Chapter 189.

PART 1.

As the teams walk into the ground, they are hit by the cheering of the massive crowd. more people have shown up to watch this match compared to the previous three matches, and Hatori thanks his lucky stars that he modified himself to handle this kind of noisy environment years ago. Otherwise, it may have become impossible for him to compete in the ring today.

“Welcome everyone, I am Michael Severance, with my partner Samudra Sharma. Today is a match between East-Asian Academy and Subcontinental Academy. both of these academies are known for their rivalry, and today, another chapter will be written on the history of their competition.”

“Indeed Michael. The Subcontinent must be pumped, and some might argue that the first shot was already fired two days ago, when Sakura, the captain of the East-Asian team, gave that explosive interview, declaring their victory before the match even started.” A picture of Sakura is shown on the massive screens, as Samudra talks about the article from two days ago.

Hatori ignores this and decides that he doesn’t care about this ancient rivalry. He will not go into the ring with a chip on his shoulder. Instead, he will go there to win, like he always does. Let other people worry about the rivalries and history.

“So, who will you send first?” asked Josh.

“Tom.” Said Avinash.

The nameless boy gets up and walks to the ring. He finds Kuma waiting there. much like his name suggests, the boy is like a bear. Though he is still shorter than Tom. He is also one of those boys who ambushed Hatori and Daphne. The referee explains the rules to them, and then their duel begins.

There blasting spells explode in the air, and Tom sidestepped the rocks thrown his way. he retaliates with his own conjured rocks, some of which do find their mark, judging by the grunts of pain coming from the other side of the ring.

“And we’re already to an explosive start. Though it has to be said that Tom has handled himself very well so far.” Said Samudra.

“Yes, but I doubt Kuma will go down so easily. All those muscles must reflect some magical power,” said Michael.

Kuma proves him right just a few moments later, as the ground shifts once more, and an earth golem towers over Tom. “And an earth shape-shifting spell. Compared to water or fire, this is very hard to accomplish, due to the slow speed of manipulating this much ground.” Said Samudra.

“The fact that Kuma did it so quickly suggests quite a proficiency with the element.” Said Michael.

While the commentators are praising Kuma, Tom is kicked around the ring. It felt like getting beat up with a gorilla made of rock is beating him. he knows what gorillas look like, due to his many visits to the forest of the Academy. One of them even rampaged into the Academy when Hatori came for revenge. Though he has received a beating, Kuma has not come out unscathed. He is inside of that golem, and the damage Tom did to it is reflected in his opponent.

The golem gets up on the unstable legs, as one of them is twisted by Tom’s spells earlier, and lunges at him. only to receive a blast of fire right on the face, shattering the head portion of the golem entirely. The spell starts to collapse after this, and an unconscious Kuma is lying on the rubble of his own golem, while Tom is declared the winner.

Tom makes his way unsteadily to the bench. The fight has been not easy for him either, and he is bleeding from the head. “Go get yourself healed.” Said Avinash. “Praduman, take him there.”

“Yes, captain.” Said Praduman. he supports Tom with a strong hand, and takes him to the healers.

The next duelist from the East-Asian Academy is a girl named Fang. “Hatori, you’re up,” said Avinash.

Hatori turns to Avinash. “Seriously? You’re sending me to fight a girl, again?” he asked.

“Why? I thought you have no problems with that,” asked Avinash in return.

“No, but it seems I’m destined to fight a girl in this tournament all the time,” he muttered. “Who knows, maybe one of them might be involved in a conspiracy as well.” he joked before leaving.

“And here comes the blind villain. After being missing from the previous match, he returns, only to face another girl. He has completed the hattrick of facing girls.” Said Samudra.

“Indeed. He must be the unluckiest boy because I doubt any boy wishes to meet a girl in the ring.” Said Michael.

“You don’t know the current generation, old man,” said Samudra.

‘Great. Even they are making fun of me.’ grumbled Hatori.

As he walks to the ring, he hears something very informative. “Have you seen the impact of their spell?” a boy asked.

“Yeah, it is recorded here.” replied the girl.

Hatori remembers watching them on the first day when all the teams were introduced. This pair must be from the European team. ‘So, you want data from me, eh? Fine. I’ll give you all the data.’ He thinks. “It’ll be the last data you ever collect. Hahahahahahahahaha!” he started to laugh after finishing his thought loudly.

“What a weirdo.” Grumbled Fang under her breath.

As the referee explains the rules, the commentators talk about that bout of laughter from Hatori. “And here’s more proof of his unstable nature. Who decided it would be a great idea to bring him to a ring?” asked Michael.

While privately thinking about the rampage he heard about later, Samudra replied. “Who else, Corvus. I doubt he cares about his nature, as long as he keeps winning.”

Michael cannot argue with that logic. Feeling smug for shutting up his partner, Samudra watches the start of the duel. He observed Hatori attacking first, and Fang coming up with a shield, but Hatori’s spell broke through the shield, and after a long and fiery explosion, Fang was lying outside of the ring, and Hatori was announced as a winner after this short match.

“See? More proof of his strength.” Said Samudra, and Michael flipped out.

Hatori smirks after hearing another explosion, squeals of surprise, and comments about overload and fire. He sits on the bench, while the team quickly makes some distance from him. They do not want to get caught up in whatever he is cooking.

“Oy, why are you moving away like that?” he asked. “Come closer.”

They must be feeling ashamed of their behavior, which is why they quickly sit back close to him with sheepish expressions on their faces. “You guys can be so strange sometimes.” He said to them.

