Chapter 735: Chapter 735: All Eyes On Stage
Across the arena, the three armored Starfire students tightened their grips on their weapons.
Their helts reflected the arena lights, unreadable.
But even they seed to hesitate.
The suits still shone. Their resonance was still active. Their formation perfect.
But now, so was Kain’s team.
Aegis cracked his knuckles.
Queen and her guards’ stingers glinted ominously under the stadium lights.
The Lustral Veil Hare bowed slightly, as if in greeting.
The crowd waited, breathless.
The announcer cleared his throat. “Comnce… the 5v5!”
The signal flared.
The match began.
The first clash happened almost instantly.
Starfire’s sole 5-star beast-tar, a large and burly man built like a tank, lunged forward and slamd into Aegis with a blow that might have sent any other contract flying.
But Aegis didn’t budge.
Stone creaked. The air pulsed. His passive shield activated and burst outward in a concussive ripple, throwing the suited student backward ten ters.
The audience exclaid in admiration of Aegis ‘easily’ blocking the blow. But Kain couldn’t help but frown.
Kain, knowing the strength requirents to trigger the explosion of Aegis’ shield, was shocked that the armoured student managed to be so strong—so blue-grade spiritual creatures couldn’t achieve a blow like that.
That suit had to be amplifying his strength through more than just muscle or spiritual energy—it was a full-body amplifier like Kain’s spiritual skill. And possibly even drawing on energy from nearby teammates to temporarily enhance physical traits even more.
anwhile, Serena’s contracts moved with eerie coordination. The Lustral Veil Hare rippled in and out of visibility, weaving illusions that bent light and sound. A Starfire contract, a red-furred spiritual creature resembling a large rat, leapt to intercept—only to be trapped inside a prism of refracted moonlight that didn’t seem to obey physics.
Starweaver conjured a bow and arrow made up of starlight as the corresponding constellation for the skill lit up on its wings and released it at the trapped rodent.
The arrow easily split apart the prism trapping the rodent, or more accurately the arrow was allowed entry by Prismarin, and continued unobstructed to land on the trapped animal.trapped
But both Kain and Serena’s eyes narrowed when they noticed that a collar worn by the arrow lit up at the sa ti dimr lights went off on the suits of its contractor, the other teammates, and their other contracts.
Instead, the blow seed to disperse like ink in water—bleeding across the entire Starfire team. The rat-like contract was only lightly wounded, while faint winces and staggers rippled across its allies.
A shared damage distribution effect.
Not a spiritual skill. Not a Gift. It was completely due to that damn equipnt.
“They’ve developed tech-based damage dispersion at this scale?” Serena murmured beside him.
Kain didn’t answer. He was already calculating how many ways this could be abused.
———————-
Pheneos, from his place on the sidelines, didn’t look surprised.
He watched the evolved contracts enter the field and kept tinkering with a half-dismantled chest plate, adjusting sigils and resonance lines.
One of the older graduated student from the engineering faculty (now a graduate student) beside him muttered, “We need to figure out a way to completely eliminate the transfer of pain. Flinching due to an unexpected pain from an ally in a life-or-death could an death.”
Pheneos looked up with a deadpan expression, “I tested the armour teacher made and the pain level is no greater than a pinch. Nothing that they should be flinching at. What they need is to toughen up and train their pain resistance.”
Then Pheneos lowered his head, and continued to tinker with the chest plate while grumbling about ‘spolied’ and ‘coddled’ nobles that couldn’t even handle ‘a little pain’.
The graduate student opened his mouth briefly before snapping it shut. He too, had tested the armour out of curiosity and the pain transferred was definitely NOT just a “little pinch.” Yes, he wasn’t specialize in combat as an engineer, and so probably had a weaker pain tolerance than those in the beast-taming faculty, but he wasn’t that weak!
But he eventually decided against saying anything. Pheneos, or more accurately his teacher, was the one to invent the first prototype of these armours and so, despite being older, the graduate student had less ground to stand on than Pheneos. After all, he was an outsider that could be replaced on this life changing project at any ti, whereas Pheneos was the only student to his ‘teacher’.
Speaking of… few have even managed to et this mysterious teacher before. Rumors ranged from a retired grandmaster-level blacksmith to a disavowed mber of the royal family obsessed with crazy experints. No one could confirm. But what everyone did know was that the tech Starfire had now—it didn’t co from public blueprints. And the developnt of the technology was estimated to be decades ahead of where the nation’s current technological level was.
———————-
In the VIP section, a regional commander whispered to his aide.
“Get everything you can find on those suits.”
“And the planner?”
“Both. But prioritize the suits. If that kind of resonance tech scales, it changes everything. Right now the damage is only dispersed among a handful of individuals, but imagine if it were dispersed over hundreds or thousands of mbers in a legion? Are fatalities would decrease drastically.”
‘If the effects of Abyssal contamination could also be similarly dispersed and then quickly purified, it could change the whole outlook on their upcoming war against the Abyss,’ the commander thought solemnly about the upcoming ‘war’…a war none of the civilians, nor most of the common soldiers were even aware was likely to occur soon.
This technology wasn’t just flashy tournant gear. It was battlefield-shifting. Maybe even war-ready.
Down in the arena, Kain’s eyes narrowed. He could feel the air changing.
The pressure around the stage thickened, like the entire match had beco a performance under scrutiny from every level of power. Not just nobles or researchers, but the military, the Evolutionary Planner Association, and even the high-level observers seated in the upper booths.
This wasn’t just a simple school fight anymore. This was now an exhibition match for equipnt that may change the strength of the Empire completely.
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