Tosam’s hand shot out and gripped Kadir’s extremely massive bicep. He tightened his fingers, making sure that Kadir could feel his grim through the chill of the surroundings. “Wait.”

Kadir glared hatefully at Tosam and yanked his arm out of his grip, but did ultimately stop as requested. By decree of King Phirun, Tosam was in charge of their decisions during this very important tournament. Kadir was the significant muscle, while Tosam was the brains of the operation. Yet even while they were both beset by temperatures low enough to affect even their System-empowered bodies, Kadir still found the energy to spitefully act out in small ways.

Tosam was just glad Kadir had sensed the seriousness of this moment as he led his muscular companion to crouching next to a snowdrift and peering down the hill in front of them. There, standing in the middle of the oppressive blizzard like this was just a walk in the park, were two men.

Honestly, the fact that there were only two of them standing so boldly in a large valley was the first warning sign in Tosam’s mind. The arena for the preliminary fights was relatively small. Perhaps only a single square mile. With a thousand groups buzzing around, it was inevitable that clashes happened frequently. Only ten minutes had passed since the round started and the duo of Kadir and Tosam had been forced into several brutal fights that they barely survived.

Even though the foes they fought were weaker even than Tosam, the fights kept attracting the attention of other teams, who would intervene when they thought they could strike decisively and earn points. This meant that even during a fight, a portion of their focus needed to be on the surrounding area so they wouldn’t be ambushed. Which made those ten minutes stretch to seem like several hours.

All this while soaked to the skin with freezing sleet and forced to wade through two feet of snow.

Which was why the calm expression on the two men’s faces also put Tosam on his guard as their voices drifted up to them. The chaos and difficulty of the surroundings didn’t seem to affect them at all.

“We split up and see who can defeat more teams, yea,” The first man said. He was tall and slender, with long knives strapped all across his waist and chest. The thick snow seemed to be eviscerated by only his ambient image as it drifted closer, leaving him completely untouched by the ceaseless precipitation. “I get the rules. I just think betting money is too boring. Let’s get a bit more serious.”

“Oh? Hehehe, what did you have in mind?” The other man wasn’t wearing a shirt at all, boldly standing the blizzard with his hands on his hips. Yet as the snow swirled closer, it immediately evaporated underneath the raw heat from his bronze-colored skin. His spirit seemed to have a physical presence, dominating the area.

The first man offered a small smile. “Just this: whoever loses must fight the rest of the tournament with the other’s weapons. Or lack thereof, in your primitive case.”

“Ha! I like it!” The bronze man clapped his hands together and the noise echoed strangely in the valley. For a brief moment, all of the snow surrounding him was held suspended without moving. Only when the noise passed did the snow continue to fall. “Heh, I cannot wait to see you trying to throw a punch…”

Kadir’s eyes were wide. It was clear he saw the effect of that clap too. Tosam gestured sharply. Both of them silently turned around and left, never noticing that the two men spared them a glance while ironing out the rules of their bet. Perhaps if they had remained there for a few more minutes, they would not have been able to pass the preliminaries at all.

*****

In the third preliminary group, the extreme environment chosen by the Order Ducis was a sweltering desert. In the beginning, there was almost crippling visibility on the relatively flat ground that led to some awkward standoffs. Everybody basically held everybody else in check; no one wanted to be the first group to get into a fight.

But after only five minutes, the heat had been turned up to the point that heatwaves completely distorted the surrounding vision. Figures locked in combat were brown blurs, the noises forced upward and away from ears by the constant rising air above the hot ground. Even the sand beneath the participants' feet seemed to warp and melt underneath that oppressive heat.

Due to that heat, Donny was starting to get quite uncomfortable in the dark robe he was wearing to hide his features. “Is this really alright? Very few other political leaders are participating…”

His companion shrugged. “At least Warlord and Lucifer are participating. There is no rule against it. The Order Ducis wants the strongest images represented.”

Donny released a sigh and resisted the urge to adjust his pants. There were dark smudges on the horizon that were probably other people approaching their location, but it was difficult to tell through the shimmering heat waves. “True. I just feel…”

His companion clapped Donny’s back with quite a bit of force. “Just admit to yourself that you want to fight. And in this world, wanting to fight isn’t a problem. After running Donnyton for so long, I bet you have some stress to work out. I certainly do...”

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“True.” The light in Donny’s eyes brightened. His fingers tightened around the leather handles of his shield. The smudges continued to become more detailed before his gaze, resolving themselves into a pair of people fleeing from another pair. “Heh, I really do need the exercise. This group-”

“Nope, this group is mine.” His companion raised his hand. There was a pulse of Mana and suddenly several spectral forms appeared around the two of them. These captured souls of Raid Bosses spared glances laden with hatred for their owner but were quickly suppressed by the aura of the Sovereign of Ghosts.

“I’ve been scouting and maintaining communication for almost two years without a break. I report trouble and watch someone else deal with it.” Glendel hissed. After the first three Raid Boss Ghosts loped off toward the figures in front of them, he instantly conjured a dozen more powerful Raid Bosses that radiated malevolence. “I think we need to remind these people why Donnyton was the most powerful Village on Earth.”

