Reaper of the Martial World

Book 4: Chapter 25: None the Wiser

Delia was completely oblivious to the command for her death. Instead, she continued to fight as though nothing had changed.

Her sword style, something that she had refined again and again along with Madeleine, was elegant and glancing. She often practiced under Madeleine’s playing not only because the tunes gave her a revitalizing and focused feeling, but also because she did her best to model her sword play after a dance.

Patia-Neva, in the ancient Planet Naiad language, or something Dyon would probably label as reminiscent of mortal realm Spanish, was very roughly translated to ‘leaf covered in snow’. As Patia-Neva had said, often times, it was the duty of a Patia-Neva to find the meaning of the words.

Although Delia had yet to come to a full understand, there was no doubt that it subtly influenced her in many ways – including her sword play.

In the end, with little more difficulty than the first round, Delia glided and parried her way through the second round – thus earning a place for the third battle royale.

Seeing Delia move on, and so easily, Oliver and Jessica could only bury their complaints. Neither of them had made it out of the first round, something that Oli Sapientia had expected. But, it was still very much surprising to see Delia, someone they both had seen as a Junior Sister, surpass them both – especially with her being much younger.

Aside from Delia, there were others making a name known for themselves as well.

Caedlum Pakal, a young man Dyon had met long ago, was one such character. That said, Caedlum was not as little known as some others considering he had earned a spot on the top 100 cumulative rankings. However, what drew people to him wasn’t the fact he was unknown, but rather, his young age.

Caedlum was just as young as Ri and Dyon, and yet his performance was more domineering than Ri’s. The difference? He made no use of weapons or wills.

His red tinted skin flexed under the high sun’s light as his fists unleashed a flurry of power. Simply by relying on the prowess of his body, Caedlum tore through his competition – his face serene and his breathing relaxed. It was as though this was an expected outcome for him. He was a Pakal. He was destined for victory.

Aside from Caedlum, however, the Ragnor God Clan’s twin first in line geniuses were making their mark. Thor and Vidar, each in their respective battles, lit their fields up with arcs of lightning. Their so-called competition stood no chance.

Vidar took a sick pleasure in this, cruelly paralyzing his victims before charring them from the inside out. There were no rules against death in this tournament. In fact, it was almost encouraged. The harsh reality was many stepped into this event knowing they would never step out.

In the end, the second round was almost anti-climactic. Aside from the few groups that didn’t have ranked competitors or far and away favorites, every round ended smoothly. Even with the ridiculous number of warriors, both the first and second round only took about five hours, leaving a still steady stream of daylight.

“Haha! The first two rounds of our battle royale did not disappoint!” Elder Er’s voice boomed as the last warrior fell.

“Our Planet Earth put out a strong showing. Although it’s a secret as to who’s who, shh, those smart ones of you might have good guesses by the techniques they wield.” The Elder played the crowd, winking, bowing and waving.

“That said, putting my bias aside, the other four planets are not lagging behind in any way. The race is tight, and it just might be a photo finish!

I have some good news! Because we’ve done so well on time, we’ll be able to keep this third round to only five battles per section! Bidding will be opening up soon for the final group stage, so it’s best you all keep your eyes peeled for your favorites!”

Cheering erupted. This was the best part of the world tournament. If you managed to find a hidden gem, you could be set for the rest of your life. If Dyon was there, he would have likened this to when the lottery hit its peak after a few years of building. Everyone knew their chance of winning was slimmer than slim, but that didn’t stop nearly the whole population from playing.

“We started with 50 000, and now only 2 500 of you remain! Who will advance! Who will despair! Only time will tell!

Rest well warriors, very soon, you’ll step into the arena for what for many of you, may be your last battle.”

**

Away from the arena and within Dyon’s spatial ring, something odd was occurring.

Arios stood behind a demon general named Kaeda. She was actually one of the demon generals of the lower essence gathering level that Dyon had named to be one of his Vice Commanders due to her grasp of music will.

Oddly enough, Arios wasn’t the only one who stood behind her. Tens of demon generals of a similar level placed their hands on her back, and when her back ran out of space, the next demon generals would place their hands on those who were attached to her. And so on and so forth.

In the end, the weird arrangement of palms to backs fanned out to include about a hundred demon generals, all seemingly focused on one task.

