We had originally planned on releasing the next Ark chapter, however, due to unforeseen circumstances, the release will be delayed. Thus, it will be released on either Tuesday or Wednesday.
This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and Yeenie.
The Hundred Knives Punishment
Time: 11:15 am
I was too naive! I really was too naive! The degree of the Steel Knight’s resistance to being chopped up was actually much higher than I had imagined!
The first knife slashed down, and broke into pieces at the same time, proving the Steel Knight was indeed a Steel Knight. There was not a crack to be seen! Too amazing! No wonder in cartoons, it was very hard for Ironman to die.
Just as the Steel Knight was slashed by the first knife, the other knives seemed to all move at almost the same time, and the Steel Knight suddenly dashed towards the place where Gasai was standing.
Wait a minute, was that allowed!?
“The competition’s rules only said there will be punishments, and didn’t say one was not allowed to attack their opponent during the punishments.” Senior was calm, as though he already knew something like this would happen.
Alright, they were experienced after all…
Gasai’s action wasn’t any slower than his. I saw him taking out a charm, and using less than half a second, lightweight western medieval short dual knives appeared in both his hands.
The dual knives were silver, and with some patterns on top.
“That is an ice charm, a similar object to an explosive charm.” Senior immediately explained to me.
“The method of using it is the same?” Question.
“Nn.”
However, according to the items he had used before, I thought Gasai would be using a multi-section whip, since it was something I’ve seen him used a couple of times. I never thought he would actually use dual knives.
Dual-knives would make me think of Ryan, because his weapon was also a pair of dual knives, although the style wasn’t the same.
The Steel Knight took out a fencing sword from his waist, and took a stab at Gasai.
I saw dual knives instantly blocking the fencing sword. Although he was wearing a white mask, Gasai was not giving off a tense feeling, but he was actually still at ease.
In that same second, all ninety-nine knives that had chased after the Steel Knight suddenly slashed down together—
Under normal conditions, the two people should have been chopped into minced meat. But, that’s only true in normal circumstances. However, from the time I stepped into the school, everything there was abnormal. So, it would not be a big surprised if the both of them did not turn into minced meat.
In the blink of an eye, the ninety-nine knives were already gone.
A bright red array appeared beneath Gasai’s feet, drawn throughout the entire stage. At the center point of where he was standing, an eyeball appeared.
It looked like an enlarged version of my red talisman.
What I saw was, the second the red magical array appeared, the knives on the stage seemed to have exploded into pieces. All of them turned into silvery dust, and were blown away by the wind.
The Steel Knight’s armor were also broken due to the vibration, and under his armor, I saw a Purple Robe appearing. And, the him turned into a her…
A blonde beauty, looked like some kind of an action movie star.
“Thanks, the one point for Atlantis Academy.” The beauty turned her body around, pulled out another fencing sword from behind her waist, and stabbed it onto the floor. The floor where the array was flipped up.
Gasai coldly snorted once, and similarly shot out a short knife, stabbing it onto the floor.
Icy cold wind from the stage started blowing to where I was.
A layer of frost started to spread out from under the knife, and the flipped up floor was abruptly turned into ice and stopped. It stayed halfway in the air, and the pieces of the floor each looked like small pedestals.
“The second topic, during the first era, a clan of the Mountain Kingdom was destroyed. During that time, who was the first warrior who successfully formed an alliance with the major countries and proposed to resist the earth snakes that were attacking?”
Just as I thought they would continue to fight, Gasai suddenly stopped his movements, just standing in the midst of the cold air caused by the ice knife. He then clearly and loudly said the answers to the question.
The surrounding suddenly fell into silence.
“The answer is, Zolton Saificyr.”
Sandra, who was floating midair in the arena, was stunned for a period of time. She then looked at the topic card she had in her hand, the one she was supposed to read out, and looked at Gasai again, “The, the answer is correct.”
That beauty with the fencing sword was also stunned.
How could Gasai answer the topic when he hadn’t seen before?
The audience was stunned.
I believe everyone’s question was the same as mine.
“In order to save the trouble, I’ll just read out the rest of the answers, no need to actually announce the topics.” The eyes behind the thick white mask stared sharply at Sandra, “Third, normal. Fourth, Elfin King, Fifth, Fried Drumstick…”
The audience fell into complete silence until Gasai finished reciting all the answers. The stage was so quiet, that one would be able to hear the sound of a pin dropping. No one dared to utter a single word.
Sandra looked at the topic card one by one, until the last one had been flipped open. “All correct!”
There was audience was thrown into an uproar, and the sound got louder and louder.
Gasai turned around and looked at the completely pale Purple Robe beauty. She was surrounded by countless floating knives, overlapping one another, looking like a silver wall, “There are a total of nine hundred knives.”
