The citizens were cheering for the contestant willing to risk their lives today.

Yes, today, multiple freemen and slaves would fight until submission or death. Their goal was to obtain some fame or the special prize which will belong to the only one who will never be defeated.

During this type of events, those who possessed unique talents and managed to become powerful despite their starting being at the bottom, could show their prowess and try to get close to those influential people who organized this event. While others were here to try to gain their freedom by gaining fame for their master.

But among the participants, there was one more person who had a complete different goal. His build looked imposing, his aura was domineering and the black steel axe on his back looked deadly as if it couldn’t wait to tear through the body of everyone here.

Lucifer was the citizen, seated near Vlad as he would watch the event.

While coming here, they bumped into the little monster and her parents. It appears that they were invited by the lord of Tsein to watch the event from their seat, in the VIP room alongside some influential of the church. They didn’t seem too happy about this but they still agreed.

As they went with the butler who came to inform them about the lord’s invitation, Lucifer made sure that Vlad and he went in the opposite direction. Being the furthest away from the people from the church was the best option for him.

Today would be a special day and he couldn’t afford to make any grave mistake.

Mephistopheles had passed the last two days finalizing his plan before letting the control to Lucifer.

And now, he was seated among the other citizens. Although some were a bit surprised about his presence they didn’t care about it too much. Letting a young child like him witness the bloodbath  which would soon happen would at least make him mentally prepare for the future.

When there was no more place left for people to come in, and all participants were present, a dark elf appeared at the center of the arena, his blue eyes warmly looking at everyone. His navy blue suit and the imposing aura he was releasing caught the attention of everyone present. Those who were still chattering with their friends or family turned silent while watching him, as if they were mesmerized by something.

“I thank you all for being present here to witness the courage and the strength of the warriors and mages of our beautiful city. Today, is a day where heroes can make a name for themselves by shedding their opponents’ blood. Although killing isn’t necessary, it can’t be helped if someone were to die in today’s event, and I hope that everyone here is aware of that… However, it isn’t in vain. Today, one of them will stand alone at the top and will be rewarded with a soul weapon, 10 gold coins, citizenship if the champion used to be a slave. And now ladies, gentlemen, young and old, I wish for you to enjoy what is to come.”

His voice made many women present blush while the man only silently looked at him with jealousy in the eyes of some.

The only one who was making a real displeased face was Lucifer. The spell the dark elf was using to focus the attention of everyone on him required divine power, thus, since it had an area of effect Lucifer could feel the divine power trying to enter his body. But this much couldn’t do anything on him besides pestering him. He only wanted to release some devil’s power to bath in it. But he couldn’t afford to act this early, so he patiently waited.

After explaining the rule, the dark elf let all the participants enter the arena. The reason was simple, each participant will introduce himself before those who wished to bet on who’ll be the final winner. In total, there was nearly 80 of them. Demons, beast men, elves, and even some humans from what Lucifer could see. And among those participants, a beast man who seemed to be from the bull race with a frail looking body, was coldly gazing in a certain direction.

The beast man was Belphegor. Strangely he could revert back to his former appearance, which was a great news for Mephis. This way, he had even less worry to have about concealing Belphegor in the future.

However, at this very moment, he was standing inside the arena, looking for a certain man. And Gadius was also looking at him with a surprised expression. He didn’t expect to see Belphegor here, but he quickly focused his mind on another matter as he was laughing in his heart.

At first, he was a bit afraid that he would end up doing something out of desperation, but since the man himself chose to participate in this slaughter he could only be happy.

He had forcibly taken away his wife and daughter hoping to threaten him with their life, but a friend of his took a liking to the pair and he had to agree giving them to him as slaves. Although he hadn’t wished for such an outcome he could only accept it. However, he couldn’t use them to threaten Belphegor anymore since they were no longer in his possession.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

When he told Belphegor about this, he was afraid that the latter would try to do something and shouldn’t. Because he knew that despite looking like that, Belphegor used to be an experienced warrior. Although he didn’t know how he ended up in the slums, he learnt as a merchant that underestimating his opponent would lead him to a premature death. So, he asked someone to stay at the entrance of the slum and to report back to him on each time Belphegor went out and where he went. This is the reason why he was surprised when he saw, since there was no news of him going out of the slum to sign up as a participant.

But now, his worries about him were soon to be over.

Finally, after Belphegor introduced himself, a black-haired miss with dark eyes who looked like she was human, stepped out and presented herself.

“My name is Alice Asakawa, 17 years old, B rank adventurer.”

