Chapter 33: First Win! Athena and The Cheater
The next day, the annual Sky Battle began. Originally, since Princess Royal Shea succeeded the Dark Moon, the significance of this match was a lot duller. It gradually became a personal gamble between the little princess, Alice, and the financial officer, Joseph. However, today the arena was crowded with people. It was the result of Joseph’s petty trick. He was determined to oppress the morale of the Dark Moon in the eyes of the public.
Aldas, who hadn’t been showing in the public for a long time, appeared at the VIP seats with Alice as Chen Rui’s supporter. Everyone was talking about Adlas for a while. It was mostly his heroic deeds of killing the genius from the capital with his fart during the Master Challenge. Although it had been a while, the dark elf master still felt embarrassed.
This time, Red Spirit Estate specially sent someone to show their interest in this match. The representative of Princess Royal was the Old Gauss. As a lord, Shea naturally had her own status and dignity. Since the Red Spirit Lord, Josh didn’t come personally, she didn’t need to be present as well. Such a dull responding attitude, it more or less showed that Shea wasn’t optimistic with the result of this match.
In fact, almost no one was optimistic about the human apprentice. Although the Sky Battle wasn’t about the individual’s strength but his beast-taming ability, the strength of the human was too low. Whether he could fly was still a problem, let alone fighting. The last time, the human apprentice was able to win because he relied on Master Aldas. Now that he had to face it independently, so there was no chance of winning.
While the demons were sure that the human apprentice would definitely lose, at the same time, they wondered why would Princess Shea or Princess Alice allow such a weak guy to represent the Dark Moon to participate in the match? Perhaps, the two princesses had long planned?
“Everyone who comes to watch the match not only can spectate for free, but they also get a reward of 1 purple crystal coin? Joseph is truly generous.” Chen Rui said enviously, “It’ll be good if I can get all his money.”
For him, money was aura; money was experience; money was power.
Alice obviously resonated strongly with the last sentence, so she nodded desperately. The two who had already negotiated the division of reward showed a strong fighting spirit at the same time.
Joseph saw the arena full of people, and he was really satisfied. The Demons advocated the strong. Now that there were a match and even an advantage to take, they naturally came in crowds. Today’s results would surely satisfy Regent Obsidian who was far away at the capital.
After the welcome speech and opening speech were over, Alice walked to the center of the arena and spoke with the help of magical amplification.
“Today is a friendly match between the Red Spirit Estate and the Dark Moon Estate.”
Alice gave a conventional greeting, then she put her hands on her waist and pointed at Joseph at the VIP seats with a sleek, squeaky tip. She said in Alice-language loudly, “Today, Joseph, the financial officer represents his father’s Red Spirit Estate while the new addition of Dark Moon City, Master Alda’s apprentice, Chen Rui will represent us, the Dark Moon! We will completely smash them! The game is still in accordance with the previous rule of best in three, but the choice of candidate will be slightly changed. First, our party will be the first to play one person in the first game. The other party will be free to arrange their candidates accordingly; In the second game, you will pick a candidate first; in the third game, we will play our candidates at the same time and are not allowed to change. You guys from the Red Spirit, do you dare to accept the challenge?”
The audience on home ground was in spirited and echoed in unison, “DO YOU DARE?”
Candidate? Joseph pondered. Then, Alan came over and asked, “What do we do now? I don’t want to go against Athena. Can you make sure to let me face Chen Rui? I want to kill him personally!”
“Rest assured; everything is in my control; that human will definitely die!” Joseph’s eyes showed despise and replied, “If my prediction is right, they must be playing tricks in selecting candidates. If they win both rounds, then the human will not have to take part eventually. So, we have to make sure to win at least one of the first two games. You will stay till the final fight against the human!”
“You’re indeed wise!” Alan nodded happily while his eyes still staring at Chen Rui fiercely.
Under the thunderous provocation, Joseph stood up and said, “Well, let’s follow Princess Alice’s proposal. The best of three wins. I have only one condition, each player can only play one game and cannot repeat.”
Joseph’s proposal was to prevent the other party from letting the strongest Athena play the entire game. Alice agreed and excitedly shouted, “I hereby announce that the Sky Battle is officially started! First, let us welcome our best competitor of the Dark Moon Estate, the first general of the empire, George. Wells’s daughter, Athena. Wells!”
Athena was a celebrity in the Dark Moon City and the main force during the previous two tournaments. The audience was highly spirited and shouting her name.
“Be careful.” Although Athena had not spoken to him after the awkward incident yesterday, Chen Rui couldn’t help but say at this moment.
Athena’s figure slightly paused, but she didn’t respond and went straight to the field. Athena’s beast-taming skill and strength were the strongest on Alice’s side. For her to be playing in the first game was under Joseph’s expectations.
Joseph commanded the thin lich beside him, the lich nodded and walked to the field.
“Red Spirit Estate is playing Leo in the first game!”
The central area of the arena was very huge. The Master Challenge previously only used up a small part of it. Now, the venue was completely cleared up. It was enough for the flying demonic beasts to have a takeoff run and fly.
