Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 16. The Quarterfinals.
“Sauras’s boy won his first duel very easily,” Rudford noted the obvious, the first fight of the main tournament having just finished.
“He is at late stages of the sixth mortal realm, he practices a top-level martial art and he is a Secret wielder, obviously he will have an easy time until quarterfinals,” Injar pointed out dispassionately. Until the later stages, this ‘Grand Tournament’ would be utterly boring.
“Still can’t hold a candle to our kids,” Einrah said presumptuously, though he definitely had a point. With how strong both Anatis and Laien were, Alen and Laura truly had little to no chance to beat them in a fair fight.
“The problem will be the boy Laien brought along, huh?” Ninrah said and glanced in the direction of the youths from their and Eleonora’s camps who had all gathered in one place and were now chatting happily.
“More importantly,” Injar spoke up with a smile. “There were some people who tried to stir trouble in your schools, right?” he inquired, interested to hear the details of how the pests had been dealt with over on the other sides.
“Yeah, some idiots were trying to meddle.” Einrah laughed, the expression on his face appearing to be quite pleased. “They wanted to make my Elders and disciples lash out against Rudford’s side, but they overestimated the amount of bad blood between our schools and underestimated mine and my brother’s influence. In the end, we got rid of all troublemakers including three martial masters of the first rank,” he explained while smirking the whole time.
“The same thing happened in my school,” Rudford said with a laugh. “The difference is we tried to capture those people, but they all committed suicide when they realized they would be unable to run. Similarly, we got rid of three martial masters of the first rank,” he elaborated briefly, as usually not too fond of getting too deep into the details.
“It looks like Sauras and his supporters in the shadows and becoming quite restless,” Injar said contentedly. One of the reasons he was in such a good mood today was because recently, the Cail family made quite a few attempts to break up their alliances, but failed miserably every time.
“They indeed are.” Rudford nodded. “Yet, it doesn’t feel like they are going all-out. They should only be probing the grounds for now. We can’t let our guards down,” he reminded, very well aware what the consequences underestimating someone like Fohan Cail were.
“Tricks aren’t of much use against overwhelming power,” Einrah said confidently. Injar and Rudford had been warning him of the various powers hidden behind the first Prince, but he couldn’t see them as a threat at all. When his Twin Phoenix School and Rudford’s Red Dragon School allied themselves with Injar, they practically became the most powerful military organization of the Kingdom. Unless everyone else joined forced to fight them, it wouldn’t even be a contest!
“Let’s hope they won’t be,” Rudford said with a sigh, for the first time today a hint of grim bitterness showing up in his voice. He had already once lost the person who mattered to him the most; he didn’t want the same thing to happen again.
If such a thing really happened to him once more… then he really doubted he would be able to hold his emotions in check.
“Oi, Rudford,” Einrah spoke up with a chuckle. “Calm down, you are scaring everyone,” he said with a sarcastic smile. Wasn’t Rudford always the one telling him to keep his killing intent in check? What was he doing letting it seep out of his body so blatantly?
Rudford winced, then suppressed his bloodthirst. He sighed and smiled helplessly, noticing how practically everybody in the private sector was looking or glancing at him. He exchanged a brief look with Laien and shook his head a little, thus telling him it wasn’t anything important.
“We’ve all got things we want to protect,” Injar said in a soft voice. “I know how sometimes the idea of closing them all in a safe cage of our full and thorough protection seems enticing, but that’s no life,” he elaborated calmly, speaking from personal experience.
“Closing them in a cage could actually be fairly fun,” Einrah mentioned with a smile. Himself he knew how pointless sheltering children was and never practiced the idea, unlike the certain two crimson-haired personas who stood at his side.
“Elder brother, I could actually see you doing that,” Ninrah pointed out with a chuckle, causing Einrah to laugh merrily and the other two to smile resignedly. If Laien and Anatis ended up losing their bet, they could very well end up sitting in a cage in a very non-metaphorical sense, huh.
