It didn’t take too much time for the stadium to be at its max capacity, the watchtower screens above it kept repeating some of the scenes of the previous matches, to keep the crowd entertained while they waited for the matches to start.
The different families which owned a skybox kept arriving until the appearance of the honorable Half Emperors and Magus Kings, the entrances were closed signaling the start of the event.
The screens suddenly mirrored the skybox of the vice principals and Stella appeared not too long after.
“Welcome to all the students and guests that came to witness the second day of the tournament, today we have three different events prepared, but for the time being, we’ll finish with the remaining three matches left”.
The expectation of the crow grew with Stella’s words, even the half emperors showed some interest in what was about to start.
“Argent matriarch, do you mind sharing with us what’s the other event besides the matches left and the revenge match?”, asked the ancestor of the Faresh family.
Aura shrugged, there was a barrier surrounding them, so there was no problem in telling the half emperors beforehand.
“It’s the match between the first and second ranks, it will be a tag battle, apparently some of the students had a specific person they wanted to challenge, so we made the arrangement, there was also a new addition the participants to fill in the empty spot, I will leave the rest for vice principal Leeris to explain when the time comes, in any case I suppose you all have your own guesses”.
Aura’s words took some of the half emperors by surprise, the position of captain was what was being disputed here, the authority that it came with it was no joke, and now there was a variant in the equation.
Unlike a normal one versus one battle, two “weak” fighters whose team work is good enough, can overwhelm two strong people who aren’t compatible, unless the difference is too big of course.
Aura saw all those old monsters being showing a bit more of interest and she inwardly smirked.
‘If you taught your younger generations to not get dragged by their impulses in previous years, giving Erin any information about personal feuds… is a really bad idea’.
Since the very moment the students entered the resting area, they were isolated from everyone outside of the room, so this little tag battle was decided after that, the rest of the top then who were considered to still have more to show were handed a little survey in secret, “Who would you like to challenge”.
Thanks to Arianna’s affirmation about who would challenge who, Erin suggested Aura to not limit the options in case someone wanted to call them out for “arranging” the results.
Caleb Allier challenged Lana, Harald Faresh challenged Gina and of course Samuel targeted Arianna.
As for Jester Risha he was the joker, according to Arianna he was too coward to challenge someone else besides Wade in the top ten, as he laid down till the last second to take away Wade’s position, but he still wanted to maintain some face so his most obvious target would be the next one to the top ten, and the rank eleven is Arianna’s cousin.
And everything went according to the plan, Gina and Lana were told beforehand to make sure they “coincidentally” selected those who also wished to fight them, as for Arianna’s cousin he was told to select whoever with the exception of Jester, so that they would not be included in the tag battle.
In other words, with the inclusion of Jester Risha, the “requirement” the academy could claim was the trigger for the option to select a specific opponent, was being in the top ten, and the condition to participate in the tag battle was that both parties selected each other.
As for sorting who will tag with who, tag was left in the hands of the students, Samuel was given the chance to choose fist, since he had some sort of friendship with Harald, that was one for his team, he also tried to bring Lana over to his side just to be rejected, which made him then chose Caleb as he was Lana’s counter.
The result was the division in two groups and the tense situation of before.
While still thinking that Erin was quite scary to plans things so far ahead after listening to Arianna speaking of her classmates just once, the two referees entered the arena followed by the participants as for the new addition it was none other than the guy from the Revy clan that arrived last to the resting area.
The referees walked towards the wall where the box with the two slots was and pushed their respective buttons, after a moment each of them took out a ball with a number.
“Rank number 8, Jester Risha”.
“Rank number 11, Reiner Argent”.
Then the screens changed their focus to two young men which were standing up from their respective seats.
Jester Risha had a slim built, his hair and eyes had a similar color to Leslie’s, a light brown slightly reddish tones somehow similar to leaves in autumn, which was understandable considering Jester is also from the main family of the fire crane clan, his get up consisted in a white and orange robe with some light armor protecting his vital points.
Reiner argent on the other hand was a tall guy with some signs of a beard here and there, following the saying that the male werewolves tend to be “exhibitionists”, he was wearing a sleeveless shirt with leather armor which only covered his upper chest leaving his abs in plain view.