In front of Kaeda, laid Dyon. Still seemingly unconscious with the Elvin Tome lying flat on his chest.

Well, seemingly unconscious was exactly right. Because anyone who paid any real attention, would have noticed the growing smirk on his face.

Delia sat alone in the stands surrounded by hundreds of other nervous participants. She hadn’t come with anyone, since her father had disappeared again, and the area was far too large to find those she knew. After all, it was a stadium that housed tens of millions of people, she didn’t even have any idea who knew she was fighting and who didn’t.

Because of the size of the arena, it could hold hundreds of battle royales at once. However, it didn’t for the sake of entertainment and allowing the audience to take in as much action as possible. This meant that Delia’s group would often be a kilometer or more of distance apart from any other battle royales taking place at that time.

Maybe the worse part about this was how difficult it was to tell who was fighting when for casual spectators. Clans had access to the numbers that corresponded to participants, and as such could know when their contestants were participating. But, Delia didn’t have this luxury. In the end, she could only search the monitors for her own number so she knew when she would be fighting. Other than that, she couldn’t contact anyone. She could only hope that she would eventually be grouped together with someone she knew so that they could head to a seating area together.

The only exceptions to this rule were those outstanding characters that the monitors often focused on. The six beauties were often the subject of much love, so the monitors often showed their appearances, making sure that the crowd knew when they were fighting.

The same was true of the top 20 rankers, of course not including the top ten, or eleven, that were sitting out.

Then there were miscellaneous and rising stars like Caedlum, Vidar and most definitely Thor.

Ava was participating in the world tournament as well, and she too had made it through the first two rounds. However, the more she searched out for Tammy, the less of her she found. Tammy was Ava’s entire motivation for this tournament. Ava had been dead set on getting revenge with her own hands for her supposed best-friend’s betrayal. But… It seemed like Tammy had purposefully decided not to participate – instead watching her elder brother Thor sweep through his rounds with his usual deadpan expression.

This only made Ava all the more angry.

Her twin blades, only a bit shorter than Arios’, swirled in her delicate hands and her blazing red hair waved wildly in the wind. She wasn’t nearly as domineering as the others, but she was still amongst the best meridian formation experts and, as such, managed to climb her way to the top 2 500.

That said, there was another motivating factor pushing her along with Delia. Neither liked how Dyon was being treated. They had settled on the same solution as Ri and Madeleine. They were going to rank as highly as possible to find an opportunity to refute everything they had heard. And the only way to do this was to perform outstandingly.

Delia’s thoughts were interrupted by the flashing of the number plate she had received at the beginning of all of this. ‘It seems it’s time…’

Delia was among the first group of five battle royales to go out. She knew this was a good opportunity for her friends to spot her.

This round was to narrow 2 500 to 200. Afterwards, there would be a massive battle royale of 2 300 to decide the last 790. However, no one wanted to be a part of that final group.

Although it wasn’t said, unlike the previous rounds, this final round would have extra obstacles that the others hadn’t had. This final round was painted as a final chance, but in reality, it was a massacre. It was cruel and simply not humane.

Delia, though, didn’t seem nervous. She was giving off a constant and radiating cold even in her base form now. It seemed as though her constitution would burst out at any moment. The truth was, Delia couldn’t even tell which was the real her anymore. But, what she did know, was that her constitution was her ticket to her final round.

‘Just 24 enemies left…’

Delia lightly jumped and landed onto a large white platform. It was an odd construction because the platform itself actually hung on an array as opposed to being planted onto the ground. It was likely to test for ‘outs’ – which was essentially to eliminate those who fell out of the arena without the bias of refs. This was again another testament to the ‘fairness’ the Cavositas wanted to show.

That said, outs wouldn’t be how they decided the final rounds, it was only to make the battle royales quicker.

The crowd began to cheer much to Delia’s confusion. But, when she looked around at her opponents, she immediately understood.

One of the six beauties, Kami Aiko had lightly landed on the same platform as Delia.

She was a seductive beauty with short bob-cut hair. She wore a short kimono, but it seemed to deviate wildly from the usual conservative and silhouetted focus of the usual kimono.