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“At least it’s going quite fast,” Laien mentioned randomly. It was already afternoon and so far, the tournament had no major surprises; at least for them, because the audience had been mesmerized by the performance of the black horse who appeared out of nowhere and dominated the early rounds without even using any weapons. It was making Laien a bit jealous that Yin was in the center of attention, but only a bit though.
As for the rest of the bunch? Nothing unexpected happened. Laien himself, Anatis, Alex and the pupils of Sauras’s and Finella’s advanced without breaking a sweat.
“Not fast enough,” Yin pouted with a smile and glanced at Laien. “I want to fight you already,” he added impatiently. These six or so hours he had spent talking and playing around the Royal Arena with Laien pretty much convinced him; he indeed liked Laien very much. The only remaining thing was to confirm his strength and after that, everything would become simple.
“I want to fight you too, but you’ve told me that like seven times already,” Laien said with a laugh. He would have asked why was Yin being so restless about it, but the thing was he already had. Yet, Yin dodged all the questions about his motives and didn’t speak much of where he came from. In the end, he just assumed Yin had his own reasons and stopped pestering him about it.
“The break before quarterfinals is about to be over,” Anatis spoke up. “So as long as we don’t waste time in our respective fights, you two will get to fight soon,” he said with a grin, a bit amazed and a bit jealous of how quickly Laien and Yin came to get along.
“You and Laura are fighting first, so give your best to end it quickly,” Laien responded with a happy smile. He was very much for the idea of making a quick work of the quarterfinals.
“I wish I could be as leisure as you guys,” Alex said helplessly and smiled a little. Her own talent was very good and she had always meekly considered herself a genius, but when she looked at those three boys nearby and at Alen and Laura who stood further away, she couldn’t help but sigh in her heart.
Since she was one of the top figures of Princess Eleonora’s camp, she was allowed to learn about the existence of the so-called ‘Secrets’ or how those guys tended to call them, ‘Aspects’. Alen and Laura were one thing, however, the remaining three not only apparently wielded those mysterious Aspects but also had stronger cultivation bases. Especially this green-haired boy who was at the eighth mortal realm… just looking at him was making her feel small and unimportant.
“Hey, enough chatting,” Rudford called out and pointed at the servant at the door. “The first quarterfinal is about to begin, don’t make the audience wait,” he added with a chuckle.
“Mm, time to go,” Anatis said with a smile, appearing to be fully relaxed. However, although he was quite confident in his ability to beat Alen, he couldn’t help being somewhat nervous.
“No need to wish you good luck, right?” Laien asked with a grin.
“It would be quite a shame if he needed luck,” Nila said teasingly, exchanging a meaningful glance with Anatis. She fully expected her boyfriend to win!
“He will win,” Yin said confidently. “The other guy doesn’t feel as strong as he is,” he stated without any further explanation as if it was the most natural thing in the world to know.
“And how do I feel in comparison to Anatis?” Laien asked after a second, curious what Yin’s answer would be.
“Hard to tell,” Yin said with a light shrug of his shoulders. “You two seem to be just about as strong, but I like you better,” he concluded, adding the latter remark a bit out of the blue to everyone.
Laien chortled, quietly wondering what was it for that Yin needed someone strong who he liked. Was there some kind of important task or quest he had been entrusted with and need help? Or was it somehow related to the affairs of whatever the country he came from? Either way, Laien needed to admit the whole thing was quite a mystery and because of it, was incredibly interesting.
“Oi, get moving!” Einrah reminded with some anger in his voice. Wasn’t Anatis told to get moving? Why was he still standing there?
Anatis looked at Einrah, then glanced briefly at Ninrah. He sighed a little, still feeling rather awkward about even exchanging a few meaningless sentences with them. Thus, without saying anything he excused himself with a nod and following the trend Laien started, jumped out through one of the large, open windows.
“You get going too,” Sauras said calmly from the seat he took out from his interspatial ring a good few hours ago.
