‘Eren, we need to talk.’
As soon as Eren felt Layla’s presence inside his pendant, she immediately spoke. He understood that the work Eren was required to do for Eliza had been decided by the young witch.
‘How much time have we got?’
While staring at the spectral screens, Eren asked Layla. He got his response soon afterwards.
“We have time. It’s just that we don’t have many means to do these tasks.’
Layla said and sighed.
‘Let me worry about the means. I just want a clear picture before I can make my moves. Anyway, let’s talk after I’m done for the day.’
Eren responded and looked at Al who was looking at him with keen interest.
“What?”
Eren asked the warrior ranker while shrugging his shoulders. The latter looked at him carefully and narrowed her eyes before commenting.
“You are acting weird today.”
Eren realized that he must have spaced out again after hearing Layla’s voice out of nowhere. So he fake-coughed and asked her another question.
‘So who is this scion of Renar? And why do you have to fight him here?’
Eren asked Altashia on the voice channel while waving at a food vendor, asking him to come over to the place. He got a bunch of burgers for himself. He then looked at Al and then at the variety of food that was prepped up nicely on the cart. The latter pursed her lips before getting some crispy nuggets to herself.
‘He is from Royal Ren of course. My batchmate. The guy’s mother is a Renar so his father married into the royal house. He is so far away from the line of succession that he shouldn’t be seen as Royalty at this point.’
Al said and had a crispy nugget to herself. Eren, who was observing her, found the action to be cute. But he waited patiently for her to add on.
‘I once fought with him during the ranking battles and beat him. He has been possessed to beat me ever since. He must have convinced someone from the Titus house to organize this event.
It is rare for someone with an official Renar surname to take part in these kinds of public events. So it’s no wonder that they obliged.’
Eren nodded at Altashia after hearing her explanation. Then he processed the term ‘Adept calibre battle’ that the announcer had specifically used. He concluded that the Renar that was in question would have to be nearly as talented as Al for him to get tagged as an Adept calibre ranker along with Al.
*************
The announced duels were taking place in multiple battle rings hosted by the colosseum. There was a large body of water serving as the base ground. There were five large, rune-inscribed battle rings levitating over the artificial lake. The battles would be fought over the five rings at the same time.
Getting kicked outside the battle ring was considered the opponent’s loss. It was the same for knocking them over until they could not respond to the referee. Other than that, the ranker had to admit their defeat and get ready to accept a penalty from the Colosseum’s management at the cost of saving their life by quitting their match.
The main objective of the duel was entertainment for the audience. They liked to see the brutality getting unleashed on the battle rings. That’s why the duelers weren’t allowed to use any defensive artefacts. In addition, neither of them could quit early without making the battle worth it to their audience. Otherwise, they both would receive a penalty.
Everything else was fair in the battle. The competition emphasized aesthetics more than any other part.
The Arangar Colosseum was not liked by old rankers who meant business. But it was a huge success among young and impressionable rankers as well as the rich mortal populace. People from all over the Nightshade duchy would come to the city of Arangar to watch these matches. As such the city was very prosperous generating huge revenue. It also paid a large chunk to the kingdom in the form of tax.
As the battles continued, Eren paid close attention to a bunch of lightning and fire element Ace rankers who had made it to the qualifier rounds. There were only 2 lightning element rankers. Both didn’t fit Eren’s criteria for a new ‘skin’ to get morphed into. One of them had almost the same spells he had in his arsenal. But Eren knew the guy wasn’t strong enough to make it past the qualifiers.
The other lightning element ranker focused his battle style on a completely different set of spells. Therefore, Eren had to drop him too.
Eren finally settled on a guy with fire element affinity. He was a 20ish looking young man named Tuan Aag who used almost the same type of spells as Eren. He just used a different spell to base his battle style on, which was Fire Wings.
Two wide wings made out of orange fire would appear behind the back of Tuan on either side. He would use and control those wings using his mana sense to temporarily fly in the air. Then he would come crashing at his opponents while folding the wings around him. This made him look like a mini meteor that was falling from the sky at an amazing pace on his enemies.
And since the opponents weren’t allowed to use defensive artefacts inside the colosseum, they would have to either dodge Tuan entirely or face him with the same explosiveness as he had. Nobody was prepared for a confrontation like this. Especially if the defensive artefacts were removed from the picture.
As a result Tuan easily made it to the qualifiers. With an amazing betting amount skewed towards his win in the semi-finals, people in the colosseum were cheering his name with much enthusiasm.
‘Haah! There’s no easy meal in the world. Time to learn Fire-Wings while this guy works hard to reach the finals.’
Eren realized he could display the spells he had just fine, making them seem like they were his real trump cards. But he couldn’t take the guy’s go-to spell out of his battle style completely. That spell had made him too famous for the butcher to ignore.
