Chapter 85: An Anomaly.
"Ha... ha... ha... You, get, cough , what, you deserve..."
Demetris laughed with great difficulty as he watched Levi getting defeated under Nurah’s hands.
He never expected justice to be served so fast.
"Shut it. Shrimps can’t talk."
Alas, his laughter was short-lived as Nurah picked up a nearby small rock and threw it at his head without bothering to look at him.
"Aiiiiii!!"
The stone bounced off Demetris’ head, leaving him wincing in pain, but he kept his mouth shut this time.
"It’s a waste to eliminate you since it means I won’t be getting as much from our wager. But..." Nurah chuckled, "Unfortunately for you, I never cared that much about the payout."
Levi felt his heart skip a beat, realizing that Nurah wasn’t like him. He left Demetris alive so he could still stay top three in the rankings and earn his reward too.
But Nurah wasn’t as broke as him.
She made the wager because it would be fun beating him and taking his money... beating him was a priority on her list.
In other words, nothing was holding her back from eliminating him.
"I want to hear you say it."
Nurah smiled as she tightened her dagger near his throat, her obsidian, gorgeous eyes turning as frigid as the arctic ocean.
I surrender...
This was everything Nurah wanted to hear from Levi, and she made him understand that if he refused to say it, she had no problem cutting his throat open.
Unlike most aspiring Daywalkers, Nurah was an aspiring assassin Daywalker born into the best assassination family in the Northern Africa District. This implied that her life experiences were nowhere near the same as theirs.
Levi could sense it...Nurah had taken lives before, and they might have been human. Yet, he had no intentions of voicing his surrender... defeat in combat was one thing, surrender was another.
"I am afraid our fates are intertwined," Levi said calmly. "If I get eliminated, you will get eliminated... leaving the shrimp to win everything."
"What are you blabbering about?" Nurah knitted her eyebrows in displeasure. "Levi, don’t try to buy time with needless chatter... don’t treat me as an amateur like him."
Assholes, I am still here...
Demetris’ eyelids twitched in silence as he kept catching strays, yet had no power to defend himself.
"Look at the race track from the window and search for your doll." Levi smiled faintly. "You will understand."
Nurah assumed he was trying to distract her and escape, but when she heard the sudden gasps of the nightcrawlers, her curiosity was piqued.
"Don’t try anything foolish. I am not too proud of my trigger discipline."
Following her warning, Nurah kept her hand on Levi’s neck and stood up slowly until the entire race track was visible from the window.
She squinted in focus, trying to find her doll at the front of the line... her eyes tracked Jojo’s doll still being first, but when she looked behind it, she found neither her doll nor Levi’s!
That’s when the nightcrawlers’ stupefied commentary echoed across the arena and made her know exactly where to look.
Nurah and the viewers’ eyes swiftly traced back to the heart of the race, where most dolls were gathered. After they waddled away, two dolls were left behind.
When they saw their current position, their eyes couldn’t help but widen in disbelief.
Levi’s doll was sitting on top of Nurah’s doll with its wooden arm on its neck, forcing it to remain in its position while the rest of the dolls continued jogging to the finish line!!
Silence engulfed the arena for a single moment, and then...
–His doll has caught her doll!–
–What the f*ck am I watching?! Isn’t this supposed to be an automatic race?!–
–How is he controlling it?! Is his Spiritual Leywell unlocked already?!–
–He isn’t even contracted yet! Don’t tell me I found a psychic specialization Anomly in this forsaken land?!–
WeConnect exploded with tweets, yet it couldn’t compare to the noise produced by thousands of nightcrawlers combined!
The nightcrawlers were rarely amazed, as nothing much the candidates could do would make them go wow . They appreciated good fights and such... but it was nothing like finding an Anomly .
A term referring to special humans born with the best possible, inexplicable gifts... humans outside the normal scope used to gauge geniuses. Such a term had been bestowed upon only fifty beings worldwide for over a century now.
"You... How?"
Even Nurah was left bewildered, incapable of believing the sight before her.
"I don’t know you well enough to tell you," Levi replied calmly. "All you need to know is that I can implode my doll by overcharging it. If you don’t remove your dagger in the next five seconds, our dolls will shatter into pieces...eliminating us both."
Not giving a moment for Nurah to react, Levi started counting down from five, his tone monotonous and unfazed.
Four... Three...
Nurah’s heart skipped a beat with each second resounding in her ears. She was so close to Levi that she could hear his regulated heartbeats, making her understand that he wasn’t bluffing in the slightest!
