Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

Chapter 531: 2nd Opponent

The battlefield still quivered from the shock of Emma’s fall. Her poison mist was fading into faint glimmers, the last traces of resistance melting into the air. She had fought brilliantly — clever, precise — but Vier’s Quasic Demon was no ordinary opponent. His domain had devoured her poisons, forcing her down until her body collapsed on the trembling bark.

The demon stood, breathing evenly, wings flexing in quiet triumph. ”A fine opponent,” he said, tone casual, as if paying respect to the inevitable.

Emma’s form was retrieved by Lily’s shadow; she vanished from the field and appeared beside Christina, who heard her.

The Regalons below were silent for a heartbeat — not from despair, but calculation.

The opponent was strong.

But the one to fight him next was decided by dice.

However, from this fight, some Regalons knew they wouldn’t be this demon’s opponent, so only those who were confident of defeating him rolled the dice.

And Bianca won.

She stepped forward. No words, no bravado. She adjusted her gloves, the faint pulse of violet runes flickering across her wrists, and arrived on the battleground.

In the next instant, Bianca was gone — simply gone — replaced by a ripple in space that folded and sealed itself.

The Quasic Demon Bulkir flared his aura again, scanning the domain he had just stabilized. ”Another assassin?” He smirked. ”Your poisons didn’t work on me. Do you think shadows will?”

His wings opened, forming a defensive grid of black energy. His horns began to glow again, stabilizing the miniature world of wind and void around him.

But even with his power, something felt wrong. The light around him bent subtly, like his perception was being edited frame by frame. His body tensed.

The first cut came silently.

A thin, perfect incision down his right arm — no energy, no trace of killing intent. Just absence.

”What—”

The second followed across his wing. His domain quivered, space rippling like disturbed water. He realized then: she wasn’t in his dimension. She was behind its layers, sliding between folds of existence like a whisper through cloth.

He roared, unleashing a vortex of black-red flame and crushing wind, collapsing half his own domain to flush her out. ”Show yourself!”

No reply.

The next sound was a step.

Just one.

From above.

He looked up instinctively, and that was the mistake.

A hand emerged from the fabric of darkness itself, gripping his face. Reality fractured for a brief instant — his domain split, his defenses bent — and Bianca dropped with him through the layers of air like a falling star.

They crashed, the impact echoing through the trees. When the mist cleared, she was already crouched beside his fading form, one knee bent, one hand resting on his chest.

The light in his horns flickered out.

”I learned from your fight,” she said softly. ”You exist in multiple folds at once. So I attacked the gaps between them.”

The Quasic Demon tried to speak, but his breath left him as his wings crumbled into particles of void.

”Winner — Bianca of Regalons.”

The elf’s voice carried easily across the wind, smooth and resonant.

Laughter and cheers erupted below. Silvester clapped once, amused. ”That’s our Bianca.”

Natalia whistled. ”Guess we’re still even.”

Bianca returned and smiled. ”I didn’t come to the mission, but I didn’t waste the three days I spent here.”

Vier leaned back, lightning dancing faintly across his arms. ”That was... elegant,” he said. ”Almost too quiet to notice.”

From the remaining branches, the other seven stirred. The second wolf brother cracked his neck, stepping forward.

”Let’s make it interesting,” he growled, aura already spreading. ”My turn.”

The wind shifted again. The branches creaked.

The next battle began.

The first to go against him was Ruyi, the former 2nd rank guild master, just below Liam.

She arrived on the second battleground in a blink, holding a dark pink handfan in her hand with flickering, colorful patterns.

The match began without words.

The wolf blurred. One moment, he stood still; the next, his afterimage exploded forward, claws covered in spatial distortion. The first strike cut through air and sound alike, shattering the tree’s natural rhythm.

Ruyi twisted her wrist. The glaive expanded into ribbons of liquid metal, each strand intercepting a claw. Sparks of bent reality scattered where their powers collided. Her movements were smooth, almost tranquil — every parry became a step, every motion built toward a flowing counterattack.

Then the wolf’s mouth opened.

A roar — but not a sound. A wave.

The pressure crushed the air, vaporizing the metallic ribbons in an instant. The next second, his claws struck from four different angles, moving with perfect synchronization — his body splitting briefly into mirage-like doubles formed from overlapping timelines.

Ruyi reacted, trying to read which one was real, but each copy carried weight, substance. She swung once, cleaving through one, then two — and the third broke through her guard.

His palm slammed against her chest, and the vapor turned solid — a golden wolf’s sigil bursting across her armor.

Her body was hurled backward, carving a deep scar into the bark.

She tried to stand, but the sigil burned, disrupting her control. Her metallic energy unraveled, turning into harmless ripples that fell like molten rain.

