The Monarch

Chapter 324: David Nakir

"This mask will make our identity anonymous throughout the tower. Not even a god will be able to see through it. This is good so that we won’t be related to our true identity on the outside." Kayden, at the moment, was a stranger, but there was no harm in being cautious.

The next few floors were completed by Kayden at high speed. Most consisted of simple challenges for their kingdom: labyrinths, beasts to face, riddles, and mana problems, all with a high degree of difficulty for people of the second and first kingdoms.

Kayden also had to face some ill-intentioned people, but at most he encountered some fourth-realm mages with little talent. The only difference was the number of elaborate and unique techniques he saw; practically no magician used the same techniques in this place.

There were many different races in various places, and the number of living beings was simply absurd. For each floor he passed, the complexity of life and environments increased. From artificial worlds with space repetition, they began to become real worlds with resources and civilizations.

On the floor Kayden was on, he needed to qualify in the annual Glorious Kingdom’s Best competition. It wasn’t something really difficult considering that the average level of strength was only at the third realm. This was an undeveloped world, but Kayden learned, after a few months here, why: people on the outside practically forced all newcomers not to spread decent information here.

It was practically a virgin world developing little by little. Some wizards from the fifth realm came to talk to Kayden as soon as he appeared on this floor. The boy had no problem following their orders to avoid problems.

This was one of the floors that took him the longest to complete, as he couldn’t go directly and kill everyone to get to the next floor. He needed to gain the respect of one of the dominant kingdoms in this world and only then could he move on to the next stage.

The competition was held on a huge cherry-colored lawn, with heel-high grass. The wind, which passed at a very high speed, gave a magical touch to the environment. Spectators were seated in armchairs and chairs scattered haphazardly around the place.

It was an atmosphere of family and friendship. No people were shouting or hiding their eyes from the children. Dozens of picnic tables, where each family brought their food to be shared, were arranged irregularly across the lawn.

It would be a perfect place if it weren’t all caused by hypnosis and illusion spells. Kayden felt his mind being manipulated into smiling and being friendly. Negative emotions were unnaturally suppressed in this place.

Kayden was sitting at one of the tables closest to the center. All his opponents were around him and ate the same food provided by the kingdom. The smiles and conversations were real and not forced.

He entered this competition as a commoner born in a distant village. That was his background. His identity should have caused repulsion among the nobles, but even this type of reaction was not shown.

"Welcome, people of the kingdom. Your king will preside over this competition and seek out the best talent to protect us." A manly-looking man appeared. He wore full black stone armor and, on his head, he had a golden crown.

"The battle is very simple. We will raise a transparent bubble and you will go up with everyone at your table. Whoever is left standing wins. We have a total of 30,000 tables with dozens of people, so we can’t take too long for each battle. The bubble will diminish over time."

As the king spoke, Kayden saw a huge bubble appearing floating in the center. It then split into a few hundred smaller bubbles. Each person received a sign to identify themselves.

At Kayden’s table, there were only people from the third realm. That wouldn’t even be a worthy battle; It would practically be a massacre.

"Good luck everyone and remember you can die at any moment. Know how to recognize your limits." With the king’s speech, Kayden felt his body begin to levitate and could not resist the foreign mana.

Quickly, he was hoisted into one of the bubbles along with three dozen other people. In this world, everyone was a normal human like Kayden, but their mouths were split in half into two different cavities. Kayden let everyone face each other before making his appearance, showing that he had the honor of giving the weakest a chance.

As soon as the last wizard remained, Kayden came out of his camouflage and dealt just one blow to his opponent.

Initially, few people paid attention to him, but when this pattern repeated itself over the next three bubbles he passed, Kayden began to gain some notoriety, although not much, as other climbers were also doing the same.

Many climbers participated in this competition, and it was usually only they who achieved a good classification, as the techniques abroad were much stronger than those in a rudimentary country.

At the moment, Kayden was already starting to face strong people, but he had not yet faced any other climbers. The leaders did this so that everyone could reach a stage where they could walk.

After several rounds, Kayden finally fell against the first climber. It wasn’t a difficult battle; in fact, it was extremely easy as the climber was only at the base of the fourth realm and possessed ridiculously weak techniques.

Everything was going well for Kayden. He managed to win all the clashes without any difficulty and gained fame among the championship spectators. However, not everything is perfect.

David Nakir.

The mad scientist was in the same place as Kayden and entered the bubble with him. Kayden froze for a few seconds as thousands of memories from many centuries ago flashed through his mind.

David was in the fourth kingdom and looked much younger than before. Her disheveled white hair was now green and well-kept, straight, and tied into a bun. The scientist was never old in Kayden’s memories, but he remembered that David had some signs of age.

Mr. Nakir was without wrinkles and his hands were steady. There was no sign of age on his body. Kayden began to remember the details that were engraved in his mind, regardless of centuries.

His emotions were normal. Kayden didn’t even have a spike of hatred or any other feeling as he looked at David, just the surprise of seeing his old friend in such a random and remote place.

It had been so long that Kayden didn’t even care about the man’s existence anymore. I didn’t feel resentment or any other emotion, just nothing. It was as if he was seeing a stranger in front of him.

He probably would have just taken David out of the picture if it weren’t for one small detail: David’s actions caused the death of Han, the only person Kayden still had any value in his mind. Therefore, the scientist would have to die there.

Kayden once again camouflaged himself when entering the room. Of all the people in the bubble, only three managed to notice his presence, one of them being David, which made them afraid to face each other. It didn’t even take a few seconds for the natives to be disqualified, leaving only David and another wizard who was able to detect Kayden earlier. No one made any move until...

Kayden began to draw a ridiculous amount of mana into himself, utilizing his maximum capacity. The amount of mana he was able to manipulate was surreal, causing the environment to quickly become charged.

No one knew exactly where this amount of mana came from or where it was going. Kayden’s presence was camouflaged by the immense amount of mana around him.

Before either of Kayden’s two opponents could sense his presence or attacks, he conjured twelve fully enlarged hexagrams for the fourth realm. His attack broke the sound barrier and exceeded speeds of over 10 kilometers per second.

"Shit…" David didn’t have time to say anything as he tried to defend himself from the attack. He had no time to give up and must do his best to survive. In the past, scientists fought with animals and beasts within their reach, but that was in the past.

David erected ten transparent barriers in front of him as if they were nothing, and just as he had an easy time doing so, Kayden’s aura cut had an easy time breaking each of his defenses.

The scientist managed to gain less than a second with this, but it was enough for him to erect a stronger barrier with the ability to dissipate the foreign mana within it. As soon as the aura slash entered, it began to be heavily weakened. David quickly put up a few more barriers. The scientist had specialized in mental and pure mana spells, which gave him incredible ease in casting several protections in a row.