“You’re welcome, the one from Giya Academy.”
* * *
I discovered the people from our school had a very strong sense of revenge.
Gasai walked out of the arena, back into the player room.
On the stage, Giya Academy’s player was surrounded by knives, and no one knew what happened in there. In the end, silver liquid appeared on the floor, covering the pile of stuff, and was then removed from the stage.
I was really curious as to how Gasai knew the topics and answers.
“That’s very simple, it’s just object perspective.” Senior was the first to open his mouth, and crossed his arms. His tone implied what happened was nothing but a mere trifle.
Object perspective?
To put it in simpler terms, it was the legendary high-tech assassinating equipment, that kind of stuff?
“At the elementary stage of object perspective, one could see through inanimate objects. But for advanced users, they can even use it on the complex human body.”
… Has a final abbreviation called as an X-ray, right?
“In your second year, there will be an elective that teaches this.” Senior added.
In our second year, we need to learn how to X-ray an object, right? Once again I have found a huge loophole in this school’s courses! It was actually a course teaching the students a good way to peep!
“Peep, yourself!” Senior slapped me behind my head, “Why are good things start to become so weird after you start thinking about them!”
To be honest, I also want to know the reason.
“The second preliminary is starting, both sides please send out your representatives.” After the stage was completely cleaned up, Sandra’s crisp voice drifted over.
I looked at senior. Gasai had already gone up the stage once, this time it should be senior’s turn.
A commotion could be seen at the Giya’s player room. Suddenly, a robot and a huge silver scorpion walked down.
Two players?
“There’s two stages, one is a quick answer competition, and another one is a two men sports competition. Looks like they bet their professionals on the sports competition.” Senior revealed a cold smile, a kind of smile that made me feel as though the two players down there would probably die.
Just as senior took one step forward, he suddenly stopped.
Jieer was standing behind Senior, and her beautiful face was completely flat. It was completely different from the smiling expression she had earlier. “Interrupting resident mode…” She didn’t open her mouth, but there was a voice coming from her body.
Her whole face and body was silver, and she looked rather freaky.
Jieer’s hand caused senior to stop. I didn’t know when it turned into a knife, but it stabbed senior’s left arm, and not a single drop of blood could be seen.
Not one person on our side realized.
“They’re actually using such dirty method!” The five-colored rooster head raged at the same time, and his whole hand turned into a beast claw, with desire to hack at Jieer.
In an instant, my neck felt icy cold. There was a silvery thing on my neck. Only then did I realize it was part of Jieer’s body, turning into a knife, and was at one side of my neck.
“Don’t be rash.” Senior narrowed his red eyes, stretched out his other hand, grabbed onto Jieer’s knife, and with a “clank” sound, it broke, “Let’s discuss this after the game.”
The knife was placed at the side of my neck, so I didn’t dare to move.
Could it be what we heard the other day… was referring to this!?
“Atlantis Academy’s representatives please come out.” Sandra’s voice came again.
“Gasai, go.” Senior nodded at his partner, and he turned his head to look at the other person, “Ziray, it’s your turn.”
The five-colored rooster head widened his eyes in shock.
“They probably don’t want a Black Robe to go up stage, so it’s your turn.”
Glancing at Jieer, the five-colored rooster head nodded, and walked out of the player room.
Gasai, who went out first, had declared senior couldn’t come on stage, so he be replaced by the backup player, and it had been approved.
As soon as the four players set foot on the arena, I saw silver liquid surfacing on the round stage again. This time one by one, wild beasts I couldn’t name had appeared, each of them were about two to three times bigger than a human.
“You couldn’t be someone sent by Giya Academy.” Senior was standing beside me, and said coldly. I guess he was talking to ‘Jieer’, “To be able to invade Giya Academy’s system administration without us noticing, looks like you’re not just anyone.”
I saw the knife on my neck slowly retracting.
Jieer, who had already turned completely silver, suddenly became twisted, and turned into a huge lump of silver liquid. After a few seconds, she turned back into a human body.
It was a woman, a silver woman.
“You’re indeed a Black Robe level, for you to be able to see through it like nothing.” The woman stood right next to me, and did not move from her position. Her voice identical to those fake electronic voice, sounding very ear-piercing and very uncomfortable.
“You guys want to help Giya win, why?” Senior’s expression didn’t change — it was the same proud face.
Red eyes suddenly glared at me, and I quickly shifted my eyesight to the stage.
The fighting on the stage had already started. While fighting, they also had to deal with the wild beasts; really wonderful.
But to tell the truth, with a freak standing beside me, no matter how wonderful it was, it couldn’t quite attract my attention. I was so terrified she will suddenly place her knife on my neck again.