While Jester was thanking to the heavens that the opponent, he got was who he wanted, Daimon evaluated the strength of both of them
‘A middle stage four star ranked mage against an early stage four star ranked knight, normally the result shouldn’t be a surprise but since Arianna specifically said that Jester was no match for her cousin, I guess there is more to that guy than what meets the eye’.
Since he didn’t want to spoil the surprise, he didn’t inject more mana into his eyes and just waited for the show to start.
Jester and Reiner went up the platform and after receiving the greenlight from the referees the match started.
Reiner saw the disdaining gaze in Jester eyes and he snorted.
“What, you think that just because your affinity is fire and mine is wind, you have the advantage?”.
Jester smirked, dark orange flames covered his body and his mana pressure filled the area.
“Not only that, in case you forgot, you are still an early-stage knight, even if you defend yourself with fast currents of wind, the heat of my flames will still roast you”.
“Fire Wave!”.
Without waiting for Reiner’s answer, Jester practically became a flamethrower, a sea of flames of about twenty meters wide and ten meters height was shot towards Reiner.
Wind affinity mages and knights are fast, so the best way to deal with them are attacks that affect a wide area, Jester wanted it to become a fight of attrition, since his reserves of mana would of course be bigger than Reiner’s.
Unfortunately for him, Reiner had a different plan, his storage ring
“Pressure Blade!”, wind combined with battle aura swirled around Reiner’s left arm before he punched frontwards, under the surprised eyes of the people in the stands, the wave of flames was split apart like it was nothing.
“Fuck!”, Jester felt all the hairs on his body stand on end, abandoning his previously confident attitude he jumped sidewards avoiding by a few millimeters an invisible line which left behind a whistling sound, until it clashed against the wall of the arena leaving a deep scar on its surface.
Jester’s pupils contracted, he slowly looked at his shoulder where a cold sensation was assaulting him, just to see his robe cleanly cut, the previous white cloth was stained with blood.
‘If I didn’t hear the whistle caused by that attack, my arm would have ben sliced’, he yelled in his heart, but then he frowned, a four-star knight shouldn’t be able to launch a long-range attack with that much strength, unlike a mage who can gather mana of a specific element and throw it at the enemy without any other process than casting a spell, a knight’s martial art requires the body of the knight to do a certain amount of work, also there is a limit as to how much of the element can a knight and a mage manipulate, and normally mages outclass knights in that aspect.
In this case Reiner concentrated all the wind he could manipulate on his arm, then he had to punch the air which he artificially accelerated, to shot it.
‘But if that was the case the pressure of the attack should have wounded him too’, thought Jester.
He looked at Reiner and saw he was wearing gauntlets which covered his arms and shoulders, there was also blood and a faint trace of smoke coming from his left arm and the ends of his hair, all this while he had a threatening smile on his face.
“What happened little bird, that expression of yours makes you look as if you have seen a ghost, do you perhaps forgot what we the Argent family take pride in the most… among all the beast races in terms of vitality we are the peak of the pyramid!”.
“We the Argent family might have troubles to advance early, but a lower realm doesn’t mean we are weak!”.
By the time Reiner finished speaking, the wounds that the strongly compressed wind left in his arm were completely healed.
“Now shall we see who can resist more wounds”, said Reiner as wind started rotating in both his left leg and arm this time, the wind was moving so fast that a twister formed on the left side of the arena.
Jester felt his blood pressure rising, he was being looked down by someone whose rank and realm couldn’t compare with his.
“Since you want wo fight in such an uncivilized way, then go to hell!”, he shouted, knowing that if the battle dragged on, he would end up in pieces, Jester decided to give his all.
“Fire Dome!”.
All the fire he could manipulate exploded around his body, covering the whole platform and avoiding the spectators to see what was happening.
At the skybox of the Argent family Ulises was smiling from ear to ear, he was so excited that the air around him was trembling, then while looking at Arthur he shouted.
“I would like to see those tiger assholes calling the young generation of my Argent family trash again HAHAHA”.