The wolf cracked his neck again, claws retracting. ”You’re sharp,” he said, voice calm but heavy with dominance. ”But you think in lines. My path is circles.”

”Garmund wins.” Vier chuckled. ”He is not easy to beat. Once you’re marked, you’re doomed.”

”He is sharp.” Admiral Rudra nodded.

Ruyi burst out with her full power, but the mark was absorbing her own energy and disrupting her, as well as inching her closer to death.

Garmind grinned as he floated with his arms crossed. ”It’s over.”

In the end, Ruyi sighed. There was no other choice. She lost.

”Alright, I’m going to the next.” Marcus grinned. ”I want to see how his mark fares against me.”

He appeared in Ruyi’s place, swapping their positions with his short, but thick sword and a shield.

”I don’t think you can beat me.” Garmund released his arms, his claws flickering.

Marcus’s expression was at a loss upon hearing that. And then, a contract manifested. ”If I don’t defeat you, I’ll die. May my soul scatter.”

He then looked at Admiral Rudra and grinned. ”How was it, gramps?”

”Brat.” Admiral Rudra laughed.

”Don’t lose your life trying to act cool like him.” Lily chuckled.

”I hope so.” Marcus looked at the wolf and slammed his sword on his golden-cream colored shining shield with black and blue patterns. ”Come on.”

Garmund laughed.

”Well, if you want to court death, here I come,”

As the clash began, Vier looked at the trio weirdly. ”He’ll die, really. Because of that soul oath.”

Almond smiled. ”He’s a tough man. He’ll endure.”

The air vibrated as Marcus and Garmund faced each other — two completely different forces, one circular and predatory, the other anchored, impenetrable. The wolf crouched, claws glinting with warped reflections of time. Marcus stood upright, shield lowered slightly, as if taunting him.

Then Garmund vanished.

The branch trembled as a blur of gray-gold flashed behind Marcus. Claws struck, fast enough to slice the edges of sound itself — but before they touched, a burst of azure light erupted from Marcus’s shield. The air cracked like breaking glass.

Clang!

The attack bounced back, folding its own distortion against the wolf. Garmund’s claws wrenched sideways, the impact twisting his wrist. His eyes widened — that wasn’t defense; it was reflection.

Marcus exhaled calmly, eyes sharp. ”You mark others to drain their strength. But that mark doesn’t know the difference between attack and defense, does it?”

The wolf’s sigil on Marcus’s chest began to glow — the same sigil that had crushed Ruyi. Except now, the golden emblem pulsed erratically, like something inside it was turning wild.

Garmund’s expression changed. ”What did you—”

The mark burst.

A shockwave rolled out from Marcus’s body, silent but dense — not energy, not aura, but momentum turned inward. Garmund felt his own resonance being pulled through the mark, dragged out of him like a reversed heartbeat. His clones flickered and imploded, their overlapping timelines collapsing one by one.

Marcus raised his shield. ”You carved your circle on me.” His grin turned sharp. ”So I filled it.”

The shield erupted in a blinding arc of light. It wasn’t holy, nor elemental — it was pure conversion, turning absorbed distortion into kinetic release. The tree groaned beneath them as the reflection struck back.

Garmund tried to phase, but the wave was faster. The distortion he had woven to protect himself bent into a vortex and swallowed him whole. His own temporal folds locked against him, freezing him in multiple instants of failure.

For a second, it looked like he was still standing — but the next blink showed him kneeling, claws half-buried into bark. The circle mark on Marcus’s chest shattered, its fragments returning to the wolf, burning through his veins.

Marcus walked forward, his short sword resting casually on his shoulder.

”I told you,” he said. ”You drew a circle.”

The wolf coughed blood, his fangs cracked, eyes fading. ”You... reversed my core...”

Marcus tapped his shield lightly. ”Full counter,” he replied, his tone even. ”Everything you hit me with loops back into you. My affinity converts momentum and binds it to the attacker’s signature. The stronger the hit, the faster the return.”

Garmund’s aura split one last time, but instead of rage, there was reluctant respect. ”So the oath wasn’t a bluff. You already knew you would win after seeing the previous fight.”

”Yep,” Marcus said simply and left. ”But the oath bolstered my resistance against your mark’s effects. For a second, I was also worried, haha.”

”Reckless.” The wolf collapsed. His sigil dimmed into nothingness.

Vier’s eyes glinted. ”He used the mark as a conduit to fuel his power. That’s an interesting technique. I would have loved to have his Grim Tree’s abilities, haha.”

Admiral Rudra laughed, full and deep. ”He doesn’t defend. He provokes.”

”Well, that’s just two. You still have five more to defeat, and each one is stronger than the last.” Vier grinned.