How To Survive A Calamity-Chapter 241 - 240: Ranker Combat

The Princess rose with steady grace, her vivid red eyes locking onto Ceres. Flames danced within them—controlled, fierce, unwavering.

Macho Derrick studied her for a heartbeat before breaking into another booming laugh. His massive shoulders shook as he shrugged.

"Very well—"

But before he could finish, a gravelly voice cut through the air.

"Not so fast."

The words struck like a hammer, followed instantly by a thunderous crash that shook the arena. Dust billowed upward, rolling into a thick cloud before slowly dispersing.

From within it emerged a hulking silhouette—familiar, yet unfamiliar. The wine-colored blazer strained against his broad chest, the sleeves stretched tight around arms that looked like they were carved from stone. He wasn't as monstrous as Macho Derrick, but by academy standards—sixteen to eighteen-year-olds—he was massive.

Short blond hair crowned his head, and his deep blue eyes gleamed with menace. At his feet lay the limp body of an unlucky cadet, sprawled unconscious in the dirt—his assessment points permanently slashed by ten percent.

Elijah Vayne. Class D.

And…

Rank 4.

A Ranker.

Elijah stepped out of the web of cracks that splintered across the concrete beneath his feet and glared toward the stands.

His deep blue eyes, burning with unrestrained ferocity, locked against Deandra's fiery resolve. Their gazes clashed, bridled with raw tension.

But then, just as suddenly, Elijah's eyes darted away. He pointed straight at Ceres.

"I'll be the one challenging Rank One."

Well, this should be fun… I mused. Things were escalating quickly.

Deandra's brows furrowed at his words.

"What—"

A sudden laugh cut through the air. Light, careless, and carrying none of the weight or pressure of the moment, it rolled across the arena.

"Ahahahaha—! Well, this should be fun…"

Another male cadet had spoken, echoing my exact thought. He stood on the far side of the arena, auburn hair catching the light, sky-blue eyes gleaming with mischief. Draped in a dark blue robe over his uniform, he carried himself with a carefree, lighthearted ease.

He laughed brightly, his words anything but lighthearted—mockery and scorn laced every syllable.

"Look at this gorilla. Aren't you getting ahead of yourself?" he chuckled, raising a finger to point at Elijah. "Rank One? Please. You're just Rank Four. Try Rank Three for starters. Or better yet..."

He grinned, flexed his thumb, and pointed at himself.

"Why don't you just switch with me?"

Class C. Rank Five.

Williems.

Another Ranker had stepped forward.

I'd never interacted with any of these guys before, and usually I wouldn't even recognize them well enough to recall their names, let alone their ranks and classes.

But lately, I'd been paying more attention—to my classmates, to the people around me. Of course, memorizing and recognizing every student was impossible; there were over a thousand in the first year alone. Aegis was a massive place.

Still, it wasn't hard to keep track of the truly spectacular ones. The ones at the very top.

The Rankers.

"Hey—could you not drag my name into this? Please?"

The voice drifted in, lazy and flat, like even speaking was a chore.

I turned.

The cadet who spoke had the kind of look you couldn't mistake. His black hair was messy—messier than mine—and his half-lidded eyes were a deep, inky black that seemed perpetually stuck between sleep and shadow. His skin was pale, ivory white, making him look less like a living cadet and more like some porcelain doll with a cracked soul. A prince out of a cursed fairy tale—delicate, drained, and doomed to nap his days away.

Eerie. Yes. But still, unsettlingly handsome.

That was Huey Gallagher. Class D. Like Elijah.

And the Third Ranked Cadet of the entire First Year.

My focus snapped to him the instant he spoke.

He sat curled on the lower stands, swords sheathed and cradled loosely in his arms, like a child refusing to let go of a toy. He'd deliberately distanced himself from the rest of us, as if proximity alone might infect him with our noise.

Truth be told, he'd been half-asleep the whole time—until Williems' taunting dragged him awake.

Elijah tore his gaze from Huey with a sneer, snapping at Williem instead.

"Tsk. You mean that spineless bastard?"

"I'm right here, you know…" Huey muttered dryly, ignored as always.

The tension between them wasn't new—they were classmates, with a history that still reeked of unfinished grudges.

"Why would I waste my time on cowardly trash who couldn't even claw his way up on the first try? The only one in this entire year worth my regard is Rank One, Ceres Walker. She's the only one I'll challenge."

