Volume Two: The Youth of a Thousand Faces—Truth or Illusion Chapter Eighty-Three: The Dark Barrage

The human body has its limits—limits of physical strength, endurance, and the senses. Whether it’s the amount of strength, the duration one can overdraw, or the acuity of the senses, all these can be raised through training. Yet for Espers, there exists a limit to their power, a boundary known as the bottleneck.

Before reaching the S-level, an Esper’s abilities can be measured and ranked with precision. Beyond that, their true strength becomes obscure; the number of supernatural techniques mastered and the skill with which they are wielded become crucial factors. The raw magnitude of one’s abilities remains important but is no longer decisive.

Thus, the leap to S-level marks a watershed for Espers. In reality, the majority never surpass A-level in their lifetime. Even the Reaper Hunt Corps, an elite unit, is fundamentally a B-level disaster-hunting squad, with only a little over twenty S-level members at the pinnacle. While that may seem few, the figure is staggering—most first-tier squads are lucky to count even a handful.

Huo Ye is currently at A-level and has been stuck at this bottleneck for two years.

Among the academy’s top students—the presidents of the major societies—most are in a situation much like Huo Ye: poised at the upper echelons of A-level, straining against the barrier to S-level. Only Tan Xiao and Huo Xialan have genuinely crossed into S-level.

To break through from A-level to S-level is a process of accumulation leading to metamorphosis—a single step, and the world changes. At A-level, Huo Ye cannot compete with the likes of Tan Xiao and Huo Xialan. Yet, as the adopted son of Eddie Halls, he possesses his own unique combat ingenuity, enough to keep him from falling behind. If he could breach S-level, he might stand on even ground with them.

And Huo Ye senses that his breakthrough is close at hand.

The organizers had set up numerous obstacles on the track. The initial challenges weren’t too difficult—even those just along for the ride could perform a few tricks. Huo Ye used his airtime to execute a series of difficult maneuvers, earning a handsome amount of points.

Still, he felt he hadn’t racked up as many as he’d expected. But that was no surprise; with twenty-four competitors, points would inevitably be scattered. Fame gave Huo Ye and Shangguan Yudie a certain edge, but Jin Puxian was also stealing the spotlight.

“Looks like we’ll have to go with Plan B,” Huo Ye said to Shangguan Yudie over the headset.

She considered for a moment and replied, “I never thought Plan A was realistic, to be honest.”

“Come on, don’t be so cold. Don’t you believe in my abilities?” Huo Ye replied with a laugh.

“Facts speak louder than words,” Shangguan Yudie said, not inclined to argue further.

“Alright, since you put it that way, just focus on losing them with your speed. Leave the rest to me!” As soon as he finished speaking, Huo Ye, who had been leading the pack alongside Shangguan Yudie, suddenly slowed down, allowing the others to close in.

A strange sense of apprehension rose among the competitors behind him. They knew Huo Ye wasn’t dropping back because of a technical issue or mechanical failure—he was coming after them.

Since more competitors meant points were spread too thin, why not simply eliminate the others? Huo Ye was determined to win with ruthless efficiency, for he bore the hopes of an entire constellation society on his shoulders.

From the perspective of the third-place racer, Huo Ye fell back until he was level. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” Huo Ye said.

Know what you’re doing? What could you possibly mean by that? “Damn it! Don’t come any closer—ah!”

Huo Ye drew up alongside the student’s hover bike and, with a single punch, shattered the control panel. The opponent didn’t even have time to react. The control panel managed nearly all of the bike’s delicate components—one blow, and the machine was finished.

The student’s bike slowed to a stop on the track. As others sped past, he stared blankly. When his teammate pulled up and stopped, the teammate simply said, “Come on, this race isn’t ours anymore.”

“We didn’t even see it coming!” he muttered in disbelief. Tonight, Huo Ye was a force of aggression.