Alen nodded, but contrary to Sauras’s expectations approached the closest window, opened it and jumped down.
“Ho?” Sauras raised his eyebrows and smiled to himself. He didn’t pay much mind or heed to what Sinra’s friends were talking about, but he picked up bits and pieces. Did their words manage to sit up the ever lazy and unconcerned pupil of his? “Dear me, I’m beginning to hope he gets a good beating from that golden-haired kid,” he noticed his own thoughts in amusement and laughed once again. He would perhaps end up losing some funds today, but he would gain something much more precious.
“You will pay for underestimating me,” Alen said angrily without even looking at Anatis as the two of them were approaching the middle of the arena.
“Thanks for the warning,” Anatis replied with a smirk. “I will make sure to fight to my very best, so feel free to do the same,” he said and glanced at Alen, who appeared to be at a loss for words. Weren’t those guys all making fun of him since way before? Why was this one suddenly behaving like that?
“Don’t get me wrong, I do think I’m stronger than you,” Anatis added with a cheeky smile, by the looks of it Laien’s attitude rubbing itself off on him. “However, I will still fight with all my strength and not hold anything back,” he explained amiably and smiled at Alen.
“That’s… good, I guess,” Alen said awkwardly. He rarely talked with anyone and practically never socialized with other people, so this little exchange during which he had gotten stupidly angry only to be met with a straightforward, honest response came to him as a hard pill to swallow.
“Yeah, let’s see how much dormant potential there is within you,” Anatis said before he could bite his tongue. After the fact, he started regretting having such a big mouth, but what was said was said.
Although unintentional, the words caused Alen to recall all the times Master Xin told him to work harder and put more effort into training. Previously, he had been angry at those guys for calling him weak and refused to admit they could possibly be stronger… but now, he asked himself if the situation wouldn’t have been different had he put more effort just like Master Xin told him to.
“Yeah, let’s see,” Alen said with a slight smile after stopping about twenty meters across from Anatis. His interspatial ring flashed and he withdrew a beautiful, slim and long sword from it. The blade looked incredibly fragile, but it was very durable and more importantly, extremely light.
Stolen novel; please report.
Anatis took a deep breath and withdrew his own white-gold spear. He assumed a stance, waiting for the judge to signal the beginning of the duel.
“At my sign…!” the judge yelled loudly. “Three…! Two…! One…! Fight!” he counted down and the moment he finished, the five hundred thousand spectators in the Royal Arena gasped when the two boys released their respective flames; the golden flame of the Twin Phoenixes’ and the azure Heavenly Flame of the Royal Family.
Neither of the boys hesitated to launch an attack and instantly, both of them jumped at each other. As they did, Anatis thrust forward with his spear in a simple, yet frighteningly quick manner, thus getting Alen to block and deflect the blow with his slim sword.
The moment their flames came into a direct contact, they stirred up… and then, the azure Heavenly Flame collapsed almost entirely, causing an expression of shock to surface on Alen’s face. These golden flames… they were so frighteningly powerful that after merely deflecting one thrust of Anatis’s spear, his hand and his shoulder began itching with burning pain!
It only made sense though. Not only was Anatis at the seventh mortal realm, while Alen was at the late stages of the sixth, Anatis wielded two Aspects which he had fused into one entirety. Both Tranquility and Wrath of his had complete foundations, too! Against just the Heavenly Flame clumsily supported by the Aspect of Sloth, he couldn’t not have come out without great advantage!
Anatis smirked slightly and instead of withdrawing his spear, took the opportunity and changed his grip to one-handed, took another two quick steps and turned his body around, executing the same strategy Laien had used on him during their first fight.
Alen grit his teeth. Even if he hadn’t been thrown off-balance by the first attack, he wouldn’t have had been able to reach Anatis before the spear would land at his body. The difference in their physical abilities proved to quite a considerable one, not to mention how rare it was to face a spear-wielder in their Kingdom. Left with no other option, Alen blocked the swipe head-on… or so he intended to do.
