After the bell rang indicating the start of the battle, both Andrew and Paul took out their weapons from their space rings. A longbow materialized in Paul's hand while the quiver appeared on his back with a bunch of silver arrows. The bow looked no different than any ordinary longbow without any magical symbols or glowing runes on them. Yet no one underestimated the power of the bow after seeing Paul defeat all of his opponents easily with the bow.
On the other hand, Andrew took out his two emerald green daggers. Unlike Paul's bow, the daggers hand glowing runes on them. There were hundreds of small runes placed on the daggers. One of them was the rune that connected Lailah's power to Andrew.
No one could see through Andrew's cheat. Lailah was a master at runes and arrays. Hence she knew how to avoid getting detected by the arrays on the battlefield. The arrays on the battle stage were actually designed by one of the students who studied under the same tutelage as her.
Lailah knew her attacks wouldn't work on Ghost but she made some modifications to the runes on Andrew's daggers. She believed it would defeat Ghost. Deep down in her heart, Lailah wanted Ghost to be a good righteous man instead of being cruel and evil. She didn't want him to change for her but for someone else.
The first step to changing him was making him understand the power of true love. Although Andrew had her power, she knew that without strong willpower, his mind and body would have literally exploded. It was love that kept Andrew alive.
On the battle stage, Paul knocked a silver arrow in the bowstring to fire at Andrew. He didn't cast any spells but just wanted to test Andrew's reaction time and speed.
"Ice Shield"
Andrew immediately cast a spell that formed a wall of ice before him. The arrow penetrated the ice shield a couple of inches but couldn't break the shield.
"Sonic Arrow" without giving Andrew to mount up an offensive spell, Paul fired another arrow. This time, when the arrow left the bowstring, it produced a booming sound as it soared through the air towards Andrew.
Andrew immediately leaped out of the safety of the ice shield. The moment the sonic arrow touched the ice shield, the shield exploded into pieces.
Instead of falling to the ground, the arrow flew back into Paul's hand like a boomerang.
He fired the arrow yet again at Andrew,
"Ice Shield" the shield spell could be cast quickly, hence Andrew cast the spell again to save himself from the arrow. Since Andrew had the power of Lailah, the shield stopped Paul's arrow from penetrating through the shield to impale Andrew.
The ice shield grew up to seven feet from the stage. Using the split second before the arrow destroyed the shield, Andrew placed a rune on the shield. Then he dashed away from the cover of the shield.
Unaware of the rune, Paul fired the arrow yet again. The arrow pierced through the air like a bullet. When the arrow's tip touched the ice shield, the ice shield didn't explode but the arrow bounced back. Paul didn't expect the arrow to bounce back. But before he could react, the arrow exploded in the mid-air, sending a shock wave at Paul. The rune was supposed to send back a portion of the attack's power to the attacker. Since Andrew had the power of Lailah, the rune almost returned 100% power back to Paul. It was like Paul hit himself with the sonic arrow.
Paul was knocked back by the shock wave as Andrew dashed at Paul to close the gap between them. Because Paul was an archer, Andrew knew getting closer to Paul would put him in a disadvantageous position.
While running towards Paul, Andrew drew symbols in the air as the crowd saw golden runes appear in the air before disappearing into the battle stage. They saw similar runes when Peter fought Ghost. Many doubted Paul could break the runes as Ghost did.
Seeing Andrew running towards him, Paul immediately tried to take another arrow from his quiver but he was too late as Andrew leaped into the air,
"Gates of Valhalla!"
Cling!
In the mid-air, Andrew shouted as he smacked the two daggers together. Suddenly Paul felt an immense pressure on him like he was being crushed by an invisible mountain.
"Argh (cough) (cough)" Paul caught up blood as the pressure increased by multiple folds. At this point, Andrew almost came down on him with his full might. Paul tried to move his body yet he couldn't move at all.
Meanwhile lying on the bed, Michael was watching the battle in a 55-inch mirror. He felt like watching television back on earth.
"So Lailah is somehow enhancing his power…interesting" Michael snickered,
[Don't underestimate Lailah. The system can sense some changes in the energy patterns. Although these energy patterns cannot kill you, it can still harm you] The system informed Michael,
"I'm pretty sure you can make me immune"
[For a price of course. But do you want the system to make you immune? You want to cheat?]