Hers was a light blue and was so short that her legs were nearly in full display. Aside from that, the sleeves were so long and drooping that not only were her hands not visible, but they also surpassed the length of its skirt. The only semblance of an arm that could be seen was by the short blades that were just barely in view at the ends of her sleeves.

The crowd reacted almost violently to the appearance of this beauty. But then, boos started to reign down almost immediately with the appearance of a young man with pale grey to green hair – it was hard to tell.

He landed right beside Aiko and grabbed her waist domineeringly, almost as though to let everyone know that she was his.

That said, his move didn’t go over so well for him as a blade found its way mere inches from his throat.

“Hey, hey, we have the same goal, don’t we beauty?” The young man chuckled as he jumped away under the boos of the crowd. “How could you treat someone from your own planet such a way, we should be comrades.”

“Watch your hands Elric, or I’ll be sure to tell Jace about this.” Aiko still had smile on her face, but it was decidedly cold. Her delicate features seemed more dangerous than they should be.

“The Clyte brothers share all things,” Elric patted his chest righteously, “Why shouldn’t I be able to have a taste of my brother’s woman?”

“Keep talking and see if I don’t cut your tongue from your mouth.” Aiko turned away.

Delia’s brows furrowed. Not because of the interaction, she couldn’t have cared less. But, the Clyte name was something she very much had reservations about… Was this the same clan that took her mother away? Was her mother here? Was she watching?

Delia’s eyes darted around as though to look for something, but she suddenly felt a chill creep up her spine. When she looked up, she found three cold gazes on her.

One made perfect sense. It was a sister from the Niveus sect. In fact, it was a senior sister who had just recently stepped into the essence gathering level. Delia didn’t have much of an impression of her, but she didn’t know that she called herself Lilac.

But, what truly confused Delia was that the two members of Planet Naiad that had been arguing before, Aiko and Elric, had focused their gazes on her as well.

Everyone in their group seemed to pick up on this, only the crowd seemed completely oblivious and continued to cheer as loudly as before.

The referee for their battle royale noticed this as well, but there was nothing he could do. These were the cards she was dealt. If she didn’t want to deal with it, she still had the option of jumping off of the arena. But, the question was… Would she have the time?

“Why do you think King Clyte wants her dead?” Elric didn’t bother concealing his voice. The truth was that the signal to go had already been sounded, but the twenty or so other participants immediately sensed the tension and wanted to hold back to see how it would unfold first. After all, in a battle royale, if they attacked recklessly, they could end up in a disadvantageous situation.

“You know it’s because King Clyte doesn’t like the former king. He wants to wipe out his whole lineage.” Aiko responded calmly, brandishing her blades.

“That’s so lame. She’s a cutie, father should let me take her as a concubine at least. Wouldn’t that be more disrespectful?” Elric didn’t seem to have a weapon, but he strolled around the arena freely, even winking at some of the other female warriors on the stage. It was clear he didn’t take these rounds seriously.

Seeing that two people already wanted Delia dead, Lilac didn’t see a reason to act so soon. She had been going to find an opportunity to hurt Delia later on – but that was only to humiliate her. Despite what their Matriarch said, Lilac didn’t believe Delia deserved death. She only wanted to teach her a lesson.

It also helped Delia’s image in her eyes knowing the type of Evelyn Niveus was. Lilac had little doubts that Delia had been wronged. But, if she didn’t act in accordance to the orders of Evelyn and punish Delia, it was likely that she’d be kicked out of the Niveus sect.

No one understood why Evelyn was so highly valued by their matriarch, she wasn’t even the best genius they had, and yet she was the first in line genius. But, what they did know was that her words couldn’t be refuted.

The Niveus sect, like Dyon had learned long ago, was a sect that allowed women with constitutions to join. Often, these women were from much poorer families and this was deemed as a good opportunity for them. No matter how much Lilac sympathized with Delia, she couldn’t disobey, or else she’d be booted from the sect or even worse – killed.

“It’s clear that this is beyond tying loose ends. The Patia-Neva family clearly did something irredeemable.” Aiko spoke nonchalantly. But, what she didn’t know was that her words broke something in Delia.

A flash of cold filled the arena causing Elric to freeze – a serious look replacing his carefree demeanor.

“Where’s my mother?” Delia’s words were no longer rational. She should have know that this would have led nowhere. It was clear, even, that these people didn’t know anything about the true situation. But, hearing her father’s name being thrown around, Delia knew all she needed to, to realize that these were her enemies.

