CHAPTER 132. Trial Regional Tournament - Round 1: [Part-3]
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Everyone's attention in the spectator area was on just one screen.
On the top left of that screen, it displayed '[Seath(049, 1/10)]', showing his name, allotted team number, and level ranking amongst his fellow trial zone members.
Within the screen, it could be clearly seen that he was barely holding up against the Tier-3 Mid-Phase monster, Thorn Serpent. It was understandable as he was only at Tier-3 Low-Phase.
Using a sword in each hand, Seath defended against the monster's aggressive advances as he continued to be pushed back.
With a height of 7 feet tall, Seath evenly matched the Thorn Serpent's head size. Still, he looked small in front of the Thorn Serpent that has a 30-meters long body.
Realising that he was at the end of the rope, a sharp glint appeared in the eyes of his owl head.
Using the hilt of a sword, Seath knocked the coin-sized button, located on his dark-red robe just below the centre of his chest.
With that button as a centre, the robe came off as a pair of beautiful white wings unfolded themselves.
Without the robe, Seath was bare-chested with only a pair of dark-red trousers that extended a tad bit further down his knees, revealing his bird-like legs in the process.
The thin coat of white fur on his well-built body was shaded with his own blood on a few spots.
But those white wings that emerged over his back overshaded other aspects.
Using them, he flew into the air. However, the Thorn Serpent wasn't helpless at its aerial prey and coiled its body and lunged at him as if it's a compressed spring.
{Author Note: For a better picturisation of Seath, I would suggest you guys scroll down to find the pic link in this chapter's author note before continuing where you left off.}
With that single action, it almost closed upon Seath, who was 50 metres above the ground and was about to bite onto his body.
That was when something strange happened. With a flap of his wings, he crossed 50 metres in an instant.
For every spectator who was in Tier-2, it looked like teleportation but under the perception of those at Tier-3, Seath moved at breakneck speeds.
Even Earth's Alpha Chosen were taken aback upon watching that. Not because of how fast he moved but because of his precise movement.
At such speeds, one had to gradually slow down due to the forces acting on us due to the gravity of one's body and couldn't come to an abrupt halt whenever wished.
However, the Alpha Chosen on the topmost screen pulled it off and the way he did that almost looked like Teleportation.
Each Earth's Alpha Chosen came up with their own theories on Seath's movement ability.
Some reasoned that it was due to his wings and others theorised it was because he used the 'Agility Boost' skill and so on.
Compared to the other Earth's Alpha Chosen, Min-soo noticed something more due to his Space Element comprehension, "He must have used something to compensate for his exaggerated movements. It seems absurd but I somehow feel like the time around him was not the same as everything else. What do you think, Mr Jay?"
Everyone else looked at Jay, waiting to listen to his theory.
Jay spelt out as he continued to watch at the same screen, "You almost got it, Min-soo. However, it was not the time around Seath but rather his own time. Other than his Sword Innate Talent, he also has another Innate Talent.
He didn't use it till now in the hopes of gaining some kind of enlightenment to improve his Sword Mastery under the attacks of a monster more powerful than him but since that didn't happen, he now he was left with no choice in order to defeat the monster.
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That was when he started using his Time Innate Talent, the rarest of the 10 Elemental Innate Talents.
{Author Note: With those 10 elements being Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, Wood, Light, Darkness, Space and Time.}
Nevertheless, he doesn't have enough Mastery to slow down the 'Spacetime Continuum' that encompasses every existence.
But, it's a different matter if it was his own life span time. Under the disguise of using wings, Seath accelerated his time making him move faster than the rest of us. Whenever he wants to halt, he just decelerates his time."
Min-soo exclaimed, "Wow, that's just brilliant! Although accelerating his time takes out a fragment of his own lifespan, decelerating his time will help Seath remedy the lost lifespan and perfectly counter the acceleration to create fast and unpredictable movement."
Seeing that a few Earth's Alpha Chosen like Kasim, Henry, Kensei and Gabriel didn't understand the concept of accelerating and decelerating lifespan, Baby MJ explained in simple terms.