"Isn't Andrew cheating right now? If it wasn't for Lailah, Andrew would not be here. Besides, I have bigger things to worry about than dealing with Lailah's bitchiness and petty feuds"'
Michael turned the pages of Lord Information's book to learn more about Thusia.
[Are you thinking about taking the guild leader position?]
The system was more talkative than usual. Michael was too focused on building a revenge plan against Thusia to mind the system's talkative nature.
"Not thinking. I already decided to take the position of Guild leader"
"Aren't you supposed to take revenge for Abras as you promised him?"
"Oh? Then how about we go to Thusia tomorrow, ask the princess and her royal family to kneel down and let me kill them" he said sarcastically,
[Sarcasm much]
"No shit. According to this book, they are already powerful enough to wipe out Bredia and any kingdom in Elon within a few weeks. Those bastards are just dragging the war to hide their true power" Just thinking about Thusia made his blood boil. He could vividly see the princess sending a dagger through his heart that she promised to take care of. Abras gave the princess his heart and she put a dagger through it. Still, Michael didn't know Abras was just another piece of his soul.
"I can use their resources to become stronger and I can plan my revenge under their nose. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer System"
[Calvin didn't recognize you but the princess will. And now you can't change your face as Calvin had seen your original face]
"Abras always sported a clean shaven look with long hair. When I have to meet the princess, I can go with a long Viking beard and short hair. As far as they are concerned, they killed Abras. They won't expect to see him again" While talking he looked at the mirror to see Paul and Andrew still fighting. Paul seemed to be in a worse state than Andrew. Paul's sleeves had been torn away as he had blood coming out of his mouth and nose.
[They have the Cosmic stream host. The more time you waste, the stronger they would become] the system warned Michael,
"Then I will become stronger. If I wanted to kill that bitch and her family, I would have done it by now. I don't want to kill them, death is mercy for them"
[What are you planning to do?] In his anger, Michael failed to notice the fear in the system's voice.
"I will make the princess and everyone they care about experience hell. I dont like to torture people, but I will make an exception for them. I will enjoy every second of it. Anyone who stands in my path will die. Thusia will burn '' the entire room became darker as he spoke. The system noticed his strength slowly increasing.
"In this world, many cultivators are doing evil shits every day. But the guardians painted me like the manifestation of evil, the Dark Lord. I will show the Guardians what I am really capable of" Michael stood up from the bed as he walked towards the mirror,
"May gods have mercy upon Thusians, cause I won't"
At this exact moment, a large tree could be seen on a lonely mountain. The large tree stood alone atop the mountain. One could see a figure tied to the tree. The figure was more like merged with the tree itself.
The figure's face was covered in moths, mud, and blood. He had a gray beard and shaggy hair. His body was riddled with scars as though he was cut thousands of times by someone.
"My God is here" the figure smiled looking in the direction of the Elon continent.
Back in Michael's room, he was staring at the mirror as Andrew stood beside Paul with his daggers against Paul's throat.
"I surrender" Michael heard Paul utter the words. The crowd erupted in cheers as Andrew plummeted to the ground in exhaustion.
In the giant mirrors, Michael saw Emelda clapping in joy with tears of joy running down on her face. He then saw the crowd cheering as loud as they could for the underdog of this tournament, Andrew. Even Claire and the elders of the Sunrise sect were clapping to show their support without having any idea of how Andrew managed to beat Paul.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Suddenly before the coordinators helped Andrew and Paul leave the stage, three loud bell sounds reverberated the arena. The view of the battle stage immediately changed to the VIP stage in the mirror. They all saw King Bredia stand up with a grin on his face.
"Please" He raised his hand as the crowd immediately became silent,
"I have an announcement to make. The winner of the Core Formation championship will be rewarded with the title Baron along with Bradford barony" For people like Ashton, it wasn't a piece of surprising news but for commoners, it was another story. Many sounds of gasping could be heard in the arena.
The King stayed silent for a few moment before speaking again,
"And the hand of my daughter, Princess Katherine in marriage"
*******************************
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