Bro, I'm not an Undead!

"That's some technique," Skullius said as he leaned from his secluded seat and scratched his chin. With his sockets blazing with darkness, the whole fight had been vividly shown to him with only the expressions lost to his sight.

'It seems there are Tiers among Genuine Incarnations, much like I thought and when it comes to Maxim's technique, it's probably one of the strongest ones around. And just like I felt before...'

Skullius thought back to the event held on the night of the day that the Premium Age Royale officially began. He had sensed an extremely complex weaving of mana that formed the same effect he had seen just now.

It seemed that the level of complexity went past the effectiveness of a simplistic Incarnation like Hocce's.

This was what was leading Skullius to this discovery.

Even among Second Phase Masters, there were wide gaps and it was only logical.

Considering that between the Tasks and Experience required which continued to double as one progressed, it was likely that the gap between a Level 31 and a Level 40 Second Phase Master was unimaginably astronomical. Even a single level difference was bound to be huge.

That said...

'If that's the case, then only Masters at the very peak can bully all mana based skills it seems,' Skullius came to a conclusion.

On the platform, Maxim was still crushing the poor figure of Hocce who died silently, unable to scream or mourn his own passing.

"Say something, you bastard! Say it isn't funny anymore! Say it!" she screamed with a maniacal expression on her face.

At this point, the entire stadium was no longer as lively.

Many were shaken by the brutality.

This was the price of clarity. The price of being able to see everything with excruciating detail.

Most still talked about it though, as this had been quite an interesting battle all things considered.

Brutally interesting.

A green glow bloomed around Maxim, announcing her as the winner and soon, she was warped back to her seat where she took in deep breaths to cool off.

That was intense.

Over the platform that was stained with a gorey mess, a rippling blue light emerged, washing over the scene. When it passed over the glass and bloody mix, there only remained rising white particles, the after effects of human stains that were being erased from existence, leaving the platform clean again.

Guissepo descended from his height and gave a light clap.

Without a word, he smiled and snapped his fingers, two flashes of silver light registering on the platform as they brought two more contenders.

When the two came into fully few from the flashy show, a great amount of interest registered from the large, oval shaped tent in particular.

Every Contender seemed to know who one of these two currently standing on the platform was either by recognising his face, his signature weapon or the dreadful presence that he emitted which was mostly contained by the barrier but still managed to seep out and be felt by the individuals closest to the platform.

Even Skullius narrowed his eyes.

'So it was him, after all,' he thought.

He, along with everyone in the tent had sensed each other growing tense.

The atmosphere seemed to grow heavier as the collective recognition, a dark recognition with a bit of hostility within it ran wild.

'He definitely is the one that Stylla mentioned. Nicknames and all.'

The man who stood on the platform was Gabel.

He was the art-loving, eccentric man Skullius had been drawn to. The one who didn't typically hide his overwhelmingly deadly presence.

He was definitely the one dubbed as the most dangerous.

His medium length darker than night hair draped over his temples to almost cover his similarly coloured small, slanted eyes. The man's build was quite tall but he stood with a low hunch, a long, thick weapon weighing on his shoulder while a small book stole all his attention in his left hand.

Gabel wore a vest that accentuated his perfect muscles and broad shoulders, clearly unconcerned about any damage he could receive.

There was not a speck of protective armour or the likes on him.

Ta!

He swung his weapon from his shoulder and let it drop to the platform. It was a glaive with a rather thick pale blue pole that had a ball attached to its end. On the other end, a blade with too many similarities to a butcher's knife could be seen, dark blue veins feeding into it from the pole. Whether this was just a design or if this proved to be an essential part of the weapon itself remained a mystery for now.

Yet still, this weapon was largely infamous.

The presence of Gabel outshined his opponent's, so much that no one even cared who he was. They only cared about this man who took bounties to carry out slaughters without ever being caught or failing to accomplish them.

As most of the contenders expected, Gabel's opponent was about to raise his hand and immediately call for surrender but...

"Shhh..." Gabel said from the distance, his lazy, eyes causing his opponent to shut his mouth and sweat profusely.

He seemed to have been struck a paralysing blow from a distance!

The dark haired man walked up to his opponent while returning his gaze to his little book.

"Silence little soul. Your form has too much to spill. My blade cannot allow you to scamper away in fear..." Gabel recited while pulling on his glaive which produced sparks while scraping against the platform.

"...You might disgrace me before the veiled beauty I seek to court with red and silence. Come, little soul. Let me carve you clean as a gift for she that gives me purpose."

The momentary paralysing fear the irrelevant man facing off against Gabel felt faded briefly.

He had to surrender!

That was the only thing he could do to keep his life.

He mustered enough courage to resist the sliver of Gabel's will that restricted his own and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I surrenderehhhhblll—"

This opponent had felt reassured once he uttered the words to give up on the match, however, a striking force bore through his stomach and pulled his body inches from the ground as it went on to carve cleanly from his abdomen to his shoulder, ripping through it to let itself out!

Blood sprayed unhindered from the man's body as his fell to the ground again, unable to speak or stand.

This much, everyone expected as they watched his corpse slump down. There was no way this match would have turned out differently.

However what was mysterious though, was the fact that Gabel had not made a single movement or taken his eyes from his small book. In fact, when the insignificant opponent was cruelly cleaved, he had been reciting lines from his book without urgency or a shift in his expression.

This was what put most people on edge.

How had this man done it?

He was clearly the one who killed his opponent but how?

His glaive which he hung with his right hand while its bottom touched the platform did not even have a trace of blood on it.

Curious and terrifying.

Among all the contenders though, one man had seen through this trick.

He was shivering in his seat from a false cold while biting on his nail as he pulled on his oversized furry coat.

"Interesting. Maybe I misjudged you. To think you were a combatant of this calibre..." this man said before muttering curses over the cold.

"Since you have Veneration... are you perhaps the one I'm looking for?"