Kain felt like he was experiencing an unprecedented trial, and his soul was being ruthlessly burned by the blood-red flames.
However, before Kain could start screaming, writhing in pain, or some other action that would end up embarrassing him for a long time, Aegis acted in accordance with one of the few brief instructions Kain had managed to give before the pain overtook him.
Four walls sprang up from the stage in order to conceal Kain’s appearance from the crowd. After all, who knows how the human body would react when experiencing extreme pain? What if he cried, peed himself, or did something else that he’d find embarrassing? Those images would be broadcast and preserved online for everyone to see forever.
Thankfully, in Kain’s last desperate act he had managed to provide boosts to all of his contracts to strengthen their abilities.
Therefore, Bea managed to finally start to make some rapid progress in being able to control his opponents. Thankfully, after breaking through the mental guards of her enemies, the minds of the serpent and wraith experienced a drastic change. No more would Kain have to worry about them causing injuries that the Blood Flame Hound could take advantage of.
Bea began to read and manipulate their mindshards, and finally learned the identity of the third contract, as well as details about Nikolai’s gift.
From the information, she knew that the pain being caused to Kain would only stop if he died or the hound was knocked unconscious.
Rearranging the mindshards of the serpent and wraith with careful precision, she instilled a certainty within them: the beast-tamer they should listen to was Kain—or, in his absence, herself, whose intelligence had sharpened with every spiritual creature she had killed. And their greatest sense of loyalty should therefore lie with their side.
Likely sensing that something was wrong with his contracts and seeing that they were no longer fighting Kain’s contracts, Nikolai’s venomous gaze shifted from the walls concealing Kain to the guards. Just because the serpent and wraith were no longer producing wounds, that didn’t mean that he had no way of inflicting injuries that the Blood Flame Hound could exploit.
Nikolai began to continuously inflict wounds on himself, all the while shifting his gaze between different targets, that became incapacitated not long after due to the blood flames.
Aegis reacted quickly, and knowing that the gift was dependent on sight, formed a wall in front of Nikolai to block his view of the match. Now both beast-tamers within this match were secluded in “cages” made of stone and not visible to the audience.
Although, Aegis acted fast, 3 more guards had been take down, leaving only 9 intact on the stage. Never had Kain had to suffer through losing so many at once against a single enemy.
With her mental hold tightening, Bea directed both the serpent and the wraith to turn their attention to the hellhound, who no longer had its master’s support and was still resisting her influence.
The remaining Vespid guards encircled it as well, ready to take action. Their stingers, imbued with the ability to drain energy, glinted ominously in the light.
As the serpent lashed out, its scales glinting like rubies, and the wraith surged forward, cloaked in a shadow mist-like veil of concealment, the Blood Flame Hound faltered. After all, until seconds ago these were its allies. However, very soon it began to attack them back as well. But it was definitely much more restrained than when it faced Kain and the others.
In support of their new “allies” the Vespid guards, boosted by Queen, also launched strengthened attacks at the hound, to which it retaliated more fiercely.
However, this time not much of an effect was seen on the remaining guards since they had no injuries to exploit.
Although the Blood Flame Hound came out relatively unscathed, a couple of stingers from the guards and a shallow toxic bite from its former serpentine ally managed to land.
The lodged stingers began to steadily drain its energy.
Additionally, the bite from the Sanguis Snake had an effect that usually allowed it to exert control over the victims’ blood.
While, as a blood-attribute spiritual creature itself even stronger than the snake, complete control of the Dark Flame Hound’s blood was impossible, the snake was still able to exert enough control to decrease its ability to resist the advancement of Bea’s splits to its mind.
Bea, seeing its momentary wekness ,pushed her influence further, weaving through the hellhound’s thoughts. She focused on its primal instincts, drawing out fear and confusion, heightening the internal struggle within the creature.
All the while, she continued to urge her allies to attack. More wounds began to appear on its body as it struggled to fend off multiple enemies and had its energy continuously drained by the stingers of the guards, and the abilities of its former allies who both had energy draining ability.
In a final, desperate attempt, the hellhound bared its teeth, a low growl rumbling in its throat. But Bea was ready; she pushed her influence one last time, commanding the serpent and wraith to strike with all their might.
Then finally, with an anguished howl, the hellhound collapsed under the onslaught, its flames extinguishing as its body succumbed to exhaustion.
Kain felt the pain begin to ebb, the oppressive weight of the blood-red flames lifting, and he knew that they had won.
Aegis removed the walls surrounding Kain and Nikolai to reveal Nikolai, whose expression was twisted into a mask of disbelief and frustration. His brows furrowed deeply, and his eyes, usually sharp and confident, now widened in shock.