*****

“You brought a horse as your partner,” Alana asked in disbelief. In front of her was the proof, calmly munching at the verdant foliage underneath the heavy treeline. They were in the seventh of the preliminary groups and Hank Howard was standing next to a completely ordinary brown horse that was enjoying its meal. And he looked very pleased about the whole situation. “How did the Order Ducis let that happen?”

“Let’s defeat him now and take the points,” Wivanya suggested as she twined her neck around a nearby tree trunk. For this preliminary, the Order Ducis has created a thick jungle and Wivanya was having quite a lot of difficulty moving around. As such, her mood had turned sullen and spiteful. To avoid attracting undue attention, she kept her body still while her long neck slide between the trees.

Hank just smiled and patted his horse’s neck. “Well, tehnic-ally I have entered alone, and they allow’d me ta bring a horse. But I found havin’ this fella with me helped my image. Feels more like a gunslinger with a horse, yanno? I might even set up a campfire.”

“So now you are dragging around a liability with you,” Alana shook her head. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but accept it. That was just Hank for you. He followed his own sort of tune, even when it was the most illogical thing that most people had ever heard. “Can you be sure you will pass through the preliminaries with this guy?”

“His name’s Ancho. And haven’t you noticed that the prior preliminaries all ended early?” Hank waved his hand. “People so itchin’ to fight that as long as I survive and mind my own business, I’ll pass. Because the others will have been beaten.”

“You are a certain sort of brave, Hank Howard,” Wivanya hissed. Then the Frost Dragon turned its reptilian gaze on the brown horse and blew a long breath out through its nose. The horse straightened from the fern it was devouring, seeming to sense the attention. Frost Dragon and brown horse regarded each other seriously. Then Ancho huffed out a breath, unimpressed by Wivanya, and returned to its meal.

Alana immediately sensed Wivanya gathering her power in her throat to unleash a blast of frost to punish this horse and patted her partner’s side to calm her down; there was no point in wasting energy against Hank right now anyway.

Growling, Wivanya followed Alana’s direction and began to stomp off, simply smashing the tree trunks in her path to kindling. It appeared they were done with the laying low strategy. Alana spared Hank a small smile before she followed her dragon to save whoever was dumb enough to investigate the loud noises. “Be careful. There are more powerful people here than I expected.”

“Heh, do you think I need to be reminded of that? The world… it’s a wide place,” Hank replied placidly. “There’s gonna be a good sky, tonight, I think.”

*****

Lyra smiled sweetly at the two men in front of her. They were in the ninth preliminary group and everything around them was covered in a seething mist that clung to their clothes. “Aren’t you two members of the Order Ducis? Hopefully, no one gets the wrong idea about your participation in this tournament.”

Tykes tossed the heavy iron ball he carried from hand to hand spinning it lightly. “We are external contractors. You, on the other hand, are a Village Spirit. Donnyton is really throwing its whole weight behind this effort, huh? Y’all trying to name this world Donnnydom?”

Lyra snickered. She lifted a hand and a crimson orb appeared on her palm. Ripples spread outward through the mist as she gathered her image. When she concentrated, the mist began to weaken and recede. “I’m here strictly as an individual. I even have a Class. I don’t think there is any problem with me entering this fun little tournament.”

“Same with us,” Tykes countered as he eyed that crimson orb warily. Then he looked sideways at Dinesh and spoke in a lower tone. “Are we fighting?”

“Maybe,” Dinesh said with a frown. He was facing Lyra’s partner, who was an average looking man whose most distinguishing feature was the extremely blank expression on his face. Even though Tykes could tell that Lyra was a dangerous foe, he chose her rather than her partner as an opponent because of that disturbing expression on the man’s face.

After hesitating for a bit, Dinesh spoke to him. “Stan… I hadn’t realized you had recovered. How have you been?”

Stan’s eyes remained glazed and unresponsive as though he hadn’t heard the question. The only answer was the muffled booms reaching them through the mist as the other individuals in the preliminary fought each other. Lyra batted her eyelids coquettishly at Dinesh. “He’s very shy, don’t take that personally. He’s been doing very well.”

Dinesh pressed his mouth into a thin line. Tykes chuckled. “Guess we are fighting then.”

Without waiting for an answer, Tykes stomped his foot and shot forward with his iron ball raised in front of him. Lyra raised her hand and thrust her marked palm forward with sinister quickness to meet Tykes’ advance. Their impact blasted outward, knocking away the surrounding mist and sending both Tykes and Lyra several steps backward.

In the wake of the blast, several other fights were revealed as their conflict pushed the mist further away. Abruptly, those fights broke off and regarded the figures of Lyra and Tykes with alarm; they had been fighting only twenty meters away from them without noticing anything. Truly, this mist completely obliterated detection.

For his part, Tykes’ smile widened. “Not very high Stats… but your image…”

“This is going to be fun,” Lyra chuckled. Then bought attacked each other once more.