Chapter 267 Foreign Wind

[Outer God: Primordial Flow, soliciting access to trial broadcast]

[Outer God: Primordial Flow has successfully completed the payment]

[Access Granted]

The silence in the Control Centre was too loud, so loud that no one uttered a single word for a long, very long minute.

"What’s that bastard here for?" Ed finally broke the silence. "A second-floor trial shouldn’t hold any interest to them."

"Normally, yes, a second-floor trial is meaningless, but now—"

Lucen’s voice trailed off for a moment. "It means one of two things—"

"Either a bastard among these kids is affiliated with him, or someone down there has sparked his interest."

Both possibilities were almost impossible under normal circumstances.

A second-floor ascender becoming a follower of an Outer God was overkill, which led Ed to think of the worst possible outcome.

The Outer was after Moon.

"Can’t you or the administrator block his access?" he asked.

Lucen stared at the screen. "If the Tower grants access or approves of something, defying it is meaningless, Edmond."

"What do you mean?" Ed wasn’t giving up. "If the administrator cut his access, then he wouldn’t be able to watch anything."

"Edmond, the Tower’s decisions are absolute." His eyes held fury that was being kept caged. "No matter what we do, once the payment is accepted and the decision is made, it cannot be undone."

It was unclear what the Outers paid the Tower for their access, or what they truly desire from interfering in the trials.

Outers were an ancient topic that one day appeared in the Tower, granting abilities beyond Echo and beyond the standards of the Tower.

The Tower didn’t block them, nor did it try to defy them.

Once the payment was made and accepted, the Tower granted whatever they sought out, as long as the payment was sufficient.

But that wasn’t everything—

Though Ed knew most about it, given his fame and life experience, it was the first time he found out that even the administrator couldn’t block the Outer’s deal with the Tower.

Still, given everything they understood, some things couldn’t be paid for or granted entirely; otherwise, Outers might have settled inside the Tower instead of playing whatever they were playing.

This was a topic over a thousand years old that the majority of the Tower might have heard of once and forgotten soon after.

Meeting necromancers was far more common than meeting someone affiliated with an Outer.

Though the reason behind their secrecy was unclear.

Regardless, they had no choice but to helplessly witness what was about to happen now and know what Primordial Flow was after the hard way.

On the battlefield, the ascenders on Fable’s side surrounded Moon, as well as his weapons away from him.

Once they secured the encirclement, they started attacking in pairs.

"Ho, that bastard must have told you some scary shit," Moon exclaimed.

With Echo-coated swords, the first two ascenders at the front attacked, one on the right and one on the left.

Moon stepped closer, applying the first lesson Ed gave him, before he discovered his own Echo was just a lump.

The claw-like blades on his hands, made of Echo, this time, were now perfectly applied to his fingers and also very glittery.

Moon stepped too close to the ascenders and pushed outward at their necks, ripping them off.

Blood exploded, forcing Moon to jump back. "Almost had blood go into my eyes," he exclaimed, sliding the visor back over his face.

Behind him, another two came closer to attack, while the rest started narrowing the circle in an attempt to restrain Moon’s movements.

Moon’s chaotic movements didn’t halt or slow down in the slightest.

With both hands using the minimal amount of Spark Echo to attack, and a lump of Echo floating by his side to defend against attacks that he wouldn’t be able to evade.

"HE’S UNARMED, DON’T GIVE HIM A MOMENT TO BREATHE!" someone shouted while kicking the weapon of someone who died away from the circle.

It was true; Moon was now cornered.

Between the corpses on the ground, the circle was closing, and the swords pointed at him from every direction.

There was nowhere else for him to go, not on the ground, that is.

Lowering his Echo to his feet, Moon stomped it, sending himself up into the air with the recoil.

A few tried to jump him while he was launching and defenceless, but they underestimated the recoil of the Echo.

It wasn’t the only way they underestimated it—

One of the ascenders stepped on it, trying to catch Moon midair, but—

"UWAA!" The recoil was too violent; he was bolted aggressively while coiled forward like a shrimp.

Then came one thing Moon had been planning for a long, very long time, since he was in the facility. The day he won the second round of the Skirmish Ring Quest, he returned to his room that day, finding the plume of Colten’s helmet looking like a death sentence.

He cut off the threads and discovered they were rather too sturdy for how they looked, though he had no idea what they were made of.

A while later, he received the Symbiotic Spark and started training with the threads... Knotting them together into a long line.

A while had passed since then, and the reason he kept them and trained that way was finally falling into place.

From Moon’s wrist, a nearly negligible blue thread started to glitter; the glitter spread fast along the line till it finally reached the destination.

Colten’s sword and Liquid Mountain.

While midair, Moon spread his arms upward violently; the thread, sharpened with his Echo, cut and injured the ascenders standing over it.

His weapons bolted to his grip once again.

’I almost entangled myself with these threads, dammit!’ He cursed inwardly. He was extra careful while moving not to get caught in his own threads as the source while spinning between ascenders.

Now that his weapons were back, he brought Colten’s sword closer to his chest, taking an attacking stance.

Colten’s sword lit up with a bluish flame.

Landing outside the encirclement, Moon slashed the sword, producing a long horizontal glare, so much different from how he first used it.

Controlled and sharp, not wasteful and explosive.

He didn’t aim it at someone specifically; the glare’s range would hit everyone on the side he landed on, including the unsettling Fable ascender, standing at the outermost part of the circle.

’Now show me what you’re hiding.’ Moon thought to himself while Mando and others were lamenting the fact that he was armed again.

The glare arrived, yet the impact, the death, the splitting apart of the ascenders that Moon, Mando, and the ascenders themselves were expecting to see...

None of it happened.

Whoooooooooooooshhh~

The soldier raised his left hand while holding his sword with his right hand. A wind current, carrying sand and pebbles, rose from his feet at the command of his left hand.

It wasn’t violent, but it was intact and uninterrupted, carrying undeniable momentum.

The moment the sword glare came into contact with the wind current, it slowed down before being carried upward far above the soldier and everyone else within range.

"Hooo, there was someone that strong among these," Enzo exclaimed on the wooden tower, while Mando was looking wide-eyed.

It didn’t seem like even he was aware of that soldier’s capabilities.

Moon found himself facing a strong opponent he didn’t count on meeting, but there was something more unsettling now about him than ever before.

It wasn’t his strength or the way he blocked the attack.

"How are you, fucker, doing this without Echo?"