Void Evolution System

Unlike the first round, the second round consisted of three separate events. If one person could win multiple times, they'd be granted the win. Otherwise, the winners of the separate events would fight to determine their podium positions.

The first round was an obstacle course.

Sandstone walls roughly fifty feet high sectioned off the course and created a sort of labyrinth scheme for the geniuses to follow.

However, they only needed to follow the path. They didn't need to find the correct way through.

In this challenge, it was what lay within the paths that mattered. Challenges that tested their agility, dexterity, strength, balance, and other bodily strengths were everywhere.

There were no limits on how the geniuses could pass through these areas. As long as they could make it to the other side, their solution was valid.

The obstacles, of course, scaled to match the strength of the people facing them. This was to prevent stronger geniuses from just leaping over them.

Naturally, flying was also disallowed.

It was a sufficiently complicated course.

At least, for most.

Melania had an undeniable advantage in the first sector of this round.

She looked over the sandstone walls and walked through the path to see just what was waiting for her on the other side.

She found herself at the first obstacle quite soon.

The path broke away, separated from the other side by a massive river.

There were stone steps all across the river's surface, making it obvious that she was meant to use them to cross.

However, each one moved. Some bobbed up and down. While others moved several meters in random directions.

Since there wasn't an overarching pattern, it was a matter of both instinct and wits.

'Hmm…'

Melania furrowed her brows.

The others were probably already well on their way through this first obstacle.

'But do I have to do that?'

She looked at the walls around her again and had a thought.

'They said anything goes as long as I don't fly.'

Any solution she came up with was good, right?

Melania walked back to the start and once again stared at the wall in front of her.

The look in her eyes changed. The emotion within died, replaced by a sharp will to execute whatever action she was about to take.

She stepped forward twice and raised her leg.

Her muscles tensed, power flowed through her every fiber, and as she brought it back down again…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The entire course felt her wrath.

The earth split. Cracks ran up the walls and destroyed them, causing them to fall to the ground in massive chunks.

The tremor she caused only spread and spread. Her section of the course was enveloped in dust and the chaotic rumbling of countless structures falling to the ground.

The audience's attention was immediately sucked into what she was doing.

But there was nothing much to see until it was over.

After several minutes of pure cacophony, the dust cleared, revealing to everyone what just one stomp was able to do.

There was nothing separating Melania from the end of the course.

All walls, all obstructions, and all obstacles had been decimated.

The river from before was now filled with massive chunks of stone.

There were many sections of plain flat stone where the challenges likely lined the walls, and there were even more scenes of obstacles like walls of moving blades that were now just piles of scrap metal on the ground.

This…was not how the challenge was supposed to go.

This was a gross misrepresentation of just how hard it was to get through the course.

It was completely unexpected, but as the tournament staff took another look at the rules they'd established, they realized that nothing about her actions violated the rules.

She didn't fly, and technically, she didn't cheat by using her strength.

The restriction was specifically put in place so a 4th class dragon and a 3rd class dragon experienced the same difficulty on the same course.

It was meant to assure that they wouldn't abuse their power, but was that what Melania did?

She faced obstacles that were properly scaled to her power level.

Yet, with physical strength alone, she was able to destroy them all.

That was within her rights as a contestant. It was her way of showing the people running the tournament that she was more than what they marked her as.

And, as if to rub it in their faces, Melania followed the original path.

She casually hopped across the massive chunks of sandstone in the river and made it to the other side. She walked with ease through a chasm that suffered the same fate, one that she was meant to cross by climbing the walls.

She did every obstacle she found, but because she'd destroyed the course, it was practically just showing off.

Naturally, Melania was the first to finish.

The second didn't join her until almost an hour had passed.

Melania's training was anything but useless.

Another commoner shocked the world in the first few rounds of the heir wars, but she wasn't the only one.

Lucas was also a part of her group, and Ophelia would appear in the group after them.

As a group, including August and Valerie, the five of them were the ones representing the common people.

They were the only ones able to stand on equal footing with the rest of their competition.

No, perhaps equal footing was an understatement.

If it was this group of geniuses, who achieved great things with their earnest efforts and talents…

…there was a chance for the common people to start dreaming about defeating their oppressors.

***

It was something that was always bound to happen.

Half of the reason for August to participate in the heir wars was to give the common people spirit. The other half was, of course, to take back his throne.

That throne was not empty, but it also was not held by an enemy.

For someone like August, the Dragon Emperor was an entity too far away to understand.

But to his father, it was different.

Damien stuck around to watch the labyrinth challenge. He was in the stands as August put up a valiant effort and beat out his competition.

The moment it ended, however, he was already gone.

August had returned to the island to do his own thing, which Damien expected.

Now that his son was properly established in the outside world, he could start focusing on hisownaffairs again.

An entire month had flown by since he slowed his search for the Dragon Emperor.

Coincidentally enough, it was during that month when he found proper clues leading to that man's location.

It wasn't much, but it was more than enough for someone with Damien's capabilities.

So, as soon as he returned to the search with his main body, it was already over.

The Dragon Emperor, a man whose true name had been forgotten by society, a man who was only ever known in reverence by the common people who told tales about his title.

Damien arrived where that man was hiding to have a proper conversation with him.

There were some things that neededstraightening out.

And if the Dragon Emperor couldn't give an appropriate explanation, then it wasn't a problem to make him disappear.