Chapter 199: Time’s Up
When Priam’s words echoed through the air, the entire arena fell into deathly silence.
No one blinked. No one breathed. Most people froze where they stood, staring at him with dumbfounded expressions, wondering if they’d heard him right.
One against ten? Had he completely lost his mind?
These weren’t ten ordinary disciples. They were disciples from the strongest Outer Branch!
Ignoring all the stunned looks, Priam took his first step. With his hands in his pockets and an absurdly relaxed posture, he calmly walked toward the martial stage at the center of the arena.
When he stopped in the middle of the martial stage, he turned to Validar and frowned with genuine confusion.
"What, old man? You deaf? I just got back from a trip, I’m dead tired, and I’ve got better things to do. Send all ten at once."
The response was immediate. The disciples of the 8th Outer Branch burst into hysterical laughter, as if they’d just heard the most ridiculous joke of their lives.
Validar, however, didn’t laugh. His face darkened terribly. If he won this match in a way that looked questionable or unfair, the sect might invalidate the result.
He turned toward Mishnar, his eyes blazing with fury.
"Elder Leader Mishnar! What is the meaning of this circus?! Are you really going to let this brat turn a Branch duel into this farce?!"
Mishnar was clearly stunned on the inside, her mouth slightly open. But when she looked at Priam and saw that aura of absolute calm and disdain, she felt strangely reassured.
She had already placed the entire matter in his hands. Backing down now would be spitting on her own words.
Keeping her flawless composure, Mishnar replied in a cold voice,
"How he chooses to conduct this fight is entirely his decision."
"Good! Excellent!" Validar barked with a cruel laugh. He turned toward the back and waved his hand. "All ten of you, get on the stage!"
The ten disciples of the 8th Outer Branch jumped into the arena, surrounding the stage.
At that moment, with an utterly serious expression, Mishnar activated the martial stage’s inscription. A barrier rose around it, sealing off the center beneath a faint yellow dome.
Validar stared at Priam with a sadistic look.
"Since you’re so determined to commit suicide, brat, remember this: blades have no eyes. If you insist on resisting and end up crippled or half dead, you’ll have no one to blame but your own stupidity."
Priam didn’t even blink. He simply yawned and lazily waved a hand.
"Less barking, more fighting. Hurry it up. Come on, attack me. I’ll give all of you that chance."
Yet none of the ten disciples moved.
An awkward silence settled over the arena.
For the elite disciples of the 8th Outer Branch, ganging up on a single kid from that "beggar Branch" was an enormous humiliation. Their pride simply wouldn’t allow them to stoop that low.
The leader of the 3rd faction of the 8th Outer Branch was among them. He was a lean but muscular young man who looked at his companions with obvious disdain.
"I’m not dirtying my hands beating up that pathetic guy. But the Elder Leader’s orders are absolute. So... who’s volunteering?"
"Exactly!" another disciple laughed, crossing his arms. "If all of us gang up on one miserable loser, people are gonna think the 8th Outer Branch came here to beat up a stray dog! That’s just embarrassing."
A third one spat on the ground with a mocking grin.
"Zidrich, you’re the weakest out of us. Just go slap him around a bit. It’s not even worth wasting energy drawing your sword."
The mage named Zidrich immediately frowned and refused without hesitation. And so, all ten of them kept throwing out venomous insults.
It made the blood of most of the 11th Outer Branch disciples boil with rage in the stands.
But among the members of Priam’s faction, Lumiere and the others didn’t show even the slightest trace of doubt or fear. They looked at Priam with their heads held high, their eyes shining with anticipation.
And a little farther back, Dandara watched Priam without blinking.
Her posture was calm, but the light in her eyes had changed completely. A sharp, dangerous, almost fanatical aura overflowed from her.
While the ten of them kept arguing as if he didn’t even exist, Priam simply waited in silence.
Two minutes passed.
Priam let out a long sigh and snapped his fingers, cutting off their chatter.
"That’s enough. I’m giving you exactly five seconds to attack me. After that, your window of opportunity closes."
The ten disciples stopped arguing and looked at him, snorting with laughter.
"Five seconds? Hahaha! Brat, just surrender while you’ve still got all your teeth!" the faction leader mocked as he stepped forward.
The others threw out random taunts.
"Time’s up," Priam muttered calmly.
[Activate Power Rune?] [Yes / No]
Priam confirmed.
*RUMBLE!*
In the very next millisecond, the atmosphere inside the arena completely collapsed.
Priam activated a Yin Enchantment Rune. It was designed to multiply the potential of predominantly Yin energies several times over. He had used something like this before, but this time... the Power Rune had been crafted using extremely high-level Yin crystals from the Divine Plane.
An overwhelming explosion of razor-sharp wind blasts erupted from his body, like the omen of the end of the world. The pressure of the winds was so sudden and overwhelming that the entire barrier surrounding the martial stage began to shake violently.
Validar’s and Mishnar’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
That barrier was a basic one, but it was strong enough to block several full-power attacks from a Mage Master.
How the hell could a mere Mage Disciple make it almost explode just by releasing his power?!
Before anyone could even blink...
*Woosh!*
Priam vanished like a ghost.
He appeared directly above the group.
What followed wasn’t a fight.
It was a natural disaster.
He simply threw a punch, using the wind element in the most brutal way possible.
He didn’t use his attack technique because he knew that if he did, he’d kill almost all of them.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM!*
Priam’s punch crashed down on them like a falling mountain.
The entire floor of the martial arena exploded into countless pieces! The reinforced stone ground shattered like thin glass, and the protective barrier surrounding the stage cracked from top to bottom before bursting apart in a spectacular shower of magical fragments!
A massive cloud of dust and debris shot into the sky, swallowing the entire arena.
A few seconds later, the wind swept the dust away, revealing the scene.
The shock was so overwhelming that the hearts of everyone in the audience nearly stopped beating.
Nine of the ten elite disciples were sprawled across the shattered ground. Their bodies were twisted at grotesque angles, completely broken, covered in blood, and unconscious.
And standing at the center of the destruction... was Priam.
He was holding the tenth disciple—the faction leader—up by the neck.
The young man, who had been so arrogant just moments ago, was now trembling uncontrollably, his eyes wide with absolute terror as he choked, desperately trying to pry Priam’s hand off his throat.
Priam merely snorted, staring at him with cold, emotionless eyes.
"Pathetic... Even the weakest Corrupted Beast I killed had better reflexes and a more functional brain than you."
*BANG!*
With one sharp motion, Priam drove a punch into the leader’s stomach.
The young man flew like a projectile across the arena before crashing violently into the distant spectator stands.
It was over.
A single second.
A single move.
The entire arena fell into a catatonic silence. No one spoke. No one moved. Even Validar was frozen.
He didn’t dare say something stupid like Priam had attacked by surprise, or that his disciples hadn’t been ready and got caught off guard.
After all, he was a veteran Sage who had survived countless bloody battles. He had fought his entire life, and no one understood overwhelming gaps in strength better than he did.
If Priam had fought all one hundred of those disciples at the same time, fully armed and going all out from the very beginning, they might have lasted only a few more moves.
That was all.
The figure standing before him...
Validar couldn’t classify it. He couldn’t even believe what he was sensing.
’Is... this really the power of an immature Celestial Mage?’ he thought in horror.
As for the people of the 11th Outer Branch...
The Priam standing before them looked like a true God of War—an absolute existence with overwhelming power, capable of crushing every belief and certainty they had in the blink of an eye.
As for Mishnar...
Priam’s words, ’Even the weakest Corrupted Beast I killed...’, shook her to the core, because she knew exactly where he had been sent.