Shortly after Luna had left

“Did you confirm your suspicions? I assume that’s where you went since you’ve been missing for a little.” Solstice was currently sharpening his war glaive since it still had some damages from his time fighting Leviathan.

“Yeah, I was spot on, the question is will you believe me?” Victor had been dropping hints to Solstice for years now but even now he still hasn't accepted the facts.

“I want to believe it’s all a front, let’s just see how it plays out. I’m confident I can survive a lot now.” Solstice knew he should believe what his mentor had been telling him all this time but it’s really difficult to believe when the person plotting your entire demise is your mother.

“You know she wasn’t always like this; it was only after she met with her departed sister did she start acting truly cruel.” To this day Victor had kept his meeting with Estel a secret, internally he had wanted to tell Solstice, but he wasn’t sure if he should since it could affect the future she plotted out.

“What’s done is done, there’s no sense in crying about it now. I bet this little internal conflict is why I can’t break through.” He should’ve been able to break through to S-Rank but the conditions for S-Rank were harsh. You had to be in tune with your whole body, physically and mentally, and ever since Victor told him about his suspicions he’s felt out of sync.

“You’re still too young for that, we don’t need you getting an inflated ego and tampering with your potential.” Victor had taken what Estel had said to him to heart and attempted to mold Solstice into something that even surpassed him in his prime.

“It would’ve been nice to have right about now at least Victor. If I’m bait, I can only assume a few S-Rankers will attack me alone.”

“You have a fair point; we can only have faith in the plan set by the so-called leaders. But if I were you, I’d just go ahead and fight as if nobody was with you.”

“You know that both Lily and Luna are going to get involved in that.” He had been made aware of how they felt about him, but they were simply too weak and important to their families to be allowed to roam free during the attack.

“I can almost guarantee you that their fathers already have plans in place for that. Just focus on not dying alright. We’ve still got a lot to accomplish in your life.”

With that Solstice slowly dozed off with panic practically oozing off himself.

While Solstice was asleep Victor was hoping to find Bela in hopes of getting an accurate picture of what the plan consisted of.

—-Next morning

Solstice had just woken up when he heard a knock at his door and when he opened it he saw a white blur and was launched back to his bed.

“I cannot believe you didn’t say hey to me when you came back. Looks like I’ll have to torture you before the match today.” Bela said deviously.

Solstice didn’t know how to react and attempted to free himself only to be met with his body stagnating from her magic.

“Tsk you know you can’t do anything when I’m touching you. Just lay there and let me talk to you.” Bela sat up where she was sitting on his waist while looking over him.

“Man, you really bulked up and turned into a man all of a sudden, be a shame if someone just ate you up too. Too bad we’ve got pressing business since Victor came and found me last night.” Both of them looked over only to see Victor whistling trying to avoid what he was watching currently.

“First off, the attack is guaranteed tomorrow. Secondly, I’ve heard that multiple Sovereigns are going to show up.” Before Bela could move on, she saw how puzzled Solstice was.

“Ugh, I swear nobody ever teaches you about common knowledge.”

Sovereigns are people who are acknowledged as the top of their respective fields. Some fields are much smaller than others but the one with the most sovereigns is the dark element. Dark was one of the elements that had tons of pathways, Bela was regarded as a Soul Sovereign since nobody had more expertise regarding the soul as her, the Death Sovereign was the strongest necromancer on Aevis, and many more. Aspects like fire only had one or maybe two sovereigns depending on how versatile their respective element was.

“Is Leviathan a sovereign then?” Solstice asked curiously.

“Basically? He has a status that puts him above the rest of the world, so he isn’t really factored into all of this.” Leviathan was regarded as the top authority in the world but only nobles and up have the privilege of this knowledge, to keep a sort of clamp on the masses.

“Back to what I was saying, with all these powerhouses converging in one location, a horrendous shit show is about to occur and you’re basically the trigger for it. I don’t know how hard I need to stress that you need to not die.” Bela grabbed both sides of Solstices head and pulled his head inches away from hers.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You need to live, this isn’t fair to you, and I’m disgusted by everything that’s happening.” Bela really cared about Solstice and knew for a while now he was basically being groomed against his will but he kept persisting. She hated watching it all from the side, but she kept her mouth shut since she had no authority over his life.

“Just promise me you won’t try to be a hero, you’re too young for that kind of thing yet.” Bela kissed his forehead and looked down to see him lost in thought about the whole situation.

“I can’t promise I won’t survive since we have no idea what’ll happen, but I’ll try my hardest not to at least.” Solstice said with a weak smile.

After hearing that powerhouse on top of powerhouse was going to show up at the tournament, he had lost hope of somewhat controlling the situation, that all the years he’s trained for mean absolutely nothing now. Talent can only get you so far, time is an insurmountable wall you can't bypass to a certain extent.

