With all the annoyances out of the way, Liam turned into a flash of red light as he charged towards the prince of the Zivell Kingdom with eyes filled with deep murderous intent that could even be felt from the stands beyond the protective magic shield.
Edmund Zivell’s expression finally turned serious as he realized that despite his level and talent in the handling of the spear, as well as his powerful skill set that matched the path he walked, the enemy’s combat style was truly problematic.
Edmund’s techniques were beautiful and deadly, his skills were fatal. He, as the prince of one of the three most powerful kingdoms in the entire Eventide World, possessed not only access to the best skill scrolls but also had many good quality treasures.
Liam only swung his greatsword without any apparent purpose other than to cast the power contained in the blade after activating a skill. However, the hidden power in Liam’s arms every time he swung his weapon, as well as the large-scale lethality of his skills, completely shattered every technique and every skill from Edmund.
A proud prince who always had everything versus a demon-human who had to work very hard to make the people of his kingdom finally accept him.
Who would have imagined this kind of scenario?
“What’s wrong?! Where is your arrogance from before?!”
“Edmund Zivell, you are nothing but a dog that barks but doesn’t bite!”
“Why don’t you repeat what you said before the competition started?!”
“Are you scared?! Why are you running, you coward!”
…
The stands were completely silent as they watched the fight unfold in the arena.
Liam Anworth’s derisive words were always accompanied by the swinging of his greatsword and moment after that the arena would tremble every time the power of the skill spread everywhere.
“T- This…”
“T- That half-demon is overwhelming the prince of Zivell…”
Murmurs of disbelief and astonishment began to spread among the spectators as they watched in shock at Edmund Zivell’s increasingly pitiful state.
The formerly proud prince was being swept back and forth by the person he had mocked earlier. His silver armor was now covered in cracks and from the practically shattered metal gloves, one could clearly distinguish the liquid blood slipping through the cracks, covering the spear to which the pitiful prince could now barely hold on with his trembling hands.
Soon, however, the silent grandstand erupted as a relatively small number compared to the total number of observers broke out in cheers and acclamations.
“Crush him, Liam!”
“Go, Liam!”
“So what if it’s a father kingdom?! Liam, show them the power of our Gales Kingdom!”
“Make them swallow their words!”
“Gales Invensible!”
“Gales Invensible!”
“Gales Invensible!”
…
No one knew who started it, but at some point, all the citizens of the Gales Kingdom who were in the stands began to shout the same words and despite being fewer in comparison to the total their words seemed to cause a general tremor throughout the arena building at the same time as the explosions caused by the clash of two powerful attacks and words full of mockery from Liam continued.
In the resting area of the Gales Kingdom’s participants, Bai Zemin couldn’t help but shake his head as he said without knowing whether to laugh or cry, “That guy is definitely faking it now.”
“Mm?” Lilith looked at him in confusion and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Liam. That guy isn’t really enraged at the level he’s showing now, he’s just pretending.” Bai Zemin pointed out.
He had pretended to lose his sanity in several fights to make the enemy think that his intelligence was gone, which would eventually result in a fatal oversight; fake fatal oversight meant to allow Bai Zemin to deliver the final and fatal blow.
“However, the reason Liam is faking it is different.” He said with a faint smile. “Liam’s overall power is far higher than that prince Zivell’s so there’s no need to use such tactics.”
“Then what does that boy want to accomplish by pretending to have gone mad?”
Bai Zemin chuckled: “That’s obvious, Lilith. In this competition no one in their right mind would purposely kill an opponent unless they want trouble for themselves and their family, the opponents are also aware of this fact…. However, what would happen if the opponent knew, or rather, in this case, believe, that the enemy he is facing has lost his mind and seeks his death?”
“… He would die of fear?”
“Exactly.” Bai Zemin nodded, and as he watched Prince Edmund making more and more mistakes in the midst of combat, thus increasing the number of wounds on his body and worsening the old ones, he culminated, “What Liam wants to achieve is to make that little prince tremble with fear every time he sees him and that when he closes his eyes to have nightmares involving the red eyes he made fun of.”
In the arena, the other eleven participants from the Gales Kingdom watched the ongoing combat with varied expressions.
“For god’s sake, can this even be called combat now?” Seraphina rolled her eyes and muttered bored, “Liam took all the attention and wouldn’t even let us fight. What did I come here for anyway?”
“Go, Liam! Show that princess who’s boss!”
“Hahahahahaha! Good one, Evan!”
While Seraphina wailed and pouted, Evan and Giles enjoyed the misfortunes of others. The two 22-year-olds practically sat on the floor and only popcorn was missing for the scene to be complete.
“Really,” Ellis shook her head and agreed with her little sister’s words, “This fight has no meaning anymore. From now on it’s just Liam turning Edmund Zivell into his personal punching bag.”
The group of eleven didn’t even get a chance to show off this time, Liam took it upon himself to clean up all the participants of the Zivell Kingdom by himself and without needing anyone’s help. His demonstration of power left the observers speechless, but the most worried were undoubtedly those who would have to face him soon.
