Death... and me

Kayla, obviously, heard that remark from far away. After all, the top powers watching the competition didn't try to hide their thoughts at all. Of course, Kayla wouldn't say anything either since her sect couldn't afford to buy a fight with those people. 'Hmph! If my sect was as good as yours, I wouldn't stay silent without saying anything.'

However, it didn't take long for these same powers to start looking in the direction of Lukimira Sect, much to their distress. 'Well, I don't want you to notice us either,' she thought soon after.

With those top guilds, sects, information networks and so on, it wasn't hard for them to find out where Lukimira Sect's elders were sitting. However, they didn't say anything else after that. One must remember that Rean was still too far behind the top contestants. So what if he was deactivating the formations very fast now? The ones Rean was passing through at the moment were several times easier than the ones their Golden-level Formation Masters are working on.

Back in the Formation Master competition, Rean didn't know what the Lukimira Sect's elders were going through at all. Even if he knew, he wouldn't care anyway. It's not like he could do anything.

Another hour went by, and Rean's pace began to fall. Rean wasn't surprised by that, though. 'Sure enough, it takes me some extra time to analyze and decide where to intervene in these harder formations.'

Nonetheless, Rean jumped straight to 278 points in the last hour. That was a gargantuan difference in display to what he showed in the four hours before that. For example, due to the formations' difficulty, the first place had only gone from 375 points to 392. The other Golden-level Formation Masters behind him were the same.

By now, the elders who wanted to ignore Rean's presence began to feel that he might really be a threat to their participants. Lukimira Sect and Qianbel Sect weren't the only ones who had internal disputes that used the assembly to be resolved. Most of the organizations there also did the same. Rean's sudden contention would obviously put more oil in the fire.

Six hours after the competition started, Rean had finally caught up to the first Golden Initial-Level Formation Master of the competition. Her name was Kabaia, a member of a strong sect called Sunset Storm. This sect wasn't part of the top three sects of Cosec City, but it was still within its top 20 sects or so.

"Rean now has 331 points, and so does Kabaia..." The elders of the Sunset Storm Sect didn't have good expressions on their faces. However, they quickly calmed down as they also understood something. "Hehe! They used to be almost two hours ahead, and he's already there." Right after, they looked at the other elders with disciples at the front of the Formation Master competition. "It won't be long before he catches up to you guys as well."

The Sunset Storm Leader's words immediately changed the other participants' expressions, especially the Qoveq Union, a private organization of mercenaries from Cosec City. They just so happened to have a disciple there too, and Rean's next target would exactly be him.

Rean stopped in front of the next formation as he analyzed it. 'Oh! This one and the other formations ahead are quite harder. No wonder this guy has been here for the last five minutes, trying to deactivate it.' Rean then smiled as his runes began to fly into the formation. They targeted the flaws left behind, cutting all supplies of Divine Energy from the formation. 'This one took me half a minute. I guess I'm reaching the limit of my level.'

Soon, Rean reached the Qoveq Union's Formation Master, obtaining the same points as him. However, that didn't last long, as the moment Rean arrived in the formation, his score surpassed the other guy.

In the elders' room, the Qoveq Union's elders couldn't help but sigh. "In the end, that Lukimira Sect disciple didn't even have to make more points. Tovey damaged the formation on his own and lost three points."

That was correct. Even Rean noticed when the formation got damaged, having quite a few runes inside destroyed. 'Well, he just lost three points. He can make those points again by deactivating the next formations.' Rean then put those thoughts behind and started to work on his own formation.

As always, everyone couldn't repeat the same type of formation before they deactivated at least one of each type before restarting. If one damaged the formation they were working on, one could not jump to the next type. One had to find one of the same kind and deactivate it. That was to prevent the participants from purposely damaging the formations they were bad at to jump to the ones they were good at. Even if one lost three points, as long as one was good at the other types, one could recover those points and make more on top of that. Naturally, this strategy didn't work with that rule.

The more formations Rean passed through, the longer he took to deactivate them. Rean came to understand that he was basically lacking in knowledge about Golden-level Formations, having to find alternatives for each new challenge ahead. Nevertheless, his pace was still much faster than those who passed by the same place before.

When the seventh hour arrived, Rean caught up to the third place. Both he and the other guy had the same 389 points. The second had 401, while the first place kept a good distance with his 416 points.

At some moment in the elders' room, Miame got up and began to walk in the direction of the Lukimira Sect. She wasn't the only one, though. The Formation Master Guild Leader did the same. It seemed like they both had something to talk about with Kayla and the others.

Miame was the first to open her mouth, asking, "That is your sect's disciple, right?"

Kayla could only nod as she asked, "Yes, why?"