In the stands, the first to notice this change in Delia was Eli. Because his sister had asked Ri to come, he had followed along to make sure nothing happened to her. In fact, Eli was probably the only one who had noticed Delia.

Ri and Madeleine were too focused on their anger to care for any battle other than theirs, and the old Focus Academy members were tending to severe injuries they had sustained in their losses. On top of that, no one would ever think that Delia would even reach this far. Just a few months ago, she was barely a meridian formation warrior. This was too drastic a change.

“Venus…” Eli whispered, “There’s something wrong.”

Venus’ brows furrowed. Ever since his days at Focus Academy, Eli had been a distant admirer of Delia, even calling her princess when she was never really that. Because of this, Venus knew that Eli likely knew Delia well enough to tell if there was something wrong – but, even she found it odd.

“She’s too cold to be Delia…” This was Eli’s only explanation as his eyes focused on the monitor above them. He clenched his fists, ‘Be careful…’

Delia, though, couldn’t hear Eli’s words. Even if Eli had been right next to her ear, it was likely that Delia would have completely tuned it out.

Her emotions were teetering on an edge and her eyes kept flashing such a cold shade of blue that even the arena beneath her feet was starting to ice over.

“If you don’t want to die, get of the stage. If you dare stay, don’t blame me for what happens.” Delia’s words were faint as a sword materialized in her hand.

In the Planet Naiad section, King Clyte’s eyes narrowed, ‘Absolute… How? She’s too young…’

King Clyte immediately knew he had made a mistake in calling for her death. Aiko and Elric were talented, but they weren’t even cumulative rankers because they were too young. They wouldn’t be a match for such a path.

However, this didn’t perturb the King at all. ‘You want to play, hm?…’ A light chuckle escaped him as he glanced to find a small ray of hope in his supposed wife’s eyes, causing a sinister smile to appear on his features.

Waves of hard winds raged around Delia. Her hair iced over, becoming a blinding white as her skin paled. Her every step became the focal point for a new tempest of gales, sending shivers down the spines of her competition.

Half of the warriors immediately leaped off. This wasn’t something they could handle, and they knew it. It was in their best interest to try for the final round.

Although many others tried to stay to see if they could be the last to stand with her, they soon realized that such an idea was ridiculous. Why? Because Delia had locked in place two people. Aiko and Elric.

In the blink of an eye, under the shocked gazes of a crowd, the underdog that was Delia had become a bright and shining star.

She slowly approached the two who were shivering in their own right, unable to control themselves, as she repeated herself again. “Where is my mother?”

Delia’s words didn’t make sense to them. They had no idea what was happening. What mother? And what did that have to do with them?

“Since neither of you want to talk, I’ll start cutting off limbs.” Delia was nothing like herself. She was being cold and calculating. She knew very well that if she killed one of them, the competition would be over because only the three of them were left. She couldn’t afford that, this was her only clue.

Lilac watched this scene unfold from the side of the arena in a daze. She was an essence gathering expert. Granted, she was barely considered a 6^th grade expert. But, still. Why was Delia able to dispatch of her so easily?… In fact, that wasn’t even the case… Lilac hadn’t even fought back… She felt like… Like it was futile. As though the outcome was already set. As though it was already absolute…

Delia flashed forward, brandishing her sword. Her steps were light and the rings of blue that blossomed from them had an elegant beauty to them that distracted those watching from how deadly they were.

Aiko and Elric readied themselves, struggling to knock the cold out of their seized muscles to attack. However, something began to itch at the back of their minds – something that was telling them that resistance was futile.

Unwittingly, a manifestation bloomed behind Delia. This wasn’t a manifestation of the soul, but rather, it was proof of her unique body. Much like Dyon had when he first absorbed demon qilin blood, Delia manifested the spirit of her bloodline.

A queen of hell appeared, wearing an eerie black and flowing dress. She wore a laced veil of black as her striking white hair flowed ethereally.

The eyes of everyone had completely forgotten about the other four battle royales taking place at that instant. There was only Delia and her blade. Aiko and Elric stood no chance… Until Delia froze…

A piercing voice entered her mind, causing her to cough off blood on the spot. “Allow yourself to be killed. Or your mother dies.”

