The Golem Mage

A few minutes later, Pale could be seen heaving heavily; around him, the bodies of dead beastmen were sprawled on the ground.

However, he was now staring at Endrick and Agnes in fear, the whole reason he had asked Beatrice and Lucas to stay out of the fight was because he wanted the limelight on himself.

But now he realized that Brandon, the one he thought he had to worry about wasn’t even his problem at all during this trial, during the fight, though Brandon showed a bit of excellence, but he was more of the laid-back type during the battle.

He and Arthur basically held one side alone sharing kills like they were training more than in a competition , while Pale had Katie with him.

She, too, had performed well and even swayed some enemies toward Pale’s side because she was more aware of her friend’s intentions than anyone, on another side were Agnes and Knight,

That was one alliance he hadn’t worried much about along the line, then the last position was being held by Sophia and Endrick,

With Endrick staying at top of the tower to provide long range support for Sophia, who had moved forward as the vanguard. Initially, when they had positioned like this, he’d been quite surprised, as he didn’t expect Sophia alone would try to lead the line; however, she had proven to be a solid fighter when the waves attacked, and the way she fought really opened Pale’s eyes not to underestimate any of his teammates.

Before, he had believed that he was among the top strongest in the team, if he excluded the freaks like Alec, Lucas, and Beatrice, whom he hadn’t faced yet but knew he wouldn’t be able to defeat due to her talent in puppetry.

But when it eventually came down to it, he realized he might not be as special as he thought, Endrick had been able to kill that much and also help those on the other angles because Sophia’s power was capable of ensnaring many opponents for him to target, she was such a perfect match for him.

And she was also hard to hit, as she reflected every attack directed at her back with her shadow portals, she now looked so good that Pale could hardly see the past image of her in this new version she was portraying, which made him wonder just what Alec had done to push her to such lengths.

Just below Endrick’s killing speed was that of Agnes, who was cutting down enemies in droves.

Knight stood before her, protecting her along with her golems, which gave her enough time to cast all the devastating spells she wanted bombarding the beastmen heading for her into oblivion.

And all this happened without them even summoning the new Tier 6 spirit-equipment set that Alec had made for them.

It was after her, that Pale came up next in total kills, he had conjured a dual sword made of ice, shuffling through the beastmen, trying to outdo the others but at the start of the third round, the enemies grew much stronger, and he found himself falling further and further behind in killing speed.

–

The space above the arena drew in energy from the air as a small portal opened and, a second later, Alec stepped through it into the arena.

As a wave of whispers rolled out; many who hadn’t been watching his screen hadn’t expected any team to finish that fast, let alone a single individual.

The fact that Alec emerged with arms crossed, looking like he hadn’t even broken a sweat, didn’t help either, among the crowd, many had opened his screen when they saw he had the highest kill points and moved to the first position despite being just one person,

But after they realized Alec’s summoning was the one doing most of the heavy lifting, they quickly lost interest, a few still stuck around, enjoying the varied fighting styles deployed by the cybernetic golems, yet it didn’t change that most were mages who preferred traditional, cold-steel methods.

Only mages from the Western Kingdoms seemed to appreciate the beauty of what Legion and his unit did.

Many hadn’t been enthusiastic about Alec passing the third round which was going to get more dangerous so they switched screens; as they felt he’d simply gotten lucky so far due to the fact that the opponents he got just happens to be opponents his golems could restrain.

They thought him as a lone man would soon fall against the horde from the third round , yet here he was, in front of them all, proving them wrong.

As he came out, another water screen list appeared in midair, and Alec’s name flashed at 1st position, and it was clear to many watching that it was the list of those who had cleared the second trials.

Seeing his record engraved, he saw no reason to linger and gently levitated toward the Dean and Old Man Alfred, who was trying very hard to hold in the smug smile blossoming on his face.

“Boy, you take after me,” Old Man Alderic said with a loud laugh, slapping a hand on Alec’s shoulder, while they conversed, three other portals opened at the center of the arena but from the left-hand portal, a loud voice burst out.

“Haha, finally something I’m good at. I should be able to come out on top this time,” said Raizo Kurohane, the captain of Crimson Dawn Academy, the one they called the Crimson Warlord, as he walked out of his portal first.

Though he shouted, his face was far too calm for someone who had just yelled like that, and he was covered in blood that didn’t seem to be his.

In his right hand, he gripped a katana in an inverse hold, his hair was midnight black with red streaks at the ends—unlike Alec, whose hair had more red with brown-and-black tips, and his was tied in a low, loose knot that left several strands hanging before his face, giving him a striking charm.

However, that wasn’t his most arresting feature; it was his deep scarlet irises that flickered like dying embers, that seemed to be shifting from calm focus to quiet rage.

And the bloodlust rolling off his body made it clear he wasn’t a greenhorn at taking lives either.

After boasting and stepping out to see two other captains appear at the same time as he did kind of rubbed him the wrong way, the other two captains to emerge just happened to be Dragov Dragonmir and Kaelus Blade.

One captain from the Northern Kingdom, one from the Central Kingdom, and one from the Eastern Kingdom; Raizo wasn’t someone who stood out that much in the first trial so when he realised what the objective of the second trial was he believed he would be leading the other captains by far but that had not been the case, hence the reason for his displeasure .

After the captains came out, their teams started walking out of the portal one by one.

And like that, the list above them was getting updated with names of mages who had just come out, as the captains all looked upward, interested to see who among them would be placed first.

However, when they all looked ahead, there was a look of shock on their faces.

Except for Dragov Dragonmir, he only smirked after seeing the familiar name at the number one spot and started walking toward the seating area of the Bloodline Academy, with Damien and the rest of his team following behind him.

On the other hand, Kaelus and Raizo couldn’t process why he was that nonchalant about the fact that someone was ahead of them, and it wasn’t even close; he had come way ahead of them.

Raizo was ranked second, while Kaelus and Dragov took the third and fourth positions respectively, as of that moment, they didn’t care anymore about who led among the three of them by the system’s classification.

They were more concerned about the fact that someone they were unaware of was sitting in the first position.

Very soon, countless space portals started to open up, and they started walking away, not wanting to make things more awkward, but they eventually traced Damien’s gaze toward Alec, who was arguing with Old Man Alderic without a care in the world.

At that moment they didn’t need a seer to give them a vision before they realized that must be the mage who had surpassed them all.

“Funny, this War God Mage Academy keeps irritating me,” Kaelus said as he walked away after noticing the academy insignia behind Alec’s kimono.