Kill The Old Ones!

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The lots were designed so that the four seeded participants won’t meet each other during the semifinals.

Nobody has an issue with this.

With what they’ve seen so far, the audience knew that the clash between the seeded participants was better left for the grand finals.

Each semi-finalist will fight three battles to ultimately determine who moves on to the finals.

The top 10 will be determined by their win record. If there are ties or any other complications, then the meri points they gained from the previous round will be taken into consideration along with other smaller factors to determine who moves on.

After what Ren did to his first opponent, the following ones were completely disheartened.

Ren never needed to raise a fist at all. The opponents surrendered on their own. Because of this, Ren’s record was a clean 3-0.

Some people found this disappointing. They wanted to see Ren throw hands. They want to see just how strong he truly was. They already felt his overwhelming presence, sure, but they wanted to see something more from Ren.

Alas, his previous act completely terrified his opponents, so they didn’t have a chance to do so. Ren spent more time going up and down the stage rather than fighting.

Ren was bored too, and it’s obvious. To him, this was just like attending a meeting that could’ve been an e-mail, instead. Completely unnecessary.

But he had to be here because he has to represent his city. The City Lord will have his head if he leaves. So, as boring as this has been so far, he had to stay.

’Ah, it can’t be helped. I’m too strong for this place.’

At the very least, the others were having fun in his stead, especially those who were fighting for second place and below.

The semi-finals lasted for a couple of days before the top 10 was decided.

**

#1. Soren Marek Vire

#2. Kael Draven Ashcroft

#3. Aurelia Valentine

#4. Darius Stormholt

#5. Aria Carmichael

#6. Adrian Arclight

#7. Lily Anne Heartveil

#8. Lucian Skyrend

#9. Elena Frostmere

#10. Sieghart Augustine Fletcher

**

Seeing this list, the whole of Central City was buzzing in joy.

Because out of 10 finalists, four of them came from their city. This was an unprecedented record. Some citizens were even saying that the city has entered its golden age.

No doubt, the most impressive of the four was Ren, even though they haven’t seen him in real action just yet (the video clip doesn’t count).

Regardless of whether Ren or their other representatives cinched 1st place in the final rankings, just having four of them reaching this far guarantees that the city will be in the upper half of the rankings, maybe even top 5.

As for the R-City and P-City conflict, that’s been concluded.

The five semi-finalists of P-City made the life of the R-City finalist a living hell on the grand stage. Whoever matched with him humiliated the poor dude until he had no face left to show to the public.

As for entering the finals, P-City reps never dreamed that far. All they wanted was to drag R-City down with them, and they succeeded with that. They were satisfied upon achieving it.

Desolate City (D-City) was also buzzing in joy. They have three representatives in finals.

Aria being there, they understood. It’s Lily and Sieg’s performance that shocked them.

Lily was previously seen as a greenhouse flower, or simply just a flower, before—pretty, but not deadly. In this tournament, though? She proved them wrong. She showed that yes, she was indeed a flower, but one that had thorns. Poisonous and venomous thorns.

Richard Heartveil, her father, wept in happiness and pride seeing the name of his daughter in there. He was astounded by her performance before feeling his age. Lily’s all grown up now.

It was Sieg that surprised them the most.

They never expected it—the boy they mocked, humiliated, and constantly reminded of his place just slapped their faces raw with his performance.

As unwilling as the lot of them to see him thriving, the results didn’t lie. Sieg had, indeed, clawed his way to the seat amongst the best, and they could only be bitter about it.

Despite this, though, many still discredited him, and they’re not exactly wrong for doing so. Aria stuck with Sieg whenever she could. Sieg was essentially guarded on all sides; he’s never been in any real danger because before anything could touch him, Aria had already taken care of it.

He was carried for the most part.

His real participation only started during the second round, where he was by himself, and during the challenge rounds.

Sieg never got the full acknowledgement and admiration of people. Much of what he did only drew more eyes that scrutinized his actions more closely.

Of course, his closeness with Aria did not help him at all.

But yes, he managed somehow. Sieg clawed his way to the finals with every means available to him. And regardless of what people thought of him and his performance, they can never deny that he had a place amongst the best this kingdom could offer.

**

Unlike in the previous rounds, though. There was no rest between the semi-finals and the finals.

Once the top 10 were discovered, the finals began on the very next day.

In the final rounds, the finalists will fight each other one by one to determine who’s the best.

This means that one finalist will have to fight nine opponents. Losing once doesn’t mean the end, but it does change their record.

To ensure that every finalist would be at their peak state, top-notch healers had been hired to restore every finalist. The final round will continue for as long as it’s needed until the final placings of the top 10 have been confirmed.

**

Ren decided that he won’t use the same trick as he did in the previous round. He was really bored and wanted some real exercise, so he would ’fight’ his enemies for the sake of it.

The first person he fought was his fellow representatives, Elena, Lucian, and Adrian, in that order, too. Which most definitely aroused the discontent of Central City citizens.

If it weren’t for the fact that there’s no longer an elimination in this round, the citizens would’ve started a riot, and the City Lord himself might be at the very forefront of it.

Ren didn’t mind this so much. He gets it. He might as well fight them this early and be done with this already; that way, he only needs to concern himself with others.

His fights with them were more like friendly spars, instead.

Elena, Lucian, and Adrian all knew that Ren could’ve ended the fight immediately, but he didn’t. He allowed them to have their dignity in front of the audience, and they appreciated it.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Ren will yield the fight to them. They all knew that they couldn’t beat him. So, this was more of a show of unity and mutual respect rather than a fight.

Ren also watched the rest of the fights.

Elena matched with Aurelia Valentine, and their fight was more psychological rather than physical. Sadly, Elena—as talented as she was—couldn’t defeat Aurelia.

Both of them had epic-grade talents leaning to the element of ice, yes. But in terms of quality, Elena’s talents fall short of Aurelia.

Aurelia froze Elena’s ice, essentially hijacking her control. Elena was able to resist for a while, but the majestic phoenix bloodline that Aurelia has gave her an edge. That’s how Elena lost this mirror match-up, if you will.

Lucian fought Darius Stormholt, and yep, he lost.

Both of them used polearms as a weapon of choice, but Darius was not only better but also superior, especially because he could wield the power of thunder and lightning at his fingertips.

Darius was too fast and too ferocious. Although Lucian managed to force Darius to reveal more of his strength, that’s about all he could do. Darius fought with more strength, but he hasn’t shown it all. He never needed to.

And then, there’s the match between Adrian and Kael Ashcroft.

This one was intense.

Adrian had managed to push Kael to reveal more than half of his strength.

Adrian was fluid, disciplined, calm, and skilled. Kael was the embodiment of wild, enraged, and ceaseless ferocity.

Kael’s fighting style had him ending up on all fours like a predator; he swings that greatsword of his like it was some random stick he found on the roadside—weightless. He was strong, excessively so. And his stamina and endurance seem to be never-ending.

He never stayed in place; he was always moving.

Their fighting styles and discipline clash literally and idealistically. Out of all the matches that day, this was the only one that came really close and made the audience uncertain about who was going to win.

In the end, Adrian was defeated. Not because he was weaker, but because he ran out of chakra and stamina.

Kael Ashcroft tired him out even though it was Kael who was moving more in their fight.

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