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, but Delia’s mind was racing. Aiko and Elric’s movements were so slow to her that she felt as though she could dodge them at any time, and yet, she felt conflicted.

Something inside was screaming logical deductions at her. Her mother was long gone, how could she possibly know whether she was alive or not? And, how could she guarantee that even if she was alive, that she would continue to be after Delia died?

And what about this voice? Just who was it? Also, why wasn’t anyone reacting to an outside influence interfering with the proceedings? That clearly meant that the actions of this person were being covertly accepted and thus wasn’t that all the more reason for Delia to ignore them? After all, that meant this person had to work in secret because if they pushed the line too far, what they were doing wouldn’t be allowed anymore.

If they could have pushed it as far as they wanted, why hadn’t they just killed Delia by infiltrating her mind instead of just making her cough of blood? It was clear they had to hold back.

All logic pointed toward Delia not listening to this voice. Just dodge the swords and kill these fools. You can avenge the death of your mother later, but if you’re dead, you would have lost the opportunity.

Delia’s constitution and path seemed to whisper in her ear. The path of the absolute doesn’t allow negotiation. The ice hell queen is a ruler, since when did she bend to the demands of others?

Unbeknownst to Delia, Patia-Neva had hidden himself in space to watch this struggle. This was the struggle that he too had gone through, however, Delia’s was on an entirely knew level.

Patia-Neva hadn’t had any idea that his daughter had the Infinite Ice Hell God constitution. At first, he had only thought that Delia had an affinity for the absolute like he had. But, he was clearly wrong.

The Infinite Ice Hell constitution brought the problems of the absolute path to a new tier. The absolute path itself already threatened to remove all of your humanity. It was a path that if you wanted to progress in, you had to throw away all of your emotions, all of your thoughts of servitude and empathy, anything of the like had to be done away with.

When you then piled the Infinite Ice Hell constitution on top of this, you brought together two things that were perfectly in sync. A constitution and a path married to each in complete perfection.

However, in the end, it was still a choice. Patia-Neva had chosen to abandon his wife for power. He didn’t sleep or eat well. In fact, he had become an entirely new person, until he finally realized he had chosen the wrong path.

The truth was that Patia-Neva hadn’t chosen power for a selfish reason. All those years ago when Ri’s mother had saved him, he had been brought into an all new world, a world where the fate of their entire universe hung in the balance. If he wanted to help, he needed power. So, he sought it out in the only way he knew how.

And now… It was his daughter’s turn. How would she choose? What path would she go down?

Delia struggled, ‘Attack!’ Her mind screamed. There was no time, she had to choose. If she didn’t move now, she was really die.

‘What mother?’ Delia thought angrily, ‘You mean the woman that abandoned me in my youth? I can’t even remember her face! Why should I give up my life for her?!’

Patia-Neva could only sigh as he watched his daughter make the same mistake he had… He had hoped that she would be different. Delia was such a caring and naïve soul. She always wanted to see the best in everyone, even when that led to her being on the losing side.

There was a point in her life where she had done her best to fake a cold exterior, but anyone who knew her knew what she was really like.

Delia lost her mother. Then she lost her father, who was supposedly present, but not at the same time. And then she lost her best friend Meiying. And then her big sister, Madeleine went off for months at a time, never truly leaving them with the moments they used to have together.

And now, she had finally found a path to power. With this path, even if she lost her mother, she could train to avenge her. Even if she lost her father, she could train to avenge him. She could go and save Meiying with her own two hands. She could be powerful enough that Madeleine would never have to train on her own again.

‘This power, I need it. Even if I have to cut off everything else!’ Delia seemed to have made a decision and shifted her weight to ignore the words of the expert who had tried to sway her decisions.

‘This is your path…’ Patia-Neva thought solemnly.

The cheers of the crowd were deafening. They loved seeing such a domineering display of power, and in what seemed like an instant, Delia had wiped out all competition but two!

Suddenly, Patia-Neva’s ear twitched. As a celestial level expert, his sensitivity to things were on an entirely other level as compared to others – especially when you consider the control over your body energy cultivation gives you.

Even in a stadium filled with tens of millions of people, Patia-Neva heard fervent shouting coming from one boy – a boy he happened to recognize.

