Coliseum

Noah stared blankly at the void in space that had appeared before him. He didn't know what had happened, that scream of his was just a desperate attempt to rouse the near dry Essence in his body for one last attack. But he knew what had powered that attack right now. It was the white mist that had made its home around his Essence Core. And from the effects of the attack, he could guess what it was.

Intent. Or rather, Pseudo-Intent.

Thinking about it, the mist had appeared after the fight against the Devilsoul Master, Evan Hills. It was quite possible that he had managed to absorb a bit of the man's power to generate an intent of his own this early in his journey as a Battlesoul master. But he wondered why, he had been unable to call upon such a powerful asset before.

His questions were answered soon by a stunning sense of pain. Noah, someone who had already lived a life filled with hardship and pain, had believed that nothing could make him feel true pain before. Yet he was proven wrong now.

"AAARRGGGHHHH!!!" A tearing scream cut through the air as the transmigrator felt pain like never before. Like someone had broken his skull open while managing to keep him alive and then pouring lava down the wound, like they were harming his very soul directly. Noah felt so much pain he wished for nothing more than death at that moment. If he could move, he would have directly smashed his on the floor and killed himself then and there. But thankfully he couldn't, so he could only grit his teeth and bear with the soul tearing pain as it came

The unbearable pain lasted for a about 3 minutes, yet these three minutes felt like three years to Noah and he immediately fainted once the pain stopped him from losing conscious.

***

Oliver whistled seeing the little area of pure annihilation that Noah had created. "This boy must be a talent of the century. Reincarnation or not, I've never seen anyone who could utilize Pseudo-Intent at the Intermediate Stage."

Emilia nodded. "Should we…?"

Understanding her intention, Oliver merely shook his head and said. "Nah, no need to heal them directly. Just lay a time dilation array around them, then send them to the next stage once they are all sufficiently healed."

"Sure." She nodded and waved her hand. At her command, a wave of Essence converged before her and then coalesced to create a being similar to herself in appearance, though it was made from the wind element. It was a clone created from Emilia with the aid of her sub element, Essence and, most importantly, her Intent.

After its creation, the wind clone dispersed but one could sense that its link to her hadn't disappeared yet. It hadn't. It had just, in its own way, teleported to Noah and his group's side before spreading its arms out and dissolving to create an invincible array that encompassed the entire cave.

The crowd couldn't sense that because of its discretion but also because most people were sighing in relief as Noah had been able to subdue the beast in his own terrifying way.

***

Noah woke up with a jolt, sitting straight up as if getting ready for battle. But the massive headache that struck his head made him regret that action. "Ugh." Grunting he massaged his temples while slowly standing up and examining his body.

A sigh inevitably left his lips as he finished his examination. His muscles felt sore, he could still feel a strain on his entire body and even worse, was that he had regressed a level in his strength. He was now a Level 4 Intermediate Stage Battlesoul master. It didn't affect him much as he could regain that level since the cause of his regression was that the Essence stored in his strengthened organs was what he had lost, not the degradation of the organs themselves. Because of this, he could regain that level within about a quarter of the time taken to get it in the first place. But in the end, it was still going to take some time.

He was sure that his foundation had been okay even after the forceful deactivation of the Limit Breaker so the only possible explanation was that making use of the Pseudo-Intent prematurely. Still, he found a small amount of luck in the fact that such a trump card had been added to his arsenal.

"NOOOAAAAHHHHH!!!" Suddenly a body crashed unto his body, making him turn his attention to the crying mess on top of him. Leonel lay there as tears poured out of his eyes, soaking Noah's shirt- or what remained of his shirt. "I'm so sorry!"

Noah was surprised for a moment, before remembering that his teammates had been taken used as the Dream Druid's puppet. He guessed that the boy had taken his failure on a personal level. The transmigrator's hand rose up subconsciously as if to pat Leonel's back before pausing briefly. Still, after a short moment of internal conflict, the boy's fragile state made Noah continue his actions and pat him on his back as an attempt to calm himself. His state reminded him that, unlike him, the boy wasn't someone who had lived a lifetime before, hence was just a bit more mature for his age but he was still just a 12 year old child.

As he pacified the quietly sobbing boy, the siblings moved closer to express their apologies. "We're really sorry about what happened back there."

Noah shook his head. "It's nothing really. None of that was your fault, who would have expected an Adept Stage beast this early into the exam." He finally was able to escape Leonel's hug and once he did, he gave the boy a flick to the head. "Do you really think I would blame you for this? Well I don't. Now clean your face, I can sense whatever is responsible for our live performance is returning."

Leonel sniffed, stifling an embarrassed smile as he cleaned his face. "What now?"

"We advance, we'll pass through the gates and move on to the next of the exam." He disregarded the minor injuries that his rest had not healed and wore another set of clothes before leading his team out the cave entrance.

But suddenly, a familiar sense of displacement filled their senses as the team was teleported by some unknown force.

Noah opened his eyes to welcome the sight of a magnificent coliseum beyond the large gates before him. And fellow participants surrounding him left and right.