Scarlet

Unlike with when I first met the man, Anthony currently has a few flickers of black scales on his right cheek, the back of his neck, and on his shoulders and knees. Meanwhile a couple of his strands of hair have the appearance of black tentacles instead. But only if you look very closely. So close that you’re practically almost seeing the DNA level.

Something most people can’t see with their naked eye.

The competitors here aren’t most people though.

Other than those changes, his eyes are also inverted. The white that used to make up the outer parts of his eyes is now black, and the pupils in the center of his eyes are now white. With his irises having turned a radiant and rather eerie purple.

Personally, I don’t pay much attention to other people. Never have, likely never will. Except a few important people, of course. Like Aria, Amelia, Leonidas, Gramps, Belle, Arthur, Mom, Dad, and the members of my old team. But I’m pretty sure I did hear word of rumors going around about Anthony.

And they aren’t nice rumors.

In fact, he’s actually in a similar but also different situation that I was a while back. Where I was outed as a hybrid of a human and the people or creatures humanity was fighting.

Because while it isn’t completely public knowledge yet, a lot of people know that Anthony is part void creature. And more and more people are beginning to know about it as the rumors spread.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthony and his Association were doing it on purpose. Spreading the rumor slowly instead of telling everyone all at once.

Just to spread out the blow of the PR impact.

The main issue and difference between me and him though is that I had already put in quite a few contributions to Earth before being outed as a part demon. I also have a mother who is one of the Knights of Humanity and who tried taking most of the blame onto herself.

Anthony on the other hand doesn’t have any of that. And his contributions to Earth aren’t all that well known.

He’s mostly known as a Guardian who did well in the Interschool Tournaments, and has contributed to Earth by defeating a lot of demons. But that’s really it.

Nothing particularly special.

And from what I understand, his parents themselves were the ones who conducted the experiment on him. Although I don’t know any more than that.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I’m not even sure if he was forced into it or not. He may have been, or he may have gone along with it.

So when someone is outed as being part void creature when we’re currently facing a calamity of void creatures invading and devouring the universe? A lot of people don’t take it well.

Especially when not much is really known about void creatures.

I think some people are actually rallying for locking him up, simply because they worry the Voided Overlord might be able to control him.

Although I get the feeling King Oberon’s lecture about the void creatures earlier might reassure some of them. Particularly the part about void creatures not having any intelligence, including the Voided Overlord.

After all, Anthony certainly has intelligence.

None of the demons seem to care about any of this though, considering the cheering coming from the demons in the audience. But I guess demons are just inherently different from humans in terms of society.

They are raised in a demon-eat-demon world, and their Princess is part human. So ignoring a part void creature probably isn’t a problem for them.

The humans did go a lot quieter though. But the demons outnumber the humans in the audience by a significant portion, so it’s not too noticeable unless you’re trying to spot it.

I turn my attention away from the audience back to Anthony again while frowning.

Maybe… should I pay more attention to other people? I’ve never particularly cared much about them. If I pass by someone in trouble and it doesn’t inconvenience me, I’ll help them. But if I can’t help them, then it’s not really my problem to worry about. Or if it inconveniences me.

It’s just how I’ve always been.

But would it really inconvenience me to see if I can help him at all?

I purse my lips at the thought before shrugging, deciding that I could try talking to him after this whole tournament is over. Just to see if I can help.

If he pushes my help away though, then I can at least say I tried.

He seems jovial enough, so I doubt he’s taking this too badly anyways.

Putting his hybrid nature aside, his defense strategy is quite good. The tower itself is built a bit more like my own, but without any exterior parts. Instead, there’s the first five floors, each with no center to the floor and a single large room with the gaping hole at the center and random holes on the pathway around the center.

Anthony put in a lot of slowing and binding traps that are meant to keep the void creatures in the center while towers and monsters of all kinds bombard the ones in the ‘pit’ with their attacks. Meanwhile the upper floors are all about pushing the monsters back down into the center pit, with walls set up to force them into going right next to the pit for the traps to knock them into. Back into the pit.

And just like Aria, at the very end of the tower, he has another array of defenses set up. Albeit not as strong as Aria’s, with more of his defenses set up at the pit.

Overall, a really good strategy. But in the end it doesn’t do as well as Aria’s way of going about the tower defense strictly due to the flying void creatures. Since his traps and defenses are focused mostly on the ground bound ones.

Especially the slowing and binding traps.

So unlike Aria’s eighteen minutes and thirty-four seconds, he made a clean sixteen minutes.

Which is still a lot better than the demons who went before the two, so nothing to complain about.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a lot of points in return as well.

Also, something I’ve noticed up till now.

Neither Aria or Anthony upgraded their defenses much with their points. Only upgrading the monsters at the end of the tower, along with some of the traps. And otherwise not upgrading any of the other defenses.

Makes me wonder why.