Ignoring that entire byplay, Avinash thinks about sending the next fighter. He also ignores that blast. The security will take care of it, or else they would have a bigger problem than their hands than just winning the tournament. The second fighter from the other team is Ma Liang, who is using the jewel in his hand as a focus. He decides to send Shin to face him. “Shin, you’re next.” He said to the boy, “Be careful of that jewel.” He warned.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I will.” Said Shin, taking the warning seriously.

“Here comes Shin. The boy is quite a musician, but his performance is rather iffy in this tournament. His style can be quite unpredictable, for his opponents and himself both.” said Michael.

“And on the other side, we’ve got Ma Liang, a jewel user. This kind of magic is quite useful, as it can let you store energy in those jewels, and also enchant them to cast specific spells. the downside is that it can get very inflexible, and you cannot change those spells in the middle of a fight.” said Samudra.

The match begins, and I decide to tell you how it goes instead of letting those two buffoons steal the spotlight which I so rightly deserve. Ma Liang was expecting Shin to cast some musical spell, and he was counting on its slow effect. but Shin surprised him by taking out his baton and retaliating with conventional spells. but he also keeps singing during the fight, which not only distracts Ma Liang but also makes him sleepy.

Realizing the effects of that voice, he closes the distance with Shin and attacks him with a fire spell, which empties the jewel he has. Shoving his hand into his pocket, Liang tries to bring the next jewel to continue his attack, but he hears some bells jingling from the smoke. He sees two Shins walking out, and attacks one of them. but the spell fazed through him, and the same thing happened with the second Shin.

He then heard some notes behind him, and then Ma Liang knew no more, as he slumped in Shin’s arms peacefully.

“An interesting battle it was, over quite quickly,” said Samudra. “Though I do think it should be a highlight of this tournament.”

“I agree. We’ve not gotten an elusive performance like that so far this year,” said Michael.

Sakura is furious after that display. “Did you see that? I can’t believe he fell asleep in his arms like a baby!” she gets up from the bench and starts to walk to the ring. “None of you can do it. I’ll have to get a win myself.”

The team exchanges a look behind her back. This should be an interesting one to watch.

“Will this be another captain versus captain match?” asked Praduman, as they all saw Sakura in the ring.

“No,” said Avinash. “Ravina, go fight her.”

Ravina did not say anything. She simply leaves for the ring, and a few moments later, she is facing down Sakura. Whereas Sakura is glaring at her in anger, Ravina is calm. “Now, shake hands.” for a moment, Ravina thought Sakura might deny that, but she did that grudgingly. “Now begin!”

Sidestepping the initial spell, Ravina attacked with her own. She thought Sakura might defend herself in some manner, but she took those spells on her face. Ravina thought she might have some way of saving herself from the damage, but the blood Sakura spat aside proved it wrong. ‘Does she believe in her superiority that much?’ thinks Ravina.

Sakura attacks again, but it is not hard for Ravina to avoid her spells, after sparring so much with Hatori and Tom. True, Sakura does have the same power as them, but she lacks the focus and stamina of her teammates. She is much like Tom before he received the training to control his magic better, and physical training to improve his stamina.

All the power is wasted, as none of the spells ever reach Ravina. When Sakura stops to take a breath, Ravina pounces on this chance to attack her. Ravina slams her foot to the ground, and the floor of the ring rises and buries Sakura in an avalanche. When there is no movement in the rubble, Ravina is declared the winner.

The supporters of the Subcontinent went wild after that, chanting repeatedly, “Eat your words!” while waving the article in which Sakura gave an interview and declared her team’s victory.

On the bench of East-Asian Academy, there is a silence for a moment. Who would decide the final player in the absence of their captain? “I will go.” Said the boy who threatened Hatori.

“What makes you say that, Duri?” asked the others.

“Do you want to face them?” he asked.

When none of them replied, he said, “Thought so.” He gets up and leaves for the ring. The pride of his team is now resting on his shoulders. He must get at least one win to redeem his Academy.

Daphne is waiting for him in the ring. The match starts, and they exchange some spells. Duri wonders how the hell this team got so strong? Just in the previous league, they were struggling to keep up. he banished these thoughts, as he conjured some bells, and started to ring them to confuse Daphne.

‘Shin isn’t the only one to use music I see.’ Daphne thinks. She blasts the bells and attacks Duri, who is unprepared to counter this sudden attack.

Still, he gave as good as he got before going down. But he was not able to save his team from a loss. Daphne’s hand is raised in the end, and the Subcontinent wipes out the East-Asian Academy in the competition.

“With that victory, the Subcontinent adds another five-nil victory in their records, their second one in this year. this is extremely rare to see in the history of this league.” Said Michael.

“I wonder how the papers will react tomorrow?” asked Samudra with a smirk, just before the broadcast went offline.

After the match, the position of the teams is as opposite as you can get. The East-Asian team left, not even speaking with the press. Whereas Avinash is surrounded by the reporters as if he is a king holding a court. The East-Asian team feels that they have no right to say anything, after their embarrassing loss and bold words before the match.

PART 2.

Later in the castle, Hiruma is wincing after the performances he saw. “That Porus is going to get a bigger head after this.”

“Undeniably so.” Agreed Zuo Chi.

“It will be difficult to speak with him for the next few days.” Continued Hiruma.

“True.” Agreed Chi once more.

“But you seem unbothered by this. Why?” asked Hiruma.

“Because this is a competition between students. True, they lost this year. but in the next five years, we will send another team. and then, we will wipe the smirk off Porus’s face, along with his team.” said Chi. “And then we will make his life difficult.”

“I can drink to that,” said Hiruma, raising his glass, and clinking with Zuo Chi.