Another day, another set of battles were quickly completed in the tournament. To no surprise Dragon’s Lair advanced on after defeating Daemon’s Gate with a score of 2 to 0. After that pairing was also a battle that didn’t create any controversy as Sea Emperor Palace demolished the technologically developed Magician’s Tower.
Since the most practical technology were openly shared, an engineer would only play a minor role during these battles. Without a doubt having strong combatants that are able to use these devices or forego them as they were found unnecessary are the much-preferred option.
Half of the day had progressed at it was now time for the match between Nexus University and Atlantica Royal School to begin. The predicted outcome of this match was difficult to determine, and although Nexus University had a decent result during the first match, the strength behind Atlantica Royal School was unknown, making the bets for this matchup 1 to 1.
Having discussed earlier, the team leaders of Nexus University decided that the battle order stayed the same. Although Zythos may have lost the first match, it was nothing to fret about as long as they won, and with Janet being extremely confident of her debut no one could complain about the selection order.
With Janet leading their team the match started with both sides choosing an ocean associated map. Luon questioned her mental sanity on why she would choose a map with the enemy having such a huge terrain advantage. It wasn’t only him who thought as much, the crowd looked perplexed at the lineup, from their perspective the team from Nexus replaced their team leader to a girl from a dog. It may appear visually better than before but it made no sense to them how they were going to win.
The next several minutes changed that mindset though, it was a crazy first battle that no one had honestly expected. Since there was no restriction from both of these battle academies, they both rushed at each other right away.
It’s been ages since someone had chosen an ocean field against a battle academy from the Aqua Kingdom, the people who had done so were either ignorant or plain arrogant. The overconfident members of the Aqua Kingdom, although the weakest team were level 74. NG-Arms were challenging to use in the ocean unless they were outfitted to perform so, and the only one without waterproof NG-Arms was the team members from Team Warbeast except for Janet who had hers specially retrofitted for water maps.
Despite the team leader, Janet left Zythos and the others in command at the beach after summoning a regular surfboard to surf towards the direction of the enemy base by herself. Zythos and the others shook their head, rather than help she created an insane amount of handicaps. Leaving her alone they began to build structures and vehicles that would help them out in the water.
What they didn’t know was that after Janet had left she encountered their enemy halfway through the map. There were 4 fishmen soldiers against Janet, and they were especially energetic knowing that almost the whole map was their territory. They had a savage appearance which made Janet frown a little, they had razor sharp teeth that had looked like a decaying yellow fang from a shark, and rough scales as if they were lizards. She couldn’t help but mutter, “There is no cure to ugliness, they smell like fish despite always taking a bath, don’t know anything about hygiene, naturally they are ugly...”
Her words hurt them just a tiny bit as she continues to mutter insults, but they didn’t care that much as their taste and culture were more different than hers. The little lass also gave them a free victory, so why should they care about it!
With their morale high, they uniformly attacked Janet only be struck dumb by her moves. Like a fish in water, she dodges their movements as their attacks glazes by her skin, and with a sword in her hand, she gutted these fishmen soldiers with clean solid strikes.
These fishmen were dumbfounded, if it weren’t for the armor they were wearing, they would have already lost to her. Seeing the situation was difficult for them to handle despite the terrain advantage they used the bloodlust mask. It seems that they have secretly collaborated with Plana Academia and managed to obtain these items. Too bad that despite wearing these mask they could only reach a minor standstill against her.
Their furious swipes increased in tempo as her dance like evasive maneuvers effectively dealt with their performance boost. Luon who was spectating this admired her abilities, to handle four them like if they were children is difficult even for him to do.
It wasn’t until she was able to eliminate one did the situation began to tilt in her favor, and before the crowd’s eyes were the dead soldiers from Sea Emperor Palace.
To no surprise after this intense fight did Nexus claim the victory over the first match. Zythos and the other teammates managed to arrive at the enemy base by the time Janet appeared before them waiting as if they had taken centuries to travel over there. Despite playing a minor part, if none at all, the others were happy to have won the match.
Janet felt her debut was perfect, she was indeed the shining star of this match as she began to garner more and more fans. With Janet's beautiful swordplay and her good looks, there was no way Janet wouldn’t have any fans. Luon looked at this scene strangely as he thought, ‘It seems like a successful debut, but only for a sword maiden. I think she forgot that idols are supposed to sing and dance…’
Luon kept his thoughts to himself as Janet happily came into the general waiting room giving people high fives.