Lu Fei provided commentary at the perfect moment: “I didn’t expect the first elimination to come so soon. It seems the Little Reaper is dead set on winning tonight—and that’s no surprise. After all, he’s been boasting about forming the top club and becoming the academy’s number one. A bit of aggression is only to be expected.” Yet his words carried more than their surface meaning.

Lu Fei was deliberately stoking the students’ envy. While Huo Ye was popular, most of his admirers were girls attracted by his looks. Many students, deep down, were not convinced by him—and Lu Fei was quick to exploit that.

As a transfer student, Huo Ye had never fully integrated. From the moment he arrived, he’d placed himself in opposition to nearly the entire academy.

“I will become number one here, because this is only an academy—a beginning,” Huo Ye had declared, making it clear that others were mere stepping stones on his path to the summit.

In this academy, where graduation rates dipped into single digits, many were fated to fail. For them, each extra day with the academy’s generous resources was a blessing; graduation was a dream too distant to even hope for. No matter how hard they tried, all they could do was prolong a slow decline.

It was like a middle-class merchant who’s become overnight rich, gaining assets he doesn’t know how to use, and after entering high society, inevitably fading away due to limited ability and vision.

Huo Ye, this meteoric newcomer, this one who’d left everyone behind from the start, this one who claimed he would stand above all—most people did not admire him. They envied him.

Lu Fei was among them. As a member of the broadcasting department, he knew exactly how to manipulate emotions and stir up resentment toward Huo Ye, encouraging more students to ostracize him.

Such tactics were underhanded and unprofessional. As a journalist, he should remain objective, not muddy the waters with suggestive comments. Despicable as it was, the results were undeniable. From that night onward, a collective aversion to Huo Ye began to spread through the academy.

As Huo Ye attacked the other competitors, they of course were not fools. If Huo Ye intended to eliminate them all, their only option was to join forces and take him out first! But Huo Ye’s driving was simply too agile—their coordinated strikes became little more than opportunities for him to show off his skills, earning him even more points for stunts.

The race reached a long, unobstructed straightaway. After enduring a series of attempts to pin him down, Huo Ye could finally let loose. He stood atop his bike and declared, “Since you’re out of tricks, it’s my turn now.”

And so, the first highlight of the race unfolded before everyone’s eyes.

Huo Ye leapt into the air—not wielding his twin Ghost-Slaying Blades, but a pair of revolvers. His mother had been a legendary sharpshooter.

“Let me send you all to the afterlife!” he shouted. Light flashed as bullets rained down in a torrent. Space, shadow, and holy light are three attributes considered too abstract to use as bullets against humans, making Espers with these gifts less effective in direct combat.

Yet this time, the barrage was entirely made of shadow-element bullets.

Corrosive, chilling, viscous—all these dark qualities belonged to the shadow attribute. Though “shadow” and “darkness” might seem similar in name, in the age of supernatural powers, their meanings couldn’t be more different.

Those struck by shadow bullets felt pain searing straight into their bones—a pain that truly reached the marrow. The penetrative force of shadow attacks was formidable. Huo Ye himself was primarily a shadow Esper. Though he could use multiple attributes, he was not a genuine seven-attribute master—his abilities remained focused, with shadow as his strongest.

Conversely, the holy light attribute was antithetical to shadow. Its energy was most lethal to the disasters they faced, and none of the known disasters possessed it. It was a miracle Huo Ye could wield holy light at all—Eddie never demanded too much of him in this regard, urging only that he do his best.

Hundreds of bullets burst forth in a barrage lasting barely two seconds, and already many competitors had been shot down and forced off their bikes. Huo Ye had set his bullets to a mode that minimized destructive force but maximized concussive impact. Most were knocked off without serious injury.

This was his carefulness—it wasn’t VRF, after all; truly hurting anyone would be unacceptable.

By this point, including those eliminated by traps, by infighting, or by Huo Ye’s own hand, a total of seven groups were out. Only ten riders in five teams remained on the field.