Extraordinary Rise: Starting Contract with the Silver Dragon Countess

Cohen's lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

He keenly sensed the complex gazes coming from all directions, each containing a mixture of envy, jealousy, mockery, and knowingness.

Fortunately, he had grown accustomed to such gazes. With the most beautiful woman on the continent as his queen, and the daughter of the Golden Wing and the Elf King's daughter as his consort, he had long since developed an instinct to be immune to all kinds of stares.

Melantha has also returned from the ring.

Miss Assassin seemed completely unconcerned about the commotion she had caused. After returning to her seat, she naturally accepted the tea that Cohen had prepared for her and sipped it slowly.

This scene undoubtedly further solidified everyone's suspicions.

Regardless of the gossip circulating in the stands, the match continued.

The noise and gossip offstage lost their appeal the moment the third round matchup list was announced.

All eyes were fixed intently on the top column of the light screen, as if the text possessed a magnetic magic.

[Ring One: Cohen Corleone (Efein) vs. Undina Antalya (Kingdom of Taren)]

The name of King Cohen Corleone of Effie was prominently listed.

He is the only seventh-tier transcendent being in this year's competition, and even in the entire history of the Noble Martial Arts Festival.

He is also the only monster to have participated in both the Silver and Gold groups of the tournament consecutively.

He swept through the Silver Group with unstoppable force, declaring to the world his terrifying, irrational potential through repeated crushing victories.

And now, this king who writes miracles is about to begin his incredible journey in the Gold Series.

No words can describe the weight this moment carries in the hearts of countless people—it is absolutely a moment to witness history.

Whether it ends in a crushing defeat or continues to write a legend, everyone is looking forward to the match on the number one ring.

Not to mention that countless gamblers placed heavy bets on Cohen, and in an instant, the No. 1 arena where Cohen was located once again became the center of the entire arena and even the whole continent.

But the moment the audience saw Cohen's opponent's name, a completely different emotion—astonishment, worry, and even gasps of surprise—spread rapidly like an icy tide.

Cohen's opponent is Wendina Antalya, a "mechanical sorcerer" from the Kingdom of Taren.

It was the "Mechanical Sorcerer" who had already fought in the first round and had even decisively defeated the contestant from the Northern Empire!
The "Mechanist" class thrives in the late game; the higher the rank, the stronger the combat power.

Once they reach a higher level, especially after stepping into the threshold of the Gold rank, their combat power will increase exponentially.

Their core power source lies in their innate mechanical creations—core war machines that are bound to their souls and nurtured day and night by their own soul essence, truly possessing "life vitality."

What does a ninth-tier peak mechanical mage mean?
This means that her innate mechanical creation is already approaching the threshold of legend.

It was no longer just a cold metal puppet, but a super war weapon that possessed some intelligence, could communicate with its master's mind, and could absorb and transform its master's will and magic power almost infinitely in battle.

That seeded player from the Northern Empire was defeated by Wendina's innate mechanism.

No matter how strong the opponent is, the outcome of the match is already decided.

One is an unparalleled king who, with his seventh-tier extraordinary talent, aspires to reach the pinnacle of gold and write an immortal legend!

Another is a hidden prodigy who overturned the glory of the empire with his ninth-tier peak mechanical magic!
Under the intense scrutiny of countless eyes, a mixture of fervor, worry, curiosity, and scrutiny, Cohen finally stepped out of the shadows of the preparation area and into the No. 1 arena, which seemed to be ignited by the furnace of destiny.

Meanwhile, Wendina stepped into the ring again.

While Wendina's beauty may not rival that of Isabella, Windsordler, and Melantha, she is still a stunningly beautiful woman of above-average looks.

Her facial features were distinct and clean, not exceptionally refined, but possessing an icy coldness.

Her light golden short hair was neatly gathered behind her ears, revealing her full forehead and the slight furrowing of her brows when she was focused.

A specially made, workwear-style enchanted leather armor outlined her tall and well-proportioned figure, with several interface devices and tool mounting points gleaming coldly on it.

He's less of a soldier and more of a chief engineer ready to perform precise operations at any time.

A "mechanical sorcerer" who was able to advance to the peak of the ninth rank before the age of forty, Miss Wendina's sorcerer talent is not much inferior to Freya's.

However, the most eye-catching focus undoubtedly fell on the silvery-white creature lying prone beside her.

Her destined mechanical beast, "Tranquil Wrath," is a graceful, silver-white metallic mechanical dragon about the height of a person.

The scales have sharp, razor-sharp edges, and subtle light flows across their surface, creating a mesmerizing and dangerous visual effect.

The long, elegant dragon neck connects to the perfectly proportioned, mechanically beautiful dragon head, with two mechanical eyes emitting a cold, eerie blue light embedded on either side of the head.

