Not long after Damien, the rest of the 6 also removed the alcohol's effects from their systems. Qing Tan returned to her previous indifferent face, but she still wouldn't look him in the eye.
'Did I go overboard?'
Damien wondered as he thought about the awkward atmosphere between them. But in the end, he shook off the thought. What was done was done. If he needed to apologize he'd do it when they were in a more appropriate setting.
"It looks like the number has been cut down to a tenth of what it originally was." He muttered.
From the start, this must've been the goal. What made Damien sigh was the fact that the six who survived were the ones at the head of the table.
With how things were laid out, it didn't seem like much of a surprise that the six of them would be the last ones standing.
Three of them were 4th class existences, so even if they were at a disadvantage in every other field they could still use the sheer amount of mana they had to brute force their way to success.
As for the other three, Damien and Feng Qing'er had extremely powerful purification forces in their bodies. As for Qing Tan, her affinity towards anything related to darkness was so great that it was scary. Resisting the effects of toxic substances wouldn't be as hard for her as it was for others.
'Haa…if it was preordained for us to be the last ones standing at the end, what was the point of going through all the trouble to kill everyone?'
Why were the other 55 even brought to this dining hall besides to die? Damien didn't know. The inheritance site simply seemed to thirst for blood.
As Damien was lost in thought, the scenery of the dining hall slowly began to change.
The long dining table and all the seats disappeared, except for the seat at the head of the table. All the doors vanished off the walls and the room became a sealed space.
Abruptly, Damien felt his body become covered in spatial fluctuations. Although he wasn't transported very far, he was still in a different portion of the dining hall.
With his perception, he could see the difference clearly. The dining hall had been split into six sections, one for each remaining contestant. Each section was a separate space, hence the spatial fluctuations he had sensed.
'Looks like the final trial is also an individual one.' He thought inwardly as he examined his space. Unfortunately, there was nothing special at all.
Damien sat down in meditation and cooled down his mind. The prior events had been too stimulating, and he needed to get back to a focused state.
As he did so, yet another change occurred. The ground split open and a long coffin was erected from below.
Damien stood up and inspected it. 'There's nothing out of the ordinary about it, but this coffin doesn't have a lid. It's sealed shut.'
Damien wondered what he was supposed to do, but went with the most practical option. He put his hand on the top of the coffin and infused his mana into it.
Click!
As if to prove he made the right choice, the lid of the coffin slightly separated from the body, giving him room to pry it open.
Voom!
A powerful aura suddenly filled the space around Damien.
'Even though the coffin is still closed, the aura of whoever is within is still so fierce! What kind of figure could it be?'
Damien was starting to get curious. Considering that he was in an inheritance site, there was no way the owner of the coffin was a simple person.
Without waiting any longer, he pried open the lid.
Boom!
The aura became exponentially powerful once the coffin lid was removed. Damien felt like he was hit by a truck due to the sheer pressure of the aura.
Swoosh!
Something emerged from the coffin and blasted towards Damien's face.
"Woah!"
He immediately teleported away, but the unknown item chased after him just as fast.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The air around him was cut open as the unknown object pursued him. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that if it hit him, he'd be easily injured.
'It's not so easy to cut through my skin…what is this thing?'
Damien melded into the spatial layers and tried to observe the attacking object. But when he tried to do so…
Whoosh!
"What the hell?!"
The object chased him into the spatial layers. Unless one was a space practitioner, it should be impossible to even perceive the spatial layers. Regardless of how powerful one was, this fact remained true.
Even if powerful experts could perceive the existence of the spatial layers, and could perceive people who traveled through them, they couldn't enter or perceive the spatial layers themselves.
But Damien was currently experiencing a situation where even the spatial layers weren't safe. The unknown object darted after him no matter how much he teleported. It entered and exited the spatial layers freely as if it was a fish in water.
"I can't run!"
Damien coated his fist in Void Flames and punched out.
Boom!
The object pierced through the space between his knuckles and cleaved his hand in two.
"Fuck!"
Damien's hand rapidly healed, but he had already been caught off guard. Before he was even able to throw another fist forward, the object had impossibly changed its trajectory and arrived directly in front of his chest.
The object continued forward trying to run him through, but Damien instantly activated his dragon bloodline and transformed.
Clang!
A dull sound rang out as the object impacted his scales. Although it was still able to pierce through, it took a great deal of effort.
And in that moment that it slowed down, Damien was finally able to see its appearance.
It was clear, almost transparent. It looked like it had been carved out of glass. But unlike delicate glass, its body was sturdy enough to clash with Damien's dragon scales and even overcome them.
It was roughly 1.5 meters long from head to toe. The guard was shaped like a dragon soaring through the sky, and it had a single-edged blade that was shaped much more uniquely than the blades Damien had seen in the past.
It was truly a beautiful sword that made Damien covet it, but he wasn't given much time to admire it as he pleased.
After all, the sword was earnestly trying to kill him at the moment.
'I see. Is this the trial? To tame such a ferocious sword…what great timing!'
His sword had broken only recently in his battle against Polius. The most shameful part was that it had broken under the stress of his own attack.
It was his own fault. He had a blade that could grow as long as it devoured other swords, but he had never properly fed it.
Looking at the blade in front of him, Damien felt an undeniable urge to obtain it.
"Don't worry. I'll conquer you soon. And unlike what I did with the last one, I'll treat you right. So, quiet down and obediently become mine!"
