"Five-three, Holy Dawn Academy wins against Silver Trout Academy!"
They clearly saw what had happened, but in the stands, the students from Holy Dawn and from the other Academies in St. Lauren were all filled with a sense of incredulity.
"We won!"
"We’re finally in the last eight!"
It took more than a dozen seconds for the stands to finally erupt.
"This guy, he really did it."
In the stands, looking at the jubilant Team Holy Dawn, Ivan felt a lump in his throat.
"Charlotte, don’t you forget about that thing now," Wilde suddenly told Charlotte.
"What thing?" Charlotte looked at him, a little baffled. She saw Wilde and the others winking and such, and suddenly understood what these guys were talking about.
"You guys!" Her face flushed red.
…
Rinsyi left the arena without uttering a single word.
His face wasn’t that different from usual, but those familiar with him on Team Golden Stag could feel a dangerous aura coming from him. Hill liked to taunt him usually, but even he didn’t dare say anything.
"Rinsyi, may we ask your opinion about Team Silver Trout’s defeat to Team Holy Dawn?"
"Rinsyi, are you feeling any pressure from Holy Dawn’s performance today, especially from Chris and Rinloran?"
Some reporters crowded their way as soon as they exited the arena, all of them talking at once.
"Go away!"
Rinsyi’s mood became extremely foul after hearing the words Holy Dawn Holy Dawn repeated nonstop. He rudely shoved away two men standing in his way and directly left.
"Is the lack of comment a tacit agreement?"
However, the reporters gathered there still didn’t want to drop the matter. They pursued him and asked, "Are you feeling hugely pressured by Holy Dawn Academy, is that why you’re in such a bad mood?"
"What the hell are you saying!"
Rinsyi’s face suddenly twisted.
Before those beside him could even see him move, he’d already grabbed the throat of the reporter with the sharpest and loudest questions, lifting him up.
"Huff… Huff…"
The reporter couldn’t breathe at all. His face turned purple. Terror flashed through his eyes.
At the edge of his vision, Rinsyi spotted the figure of a patrolling arcane master hurling himself his way, but he still didn’t let go of the reporter. His said, his voice chilling to the bone, "We’re being pressured by a team with a broken arm? You must be really eager to taste what death feels like, or else you wouldn’t have the balls to talk to me like this."
Rinsyi coldly threw away the man when the patroller was less than twenty meters away, before leaving without looking back even once.
"This guy, just now he looked like he was really going to kill someone."
The reporters behind him were all drenched in cold sweat. They couldn’t find the courage to follow him anymore.
"Hahahaha, I’m fighting second next time! Team Golden Stag? With my wise handsome godly self going on stage, what’s a mere Team Golden Stag?" An especially arrogant voice came from behind them just then. Rinsyi and the other members of Team Golden Stag stopped in their tracks and looked back.
"It’s that guy again?"
This time, even Hill and the others felt in a foul mood.
They saw the reporters from Breith Magazine surround a Stingham who’d just exited the arena, firing question after question at him. None of the other members of Team Holy Dawn were even there.
"They changed the schedule of the tournament, so now there’s a lot less time between each match. With Chris and Rinloran heavily wounded, they shouldn’t be able to recover in time for the next round. Are you guys really confident you can beat your next opponent, even if it happens to be Team Golden Stag?"
"Haha, we’re going to meet Team Golden Stag for sure in the next round, because my prayers are very effective. I’m going to pray again before the quarterfinals’ draw, so we’re a hundred percent fighting Team Golden Stag next." Stingham laughed like a madman, his hands on his hips. "What does it matter if Chris and Rinloran are wounded or not? With a genius like me on the scene, are they even needed? In the next match, countless girls are definitely going to go wild and scream my name."
"Are you really going fighting second?"
"Of course. I think the first one to fight will probably be that Moss guy. He’s only good for taking a beating, so my genius self is going to steal the show for the whole match next time."
"…"
"Is this guy really a moron?" Hearing Stingham’s mad laughter, even the flirty "Black Widow Huntress" Megan couldn’t help but say, a little speechless, "The fighting order is something top secret, something you definitely can’t leak before the match begins. Does he think that we’re going to believe him just because he says it? He’s even talking about his amazing prayers, that he can meet whatever team he wants to meet. Why did he even come to fight in the tournament then, just directly pray for some divine inheritance items to fall from the sky instead."