When the spear met his sword, it proved to carry an incredible weight and force behind it. Even though he gave his best to resist, his guard had been easily breached and he ended up being hit by the swipe. Luckily for him, what at first hit his arm was the white-gold shaft and not the blade which was but a few centimeters more to the front. Still, however, during this split-second when the time seemed to have slowed down, he felt how the bones in his arm cracked and how his skin and muscles were being burned by the golden flames.
When the audience saw Alen being hit and blown over twenty meters away, they raised cries of astonishment. The first exchange had happened in under a second, the boys exchanged only two blows…! But the kid from the Twin Phoenix School proved to be so overwhelmingly superior that they could barely believe their own eyes!
In the private sector, Sauras stood up from his chair abruptly and put his hand to the window, looking at Alen anxiously. Those average people probably still didn’t notice, but this one spear swipe had burned off a large hole in Alen’s arm! If this damned judge didn’t end the fight right away and allowed his precious pupil to be crippled, he would kill him personally!
“The difference is… just as expected, huh?” Anatis thought silently, standing in place and waiting for Alen to collect himself from the ground or for the duel to be ruled as finished. He felt bad for injuring Alen so heavily; in fact, had he not withdrawn his flames at the last moment, he would have not only burned his arm cleanly off but also turned the rest of his body into charcoal and killed him. He really had gotten a bit too into it after saying he would fight with his whole strength.
On his knees and supporting himself with one hand, Alen opened his mouth in a soundless scream of indescribable pain. With tears flowing from his eyes, he glanced at his arm and saw a twenty centimeters long spot of revealed, broken white bone surrounded by black, burned and oozing blood flesh. He trembled and vomited on the ground, feeling as if he was about to faint.
“So… so strong…” Alen groaned wordlessly. He had heard about Anatis and Laien fighting to a stalemate in an epic duel, but he never imagined the difference between him and them would be so enormous. Forget about putting up a fight, he had been massacred by Anatis in mere two blows!
Refusing to go down so easily, he attempted to get back up to his feet… but soon found out that he was unable to muster enough strength to do even that. Finally, he lowered his head and stayed as he was on his knees, the slightest movement causing the already unbearable pain to grow worse.
“The fight is over!” the judge called out immediately after seeing that Alen wasn’t trying to get up anymore. The next moment, one of the water-element spiritual masters who had been watching the fight from a corridor at the ground level rushed out to treat Alen.
“The victor is Anatis!” the judge declared only afterward, worried that he had already delayed ending the fight for long enough to get into trouble. He had his own principles though and since Anatis wasn’t rushing to finish his opponent off, he wouldn’t call the end before Alen gave up on continuing.
“He sure is taking a long time, Laien healed himself a lot quicker,” Anatis noticed amidst the massive cheers and applause, about which he didn’t care too much. “It looks like he will be healed just fine though, good.” He sighed with relief and began heading back to the private audience sector.
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“Good fight,” Laien called out the moment Anatis entered the complex of rooms. It was indeed as quick as he and Yin hoped it to be.
“It couldn’t even count as a fight,” Anatis responded resignedly. It wasn’t that he was arrogant and looked down on Alen, but he simply was unable to honestly call something as one-sided as their duel a ‘fight’.
“Alex already went down there, so I’m next, right after her,” Laien mused aloud as Anatis joined their little group. “Then Yin, then you and Alex and finally…!” he added expectantly, after seeing how Anatis did Alen in no longer holding Laura’s abilities in any regard. She was supposedly somewhat weaker than Alen, so how could she be of any danger to him? All he cares about for the moment was his duel with Yin!
“Look, it’s already over,” Yin pointed out while glancing through the window. Laien and Anatis looked too and saw Alex’s opponent on the ground with three huge burn marks on his body, two at the chest area and one at his thigh.
By the looks of it, Alex made full use of the extent of flexibility the Heavenly Flames provided to her and the moment that poor youth approached her, shot a few tongues of flame right at him. The boy, of course, tried to dodge, but against flames which could be adjusted mid-flight he only managed to avoid two out of five attacks; the remaining three wounding him quite badly.