“Atlantis Academy is a stumbling block, so, of course we would want you to lose.”
Ha~, this sentence is really flattering. This means they’re not even concerned about Giya’s strength, so she wanted to deal with our school, right?
Truthfully, listening to this, I don’t know if I should feel cool or freak out. However, I knew senior was someone who would freak out first.
* * *
“You want us to lose?”
Sure enough, before I realized what happened, senior’s palm was already covering the woman’s face, and rammed it into the silver wall. The entire arc shaped wall was dented outward in the shape of a person.
“Don’t even think about it!”
I already said that Senior would freak out first.
The woman’s silver face was completely caved in, and bit by bit, silver liquid started to flow out through senior’s fingers. Slowly, senior’s palm completely sunk into her blurry liquid-state face.
She raised her right hand, opened her palm, and a mouth appeared on the palm, “I’m only borrowing Giya Academy’s artificial human’s body, so even if you destroy her, I won’t be affected.”
A huge sound could be heard from the stage. I saw the five-colored rooster head’s beast claw tore a whole wild beast into two halves. Then, the beast claw slammed on the ground. His punch actually made a huge hole in the floor, instantly! There was also smoke coming out of it.
He vented his resentment on someone else’s stage.
“What are you guys trying to do?” Senior didn’t even look back, even when his entire hand up to his wrist was completely covered by silver liquid, he didn’t let go.
The woman laughed.
This time, the mouth appeared on her knee, and the middle of her palm turned into a kind of eye. It even blinks! “Each winner would be able to obtain a treasure, right…”
“Your ambition is really too small, only wanting the treasures from the three schools.” Senior laugh coldly. His red eyes were completely icy, feeling really cold, “Only for these stuff, you guys even had to resort to using dirty tricks. You must have worked really hard.”
I saw his whole hand tightening, and there were red patterns appearing on his arm, just like the color of blood.
“Wa-wait a minute, if you make a move, this person from Giya will also be killed!” The woman’s mouth appeared on her chest, and for some reason, she started to become tense.
Huge sounds came from the stage once again, and several of the sounds could be heard consecutively. When I got distracted and took a look, the five-colored rooster head had already smashed half of the competition stage, and not even one of the wild beasts were left, only the two players of Giya were left standing.
However, their situation weren’t favorable either. One of the robot’s outer armor was completely broken, and there was someone wearing a Purple Robe, but the other silver scorpion was completely fine.
“This has nothing to do with me. In any case, for Giya to be invaded, it was their own fault, and they won’t dare to do anything to me.” Senior’s hand was completely covered by red patterns. When I saw his black collar going up, red lines appeared on his face, below the corner his right eye. He looked rather scary.
The whole player room became rather hot, as though the temperature suddenly increased by a few degrees.
“You’d better think about this first, I can immediately leave this body and you also won’t be able to do anything to me!” The woman’s mouth started talking again, and it opened even wider.
To be honest, I really doubt senior really couldn’t do anything? He gave me the feeling like he could just drag that “thing” out and flatten it, since his whole momentum was very strong.
“Chu, you are correct.” Senior turned around, and suddenly smiled at me, “Say it out, can I do it or not!”
Me? Allow me to say it?
“Say it, say it so that she can hear it.”
I looked at the silver woman. Her eye moved to her stomach; there was a huge eye on her stomach, blinking, and then it glared at me, I was glared at until I felt my scalp was tingling, “You, you can…”
Swallowing my saliva a few times, this was the first time I choked while talking to someone.
“That’s too soft, are you still not sure yet? So am I or not, able to do something to her!” Senior suddenly roared, and I was completely frightened.
“You absolutely can!” I followed suit, roared, and my head began to buzz.
In the next second, I saw senior smiling so happily for some unknown reason.
He clenched his hand and pulled out some grayish white object. His other hand turned into a fist, and without a second lapsing, he punched it.
The grayish white object let out a wail and fell to the ground.
It was a very vague human form.
* * *
Inside the arena, the audience’s huge clamor could be heard.
The five-colored rooster head’s beast claw was clenched, forming a fist. With a punch, the steel robot flew out of the stage, back into their player room. The powerful force made the Purple Robe robot crash into the wall of the player room, and cracked the walls.
The competition stage only had the silver scorpion left, but the scorpion didn’t move from the beginning until the end.
Gasai dropped the ice knife, and the stage was covered with a thin layer of ice. The holes that were created had been filled up, and a layer of mist was dispersed by the wind.
Held on to my breath.
The scorpion started to move, and in the blink of an eye, it disappeared. When it reappeared again, it was already behind the five-colored rooster head.
