The Glorious Evolution

”Keep it up! He is bound to break!” Syc’closs shouted while increasing the number of frosted projectiles.

Alas, Arthur never did... his feet were digging into the bridge, but unmoving.

The heat merely burned off the uniform’s cloth on his arms and a bit of his torso, exposing his massive, veiny muscles.

In the end, Syc’closs and his partners were forced to stop; their energy reservoir was getting exhausted with no good results.

-Haha! You can never take down Big Tank!- Rayan cheered.

-F*cker must be feeling himself, knowing that hundreds of millions are staring at his muscles.- Sergio cursed with a faint smirk, noticing Arthur low-key flexing, trying his best to look cool as always.

The rest of the watchers also cheered in excitement, enjoying every moment of the game so far... Yet, this was only the beginning of the end.

Out of nowhere, Levi appeared with his arms crossed behind his back, hovering tens of meters above Syc’closs and his teammates... He was standing above the upper crown of his staff, which was floating rigidly, with the bottom crown locked on his enemies.

He neither said nor did anything... he just kept standing there, menacingly.

Yet, his presence was so oppressive, it made Syc’closs and his teammates consider retreating for the first time.

They could tell he was the Psych Specialist who had pierced a hole in Kraev’Morr’s chest and was the orchestrator of this travesty... Great Psych Specialists were feared and respected across all ranks.

Alas, the moment Levi arrived, no one was going anywhere.

With a finger snap, aetheric chains manifested from the bridge surface and caught their arms and legs, forcing them to remain still in place.

Then, the viewers watched with widened, elated eyes as Levi pointed his finger above him, creating close to a hundred vibrating sound arrows all directed at The Drowned Court’s team.

Yet, he wasn’t done.

Each arrow contained newly emerging concentrated aether marbles, which were also vibrating at different frequencies!

Since both sound and aether were invisible to normal vision... if a commoner were to see the sky, they would find nothing but a hundred faint green dots, resembling fireflies.

But, Syc’closs and his teammates knew... they would get disintegrated if those projectiles landed on them.

’ICE DOME! NOW!’

Syc’closs gave up on trying to free himself from the aetheric chains, opening his mouth wide to release torrents of water. His teammates had done the same, using teamwork to swiftly build a massive dome of water in less than a second.

Then, they switched to using Frost Aspect, releasing a chilling air from their mouths, hitting the water dome, transforming it into a thick ice dome in no time.

Seeing this, Levi waved his finger, and the arrows lined up one after the other until a giant spear of fireflies was formed...However, before he could use it, Arthur’s voice resounded around the bridge.

”Big bro! Leave it to me!”

Arthur absorbed all the kinetic energy from the frost barrage earlier... then, he pointed the central vermillion gemheart in the Ice Dome’s direction, changing his bracing stance with a wide grin.

Knowing what he was about to do, Nurah, Shia, and Jojo retreated a fair distance... then, they watched Arthur shout out loud, ”Drown this, you bastards!”

A bright vermillion beam erupted from the central gemheart, tearing across the bridge in a straight line until...

BOOM!

It slammed into the massive ice dome, drilling a scorching hole clean through its core! Steam erupted in a massive pillar, hiding the dome from everyone’s eyes.

Everyone’s but Gamemaster Sparks, whose experience was unmatched... he anticipated such a reaction and split his streaming vision from the beam to the interior of the dome, showing the viewers the beam slamming into Zyrr’Kalith’s chest... a clean hit.

A millisecond later... a violent burst of kinetic heat and pressure ignited his flesh, turning it charred black in an instant, before crumpling lifelessly onto the shattered ice.

The two remaining nightcrawlers stared in horror at what remained of their teammate’s body, the aroma of burnt flesh and bone filling their noses.

They were just conversing amongst each other on how to escape from Levi’s chains before the beam pierced through their most trusted defensive ability, killing one of their own under their eyes.

”...One down,” Arthur growled, the glow in his veins dimming while the hot steam from the recoil burnt through his skin yet again... but, this time, Arthur took a knee down, his energy reservoir was at its limit.

His abilities were powerful, but they consumed a ton of energy... Yet, Arthur didn’t seem to care, grinning from ear to ear as he listened to the viewers screaming his name in the sky.

