was also the best way to counteract someone who responded so poorly to water in general.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The swirling water became sharp, adhering to the properties of swords. They became projectiles that acted in direct opposition to the ones Mikael was using, but their effect was far greater.
Beams of light went everywhere.
Some of them flew into the walls, others hit the remaining terminals, and others more went into the inner ring and struck the beast and Eris Noct.
Her eyes darted over for but a second. Seeing August fighting Mikael, she made no move to interrupt.
Eris wanted August to take the consequences of the terminals in her stead, which meant she technically needed him to remain in the game.
However, she wasn’t obligated to actually do anything to help him.
Unless he was on the verge of losing, unless she absolutely needed to save him to further her own goals, she wasn’t going to go out of her way to bail him out.
It was up to August to prove whether he was actually worthy of a podium finish or not.
Besides, it wasn’t like she had the freedom to do anything about it.
The information she received wasn’t entirely correct.
Originally, she thought that the beast would only weaken as the terminals were solved. However, as she fought it, she realized that it had several phases.
In its first phase, it just clobbered around and shot flames wantonly, trying to kill everything without putting in too much effort.
Now, it was in its second phase. It had gotten stronger and sharper. It was specifically targeting her and learning how to adapt to her darkness.
She didn’t even want to know what its third phase was.
Regardless, she could tell that her attacks were starting to work better, so she was still confident that she could beat it.
After all, when the sixth terminal was activated, it would become a pig on the chopping block. Its strength wouldn’t matter at that point.
It was just like Mikael in a sense.
No matter how strong it was, it was destined to be defeated.
August knew how to use water to the best of its capabilities even without connecting it to a higher element.
There were definitely ways to make water mimic life, death, or even time. However, those weren’t the paths August wanted to take.
He was something of a purist, as were the rest of his bloodline. They could be as intricate as they could ever possibly want, but they would do so with the base properties of water, proving that it alone could match laws of the highest class.
August glanced towards the fifth terminal before glancing back at Mikael.
Eris’ current situation wasn’t in his best interest.
He needed her to be challenged, but he couldn’t let her feel like the situation wasn’t in her control.
After all, at this point, it was practically confirmed. Eris had received information about the boss room beforehand.
Essentially, she was cheating.
August didn’t plan to call her out. It was too much to draw the entire Noct Clan’s attention right now.
However, he had to punish her actions somehow.
In the end, Mikael was just a roadblock. The real target was always Eris.
’It’s better if I end this fast, but I don’t think that’ll be possible.’
If there was one thing he could credit Mikael with, it was his resilience.
He would probably find a way around the refraction problem soon enough. After that, the battle would only get longer and longer.
’Should I try to restrain him again?’
It probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot.
He would be fine even if it failed, since he had everything under control.
August restrained the waves under his control and prepared another trap, this time built to last for ages.
However, he didn’t have the time to do so.
It had been roughly ten minutes since Mikael appeared. It passed fast since most of it was spent with him being corralled away and pushed back, but some time had indeed passed.
It wasn’t a lot. The audience was still at the edge of their seats, unable to take their eyes off of the action.
Still, it was more than enough for a certain someone to find a way to the center.
Valerie didn’t even know how she got here. She ran and ran. She somehow found a path that made her suffer quite a lot, but got her to the center in the shortest amount of time possible.
Perhaps she really was lucky, or perhaps it had been rigged so she’d arrive here and give the audiences the most entertaining show possible.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
Valerie was here.
And since she was here, there was no way she wasn’t going to join the excitement.
Valerie’s situation was the exact same as Mikael’s.
She arrived late and was forced to immediately assess her options.
On one side, there was Eris Noct and the labyrinth boss. Both of them were far beyond her level, so she didn’t want to go anywhere near them.
Another was August. He was her friend, and even if he wasn’t, she didn’t want to fight him right now, especially not after both of them had gotten so much stronger.
That left only one option, didn’t it?
And it seemed like that option was also bothering August.
Valerie shot into the room. Every step she took cracked the tile and caused an overgrowth of flora in the natural ground.
She leapt forward just as Mikael encroached on August, and before he could reach the younger genius, he was body-slammed into a nearby wall.
Her eyes went to August, who was staring at her blankly.
"What? It seemed like the easiest thing to do."
August blinked a few times and shook his head.
"Fair enough. Just distract him for a while and I’ll take care of the rest. We can charge to the finish once we’ve dealt with everything here," he said.
He didn’t even have to ask if they were allying themselves.
"Everything?" Valerie echoed.
"Everything."
August replied with a grin.
Since the two of them had made it to this point, both of them would stand on the podium.
They could compete to see who came first and who came second once they had the freedom to do it casually.
Until then...
Valerie charged towards the man she’d body slammed, giving him no time to comprehend the situation.
And August rushed to the fifth terminal, continuing his plan to take care of Eris Noct.
The dynamic duo, two people who had entered this war through the elimination round for commoners, two people who had fought each other until the end of that round...
Now that they were on the same team, every single observer wanted to see what they were capable of.
And they were going to show them exactly that.
— End of Chapter 1680 —