The corners of his mouth, previously always upturned in an arrogant smirk, were turned down, revealing a mix of anger and humiliation. A flush crept up his cheeks, betraying his attempts to maintain composure.
He clenched his jaw, fists tightening at his sides, as if trying to hold onto the last remnants of his shattered pride.
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Meanwhile, despite being the victor, the state of Kain definitely looked a lot poorer. freeweɓnovel.cm
Kain emerged from cage surrounding him looking hauntingly worn yet fiercely resilient. His face was etched with pain, the usually tan skin now pale and clammy, with beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.
Dark shadows underlined his eyes, a testament to the torment he had endured, while bloody teeth marks marred the back of his hand, a testament to his attempt to silence his screams by biting his own hand. After all, while the walls Aegis produced could conceal Kain’s figure, they couldn’t silence his screams of torment.
Knowing that the members of the orphanage would definitely be watching, there was absolutely no way that he’d allow even a whimper to of pain to escape his body, in case he worried them or even traumatized his youngest siblings.
However, despite his current dishevelled appearance, there was a fierce light in his gaze—a steely determination that shone through the exhaustion—he had won!
——————–
After the 3-vs-3, which Dark Moon also won, the first-years managed to secure their first victory. The audience was surprised by the result of the first match up between two members of the top 5 colleges. It was rare for matches between the top 5 to end by the 3-vs-3 matches, and typically they would have to go into the tiebreaking 5-vs-5 matches.
The second-years were even more unlucky than the first-years, and had also managed to draw an opponent within the top. Even worse it was the top ranked First Celestial Academy. Unfortunately, while they had put up a good fight and managed to defeat First Celestial in the 3-vs-3 battle, they’d still narrowly lost the other two matches.
The third and fourth years had much better luck than their juniors, both drawing opponents outside of the top 5, both easily securing victory for the first round.
Their opponents for the next round of the top 8 was thankfully not within the top 5 colleges—Starlight College. Neither Kain nor Serena even needed to step forward and partake in the match.
This time the luck of each year was reversed. The second years also drew a team from outside of the top 5, and won. Meanwhile, the third years drew Starfire College. After a bitter match, one that was probably the longest since the tournament had started, Dark Moon managed to secure the victory.
The fourth years also drew a top 5 college, Frozen Sun, and managed to secure the victory with a narrow victory of 2 wins to 1 loss. However, it seems as though the fourth years are concealing much of Captain Ezra’s strength for the match against First Celestial, and the second stage of the competition in which the top 5 students, regardless of year, compete.
Afterall, the first place reward for the second phase of the tournament was 200 points, therefore, if they want to secure the highest possible overall ranking, they couldn’t abandon it. Therefore, up to this point in the tournament, Ezra had not played a single match. Pretty much all of the more challenging opponents had instead been dealt with by Vice Captain Ravi.
For the third match, the first-years once again drew an opponent within the top 5—Starfire college, the representative of Kain’s home region.
Considering, that the opponent was likely to be Jacob and his Firescourge Scorpion, and that Kain’s contracts had not fully recovered from the intense battle against Nikolai, it was decided that Serena would be responsible for dealing with him.
Kain didn’t disagree with this decision. After evolution, the time it took for each guard to hatch had greatly shortened, therefore he may have majority of their numbers restored before the last match within the top 8, but before then he’d prefer to not to have to decrease their numbers any more.
And since the Firescourge Scorpion was such a devastating opponent Kain was certain that if he were to fight, he may not leave with any of the Vespirae guards remaining.
Today they were arranged to be the last match of the day. However, since Kain wasn’t slated to participate unless they lost both matches, he didn’t particularly care about the timing of the battle.
Instead he leisurely enjoyed the other matches and made note of any particularly powerful future opponents.
In particular, he paid attention to the high-end match between the current first and second placed schools—First Celestial and Supernova.
First Celestial won, but Kain wasn’t sure if it was because of the amount of energy and skills revealed yesterday in their match against Dark Moon, or if there was really so big a difference in strength, but First Celestial won a lot easier than Kain and majority of the audience had expected.
Moreover, they’d managed to win without revealing too much of their strength, which was even more annoying.
Kain also made note of Frozen Sun, who seemed to have invested greatly in their younger generation in order to increase their ranking this year. While the third and fourth year teams didn’t appear particularly noteworthy, both the first and second year teams were on a winning streak and managed to suffer no losses yet.
Impressively the second years at Frozen Sun managed to defeat Dark Moon today, meanwhile the first years at Frozen Sun had achieved victory over Starfire College previously, only losing the 1-vs-1 match against Jacob, but showing the effect of 1 + 1 being greater than 2 for both team matches.
Although no single student appeared threatening to Kain individually, the teamwork and synergy of skills displayed made them among the biggest threats in the team competitions.