After receiving the wounds, the boy immediately surrendered. He might have been able to keep fighting if he wanted, but he realized he had no chance to win and wouldn’t even get to exchange blows with this silver-haired girl. The superior martial art she practiced was creating too big of a difference.
“So it’s my turn already, good!” Laien said with a laugh and jumped down onto the battleground right afterward.
“…” Laura looked down on the floor, the scene of Alen getting trashed by the golden-haired boy still flashing past her eyes. To fight this black-haired one, to fight Laien… there was no way she could win! Pride or not, she was scared! She didn’t want to get hurt so badly! She didn’t want to quiver on the ground in such an unsightly manner after being defeated!
“Laura?” Finella asked with a worried expression on her face. She had never seen Laura acting in this way before, but could it be she was scared to fight?
“I give up,” Laura said quietly, refusing to raise her gaze or her head.
“What?” Carkan asked, his voice carrying a mixture of frustration and disbelief. Was this girl trying to completely shame their side by running away from the challenge? It was one thing to lose, but to actually run away was an entirely different matter!
“I said I concede!” Laura cried out loudly, startling quite a few people present and causing everyone to turn their gazes and look at her. “There’s no way I’m beating a monster like that! I don’t want to fight him! I won’t fight him!” she shouted desperately, already convinced there was nothing that could possibly make her face Laien.
A bit troubled and very baffled silence fell in the private sector. The various camps and the experts present were all both startled by the declaration and somewhat amazed by this development. They would have never expected one of the original favorites to win to actually become so scared of fighting she would straight-out concede!
Carkan’s neck tensed up as he grit his teeth in anger. He was about to rebuke Laura, but swallowed his words when Finella raised her hand and stopped him from approaching the girl.
“It’s fine,” she said bitterly. “Go tell the judge we are conceding this match,” she said to the servant who was waiting at the door.
“I’m going down so I might as well tell him,” Yin said loudly and jumped down, going ahead and joining Laien down on the battleground.
After hearing the news from Yin, the judge looked towards the private sector from the platform he was standing on. He saw Finella nodding reluctantly and he almost gasped; they really were surrendering the fight!
“Laura has withdrawn from the fight!” he yelled after a few seconds, only then having come back to his senses. “The winner is Laien!”
“Yay,” Laien smirked sarcastically when a wave or displeased comments arose from the spectator's seats along with some curses directed at Laura, at the judge and at him. “At least I won faster than Anatis,” he said with a helpless laugh, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. After that just now the whole audience without exceptions would be on Yin’s side when they would be fighting! It was so unfair!
“It looks like my opponent won’t be conceding, huh,” Yin mentioned after noticing a twelve years old boy who rushed out of the corridor.
“I’m not going back up, too annoying,” Laien said poutingly and walked up to the platform, then jumped onto it and sat on its edge. The judge gave him a troubled look but didn’t tell him to go back up. If Laien’s master didn’t call him over on his own, he wouldn’t tell the boy to leave the arena. After all, he wouldn’t be much of a bother here on the platform and away from the actual fight.
“Will he use his weapon this time?” Laien wondered, but when he saw another person pulling out a typical sword, he couldn’t help but sigh resignedly. This Kingdom’s obsession over swords was a bit too extreme, to the point of making these relatively low-level fights utterly boring. He had seen how Yin dealt with the previous sword wielders and nothing suggested this duel would be any different.
And indeed, after a very brief exchange which included Yin making a few spectacular dodges, the opponent of his got kicked into the chin from down below so hard that he blacked out and fell on his back. The duel concluded in this simple manner and accompanied by an applause, Yin went over to Laien and sat at his side, thus causing everybody in the audience to remember the two of them appeared to be friends.
Suddenly, the whole half a million people began feeling more inclined to cheer Laien on, though they still considered Yin to be their favorite.