"Basically, Seath is fast-forwarding himself. Let's say it takes him 10 seconds to cross 1000 metres at full speed, he could activate Time Acceleration on himself and cross that distance in half the amount of time.
However, there are a lot of limitations in doing that. I bet, just to maintain the successive changes between two-factor Time Acceleration and Time Deceleration was taking a heavy toll on his body, not to mention the high Spirit Energy consumption."
Just like MJ deduced, Seath seemed to be experiencing exhaustion from the follow-up exchanges with the Thorn Serpent.
Even after failing to catch him a few times, the aggressive monster didn't stop even once and once again sprung into the air.
However, this time, Seath coated both his swords with Stage-3 Sword Aura and sliced the hinges of Thorn Serpent's mouth at unbelievable speed before it could bite at him.
He didn't stop and continued to spin deeper as he continued to lacerate the indices of its body before killing it and successfully passing the 8th difficulty level.
The gasps of the spectators echoed in the Colosseum upon witnessing the reversal.
When Seath was presented with options on whether to directly proceed to the next difficulty level or recuperate for 10 minutes, he chose to give up since he was in no shape to continue as it would take a longer time to recover from that.
Soon, Seath too was sent out of his Reality Emulator just like any others. But, when he was, there was only him and the 3rd Prince in the vast podium ground since all the Alpha Chosen from the first 100 trial zones finished their Round-1.
Everyone's eyes in the colosseum, including the 3rd Prince, had their eyes the Evaluation Score displayed on the Reality Emulator he just came out from.
[Seath (049, 1/10) - 4435 Points.]
Soon after displaying that, the Reality Emulator disappeared and everyone's attention turned onto him.
Under such gazes, Seath didn't flinch at all and appeared as if he had expected it. After all, he usurped an entire Phase difference and slew a monster that was several levels above him.
If Seath had enough time to recover, he could put on a good fight against the Tier-3 High-Phase monster in the 9th difficulty level.
Although that won't be enough to defeat it, scoring a few additional points wouldn't be a problem.
But with the way Round-1 was designed, where each Alpha Chosen had to defeat monsters within a set amount of time and short recovery intervals, it was a lot harder to reach higher difficulty levels, despite being powerful enough to face them.
The 3rd Prince approached Seath, "That's quite a show for who started off nine days back. You have got promising potential but don't overdo yourself. I have known a few Time Innate Talent users myself but most of them died before they could fulfil their potential due to using powers that their bodies can't handle. Alright, aside from that, Congratulations for achieving a high evaluation score and all the best for the upcoming Rounds."
Seath nodded in understanding, "Thank you for the advice and the wishes, Mr Tournament Manager. I will keep your words in mind."
Following that, Seath went to the seating spot where his fellow trial zone's Alpha Chosen were waving at him with excitement.
With their Leader being the one to score highest among the 1020 Alpha Chosen of the first 100 trial zones, pride were visibly evident on their owl-like faces and were just a push away from celebrating on the spot.
After a minute, a huge notification window that had several columns and rows filled with information appeared in the air, several meters above the podium ground.
Just then, the 3rd Prince's voice resounded in the Colosseum, "On this notification board, the Trial Zone Teams will be ranked according to the combined score of each of its Alpha Chosen's evaluation score.
Although there are all hundred of the trial zones that participated in the Round-1 for now, it will change once the other batches finish their part."
Among the first 100 Trial zones that completed Round-1, the one that was at the top of that notification board was the one that had Seath in it, the Owlite Trial Zone Team with an overall score of 17,870 Points.
Meanwhile, the lowest-ranked team had around 1000 points as it only had five surviving Alpha Chosen in it with each of them being just at Tier-2 Low-Phase.
Looking at the scores, everyone once again realised how important having more numbers in a team plays a crucial role in the first tournament.
The 3rd Prince's voice once again rang out as he called out for the trial zone teams numbering 101 to 200 onto the podium ground for the same process that took before.
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