"This guy’s just a fly. You need to slap them dead to have your quiet again," the cold-faced Hill said, his face also dark.
…
"Where did that Stingham guy run off to?"
Inside the arena, still immersed in the happiness of their victory, Ayrin and the others suddenly noticed Stingham’s disappearance.
"What’s Team Silver Trout doing? Are they unwilling to admit their defeat, so they’re coming here to have a brawl?"
Just then, Ayrin and the others suddenly noticed Nolan and the others coming their way.
But what they hadn’t expected was, after Team Silver Trout came in front of them, Nolan said a single word: "Sorry."
Ayrin and the others felt a little puzzled.
"At the beginning, when you guys were ranked as a weeds-level team, we really looked down on you, and we even made disobliging remarks about you. Now facts proved us wrong, so we came here to apologize." Nolan looked at the confused group from Holy Dawn and slowly said, "You guys are indeed very strong. I hope that you guys can achieve even better results in the upcoming rounds."
"Are you serious?" Ayrin stared at Nolan, his eyes wide. "You aren’t putting up a front now are you?"
"…" Nolan was suddenly a little speechless. "Of course I’m serious."
"Looks like you’re a good guy," Ayrin suddenly shouted, a little surprised. A smile bloomed on his face. "Then let all of us be friends, how about it?"
"You were ready to fight just a second ago… Never seen such a fast turnabout, what the hell is your brain made of!" Moss and the others almost fainted.
"What a disaster…" In the stands, Southern Monsoon’s captain Ferdinand looked a little lost.
"What disaster?" The teammates beside him glanced his way, a little baffled.
"Chris was actually so strong. I’m not worthy of her," the crestfallen Ferdinand said.
"You weren’t worthy of her to begin with. You just have to try even harder now!" His teammates made encouraging gestures at him.
"That’s right!" Ferdinand tightened his red headscarf with Chris’ Fan Club written on it, then firmly clenched his fist. "I have to try even harder!"
…
In the stands, Liszt looked at the jubilant Team Holy Dawn, a faint smile on his lips.
All of a sudden, he felt a cold and ominous aura creep his way like an invisible tentacle.
But the sinister aura slowly receded again immediately after, as if it was merely pointing him in a certain direction.
He frowned imperceptibly, but his appearance looked still as lazy as ever.
"Songat, look after Ayrin for me, I have some business I need to take care of first," he told Songat while standing up from his seat.
This sentence sounded very ordinary, but Songat’s eyes flashed as if he heard something of significance from his words. His face became exceptionally grave, the total opposite of the usual I-don’t-care-about-anything look he usually wore.
"Ok." He gave a very straightforward nod.
Liszt stood up but didn’t leave the arena. He merely reached a shadowy area under the stands.
He looked at the stone wall inside the shadows. He knew that behind this wall was the "God of Death" countless teams from the Office of Special Affairs were looking for, but had failed to find so far.
"You actually managed to sneak your way here… You leaked a strand of your aura on purpose so that I could feel it, didn’t you? Why?" Liszt said, looking at the wall inside the shadows.
Lotton said, his voice almost inaudible from behind the wall, "I want to make a deal with you."
"Oh?" Liszt frowned. "What kind of deal?"
"Help me leave Eichemalar, and I can help you catch an Evil Dragon disciple alive, one with a pretty high status at that."
"Alright." Liszt nodded, still looking lazy and leisurely even in this situation. He directly said, "Help me catch the disciple you’re talking about, and I’ll help you leave the city."
"Alright. Wait for me tomorrow on the fifth avenue. But before that, don’t tell anyone, or else I can’t guarantee this deal will successfully go through." Lotton didn’t show any hesitation either behind the wall. The weak sound of his voice became even fainter, as though he was already leaving.
"Are you worried about traitors who’ll prevent you from catching that guy?" Liszt smiled, then suddenly faced the wall and added, "I heard that the Evil Dragon bishops have a special way of controlling all the Evil Dragon disciples who have been bestowed with genuine Evil Dragon particles. They can control the disciples’ life and death with a simple arcane skill as long as they’re within range. But I also heard that the essence of the Sacred Moonspring can erase this sort of control."
But he no longer heard Lotton’s voice anymore. Who knew whether the latter heard Liszt’s words.
"Liszt, is something the matter?"
Two patrollers appeared not far away beside him.
"Nothing, maybe I was mistaken," Liszt said with a shrug and a lazy smile.