Her short presentation shocked everyone present. First was her family name that was way too uncommon and secondly was her adventurer rank. Being a B rank at 17 was something that rarely happened, it could even be said that no one present had yet to see one yet before today.

However, Lucifer’s face was grim when he looked at her. He could only feel that she was dangerous. In a second, Mephis took over the body.

Belphegor, if you ever face this Alice, concede.

Why milord?

She’s dangerous for us… I don’t know where she comes from, but she isn’t someone we can kill upfront… I’ll personally deal with her later.

Does milord need to act himself? With the power milord gave me, I think I can-

I’ll deal with her. The amount of divine power in her body is too abnormal to be left alone. With the amount of knowledge I acquired these last two days it is impossible for her to be a Chosen, but the feeling I get from her is that she is a threat of the same caliber…

I understand, but wouldn’t be better if I were to injure her first?

No need. I will deal with her without letting her any way of escaping.

Since Belphegor contracted with Mephis, they discovered that the two of them could talk through devil’s power as long as they weren’t too far away from each other.

The arrival of this new factor named Alice Asakawa gave Mephis a bad feeling which he needed to deal with quickly.

But not far from him, a woman who seemed to be in her early twenties looked coldly at Belphegor. She was wearing a wooded cape on her body to prevent attracting unwanted attention with her abundant curves, however, anyone looking at her hooded figure could tell that she had to be one of these women who were often considered as goddesses of beauty.

She had caught the murderous intent flashing in Belphegor’s eyes for a short time when the latter glanced in Alice direction. Her origin was still unknown to anyone present even the members of the adventurer team she belonged to.

Her reaction could be considered as someone overprotective because of her love, but the reason was something entirely different…

After every participant introduced themselves, the tournament finally began.

In order to greatly reduce the number of participants, eight teams were formed. Each team member will fight among themselves and only the last one standing will be allowed to continue.

To Mephis’ pleasant surprise, Belphegor was in a different team from Alice. After confirming this, he left his seat and told Vlad that he was going to the bathroom.

Vlad wanted to spank Lucifer when he heard those words. He was dragged here because of him and now this brat wasn’t even here when the event will finally start.

Mephis just ran away while being squeezed by the masses. For him, the beginning of the bloodshed will be the start of this little game of his.

//

“Try touching me again and I’ll cut off your hand.”

The coldness in the voice of this little girl didn’t fit her age.

Hilda and her husband were accompanying their holiness to the Lord’s room. The Lord of Tsein had invited them to let the children spend some time together while his son’s representative won the tournament.

However, not only was the little girl bored right after the first person introduced himself, she was making sure that Bruce was at least multiples feet from her. The latter reluctant of staying so far away, decided to get close and take her hand, but she retracted her hand as fast as possible while sending daggers with her eyes at him.

“Sorry… But we shouldn’t be so distant toward each other, in the future, it is possible that we will have to stay together.”

“Dream on. Unless you want to die, you should stop thinking this.”

“If you think that I am unsuitable for you because I’m weaker than you, I’ll show in the future that I can beat you without lifting a finger.”

The little girl didn’t say anything but she was laughing in her heart. Her hair was as white as snow at the moment, her golden eyes were filled with disdain when she looked in Bruce’s way. If it wasn’t for the fact that her guardians told her to not act rashly here and the nearby priest and arch priest of the Desolation church, she would have long since then killed this kid in front of her.

She sat on a chair and let her thoughts run wild. Before long, the face of Lucifer appeared in her head and she thought about her fight with him and the one against Mephis. A faint smile appeared on her lips while reminiscing these. She was getting hungry.

//

The first group had begun the festivities. And from the 10 participants present at the beginning, only four remained. Two of them were beast men of the tiger race, one of them was from the demon race while the last one from the human race. Both beast men were using a claymore as their weapon, while the demon used a long sword and the human a battle axe.

What surrounded them was the remains of five other participants. Since magic was authorized during the tournament, none of them dared to show some kind of restrain. Thus, some of them ended up obliterated because of their carelessness. However, the sixth one quickly surrendered after one of his limb was cut off to avoid any further injury.

Only by surrendering soon enough will someone keep his life during this tournament.

The scent of blood was filling their nostril as the ground under their feet seemed to slowly attract them. The cheering coming from the public couldn’t be heard by the participants, only their rough breathing and the movements of their opponents were important in their world. But none of them dared to move first.

They looked at each other like this for another minute before it happened. The eyes of one of the beast man turned blood red. He was in a berserk state. His muscles became sturdier, his battle awareness became sharper along with his five senses. And most importantly, his urge to kill soared.