”The name is Arthur... Arthur Larson, remember it.”

He looked up and uttered indifferently while flexing his biceps on the low, making many girls start losing their minds.

But not Nurah, Shia, and Jojo, who rolled their eyes at his cringy attempts to look cool.

”Keep the idiot safe... I will finish it.” Nurah said with a smile while walking seductively in the direction of the pierced Ice Dome.

As the viewers tracked her, thinking what she had in mind, Nurah disappeared out of their sight... the moment their thoughts strayed, she was gone.

Seeing her travel across the spiritual bridge of darkness instantly to appear inside the dome, Levi glanced upward at the rain of arrows.

He smiled wryly... ’What am I supposed to do with these?’

He knew that once Nurah got inside, their fate was decided.

With a swift motion, Nurah activated a flashbomb artifact, unleashing a sudden, unnatural burst of illumination inside the dome.

Syc’closs and Thyss’Rahl noticed their shadows stretching across the frozen walls, while Nurah stood upside down on the dome’s ceiling, her feet sinking into her shadow... or rather, shadows!

Her latest mutation made her skin slightly iridescent and subtly warped, almost like fractured glass in sunlight... as long as one body part was exposed to a light source, instead of a single shadow, the mutation generated two distinct shadows!

’Blackthorn Shadow Arts: Night Reaver Waltz.’

After the illumination died out and the ice dome turned dim again, everyone was startled to see five shadowy figures detaching from the walls... forming spectral duplicates armed with shadowy daggers.

Nurah had activated her second perfect ultimate ability... an ability that allowed her to gain control of any shadows in the vicinity... hers or not!

Syc’closs and Thyss’Rahl were unnerved as their own shadows peeled away from their bodies, entities that felt nothing like shadows at all... shifting between tangible and intangible, alive and dead, spirit and flesh.

Swiftly, they attempted to flood the Ice Dome with water, believing that the shadowy figures would collapse... alas, the gushing waters went through their intangible forms, not changing them one bit.

Under this stunning sight, the shadowy clones lunged at them with their daggers, aiming for their vitals, no mercy, no hesitation!

’Hydro Pulse Singularity!’

Desperate, Syc’closs used his ultimate ability, uncaring about his ensnared ally getting hit by it.

He compressed water into a dense core within him and released it as a supersonic blade in all directions! The blade was so sharp, it sliced through Thyss’Rahl’s body like it was made out of butter, and so as the Ice Dome, cutting it in half.

Yet... the moment it touched the shadowy clones, they seemed to phase out of the blade, akin to shadows from another dimension... once the blade went away, their bodies turned tangible again with their daggers.

’I am fighting against ghosts...’ Syc’closs thought, his face displaying nothing but utter despair as he stared at the daggers mere inches from him.

Slice! Slice! Slice!...

Under the stunned gaze of the audience, the massacre ended within seconds... both nightcrawlers were left decapitated, and even the already lifeless Thyss’Rahl was not spared.

The shadows retracted, leaving Nurah alone in the center of the Ice Dome... her figure slipping seamlessly out of one of the five phantoms, indistinguishable from them, yet carrying their ghostly gift.... the ability to shift between spectral and flesh.

Nurah stepped outside of the dome, holding the heads of the two Tier 4 nightcrawlers... not a single drop of blood tainted her clothes or skin.

A flawless execution demonstrating why she was referred to as a monster from her childhood, leaving her traumatized by the term.

Although Levi’s aetheric ensnarement played a huge role in keeping their enemies locked in place... when it came to Nurah, it didn’t really matter that much to her.

He could have freed them, and the result would still be the same.

Although Nurah rarely tried to show off, once she did... it stole everyone’s breath away, making them understand why she was the third strongest Daywalker in Heliodor’s Raiders team... below only Levi and Jasmine, surpassing even Arthur.

Her powers might have looked simple... but as she often claimed, her shadows were anything but ordinary. Which meant her Aspect was far more complex than it appeared.

”Sorry... I ruined your party.” Nurah giggled at Levi, watching him still holding onto the rain of agitated, explosive arrows in case things went south.