Cohen could tell at a glance that the two mechanical eyes were engraved with the highest level of tactical tracking runes.

The joints throughout the body are not simply connected, but are embedded with interlocking miniature energy circuit bearings, ensuring that tactical movements are as smooth and precise as flowing water, while also possessing terrifying burst power.

This is a meticulously crafted and perfectly executed work of art, a masterpiece of killing!

A beautiful engineer with a calm and icy demeanor, and a magnificent, elegant, and deadly silver-white metal dragon that flows with icy blue energy.

The combination of the two creates a visually striking yet eerie image.

A powerful, unspoken sense of oppression, like a tangible tide, emanated from the "Silent Wrath" dragon's body, silently colliding and entangled with Cohen's calm aura in the air.

Wendina's signature mechanical dragon was already revealed in the first round against the Northern Empire's players, so there was no need to hide it.

Wendina herself stood motionless, her pale blue eyes showing no trace of disdain or provocation, only an almost pure focus and high vigilance.

The betting activity offstage and the opinions of the surrounding audience had absolutely no effect on her.

She could clearly sense the strange aura emanating from the seventh-level man opposite her. His calmness did not seem like bluffing, but rather an absolute confidence in his own strength.

Thinking of the other person's legendary past, she felt even more solemn.

She had already secretly decided on a battle strategy in her mind. From the very beginning, she would go all out, using the highest efficiency of mechanical arts—saturation attack + energy suppression—to give her opponent no breathing room or space to display any strange methods.

This includes his bizarre swordsmanship displayed in the Silver Group and his legendary escape technique that could supposedly fool even Legendary rank players.

The referee's "start" was still echoing in the air.

“Buzz——!!!”

The intricate gears around Wendina Antalya, which had been poised to fire, suddenly emitted a high-frequency shriek, and her eyes shot out a cold, icy light.

Her slender fingers swept across the void, so fast that only a fleeting afterimage remained.

Cohen was no stranger to this scene; it was the starting stance of the "mechanical sorcerer," and he had personally instructed Freya in learning it.

However, it was clear that Wendina was faster. Almost the instant the shriek sounded, countless densely packed mechanical puppets appeared in Cohen's field of vision.

"First attack sequence: swarm coverage."

Second attack sequence: Ground Trap Binding.

Third attack sequence: Suppressive fire, activate!

The "Mechanist" class becomes more powerful as the game progresses.

The key lies in the exponentially increasing number of mechanisms, control precision, and tactical combinations that one can master as one's skill level improves.

They can arrange seemingly independent and functionally different mechanisms and traps with the precision of a chess player placing a piece, combining them into a three-dimensional array of interlocking and mutually reinforcing mechanisms, weaving the entire battlefield into a constantly shrinking spider web full of deadly variables.

Wendina's opening move showed no probing intent; she immediately launched a full-scale, three-pronged tactical assault.

With a buzzing sound, dozens of fist-sized, metallic-gleaming wasp-shaped self-destructing puppets, like a disturbed swarm of bees, emitted a teeth-grinding buzzing sound, transforming into a dense barrage of interwoven energy beams that blocked all of Cohen's directions.

On the ground, dozens of pitch-black, barbed earth-binding chain blades emerged from the earth like venomous snakes lurking in the shadows.

They don't simply entwine; instead, they rapidly spiral and intertwine at a height close to the ground, instantly weaving into a flowing, high-speed cutting net that shimmers with turbulent high-gravity energy.

Immediately afterwards, two small magic cannons covered with a thick layer of magic coating leaped out from behind it, their muzzles already filled with blinding white light.

Without the slightest pause, two beams of scorching energy, powerful enough to pierce through the steel city gate, shot straight at Cohen's chest and abdomen, carrying a trajectory that burned the air.

Almost simultaneously, the exploding swarms of bees in the sky and the chain-blade cutting net on the ground were already upon them.

A comprehensive, all-encompassing, and devastating three-dimensional attack, completing the closed loop in less than two seconds.

This is a highly efficient killing art woven by Wendina with her immense mental power, turning the arena into a meat grinder.

The powerful figure from the Northern Empire was instantly put on the defensive by this series of three opening attacks, and eventually exhausted his strength, only to be defeated by Wendina's mechanical dragon in one blow.

Gasps erupted from the audience; even through the thick protective barrier, they could feel the suffocating pressure that suddenly gripped them.

Countless gazes were focused on Cohen. In their view, Wendina's all-out, saturated attack at the start was a bit too conservative.

Is this a seventh-tier opponent?

This is clearly an attempt to instantly kill Cohen.

Airspace blockade, ground collapse and strangulation, frontal annihilation... each of these attacks, taken individually, is enough to make an ordinary ninth-tier fighter scramble for their feet.

With these three approaches working in tandem, a closed loop is formed. Not to mention Cohen, a newly promoted Gold Rank expert, even those veteran peak Ninth Rank experts would be either killed or crippled if they took this attack head-on.