“I wonder how these people would feel if they knew Liam isn’t even giving his 100% yet,” Anna said as she covered her mouth and chuckled.
Seraphina rolled her eyes and said in a growling voice, ” Stop it, Anna. If the others find out then we won’t have a fighting chance at all.”
“They… They would probably give up…?” Said somewhat uncertainly a shy girl holding a golden dagger in her small hand.
“Oh! Katt finally spoke! It’s been like 5 months since the last time?” Evan looked at the small-looking girl even though she was actually 21 years old and his eyes sparkled.
The assassin named Katt immediately recoiled in embarrassment, which eventually led to the others looking at Evan with accusing eyes.
Finally, after two or three more minutes of combat, the prince of the Zivell Kingdom managed to realize something that made his blood run cold.
BOOM!!!
Liam’s attack forced Edmund back more than 50 meters and the fingers on his right hand were broken more than they already were. The only reason he could still hold his spear was thanks to the gloves that had practically stuck to the metal at this point due to the high temperature.
However, Edmund couldn’t feel pain right now, and instead of worrying about the blood pouring out of his weakened body, what he did was to curse in his heart as he looked into Liam’s red eyes with increasing panic.
‘This bastard…. He really wants to kill me!’
Edmund realized that his opponent was trying to bleed him out little by little, which would eventually end with his death. That way, the judges would only give Liam and Gales some problems but it definitely wouldn’t be something that severe.
‘Isn’t this bastard afraid of what the Zivell Kingdom might do in retaliation?!’
Just then, a new attack from Liam began to charge into the blade of his weapon.
This was a clearly weaker attack than the ones from before, however, Edmund realized that in his current condition would be hard to take it and the risk of suffering severe injuries was very high.
“Demon Vanquisher!”
Seeing the purple radiance dancing around the greatsword coming closer and closer to him, Edmund hurriedly shouted at the top of his lungs the only words that could give him some hope.
“I GIVE UP!”
Liam’s attack was a few feet away from impact, but as he heard Edmund’s words of surrender, a flash of frustration and at the same time derision glistened in the eyes of the future hero of Gales.
“STOP!”
King Albert’s voice thundered across the arena and the spectators shouted in fright as they saw the participant from Gales continue his assault without stopping despite Edmund’s surrender.
“Liam!”
“Liam, no!”
“You idiot, stop!”
…
The eleven participants from Gales also did not expect this kind of development at all.
When opponents surrendered or were knocked out, the rules of the competition kingdoms made it quite clear that any other attack on the opponent’s body would be taken as attempted murder and the accused would be punished severely.
Just as Edmund Zivell was trembling with fear and screaming in terror at the sight of the purple glare on the giant blade approaching his head, Liam snorted coldly.
BOOOOM!!!
“What happened?!”
“That demon guy killed Edmund?!”
“Quickly clear the dust from the arena!”
The powerful explosion shook the ground and thick cracks spread everywhere which also caused dust to cover the view of the spectators watching everything from the stands.
Everyone was anxious to know the outcome, some were positively excited while others felt as if their hearts were pounding in their throats due to nerves.
When the dust settled after a few seconds, everyone finally had a look at the scene in the arena.
Liam’s giant sword had left his hands and was currently stuck in the arena wall. The cracks in the wall were getting repaired at visible speed, but the important thing was that Prince Edmund was only inches away from the tip of the sword.
The prince’s eyes were wide open and terror was written all over his sheet-pale face. Despite the blood rushing from his ears due to the bang of both eardrums after being shaken by the explosion from such a close distance, the blue eyes of the prince of the Zivell Kingdom were fixed on the young man standing ten feet ahead who was staring at him coldly.
Finally, after a few seconds, Prince Edmund’s psyche seemed to break and his eyes rolled to the back of his head before he fell to his knees, finally collapsing on the ground.
Everyone watched in silence as Liam Anworth walked slowly, and under the watchful eyes of the crowd, he held onto the hilt of his greatsword with his right hand before finally pulling back, snatching it away from the wall that moments later was fully repaired thanks to the power of the runes that used large amounts of Soul Stones as a source of energy.
Liam did not give the prince of the Zivell Kingdom a second glance. However, when he turned and began to walk away, his indifferent voice was heard by all clearly.
“Kingdom parent? Prince of Zivell? I don’t give a fuck who the hell you are…. Before you talk bad about my mom wash your fucking mouth, you piece of crap.”
Immediately after that and as King Albert’s body trembled in the highest box in the arena, something seemed to snap inside every person in the stands except for the citizens of the Zivell Kingdom who had traveled all this way to support their kingdom, everyone began to shout Liam Anworth’s name with enthusiasm.
So what if he had some demon blood in him? No one could dispute the spectacle that the 18-year-old had just given them! Such a spectacle would surely not happen again in the centuries to come of future competitions of kingdoms!
* * * * * * *
