Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 301: The Tournament’s Wild Card

Glox exhaled, the glow of his dark green aura slowly fading from the area as he turned towards Jamie who was perched on a tree stump.

"Can you, I don’t know, maybe give me a heads-up next time?"

Jamie, clapping like he had just watched a mildly entertaining scene from a movie, only laughed.

"Where’s the fun in that?"

Glox could only heave an exasperated sigh at Jamie’s response.

’This guy is... something else.’

Glox’s feelings toward Jamie were complicated, to say the least.

On one hand, Jamie was the reason he was alive. After all, Jamie had quite literally snatched his soul away before it could be claimed by death, kept it with him, and then crafted a new body for him.

You’d think Glox would be grateful for that.

But here was the problem—Jamie was also the one who had killed him in the first place. In a rather brutal manner at that.

It had been over a year, but the memory of his first death was still fresh in Glox’s mind. He could recall every moment of it, every ounce of pain, every drop of blood.

And the worst part was that the Jamie who had done that to him had been so much weaker than the Jamie who sat before him now.

If Jamie had wanted to kill him now, it would be as easy as taking candy from a baby.

So, no matter how he really felt, no matter how much bitterness or hostility he held toward Jamie, Glox forced himself to curb it.

Because if Jamie ever decided he was annoying, or simply that he didn’t feel like keeping him around anymore, he could literally be snapped out of existence.

He’d seen the man crush an entire moon, so he knew Jamie could easily delete him from the story whenever he felt like it.

Of course, Jamie knew all of this. He could tell exactly what kind of thoughts Glox had toward him.

But when had Jamie ever cared?

Even now, entering this Summoners’ Grand Tournament, when he didn’t need to, when there was no reason for him to compete—he was here just for fun.

Jamie did what he wanted. Because he could.

And right now, what he wanted was to watch how this tournament played out.

◇　◇　◇

Just after dealing with their first five opponents, Jamie sensed a massive surge of energy crashing towards them from above.

Someone was trying to eliminate them from a distance.

Jamie tilted his head slightly, watching as the energy grew larger and larger, descending like a falling star.

The Tournament Rules dictated that summons were the primary combatants, while summoners were not allowed to engage directly. However, they could defend themselves if attacked and use support magic to aid their summons.

After all, what kind of summoner couldn’t at least buff their own summon?

While the summons were restricted to the Transcendent Realm, summoners themselves weren’t required to be at that level.

Those above Transcendence were limited by a barrier placed over the arena, reducing the potency of their buffs and lowering the damage threshold for their elimination—a small attempt at balance.

Of course, that restriction didn’t work on Jamie. But no one needed to know that.

While Jamie was thinking of this, the incoming attack finally reached them. Faced with it, Jamie just snapped his fingers and made his body intangible, a moment before the attack hit the ground and the entire area exploded.

A shockwave of destruction blasted outward, tearing through the trees, uprooting the earth, sending jagged debris flying in every direction.

The sheer force of the impact rippled across the battlefield, obliterating everything in a half-kilometre radius.

When the dust settled, the completely unscathed was revealed, his hands holding up his phone as he took selfies.

Glox, on the other hand, had to block the impact manually using a shield of darkness law energy. The moment the destruction died down, his wings snapped open, and he shot into the sky.

High above the clouds was the culprit, a massive hawk with wings spanning dozens of meters and a body wreathed in crackling golden energy.

Perched on its back was its summoner, a man with sharp features, clad in white battle robes, staring down at Jamie and Glox’s position.

Suddenly, the clouds parted and the man’s eyes widened in shock.

The hawk who had better kinetic vision, spotted the incoming Glox and let out a piercing cry, flaring its wings as it launched a barrage of feather-shaped projectiles, each one carrying enough kinetic force to smash through mountains.

Glox twisted mid-air, weaving through the barrage with superior agility. He closed the distance in an instant, claws flashing as he lashed out.

The hawk screeched and dodged his initial attack, but Glox zapped to its back in an instant and delivered a dropkick, forcing it to plummet.

The summoner barely had time to react before Glox ripped him off the hawk’s back, tossing him into freefall.