“Master,” Alex spoke up in a fairly loud voice, quickly getting Eleonora’s and Anna’s attention. “I wish to surrender too,” she said with a little sigh, instantly getting everybody in the private sector to begin listening to their talk. Even Laura raised her head and looked in her direction with surprise.
“Don’t you at least want the experience of fighting him?” Anna asked calmly, contrary to Alex’s expectations not too disturbed by the suggestion.
“Sparring would be great, but that’s for another time. I would be too ashamed to ask Anatis to hold back while fighting me,” Alex explained with a helpless smile and gave Anatis a brief glance. Her control over the Heavenly Flame was at best as good as Alen’s, but she wielded no Aspects. If Anatis wanted, he could prevent her from even getting close to him. She wasn’t his match at all.
“I understand,” Anna said calmly. She exchanged a quick look with Eleonora, after which she approached the already open window and called out while enhancing her voice with Qi.
“Alex from the Princess Eleonora’s camp surrenders the fight!”
The declaration caused another huge commotion. Another voluntary surrender this far into the tournament? What could the reasons be? Were the Royal Children setting up someone to win and playing in a dishonest manner? Some of the people naturally came to think so, but many more connected the staggering performance of Anatis and the rumors about him and Laien being of equal strength. Considering what had happened to Alen, it truly began making sense that no one would want to fight either of those two when they were serious.
“Wow, so it’s our turn already?” Laien said with a chuckle. He wanted to fight Yin as soon as possible, but this went much faster than expected.
“Looks like it is, come, let’s go!” Yin said eagerly and slid off of the platform, landing on the ground good twenty meters below it.
Laien laughed and followed after Yin, not waiting for the judge to announce the beginning of the fight or anything else. He wouldn’t stand for a break right before his duel with Yin!
The judge, however, had nothing against the second semifinal beginning immediately. To the opposite, he was rather happy with it as otherwise, the audience would have surely been more displeased about the two recent concedes. “At my sign…!” he yelled when the two boys stopped in the center of the battleground.
With a smile on his face, Laien took out his white spear which had a few crimson red patterns on its shaft. He gave Yin a questioning look, after what Yin laughed and produced a pair of slightly curved twin swords from his two interspatial rings.
“Dual wielder!” Laien felt a shiver of excitement and nervousness run down his spine. With the speed and agility of Yin’s, it would be very hard for him to fend off his twin swords. It wouldn’t have been that bad if Yin used one sword like almost everyone in this country… but the advantage of dual wielding was much more apparent when a twin swords user fought somebody physically weaker than him in comparison to a normal swordsman fighting such a person.
With the countdown to the beginning of the duel barely reaching his ears, Laien grabbed his spear more firmly and concentrated all his attention on Yin. The switch inside him has been instantly flipped, causing Laien’s senses to all turn into a state of heightened tension. He already drew on some of his spiritual energy, preparing to use his Guardian magic to defend himself.
“Fight!”
When the judge’s last word rang out, Yin immediately kicked at the ground and attacked with much greater speed than he had displayed in his previous fights. He closed the distance of twenty meters between him and Laien in the blink of an eye and swung swiftly with the sword in his right hand. At the same time, he filled his twin swords with his Qi and to Laien’s and everyone else’s astonishment, caused powerful sparks of lightning to run through them!
The lightning-element affinity! The rarest, most unpredictable and most offensively powerful element in the hand of a dual wielder!
Sensing the terrifying power which Yin’s simple sword strike carried, Laien employed all his insights and covered his white spear in a layer of freezing-cold energy. He raised the shaft to block Yin’s sword and the two weapons collided with a loud ‘clang’ sound, but to Laien’s shock, his spear had been nearly blown off from his hands…! And even though it had somehow managed to keep ahold of it, his guard was now wide open and the slash of Yin’s second sword was already incoming!
To make matters worse, the torrent of lightning had forced its way through the protective ice mist Laien was trying to defend himself with. At the moment, although only some of the energy ended up reaching his hands, he could already feel them growing numb!