Eli didn’t know what he was doing, but he knew that something was wrong. Something felt off. “THIS ISN’T YOU, DELIA!”

A small smile played on the features of Patia-Neva as he listened to these words, ‘Maybe since I can’t get to my daughter… You can…’ With a wave of his hand, a small bit of imperceptible celestial will gripped onto the sound waves of Eli’s words.

Using the same method of communication essence gathering experts could use, Patia-Neva transferred the words of someone else instead of his… Directly into Delia’s ears.

All Delia saw was a sheet of white. She had entered a new world and there was a singular door before her. She had the feeling that this was the last percentages of her constitution. All she had to do was step forward, and she wouldn’t even need Dyon’s pill. She’d have reached perfection on her on.

She reached for the doorway in the land of snow, prepared to take the last step toward power.

“THIS ISN’T YOU, DELIA!”

The words hung in the air. Delia’s movements froze.

In the outside world, all anyone saw was Delia’s sword stop in the air, seemingly unwilling to pierce through Elric’s advancing figure.

Her constitution disappeared, returning her, her usual beautiful olive skin and warm hazel eyes.

Delia closed her eyes as Aiko and Elric approached. She felt no pain as Aiko’s steel blades tore through her once flawless skin and she didn’t flinch as Elric’s fist of wind threatened to tear her torso in half.

The crowd was stunned. At this point, there was not a single person who hadn’t witnessed the battle, it was too attention grabbing. Madeleine was still not being allowed to move freely by her master and Ri was much too far away to do anything. They could only watch as a girl they saw as their own sister fell from the stage.

But, Eli saw something completely different. He saw a girl he had only just admitted he loved finally at peace. He saw an angel falling with a serene smile on her face.

Delia landed on the hovering array before being rejected out of the space.

Usually, in a situation like this, it was up to the clan members of the losing participant to help them off of the field. And in cases of death, which it seemed like this was going to be, it was also up to the clan members to act accordingly.

But, there was obviously no one ready for Delia. She had come alone.

Ri immediately got up to run toward Delia and help. But, she was stopped by Clarice Grimbold.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? You’ve embarrassed our race enough. Interaction between different clans could be seen as swapping information about numbers, I forbid you to go.”

“Who the fuck are you? If you don’t get out of my way right now, I promise I’ll cut you down where you stand.” Ri didn’t have the time to deal with this nonsense.

No interaction amongst clans? That was technically true, but who cared about something like that now? Was Ri supposed to allow someone she saw as a sister, someone she knew Dyon cared about, die just for some bullshit ranking?

In the Sapientia sky box, Madeleine wanted to thrash wildly, but the lock on saint energy her master had placed on her was so domineering that she couldn’t even whimper. Madeleine’s eyes blazed along with purple flames, but that was when Connery Sapientia stepped in.

“You’ve embarrassed our clan enough. Do you think I didn’t notice how purposefully confrontational you were during your battles? What happened to what I told you about the image of the Sapientia? Consider this punishment. Don’t think of crossing me again.”

A blanket of celestial energy completely stifled Madeleine. She couldn’t even circulate her wills anymore; celestial energy was just too domineering. The rest of the Sapientia could only watch as tears fell from the eyes of their first in line genius. So, she controlled the only thing she could. She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch anymore.

However, would Patia-Neva really allow his daughter to die? She had been the first Patia-Neva in history to take the right first step. She didn’t need to correct her path years down the line, or abandon her spouse or be responsible for the destruction of her clan. She had leaped over all of those hurdles and Patia-Neva was proud.

A gentle wisp of celestial energy found its way to Delia. Then, he sent the emblem of Focus Academy to Eli who was already begging to be allowed into the arena.

The energy sustained Delia’s life. But, Patia-Neva had to be careful not to give her too much, or else her body wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Because Patia-Neva had registered Delia under the Focus Academy name, Eli and Venus were finally allowed in. They were slow. In fact, it took them hours to reach Delia because of the sheer size of the stadium and having to go around many, many, large arenas. But, they eventually made it.

Ri had received a message from Patia-Neva long ago saying that Delia would be alright. So, she had dropped the matter with Clarice.

Clarice, however, had obviously not heard this message. To her, Ri had given up because she was too weak to face her, so this gave her back the confidence she had lost. Just before it had really seemed like Ri would have killed her… And she would have stood no chance… But, she was in the top 20! How was that possible!?