A faint surge of Aura rippled around Elijah, staining the air with a ghostly blue-green hue.

Williem only grinned, the kind of grin that made people want to hit him. He was a natural-born rage-baiter—carefree, loud, and impossible to ignore.

"Wow. Big words, gorilla. Aren't you just mad Huey keeps turning down your Duels? And come on—'straight to the top'? You didn't even manage that. Aren't you sitting pretty at Rank Four right now?"

He threw his head back and laughed, a booming, mocking sound that rang across the hall.

But Elijah didn't bite. His massive frame remained unnervingly still, his voice calm, almost cold.

"I don't need to hear that from someone ranked below me."

Right then, the air in the arena stilled—charged, heavy, as if the ground itself held its breath.

Willem, who only a moment ago had been laughing with his palm to his face, froze mid-motion.

"Hoh?" His grin twisted, more mocking than amused.

He slowly stretched out an arm, his wide sleeves rippling like banners in a storm. For a heartbeat, his sky-blue eyes carried no humor—only a sharp, unamused glint beneath the grin still carved on his lips.

"Frankly, I've always been more than satisfied with my rank…" Willem's voice dropped lower, steadier, a coil of something colder threading through it.

"But I'll admit—"

He tilted his head, his grin stretching wider.

"I'm curious. How's the view from even higher?"

—Tzzz!

A pale violet magic circle flared into life over his arched fingers, layered with intricate runes and shifting arcane glyphs. Sparks snapped at the edges as the circuits unraveled, lighting his sleeve with ghostly light..

It seemed Williem wasn't just taunting Elijah all this while.

He was actually serious— dead serious about taking Elijah's place.

"Magic…" My eyes narrowed in focus as I studied the intricate circle Williem had woven out of thin air, as though I could pry out its secrets just by staring hard enough. The rising tension in the air should have unnerved me, yet it barely registered.

Absentmindedly, I clasped my palms together as a thought struck me.

I still knew nothing about magic—even now. With Ether, I could wield all aspects of Aether: Aura and Mana both. That meant I could use spells and Magic, while still being capable of Aura techniques. Yet despite all this, I hadn't learned a single spell. I didn't even understand the fundamentals of Magic.

But this Williem guy… I'd already learned he was quite the genius young mage.

In any case…

Despite Williem's unrestrained animosity and the glowing circle in his hand, Elijah stood unshaken. Instead, the massive cadet answered in kind. Without moving an inch, he released a terrifying force of his own—a breathtaking display of Aura mastery and sheer intensity. His deep blue eyes flickered with a greenish-blue tint, and the pressure around him began to swell.

"Hey… are they really going to—" At that moment, a ripple of unrest began to spread through the crowd. Cadets shifted in their seats, leaning forward in anticipation.

Murmurs and whispers, threaded with excitement and disbelief, spread through the stands.

"Williem just officially challenged Elijah for his Rank, didn't he? But he's never done that before. And Elijah can't refuse."

"Instructor Derrick hasn't directly officiated the duel though."

"Yeah, right — what's stopping him?'

"But didn't Elijah also challenge Ceres for her position?"

"And what about Deandra?"

The tension in the hall climbed sharply, all eyes fixed on the stage below.

Elijah's pressure pressed outward, heavy and unyielding. Williem's grin refused to falter as the magic circle spun steadily in his hands. And Huey…

…the so-called porcelain prince lay curled like a fetus, swords cradled against his chest, fast asleep—utterly detached from the storm gathering around him— at the seats below.

At the very center of it all hovered Ceres Walker herself.

My gaze caught hers for a fleeting moment. For an instant, she seemed like nothing more than another victim of circumstance. I almost pitied her. Almost.

"They're all Rankers," someone whispered.

"They're all Rankers," came the first hushed whisper, tight with anticipation.

Another voice picked it up. "Rankers."

And then, like a fuse catching flame, the murmur spread—

"Rankers… Rankers…"

The words seemed to hang in the air, sharp enough to silence every breath around me.

I lingered for a heartbeat, feeling the air still, then i grinned wryly. Almost on instincts like I could see where this is going.

'Damn...'

And then, quiet but undeniable, a single hushed whisper rose above the rest—

"It's a Ranker battle."