The next round of duels were completed easily, as most of the front runners knocked each other out during the first round, making it very easy for Lucio, Lupos and Wing to win their second round. After the last duel of the day was finished the competitors gathered in the center of the arena so that the announcer could announce the winners of today's matches.

"Congratulations to the winners of today's duels, we are now down to our last eight competitors and the final three rounds of duelling will be held tomorrow to determine our champion!!!" The arena erupted in cheers while Lupos gave a sly smile, everything was going according to plan, now that he was past the top ten Mervyn had to take all of them as apprentices. This meant he could now find a way to get eliminated without making it obvious.

Snapping himself out of his thoughts he tried to pay attention to the announcer once more. "Now our eight winners who will go onto compete tomorrow are as follows; Lucio Illio, Gale Foryst, Wing Fidelis, Cana Green, Alexis Storm, Ophelia Reich, Mason Pria and Dante Cayton. We hope you return tomorrow for our thrill filled final and we wish you all a pleasant night." 

Signalling the end of the fighting for the day, both the viewers and competitors began to disperse and head back to their various lodgings. However, it wasn't five seconds after Lupos, Lucio and Wing had stepped outside the arena that they were confronted with the girl Lucio had beaten earlier, Maria with her tiger spirit in toe. "I need to talk to you." she said calmly as she approached the three. 

Lucio merely gave a patronising smile, "I can understand wishing to speak to the great me, especially after the technique I showed in earlier matches bit I'm afraid I'm quite busy." The girl appeared to swallow her distaste before shaking her head and pointing to Lupos "not you him." 

Lucio's expression grew sour, although he didn't care one bit about the girl, it still annoyed him that she didn't seem to care about him at all. Biting back a grin Lupos nodded his head. "Of course, let's go somewhere more private." Wing gave Lupos a knowing smile and nudged him with his elbow. "Have fun Gale, we'll meet you back at the hotel." 

Watching Lucio and Wing walk off, Lupos gestured to Maria to follow him as he made his way into the nearby forest where he had killed the spy. As he walked, he silently contacted Hugin, Munin, Fenrir and Jormugand in mindspeak. "Listen up all of you, the girl we sabotaged has come into contact with me, I want all of you on sight in case something happens."

Still letting nothing show on his face Lupos walked into the clearing in the forest and sat down on a tree stump. "So what do you want from me?" asked Lupos. Calming his face, he noted Hugin and Munin resting in a nearby tree and Fenrir watching the tiger spirit in the shadows of the trees. He did not yet spot Jormugand but that could be considered a good thing. 

Maria took a deep breath before answering. "I know that noble kid payed you to cheat." Lupos looked at her in surprise and motioned for her to go on while instructing his spirits in mindspeak. "Jormugand when I give the signal I want you to poison the tiger, Fenrir you leap for the girl. Killing is permitted."

Maria continued "I didn't realise until that last attack that someone was deliberately using light to create a blind spot but there's no way the noble could have done it, he doesn't have fine enough control over his magic and your other team mate has already demonstrated he uses unique magic so he shouldn't be able to use light magic too. So that just leaves you."

Lupos sighed in a seemingly worried manner. "So you figured us out, what do you want me to do about it? Admit it and get us all disqualified?" Maria shook her head looking sympathetic. "No, I'm a low ranking noble myself but I've seen commoners being forced into doing a nobles bidding before, besides seeing as your wolf was only meant to use earth and dark magic it means you must have a second spirit which is the level of a genius so I want you to help me take out the Noble kid." 

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Lupos smiled pleasantly. "Have you told about us cheating to anyone else?" Maria shook her head "Of course not I didn't want you to be blamed." Lupos gave another smile and spoke in mindspeak "Now. Do not spare lives." twenty seconds later and Maria was lying on the floor, her throat cut by Fenrir's claws and her tiger paralysed and already disappearing due to the fact it's summoner was dead. 

"It's such a shame," spoke Lupos aloud to the now dead girl "that you figured out I had more spirits, that made you a liability and liabilities have to be dealt with." Turning his back on Maria, Lupos faced his spirits. "Mervyn mentioned competitors often got killed by sabotage from other schools so we need to either make her body disappear completely or stage it like sabotage/revenge gone wrong. Any ideas?" 

All four spirits paused and thought for a minute before Jormugand had an idea. "There is a cave near here that belongs to a magical snake, he is not too powerful but his poison dissolves flesh leaving only bones. We can leave the body there." Lupos nodded "Good idea Jormugand you deal with that while Hugin and Munin keep watch. Fenrir come with me, we need to head back before Wing and Lucio become suspicious." 

All four spirits nodded and Lupos quickly climbed on Fenrir's back to ride back to the hotel they were staying at. Walking into his room, it wasn't even moments later when he heard a knock on the door "Gale it's me Wing." Lupos had a slight smile on his face as he opened the door "What's up?" 

Wing laughed and gave him a punch on the arm. "Don't be like that, what did she ask you?" Lupos turned his facial expressions into one of unease "She said she still thought Lucio wad cheating and demanded I tell her how do she could get revenge." Wings face took on a serious expression "What did you tell her?" 

Lupos shook his head "I told her the truth, that I honestly hadn't any idea if he was cheating or not and if so I didn't have a clue how he did it. After that she stalked off into the nearby forest so I'm not really sure what happened after." Wing still looked worried but gave out a smile anyway "and here I was thinking she'd asked you out!" 

Lupos gave out a laugh. "Nope, not gonna happen. And besides," a tender smile appeared on his face "I already have someone I like." Wing gave out a laugh "oooh who is it? Is it someone I know?" Lupos laughed "not telling you're not getting anything out of me!" the two joked around for a little more before Wing left.

The next morning it was the final day of the competition, strangely enough one of the competitors from yesterday had mysteriously vanished. "Welcome back to the last three duels of the competition we will begin the matches shortly so please wait patiently, our first match of the day will be Gale Foryst versus Alexis Storm." 

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Author's note

Hiya thanks for reading today's chapter I just wanna take a little time to write a small thank you note to Blackyishere (love the name, is that a reference to black haze?)  for the nice review :) and to my friend Dani who's currently in the midst of proofreading my earlier chapters hope you enjoyed the chapter.