Bela knew he did his best promising this, so she finally got up and waved goodbye to him.

“Never seen that selfish bitch be so nice to someone.” Victor didn’t interject into the conversation since he felt he had no part in it, but in all his years of knowing the runaway princess he had never seen her show so much care for one individual.

“It’s got to be something about his soul, who knows.” Victor just shrugged and faded away to wait for shit to hit the fan.

As Solstice made his way out of the Inn he was met instantly by Luna and Lily arguing.

“How did you even know he was here huh? You’re stalking him obviously.” Luna yelled at Lily, she had made sure to put him somewhere out of sight of everyone since it lined up with only her knowing and his preference but clearly the duke's daughter had her ways of finding out.

“I just happened to see you guys return here last night while I was clearing my head.” Lily said with a bright smile not letting on that she followed from a distance.

While the two were arguing Solstice just casually walked past them and only after a few more seconds of them arguing they noticed he was walking on without them. Like that the next day of the tournament started and the competition got fiercer.

The awakening ceremony for nobles showcased a few new generational talents but a few upstarts from the commoner's ceremony were making their name heard at this tournament. Many nobles had been knocked out in the first round due to sheer cockiness and lack of research of their opponent.

A duke's son who should’ve been a shoe in was almost killed by a commoner while many counts and barons' sons were also knocked out, and all of these commoners had a leader who was known by Dante. Dante was an orphan and lived in the slums of the Lightmane capital, both of his parents were killed by a count before Tyrion cracked down on enforcing the law. This resulted in him having an innate hatred for all nobles and rallied many lowborn like him to his cause.

Currently Dante was fighting another count's son who was supposedly another rare talent, but it clearly wasn’t showing in his fight. Dante had affinities with Dark and Wind making him incredibly annoying to hit and dodge.

“Is that all you got? Fucking pathetic and spoiled brat.” Dante was currently dodging fire bullets with ease and toying with the teen he was fighting with the aim of enraging more nobles. Slowly the teen ran out of mana and Dante closed the gap and grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the ground, from there he began slamming it over and over again and slowly after a pool of blood began to form and he lost consciousness the referee finally intervened to stop him. With a huge smirk Dante raised his arm and got cheers from many commoners and spat on the teens limp body and walked off the stage. This drew the ire from almost all the nobles watching except the elves who had a firmer grip on their society as compared to the greedy humans.

“Seems like you’ve got a little upstart Tyrion, wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up dead after this tournament.” Irian jested to Tyrion, but he knew deep down that this scenario had a real possibility of happening.

“Maybe if this was a few years ago, but ever since that traitor died, I haven’t had too many issues regarding control. I think he just needs to see that little monster and he’ll calm down a little.” Tyrion had seen his fair share of people knocked down a peg like his son and he was just waiting for the teen to see the monster himself in action.

“Speak of the devil, here he comes. I feel bad for the elf he’s going to fight.” Irian pointed at the arena and saw that one of his teens was fighting Solstice.

“I had high hopes for that one too, at least he won’t be here for tomorrow.”

Slowly Solstice began to walk towards the stage but a black teen with short black hair attempted to bump into him and nearly fell onto the ground.

“Sick of you spoiled bastards.” Muttered Dante before speed walking away in order to hide his failed attempt from prying eyes. Solstice saw this and just shrugged before appearing on stage and seeing an elf with a halberd waiting on him.

“Greetings, I hope I learn something from this bout.” The elf was incredibly respectful and to the point before readying his weapon. Solstice nodded before taking a stance with only his fists, as soon as the bell rang the elf charged forward with wind behind at an incredible speed hoping to catch him off guard.

Solstice imbued a small amount of lightning to himself and used his hand to punch the side of the halberd and knock it into the ground, then followed up with a palm to the elf’s chest sending him spiraling away into the ground. Solstice began to walk away but as he turned, he felt danger from the side and jumped away only to see the halberd being propelled by wind and return back to the elf.

“Of course, you’d dodge that.” The elf saw the dodge and knew he had no chance of landing a clean hit, he was used to teens with the battle sense to match their age and clearly Solstice had the battle sense of a veteran at the very least.

“I bet if that even hit you it wouldn’t even draw blood, hahaha this is a sick joke.” The elf began to laugh before putting his halberd on his shoulder and just walking off the stage completely forfeiting. Irian could only laugh under his breath seeing how futile it is for any person in this age group attempting to damage Solstice at all.

“I see he’s only become more monstrous, hopefully Ivis doesn’t get too emasculated again seeing the gap only widen with time.” Tyrion found the existence of Solstice almost comical for other teens.

Appearing on stage finally was Rina Moonstar who had effectively disappeared since the hellish night of the banquet.