Although she had no idea if he could truly implode the dolls or not, she wasn’t foolish enough to bet her elimination on a chance.
Two... One.
"Fine, you win."
Nurah swiftly withdrew the dagger from Levi’s throat and stepped away from him with a bothered expression.
Levi stood up slowly while massaging his neck, then picked up his black staff and placed it in its holster.
"Now, can you let go of my doll?"
Nurah knitted her eyebrows as she glanced through the window behind him, noticing that the rest of the dolls had already put a decent distance between them.
While she was confident in catching up to the heart, she doubted her chances of reaching Jojo and the other surviving frontrunners.
"Not so fast." Levi leaned against the wall and gestured with his head to the window. "Beat it."
Nurah’s eyelids twitched, realizing Levi had no intention of letting the hostage go until she left them alone.
"How about a one vs one to decide..."
"Nope, beat it."
"Come on, we can fight on the roof if you want an advantage..."
"Not interested."
"Are you scared of me?"
"Yes. Now walk away."
"..."
Nurah and the viewers were left speechless at how honest he was...he couldn’t care less about how others would perceive him.
It wasn’t an easy feat to admit your weakness... the beaten Demetris was living proof of what happened when one bit off more than he could chew.
Levi knew that Nurah was out of his league at the moment. She was simply too strong, even when she didn’t look like she was trying.
Although she took advantage of Levi limiting his echolocation in the corridor to get dangerously close, Levi knew that the result wouldn’t change.
He tasted her strength and speed firsthand.
He wasn’t dumb enough to risk elimination for a battle of pride when he had the upper hand.
"Tsk, I thought you were more fun than this." Nurah clicked her tongue in annoyance as she walked past him.
While she said this, her thoughts were the opposite. She knew Levi had made the smartest decision.
If he had accepted the one vs one, she would have ended it in less than thirty seconds. She wasn’t being cocky...she had watched him fight Demetris from a distance and figured out his true fighting level was still beginner.
Although he had insane reflexes, they weren’t enough against her.
As Levi watched her jump out the window and parkour from one building to another, akin to a black panther, he couldn’t help but marvel at her strength.
"It won’t be long before our roles change," He murmured as he traced her movements until she left his auditory vision range.
While it hadn’t been said, Levi and Nurah came to a silent agreement not to bother each other again in this trial...they would hate nothing more than seeing Demetris win the bet over them.
Speaking of the shrimp, his stunned eyes were still fixed on Levi after the latest announcement by the nightcrawlers that he might be an Anomly.
It wasn’t just him; all the viewers across the region were holding their breath in anticipation, waiting for Instructor Seraphis’ involvement to clear their doubts.
That’s because controlling the dolls implied two things... either he possessed a Shadowlife Seed or his Spiritual Leywell was unlocked without one.
Both implications were too serious to skim by.
Unfortunately, Instructor Seraphis was already knowledgeable about Levi’s insane spiritual prowess and what could have caused it.
Since he knew it was related to Levi’s vision impairment, he simply gave them a boring answer.
"Levi hasn’t broken the rules."
Hearing this, the nightcrawlers threw a thunderous tantrum as all of them wanted to know the truth.
Instructor Seraphis muted them with a snap of a finger and continued overseeing the trial and ongoing battles.
While the viewers turned to social media for speculation and answers, some even searching for Levi’s info, the sky started to get packed with nightcrawlers’ eyes.
The news traveled just as fast between nightcrawlers, attracting the attention of many new ones, seeking partnership with a gifted spiritual human.
Nothing was as gifted as an Anomly.
However, when they found out that Levi’s Light Affinity was questionable, a big chunk of them took off as fast as they came... Light Affinity was still king to most nightcrawlers.
"Big bro, are you okay?"
Suddenly, Arthur and Rayan appeared in the corridors after finishing off the other two candidates.
They were panting and drenched in sweat like they had sprinted all the way here.
If the two candidates didn’t chicken out after one slap from Arthur, forcing them to give chase, they would have finished the fight much faster and come to support him.
After listening to the nightcrawlers’ ruckus from afar, Arthur knew immediately it had something to do with his brother and came rushing back.
"I’m good. We need to check on Jojo and Melissa." Levi nodded as he walked past them.
Arthur and Rayan glanced at his back for a moment, then their eyes were pulled to the silent, tied-up Demetris in the corner.
"..."
"..."
"..."
All three of them stared at each other in silence for a few seconds before Arthur broke it with a solemn tone.
"You can’t park there."