Rebirth: The Shadow Of Greed

...The next wave had spawned and it was silence in the arena.

The lights were turned on, signifying the wave had begun yet it was peaceful in the arena, David took a deep sigh as he started to relax a bit, thinking he could take a short breather before continuing the next wave. 

He sat on the ground winded, gasping in huge breaths of air, eyes fixated on the gate ready to spring up again as the battle continues. Suddenly from his back, he felt movement. Hastily he stood up and turned around only to see nothing once again, light shone down from the roof and that's when he caught it, a tiny glimpse of the refraction of light, but alas it was all too late, he had already been surrounded by the invisible monsters that had spawned. 

"Shit…!"

He screamed out as his Hp turned to 0. 

On the stage right now, was Odrunn still full of life standing in the center of the arena silently with his eyes closed and Vero who was still in a defensive stance. 

"Isn't that the guy who disappeared for half a year?"

"Was it luck that he managed to make it so far? He's on equal footing with young lord Vero, it must be luck!"

"It doesn't matter, this is the hardest wave by far, look David has already gotten overrun. Look at him taking a break with his eyes shut! He must be thinking there isn't any spawn this round. Oh, man, do I pity him"

"Let's hope young lord Vero can pull through this stage!"

The crowd was voicing their thoughts shouting loudly at whatever they could think of. 

Z smiled as he looked at Odrunn standing there extremely calm with his eyes closed. 

On the stage Vero started to move, changing his size to 2 times his usual size he slammed the ground, letting dust fly everywhere the dust floated and landed on the many monsters that were charging ahead, although the vision of them was minuscule it still gave Vero a chance to attack them, fighting them head-on. 

Vero gave a powerful kick as the space around him warped, with the invisible monsters knocking into each other and falling down on the ground, he jumped into the air and landed with a thud killing a few monsters under his boots. His large movements stirring the dust once again making everything visible to him. 

"Brilliant! Using the dust in the stadium to vision! That's young lord Vero for you! Amazing!"

"Efficiently going for the kill! I couldn't expect any less from the top of the cohort."

The crowd went wild looking at Vero dispatch the monsters quickly, it seemed everyone had forgotten that this was supposed to be a vanguard trial and the purpose of this was to just defend. 

In the arena Odrunn made his move, slightly dodging to the right, before swaying to the left. 

"Look! He's moving! I think he's being hit!"

"He must be in shock! He's just swaying!"

"Looks like it's all going to be young lord Vero's solo show now."

After dodging left and right, Odrunn's hand suddenly shot out grabbing something and grasping down tight, a crack could be heard as the audiences just watched Odrunn swinging his outstretched arm left and right as if he was using a shield. 

---- 

In the control room, a certain chief examiner was about to blow his top. 

"Show the infrared cameras on the screen! God damn it! Are you so incompetent that I have to teach you what to do? The audiences are basically watching the students do a solo dance!"

The examiner could only lower his head in embarrassment and change the settings. 

----

In the crowd, someone noticed the screen changed as he nudged his friend beside him. 

"look! The display is showing the monsters as well. We can have full vision of them."

"What.. What is Odrunn doing?"

The audiences were slack-jawed as they watched the scene play out on the screen, Odrunn was holding a corpse of a monster in each hand and using them as weapons and shields respectively. Swinging the corpses around as if they were large towels. 

"So corpses could be used this way as well?"

"Wasn't his manifest supposed to be a self-heal manifest? How did he manage to detect any sign of the existence of the monsters?"

Z was in the crowd as he listened to what they were saying, only he, Odrunn and Soli knew about the reason why Odrunn could deal with invisible monsters. 

In the basin, Odrunn had been attacked by a breed of chameleons who had a perfect camouflage when he was out hunting one day. They weren't particularly painful and didn't cause him much damage but they were annoying as heck, always getting in his way, he was tripping over them, getting bitten by them when he wasn't paying attention, so much so that he was blowing his top. 

Finally, he asked Z if he had a solution for him and Z finally blindfolded him. Odrunn had been making full use of his vision that he started neglecting his other senses. It's not his sense of hearing nor his sense of smell, but rather, what he was lacking was his sense of touch. 

Having this self-heal manifest means that after healing the body a couple of times the mind will learn to ignore the pain that was caused, this way the body can just go ahead and heal without causing much distress to the user. However, it dulls the senses as well. What Odrunn needed to do was to enhance his sense of touch and to feel the wind flow caused by the movements of the beasts. 

Back in the arena Odrunn skillfully dodged the incoming attacks from the monsters before launching an attack, this time he decided to throw punches and kicks, mainly because, although he could perceive the wind flow, he couldn't see them and thus he couldn't grab any of their necks, this resorted to him doing the next best thing, launching a striking offensive. 

He threw heavy blows as rays of light shone from the empty spaces signifying the deaths of the monsters. 

'ding' the green light at the gate shone, it was time for the next wave to appear, both Odrunn and Vero relaxed their tense shoulders but they kept their awareness up. The gate opened as a single mammoth monster walked through the gate towards them.