Turning around at the same exact time, the five-colored rooster head blocked with his beast claw. Suddenly, there was a heavy sound, and I saw a trail of black blood appearing on his hand.
The five-colored rooster head jumped back several steps, his whole hand was covered with black blood.
According to the books, he was poisoned.
“Daemon restoration…”
After Jieer’s metal body distorted, it turned back into the original cute girl appearance.
I saw a grayish white thing rolling on the ground. It looked like a woman’s body, but very vague, and there was no clear view of that thing.
A silver knife appeared in senior’s hand, with a “cling” sound, it was nailed on the left leg of the grayish white body.
The lump of thing was painfully twisted, and let out a scream painful to the ears. However, the sound was covered by the audience’s clamor, and no one noticed it.
“If you had the courage to come, you’d better take a little gift back.” Senior stepped on the short knife, and applied pressure to force it down.
After the grayish white thing screamed for three seconds, it suddenly broke into pieces, turning into sand, and then immediately disappeared.
Not leaving a single a trace of anything.
“She escaped already?” I was rather nervous, very afraid that Jieer would suddenly stab me.
“Nn, but her original body would suffer some injuries. She got off too easily.” Senior turned his wrist, and the red lines immediately disappeared, “Damn her…”
I noticed senior’s movements were rather unnatural, and suddenly remembered he was stabbed by Jieer earlier.
“It’s just a small injury. I’ll use healing incantation to fix it later.” He said and turned to look at the stage.
Gasai didn’t attack, he was just standing at one side, watching. Currently, the five-colored rooster head was confronting the scorpion.
I could probably guess the five-colored rooster head must have asked Gasai to not attack because he wanted to deal with the damn scorpion alone or the like.
His whole beast arm had turned black, completely black all the way up to his shoulder, looking very strange. Suddenly, his other hand also turned into a beast hand.
The scorpion and the five-colored rooster head moved at the same moment. I didn’t get to see too clearly, but I did continuously hear several “cling clang” sounds. I also saw sparks appearing around the scorpion, but after they’d stopped moving, several scratches appeared on the scorpion’s silver shell and several black bloody trails also appeared on the five-colored rooster head’s body.
I wondered, was the person inside the scorpion a high robe level? For example, a Black Robe. Because it looked like it was hard to defeat him.
“He’s not a black robe.” Senior, who was standing beside me, said, “Giya Academy’s only has students with Purple Robes, no Black Robes.”
… That’s really pitiful.
I could understand why people, when they wanted to get rid of someone, they pointed their spearhead at our school first.
The five-colored rooster head’s movements seemed to have became rather slow.
This was strange, I remembered he could still materialize his rooster feet and rooster wings, so why didn’t materialize them today?
“Before the main competition starts, we told Ziray not to materialize anything other than his beast claws.” Senior said faintly.
“Huh? Why!?” No wonder he seemed like he was not using his full power, looked like he was having a hard time.
Red eyes glanced at me, “In this competition, it doesn’t only consists of audiences. There are many other opponents present here, collecting information.”
Once senior explained it, I also thought that might be the case. There would definitely be someone who came to observe… No wonder Gasai’s movements were rather minimal, too.
“Chu, you have to look carefully. In fact, that scorpion is not hard to defeat, because it’s something made out of steel.” Senior crossed his arms, and simply said, “Things made out of steel aren’t very durable. Even with magical protection, it’s the same, so when one part malfunctions, it’s as good as finished.”
“Ah?”
A loud “thud” resounded on the stage.
The five-colored rooster head used his other hand and fiercely slammed it down on the scorpion’s face. However, a poisonous needle went through his beast claw, blackishly protruding it. Nevertheless, the scorpion’s face was completely smashed, and an extremely painful wail was echoed from within.
Then the five-colored rooster head pulled back his hand and jumped back one step, his face had a ‘I succeeded’ kind of smile.
The scorpion stopped moving, and blood were suspiciously flowing out from the smashed part of the face.
After waiting for a while, only then did Gasai slowly walked up towards it and kicked off the scorpion’s smashed face armor.
Inside, because of the smash, there was a huge swollen face, looking looked like a pig’s head. The eyes of the huge face was rolled up, the nose was crooked to one side and it kept bleeding, and his original look nowhere to be found.
It was obvious that the five-colored rooster head’s punch was extremely heavy.
“Normally, the weaker the person, the stronger the protection he would need.” Senior said as he looked at the scorpion.
Gasai slammed his palm on the scorpion’s silver armor, and the whole armor broke into pieces. Inside, was someone wearing a White Robe. He was a white robe, and had fainted completely.
“Atlantis Academy is the winner! Sandra’s voice, reverberated throughout the whole school. “In Atlantis Academy versus Giya Academy, Atlantis Academy achieved their first victory!”