"Holy cow, what terrifying power! Is this Inferno Knight's full strength?"
"Wang... Marcus has been holding back this whole time?!"
"With that kind of firepower, even a Five-Star beast is gonna feel it. Crestfall for the win!"
In the livestream, Marcus Ward's Inferno Knight had unleashed everything it had. The comment section from Crestfall students exploded with excitement the moment they saw it.
Flames surged around the knight's body, condensing into a protective barrier that crackled with destructive heat. Flame Shield. A defensive skill and an offensive weapon rolled into one.
At the same time, Inferno Knight's long spear began spinning at high speed, the friction igniting the air around it into a roaring vortex of fire that tore across the entire arena.
Flame Tornado.
Even through a screen, the heat distortion was visible. Inferno Knight looked like a war god draped in fire, radiating the kind of overwhelming pressure that made you instinctively want to step back. For a Four-Star Legacy Card Spirit, this was an incredible showing.
The Crestfall students had expected Marcus to struggle against a Five-Star opponent. They'd braced for a difficult fight, maybe even a loss. Instead, Marcus had gone on the offensive immediately, seizing the initiative with a full-power combination attack.
If this hit could injure the Wood Spirit Vine, even slightly, Inferno Knight might still have a shot.
Then the flames connected.
And nothing happened.
The inferno washed over the Wood Spirit Vine's body and just... stopped. The physical impact of the spear, the elemental fury of the flames, all of it died on contact, absorbed into an invisible barrier that coated the beast's surface like a second skin.
The cheering in the comments cut off mid-sentence.
"It's demon power." One student who recognized the beast typed frantically. "Wood Spirit Vine has this unique ability where it forms a layer of demon power on its surface that reduces all incoming damage. That combined with the level gap means..."
Means Inferno Knight couldn't even scratch it.
"Are you kidding me? If the defense can't be broken, then what's the point?"
Behind Inferno Knight, Marcus's expression had gone grim. But Wood Spirit Vine didn't care about his feelings.
Its vines moved with a fluidity that shouldn't have been possible for a plant. They whipped forward, wrapping around Inferno Knight with terrifying precision. The demon power coating the vines crushed through Flame Shield like it was made of tissue paper, snuffing out the protective barrier in an instant.
And then, before Marcus or anyone watching could fully process what was happening, Wood Spirit Vine opened its maw.
It swallowed Inferno Knight whole.
The moment the knight disappeared inside, Marcus felt the bond between himself and his Card Spirit sever. Clean. Final. Inferno Knight was done.
"Hiss..." Even Marcus couldn't stop the chill crawling up his spine. Four-Star and Five-Star were technically both Intermediate, separated by a single star. But the actual gap in power wasn't even close to being on the same level.
This was why star levels existed. To remind every novice Card Master that the numbers mattered, and ignoring the gap between them was a good way to get yourself killed.
As Inferno Knight fell, Marcus turned into a flash of white light and vanished from the exam space.
On the other side of the bracket, Hailey North's Water Azure Beast was fighting the same battle. And losing.
Water Azure Beast's quality was higher than Inferno Knight's. One full tier higher. Under normal circumstances, that should've been an advantage.
But circumstances weren't normal. Wood Spirit Vine had an elemental advantage over water-type Card Spirits, and "higher quality" didn't mean much when your attacks were being countered by the laws of nature.
Water Azure Beast had its own damage reduction skill, and for a while, it held on. Took hit after hit. Absorbed punishment that would've crushed most other Four-Star cards.
But holding on and winning were two very different things.
The vines came again. And again. And again. Each strike cracked through another layer of defense, each impact a little deeper than the last. Water Azure Beast let out a long, mournful cry as its form began to waver, the light in its body flickering.
Then Wood Spirit Vine opened its mouth.
Same ending. Same result. Swallowed whole.
Hailey watched her Card Spirit disappear. A bitter smile crossed her face, there and gone in an instant, before she too dissolved into light and left the exam space behind.
"Called it," said roughly half the comment section.
Watching Marcus and Hailey get eliminated within seconds of each other wasn't a surprise. If anything, it was confirmation of what most people had suspected the moment Five-Star beasts entered the picture.
Lower levels beating higher levels sounded great in theory. In practice? There was a reason the grading system existed.
"Marcus and Hailey both went down to Wood Spirit Vine. Guess that settles the rankings for this exam." The Crestfall and Ironvale students were disappointed but pragmatic. A Four-Star card losing to a Five-Star beast wasn't shameful. It was just math.
"That's you guys from Crestfall and Ironvale," a Westbridge student typed. "Don't include us."
"What?"
"Something big just happened. Get to Luke's stream. RIGHT NOW. Westbridge just produced a monster."
What?
The Crestfall and Ironvale students were confused, but with both their champions eliminated, there was literally nowhere else to go. They flooded into Luke's feed.
And froze.
"Hold on. Marcus and Hailey are both gone, but Luke is still in there?!"
"Why is he fighting a Fury Tiger? Wasn't it supposed to be Wood Spirit Vine?!"
The confusion was instant and widespread. Everyone who'd just watched Marcus and Hailey get demolished by Wood Spirit Vine was now staring at Luke's screen, where a completely different Five-Star beast was standing in front of Mana.
Not Wood Spirit Vine. Fury Tiger. A Five-Star Rare quality beast. Stronger than the Wood Spirit Vine that had just ended both of their runs.
"Cheating! There's definitely something shady going on!"
"Oh, shut UP." The Westbridge students were having none of it. "Wood Spirit Vine is Five-Star Normal quality. Fury Tiger is Five-Star Rare. That's a harder fight, not an easier one. You want to swap? Be our guest."
The accusation died on arrival.
"So where did Wood Spirit Vine go?" someone asked carefully.
"You wanna know?" A Westbridge student's reply dripped with satisfaction. "She tore through it in about eight seconds flat. Didn't even break a sweat."
Impossible.
That was the immediate, visceral reaction from every Crestfall and Ironvale student reading those words. Wood Spirit Vine had just devoured Inferno Knight and Water Azure Beast like they were snacks. How could Luke's Card Spirit have...
But a portion of the crowd kept their heads. Fingers found the replay button.
And there it was.
In the footage, Wood Spirit Vine lashed out first, exactly like it had against Marcus and Hailey. Vines whipped forward, demon power coating their surface, fast enough to blur.
Mana sidestepped the first vine like it was moving in slow motion. A second vine snapped at her legs and she hopped over it, twirling her staff once, twice, letting the momentum carry her into a lazy midair spin. She looked bored.
Wood Spirit Vine committed everything. Every vine, every tendril, a full-body assault from all directions.
Mana dropped out of her spin, planted her staff, and the air around her crackled. A pulse of dark energy rippled outward from the staff's tip, shredding through the vine barrage like they were made of wet paper. The demon power coating, the defense that had stopped Inferno Knight's full combination attack cold, peeled apart and disintegrated on contact.
Wood Spirit Vine had just enough time to recoil before the remaining wave of Dark Magic Attack hit its core. The beast came apart in a shower of fragments, scattering into nothing.
Start to finish, the fight lasted maybe eight seconds. Mana hadn't used a single defensive move. She'd treated the entire encounter like a warm-up stretch.
"She... she just dismantled it?"
"The thing that ate Inferno Knight and Water Azure Beast alive, and she just toyed with it?"
"HOW?!"
The comment section went nuclear.
Plz Throw Powerstones.