"It's over...it's really over!"

"Has Undina gone mad? She's so ruthless right from the start? Isn't she afraid of retaliation from Effie and the Central Empire?"

"It really is seventh tier... the difference is huge..."

"Hey, good, let this overly arrogant king know the cruelty of the Golden Group..."

Where is the referee?

"Stop the match quickly, lest His Highness the Emperor get seriously injured!"

Many people hold this idea in their hearts.

In the audience, feelings of worry, fear, and schadenfreude spread like a tide.

Many people even turned their heads away in disbelief, as if they could see the horrific scene of Cohen being blasted to a crisp, torn apart by chain blades, or pierced by energy beams in the next second.

Even some of the empire's generals and ministers in the VIP seats shook their heads slightly, seemingly feeling sorry for the young king who "didn't know his own limitations" and challenged the higher-ups.

Beside the ring, the head referee, entrusted with this important task, had every nerve in his body taut like a bowstring.

An unprecedentedly sharp light erupted from those seemingly calm eyes, and his mental power, like an invisible spider web, had already completely covered the entire arena.

Although a battle between gold-level opponents was nothing to him, the person standing on the arena now was, after all, the Empress's fiancé, the future Emperor Consort who would take away half of the power of the Central Empire.

He dared not be careless in the slightest; if Cohen showed any signs of irreversible serious injury or life-threatening condition, he would immediately end the match.

Despite the opening attack that was enough to instantly tear apart low-level superhumans and severely injure ninth-level elites, Cohen remained calm.

It's like being on a black reef amidst raging waves.

He spread his right hand, fingers outstretched, and made a clenching motion towards the three-dimensional attack that was powerful enough to tear him to pieces.

Rule-based techniques, master the shadows!
Authority: Shadow Bishop.

"Shadow Bishop" privileges: can bring one hundred people into the "Shadow Plane"; summon bronze-tier shadow creatures "Shadow Phantoms", silver-tier shadow creatures "Shadow Hunters", and gold-tier shadow creatures "Abyssal Shadow Beasts".

As Cohen moved, the space around the point where he stood became like a deep, ancient pool where stones had been thrown in, and countless fleeting, shadowy human figures instantly began to boil.

They emerged out of thin air from Cohen's own shadow, from the dark corners of the arena, and even from the shadows cast by Wendina's mechanical beasts!

The sheer number far exceeded everyone's expectations.

These densely packed humanoid shadows instantly formed a constantly surging and roaring curtain of shadows around Cohen.

This is Cohen's shadow summon—the Shadow Phantom.

Shadow Phantom: Bronze tier, resembling a fleeting humanoid shadow with no physical form. It can actively merge into the shadows and excels at ambushing from the shadows. Its attack method is relatively simple, typically using shadow tentacles to entangle enemies.

While the individual strength of these bronze-tier beings may not be great, their sheer numbers, rapid summoning, and ethereal physical properties make them formidable.

"Puff-puff-!"

The dense swarm of exploding bee golems crashed into the thick shadow curtain in an instant, immediately triggering a violent energy explosion.

Flames and shockwaves raged among the Shadow Phantoms, but strangely, the shattered Shadow Phantoms did not dissipate. Instead, they transformed into an even denser, viscous, ink-like dark mist the instant they vanished.

This fog not only briefly interfered with Wendina's vision and energy perception, but also strangely absorbed and slowed down some of the explosive force of the puppet wasp!

Deadly chain-blade cutting nets followed closely behind, frantically shredding the Shadow Phantom's body.

However, the Shadow Phantom, which has no physical form and is composed of pure shadow energy, exhibits astonishing resistance to physical attacks.

The chain blades spun and cut, causing countless shadowy creatures to fly everywhere.

But the fragments that were stirred up did not disappear; instead, they wriggled and reformed under the guidance of Cohen's mental power.

Although the Chain Blade Cutting Net is fierce, it is like cutting into layers of illusory water walls as countless shadowy phantoms break, condense, and break again. Its cutting energy is weakened and neutralized layer by layer.

That power, strong enough to crush steel, became bogged down in a quagmire of attrition warfare.

At the same time, facing the two most powerful magical energy cannons, several shadow phantoms instantly merged in front of Cohen, forming a thick shadow shield.

Tsk-!
The first energy beam slammed into the shadow shield, and the violent energy instantly tore the shield apart by more than half.

However, the core of the Shadow Shield did not completely disappear. In its final moments before dissipating, it suddenly caved in and spun as if it had a life of its own, directing a portion of the destructive energy beam's charge at an unconventional angle to the chain blade cutting net on the side.

Boom——!
The second one followed immediately, exploding at almost the same point.

The remaining shadow shield was instantly vaporized, and the shockwave swept towards Cohen's main body.