Both parties used griffins, They flew to the height shown by magical ruler and the match began. Although it was 100 meters high in the sky, it was still clear with Chen Rui’s current eyesight. He could see just like other demons with sharp eyes.
What Athena showed in front of Chen Rui yesterday was only the basic skill of taming a flying beast. Due to the limitations of conditions and time, the battle aspect was only introduced in theory. Now that Chen Rui saw the actual battle, he understood the danger of it and had a thrilling feel.
Both parties controlled the griffin without any supporting equipment. They began to maneuver, hit, and bite in the air. If one was careless, he or she would fall.
An ordinary lich could generally master a single-element magic. A few talented ones had the ability to control demonic beasts; Leo was obviously a lich with such beast-taming power. However, Athena was even better. The griffin was just like a part of her body. She could freely attack the lich’s mount from all angles. Even when it was just brushing past, she could make unbelievable attacks.
Her superb beast-taming skill made the audience on the ground extremely heated, and the cheers came one after another.
Chen Rui then realized that Athena could win two years in a row was definitely not merely because of her father’s reputation, but also of her own strength. Based on beast-taming skills without the individual’s strength, Joseph might not even be able to rival her.
Just as Athena had the upper hand, the griffin that she rode suddenly changed. The flying beast that had been brave actually became timid. No matter how much Athena shouted, it dared not attack again. Besides, after it paused for a moment, it actually turned around and ran. On the contrary, Leo’s beast was like being injected stimulant; it became very fierce and chased after him tightly.
Leo’s mount was chasing close and frantically attacked Athena’s griffin. Athena’s griffin could only scream and fled; it didn’t even have the courage to fight back. The cheers in the arena suddenly disappeared. No one would ever think that Athena who was guaranteed to win would suddenly appear to be losing.
At the VIP seats, the Old Gauss ignored the excitement of the Red Spirit Estate’s diplomat. His eyelids narrowed, and a glimpse of cold gaze showed through the opening.
Seeing that Athena’s mount was shaking, and it couldn’t stand anymore, Athena suddenly shouted and activated her transformation into the demon form. Her red pupil’s pupil flashed and her body was covered with flame-like radiance. When this kind of flame fell on the griffin, it didn’t burn but wrap up the griffin. Leo’s griffin was very scared of the flame, so it dared not to approach suddenly.
From below, Joseph looked at Leo and his griffin was fear of the flames, his pupils shrunk slightly: That’s rank-suppression! Did Athena…
When the flame of Athena was gone, the mounted griffin restored its guts. With a maneuver, it turned around and rushed into Leo. Leo’s mount lost all its fighting spirit, so the situation was suddenly reversed. The people instantly recovered their excitement and cheered loudly.
Athena appeared to be furious and commanded the griffin to start a berserk counterattack. Leo’s griffin kept crying, and it couldn’t hold on anymore and fell down. Leo was unable to maintain balance when he almost reached the ground; he fell from four to five meters high. His weak body couldn’t stand it. His two leg bones were instantly fractured, but luckily, he was still alive.
The victorious griffin hovered in the air, and Athena’s angry voice came, “Despicable guy, you actually used magic to cheat! If I didn’t use the devil’s fire to cancel your Fear Spell, your shameless conspiracy would have succeeded!”
“Not just Fear Spell, he also casted Bloodthirst Spell on his griffin!” The hoarse voice of the Old Gauss sounded across the arena with the magic amplifier. “There was still residual magic on the griffin’s body.”
Fear Spell could make the target afraid and escape while the Bloodthirst Spell was magic to enhance the fighting spirit and combat power.
The audience then realized why Athena’s griffin acted weird just now. For a moment, the crowd was spirited and Alice was the first to stand out and scream, “Shameless! Despicable! Vulgar!”
Without shouting a few words, she was pulled back to the seat by Chen Rui and Kia, so that this princess representing the royal family didn’t lose her manners; whereas the audience had started scolding.
“Leo, you actually do such thing unscrupulously to win. You have put shame on our Alvin family!” Joseph’s figure instantly appeared in front of the trembling lich, and his low-pitched, creepy voice covered the cheers of the audience.
Before Leo could speak, Joseph’s body was emitting red light. His five fingers slightly pinched at a far distance and the head of the lich suddenly burst open.
As soon as the audience saw Joseph personally executed the cheater, the Dark Moon successfully won the first round and cheered. Only some of them, including Chen Rui, was disdain: That was obviously killing to prevent him from divulging secrets. Poor Leo, your death was unjust.
Joseph glanced at the slowly descending Athena and said, “Congratulations, Athena. I never knew you have successfully promoted to Greater Demon. It seems that our Great Demon race has another young genius.”
Greater Demon! The 19-year-old Athena has reached such a level, will she break the upper limit of Great Demon in the future and becomes Demon King or Great Demon King?
Alan was stunned. He felt that the distance between himself and Athena was getting farther and farther away.