The hawk immediately dove after its master, wings beating furiously as it tried to catch him before he hit the ground.

But that was a big mistake.

Glox extended his clawed hands, drawing a circle in the air with magic power.

"Vorpal Desolation."

The circle glowed with dark green energy and from within it, a beam of negative energy shot downwards at hypersonic speed.

It reached its targets instantly, consuming both the hawk and its summoner with its negative force. Their bodies disintegrated as the teleportation system activated, and just like that, a sixth participant was eliminated.

Glox descended back to the ground, landing near Jamie and shooting him a forced neutral look.

"...so, can you now give me context so I can at least understand what’s going on here?"

"Do I need to?"

Jamie, who was busy creating an account on this planet’s most popular social media, responded without raising his gaze from his phone, earning a sigh from Glox.

Ignoring the sighing chimera, Jamie logged into his new account and checked the trending section. Unsurprisingly, he discovered videos and pictures of himself taken by the spectators, talking about how he’d wiped out six contestants in less than five minutes.

Even the most popular contestants had only taken out two or three.

To add fuel to the fire, Jamie posted the selfies he’d taken, using the tournament tags, before tossing his phone back into his subspace.

"You don’t need context about anything. Just kill anyone in sight. If you get into a pinch, I’d give you some support."

"..."

Glox narrowed his eyes when he heard Jamie’s words, but he knew the man wasn’t going to say any further so he just turned his focus to sensing if there were any nearby contestants.

◇　◇　◇

While Jamie was busy beating up hundreds of tournament contestants alongside Glox, Wanete was off in another part of the Arena, exploring.

The tournament wasn’t just for fighting and showcasing summons—it was a massive business opportunity.

Vendors from all over the world flocked to Elytherion, paying exorbitant fees for prime spots within the Arena grounds to sell their goods to the millions of spectators who came to watch the matches live.

Wanete strolled through one of these vendor-packed areas, casually taking a bite of her floating cotton candy while her fingers worked across her phone screen. She opened a stream of the ongoing free-for-all, and the sight immediately made her laugh.

’Lord Jamie’s being himself as usual, huh?’

The thought crossed her mind as she watched Jamie toss Glox like a p0kéball, sending him crashing right into the middle of five unsuspecting contestants who were battling themselves.

As someone who had been in Clurg during the Dungeon Break last January, Wanete recognized Glox instantly.

She had watched Jamie kill him and assumed that was the end of him. So, one could only imagine how surprised she was to see the monster again when she opened up the stream.

What’s more, he’d become a Transcendent in just one year.

’...I wonder how Lord Jamie did it...’

The young woman was naturally curious. Currently, she was Level 640, and she owed her rapid level increase to the snowy dimension gate Jamie had taken them into.

There, she had played a role in taking down Level 700+ beings, even landing some finishing blows—earning her a massive influx of EXP. David and Davina, while slightly lower, were in a similar level range.

She thought of her progress while idly surfing the net, noting that nearly every trending topic revolved around Jamie. Questions about his identity, origins, and motives flooded the discussion boards.

The tournament had captured the attention of the entire planet, and many well-known contestants had been pegged as favourites to win.

And then there was Jamie—an unknown newcomer eliminating dozens of those same favourites with disturbing ease.

More than that, Jamie was actively hunting them down.

The first time he took out one of the so-called top contenders, he had been casually scrolling through this world’s top social media right afterwards. Seeing the picture of the person he had just defeated trending as a prospective winner had made Jamie’s lips curl into an amused grin.

Wanete had taken one look at that expression and whispered a prayer for the rest of the tournament’s favourites.

Her premonition proved spot on as within the next ten minutes, Jamie eliminated twenty more tournament favourites.

He ignored the regular contestants entirely, buffing Glox to absurd levels so that he could one-shot them, focusing on the tournament favourites only.

Wanete had just watched him take down the twenty-first target when a sudden commotion pulled her attention away from her phone.

She was heading toward an arena exit, and nearby was a contestant registration area.

Earlier in the day, this place had been packed with hopeful participants, but now that the tournament was in full swing, it was mostly deserted. Even after expanding her perception to cover a 500-metre radius, Wanete could only detect less than ten people.