Snorting, Clarice went back to her spot, “At least you know your place.”

Ri didn’t respond. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she knew if she did, she wouldn’t be able to hold in her temper for any longer. Had Delia’s father not been here, what would have happened? If she had to waste time fighting this bitch, wouldn’t Delia have died before she got there? Venus’ and Eli’s cultivations weren’t strong enough to cover such large distances – as evidenced by the fact round after round had occurred before the managed to get to Delia’s body that had been set nearby other injured victims.

Lilac had wanted to help Delia, but she immediately felt the piercing gaze of her Matriarch… She had no choice but to let it go. As for Aiko and Elric? They were shaken by the experience. They felt that their lives had been on a platter, and yet someone or something had saved them.

When they returned to the Planet Naiad section, they received praise from their King as though Delia’s death was now inevitable. Delia’s mother had considerably paled. She knew her own death would likely come now that King Clyte had seen to it that she witnessed her daughter’s, but she didn’t care about that. If anything… She welcomed death now…

In the Sapientia section, Madeleine’s eyes opened to find that Eli and Venus were struggling to carry Delia out of the arena. There was nothing she could do with Connery’s energy locked onto her. All she could do watch Delia’s seemingly lifeless body… She had lost a sister and she couldn’t even do anything about it…

Madeleine didn’t know what Ri knew. If Patia-Neva had sent a message to Madeleine, even though he was more powerful that Connery, with Connery’s soul strength, he would have picked up on the message. Patia-Neva didn’t want to cause such issues because he still had to keep himself hidden, as such, he hadn’t been able to tell Madeleine that Delia would be alright.

Sending a message to Ri was still possible because Ri wasn’t sitting amongst Elvin elders like Madeleine had been forced to.

Madeleine’s eyes made their way down to the numbered array plate she had received. It seemed like the final round would finally be her turn. Her emotions were in chaos. If she ran from this fight, she didn’t know what else Connery would do. What he hurt Dyon? What about her family?

Madeleine didn’t even look at Connery as she felt the celestial energy release her. She had to supress her emotions. If she let her anger take over, she would ruin the image of the Sapientia more and only make Connery more angry. But, she was struggling.

‘Delia…’ Tears threatened to spill out of Madeleine’s eyes as she flashed away and toward the stage.

In the Elvin section, Ri had also let her emotions stew. These rounds were taking the longest and it was already time for the final section to go before she was finally called up.

She slowly got up, too angered to bother with anything else as she flashed forward and toward the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! This is our final round!

We’ve seen the best of the best duke it out. We’ve seen the smartest prevail. We’ve seen stunning upsets filled with undo shock. But now, this is the moment that concludes it all!”

Ri and Madeleine settled onto the respective stages, their eyes closed and their energies focused.

The crowd cheered at the top of their lungs as soon as they saw the final brackets. What a match up this was indeed!

Ava sat in the sky box along with the Sicarius and the Belmonts, still pissed with Tammy’s cowardly actions. That said, she still focused her attention on the stages, scanning through the last 5 sets of battle royales. But… When she saw what had the crowd so excited, she froze.

“Oh no…”

Ri opened her eyes, her hair darkening and her tails manifesting from thick ethereal energy. Her pupils focused into slits and her canines lengthened. A bestial aura dripped from her, an unconcealed bloodlust permeating through the air. She had found someone she hated down to core, and she wanted nothing else but to tear this person apart.

Madeleine’s eyes opened, her tight white qipao barely rustling in the wind as her purple hair became coated in a streak of dense violet flames. She wasn’t holding back anymore. She had lost the battle to control her emotions and her faith seed, something she had had for less than a few months, was raging wildly.

Somewhere off in the shadows, someone smiled a toothy grin. Their plan had finally come to fruition. The ultimate pain was set in store for them.

It seemed as though this was no longer a battle royale, but a challenge between two. The twenty three other contestants watched with baited breath, content to stand on the edge of the arena while they clashed…

Ri and Madeleine weren’t on separate arena floors at all… Instead, they faced each other.

One grieved the loss of a sister.

The other pissed about an attempted murder.

Both angered by the disrespect of a husband.

And none the wiser.