Just before the next match was about to begin Janet stopped in front of Luon and rose her hand. Luon simply thought she wanted a high five and followed suit. However, just before they had made impact Janet twisted her body, a resonating clap sound and stinging pain appeared on Luon’s hand.
Janet looked triumphantly at Luon who grunted from the pain as she said, “Go get them!”
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Luon wryly smiled from her over-enthusiastic remark and departed from the room with his team behind him.
The next match started without notice and Luon had chosen the cliffside map once more. As expected their opponents had also selected an ocean type map and the game began. Luon started to construct his robot army and structures while their opponents showed no signs of movements.
It wasn’t possible to send Tyron to scout out their opponents as their opponent's field was filled with water. The slightest wave while swimming could alarm their opponents. Which is why Luon sent some basic waterproof robotic scouts into the water.
“Hahaha! Looks like I am ahead now!” said Bendan as he raised his rod up.
“Just you wait! I’ll get another one! I’ll get the most out of all of us!” said Gizmo with determination.
“There’s no way you can, I mean look how many Tyron has. You have to pull a miracle to catch up,” said Bendan.
Tyron slightly nodded as he continues to score more points.
The map was quiet, as Luon was still constructing and their opponents haven't appeared yet. Bendan, Gizmo, and Tyron who were completely bored asked Luon to toss a bunch of fish into a little pond they made and started to fish.
To fish in front of the Aquatic Races, what guts these guys have. Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with fishing for food or recreational activities as they don’t mind at all. It was like how cows and other animals were raised by humans for food, the intelligent Aquatic races fed off of either vegetation or fish.
“Why is nothing happening? How come the scouts haven’t found anything yet?” said Luon as he evaluates the information displayed on the commander table. It was then he realized that the scouts he had sent had been looping around under the water!
Their opponent's terrain wasn’t just a natural open spaced ocean, their base was located within a series of underwater channel with a castle of rock shaped structures underneath.
Luon started to record the path that they had explored so far and managed to solve the water flow puzzle. He felt like he was playing puzzle game where the floor panels would force the user to a particular direction.
It was then he realized their opponent's strategy, their opponents this match were 4 water turtles and 1 sea serpent. The turtles were spewing out water, and the sea serpent manipulated the current sending outwards. Luon sent his robot around and found their Crypt of Heroes producing more turtles that also began to spew out water. Although the maps were quite expansive, they were fixed to particular dimensions, beyond that were solid walls which disallowed any particle to leave the area.
Luon hurried down the cliff and measured the water levels. Apparently, their opponent's strategy was to drown the map with water. With his estimates, it would take an hour to drown the map.
During that time Luon could save for a hero unit to attack their foes, but with the water advantage their choices were restricted, and even if he did save for one, their opponents might summon their own to counter them.
It was a slow death, yet a death nonetheless. He needed to do something to turn the tides of the battle, and he needed to do it fast. Luon sent the scout around to evaluate the surroundings, and besides the roof above the Crypt of Heroes, all the other pathways led to multiple smaller tunnels. It wasn’t possible to travel in the opening above as an intense amount of water pressure was leaving that region.
Without a force beyond the amount, it was emitting it was impossible to travel through.
‘What should I do here?’ Thought Luon as he began to consult with Gizmo. Sadly, both of them never experienced this kind of situation before.
“What a battle! This is a never before seen strategy by Atlantica Royal School!” If it works out right then they may be able to use this against every other team in the tournament!” said the male announcer.
“What will Team Nexus do? Even I don’t know what to do in this situation,” said the female announcer with a perplexed face.
“This could be a new era! As expected from unique perspectives of the commander from Atlantica Royal School,” said the male announcer.
The play by play was very dull as there was nothing much to talk about.
Luon pondered over and over again, there were only two options for him to reach their opponent's side of the field, either take the complex tunnels or the surface above.
It was just then he heard a report from the operator using the scout, it seems that he was spotted and destroyed and the path to their base changed.
There was no solution to this problem, he needed to breakthrough from the top opening with force beyond the amount of pressure release, but all he had was an army of robots and his cliffside map with a single ramp.
It then came to him, a solution to bring him victory. Grabbing a pen and a paper he rapidly wrote a design with a series of complex calculations, taking him a few minutes to do. After reading the data, he nodded and started to bring the design to life.
The way to victory, he could finally see the path.