However, the swirling curtain of shadows that had been constantly surrounding Cohen suddenly closed, and more phantoms rushed forward from the boiling shadows.

"Bang!!!"

A dull thud was accompanied by a dazzling burst of energy. When the light faded, Wendina's pupils contracted sharply.

Korn remained standing, surrounded by a thick black mist created by the destruction of numerous Shadow Phantoms. He was unharmed despite the attack, which could instantly kill an ordinary ninth-tier opponent.

Wendina frowned deeply; Cohen's strange summoning characteristics were something she had never encountered before.

They exhibit significant physical immunity, possess considerable resistance to energy attacks, and have weakening mechanisms; moreover, their numbers are outrageously large.

A wave of gasps swept across the entire venue—it was blocked! It was actually blocked!

And he was completely unharmed!

"Then...what the hell is that?"

A loud-voiced soldier in the front row couldn't help but shout, pointing at the black smoke that hadn't completely dissipated in the air, his face filled with fear and bewilderment:
"Those shadows?"
How could they withstand an attack of this magnitude?

Compared to the gasps from the audience, the atmosphere in the VIP section was much more eerie.

Several highly skilled and knowledgeable high-level superhumans and research giants had their expressions change drastically almost simultaneously.

"No, that's not a regular shadow spell or a low-level undead summoning!"

A "sage" wearing a golden robe and bearing the "All Things Academy" emblem on his chest looked shocked, his turbid eyes flashing with disbelief.

"That form...that property that distorts the laws of reality...it's an active shadow!"
This whole bunch of things is imbued with the power of shadow!

"Shadow power?"

The pupils of a legendary knight commander from an ancient knightly family beside him suddenly contracted.

He had fought in countless battles and traversed numerous perilous places; at this moment, his voice carried an uncontrollable solemnity:

"Could it be... from that godforsaken place?"

"Only that place!"

A slightly hoarse yet authoritative voice rang out, drawing everyone's attention.

Ysera, the leader of the Night's Watch, spoke first:
"The Shadow Plane, the most dangerous and mysterious sub-plane!"

Isera's words were like a bombshell, creating a huge uproar in the VIP section.

The Shadow Dimension is not simply a dark environment, but a dimensional prison where the laws of reality are distorted and disordered, filled with indescribable malice and chaotic will!

Legend has it that it is a desolate place that even the radiance of the gods cannot fully illuminate!
Especially after the previous God of Shadows fell in the Shadow Plane, it became a burial ground for gods. Not to mention someone like Cohen who had just entered the Gold Rank, even a demigod-level superhuman would not dare to venture there easily.

Lord Langdon of the Temple of Battle sighed softly:
"His Majesty Corleone is truly surprising us every moment!"

Prince Quentin leaned forward slightly, frowning as he asked:

"You mean His Majesty Corleone can communicate with the Shadow Dimension and even summon Shadow Creatures from it?"
How could a newly ascended Gold-tier transcendent being establish such a deep connection with the Shadow Dimension?
How can this be? "

A look of caution appeared in the eyes of Archbishop Clement, the Privy Councilor of the Church of Light:
"More than that. To be able to control these extradimensional creatures, which are inherently chaotic and wild, so exquisitely, stably, and over such a wide range, is a manifestation of absolute control over the origin and will of the plane."

What kind of immense dimensional affinity and powerful will it would take to ignore the endless chaos and erosion, and make the original shadow creatures bow down to it?
"Lord of Shadows, Lord of Shadows, do you think this kid might be the reincarnation of the previous God of Shadows?"

Clement's seemingly joking deduction didn't elicit a single laugh; instead, it plunged the VIP section into a deathly silence.

"I don't think so. Isn't His Majesty Corleone the chosen one of prophecy by the God of Prophecy himself?"
How could he possibly be the reincarnation of the God of Shadows?

"That's true..."

Atkinson, the prophet of the Church of Prophecy, tried his best to maintain a facade of composure. He knew very well that the so-called chosen son of prophecy by the God of Prophecy was just a charade he and Cohen were putting on.

In fact, Cohen did not have the endorsement of a prophetic god.

At this moment, he couldn't help but wonder, could this kid really be...? It doesn't seem like it, he doesn't seem to have any divine will at all.

Regardless of what the crowd below the ring thought, Wendina's expression on the ring had become extremely solemn.

She took a deep breath, a cold glint flashing in her eyes.

Although it was unclear why the humanoid creature summoned by the other party could interfere with his puppet beast, it was obvious that conventional methods were no longer effective and drastic measures had to be taken.

She suddenly opened her arms, and an unprecedentedly dazzling light emanated from her hands, as powerful mental fluctuations and a torrent of magic surged forth.

Moo——! ! !
A deafening roar, a fusion of mechanical power and energy, shook the entire arena. (End of Chapter)