<strong>A few hours earlier;</strong>
Rowan and two more participants have arrived at their allotted waiting room inside the stadium.
Team members of Twilight, on the other hand, were busy practicing in the forest habitat, thinking that the group match fixtures will be announced like the previous day.
So, they thought of training until the afternoon. Claire is training with Gideon and his new frontline partner Snivy who just broken through to rank-5, a couple of days ago.
Meanwhile, Mia was practicing her archery against Azzy's skeletons while standing on one of the branches on its Oak Tree Arcana.
Due to the abundance of wood attributes around her, Mia felt a boost up in her concentration, feeling connected to the surrounding trees. Still, it doesn't help her accuracy as the skeletons started to hide behind trees to evade the energy arrows.
The Oaktree was still not used to the presence of Vajra. However, despite that, it wasn't afraid like before because of the forest habitat which is like a home to it. An imaginary effect of the place soothed its fears.
"Mia, don't just shoot from one spot. Try to jump from one branch to another while shooting the energy arrows." Azzy shouted from far away while keeping an eye on her movements and the position of skeletons.
Following his suggestion, as Mia tried to change the location, she slipped from the branch. "Kya…"
The Oaktree tried to grab it. However, due to the lack of concentration, its focus isn't on the spot and it failed to grab it. Her scream made the others stop training and looked in her direction.
Just as Azzy about to dash towards her to catch her before she falls on the ground, suddenly, she stopped in mid-air as a bubble appeared around her.
Slowly, the bubble descended onto the ground and disappeared as she landed.
Azzy felt a strong presence in the forest aside from his teammates. As he activated the aura sensing, he saw a person floating in the air and is descending towards the ground.
As he turned his head, he found it was the Vice-principal. Everyone also found her as she landed on the ground. "You are battling Neo Academy, today. You should get ready for the match."
Gathering them around her, Sahara proceeded to explain her strategy. Then she explained the information she had found about Neo Academy's Team Harmony.
As the opponents were average except for the captain, Sahara informed them that Azzy and Claire will sit out from this battle and let the three of them battle the five opponents.
According to her, it will not only establish the Aclein academy Champion team's strength in the League but Snivy would also get used to the five-star realm quicker.
At first, Azzy agreed with it along with everyone.
However, in the next minute, upon remembering Oakley and Affea, he suddenly asked everyone whether he could battle solo for this match.
Does he want to impress the couple or does he wanted to show that he's strong so that they wouldn't have to worry about him?
For whatever reason he doesn't know yet, Azzy wanted to be selfish by taking down his opponents all by himself, at least for the present day.
The team members didn't know what's going on in Azzy's head. They are wondering why Azzy is doing this.
"Does he want to show off?" "Does he want to test himself?" "Is it because this is his first tournament?" "Is it because he wanted to save his team members' abilities?"
Several thoughts emerged in everyone's heads.
Only Gideon who was closest to Azzy felt like there was something off about his request.
Although he doesn't know what's going on, Gideon knew that Azzy isn't the type to volunteer to battle, especially against weaker people than himself unless there's a personal business as he would constantly worry about killing them instead.
After a brief silence, Sahara looked at Azzy and asked, "Are you confident? Even if they aren't from the top academy, they aren't still pushovers."
Azzy immediately nodded confidently.
Before anyone confronted him about the reason, Sahara spoke, "this plan will also work. A strong start will not only improve the image of our academy and also might put pressure on the other opponents within in the same group."
Azzy then nodded in response.
After hearing her explanation and then, looking at Azzy's response to that, the team members misunderstood that Azzy was probably doing it for the image of the academy.
*Clap* "Okay, it's decided. Azrael will battle first and the others will sit out from the match unless he fell into trouble." As the team captain, Claire finalized the plan before continuing the training until lunchtime.
Back to the present, members of Team Harmony, as well as the audience, were surprised by Team Twilight's actions.
While some thought Aclein Academy representatives are full of themselves, others thought the Necromancer Prince was confident in taking them alone.
The students of the Aclein Academy, supported their team, with collective cheers.
"Twilight, Twilight, Twilight, Azrael, Azrael."
Neo Academy students were angered as they felt they were being mocked. Even if their opponent is someone who defeated Prince Vann, still this isn't a singles match. It is a team match. And they too have a rank-5 expert in their team.
Moreover, Azzy not summoning his beast irked them even more.
*Whistle*
As soon as the proctor blew the whistle, Team Harmony who was ready with their Arcana, get into action.
Three of them, who was a healer and two summoners respectively, hopped on a flying card together.
On the other hand, the remaining two who were soul weapon users started to run towards Azzy along with the two beasts.
The captain of the team harmony, Cobalt Twigs, was leading the team in the front with a steel bat in his hands, which largely resemble a baseball bat.
With his huge stature and bulging muscles, he kinda looked like a delinquent while he was running towards his enemy.
Azzy glanced at the audience left and right. Obviously, in the horde of thousands of people, he wasn't able to find Oakley and Affea. Still, he believed they were sitting somewhere.
Looking ahead, Azzy charged forward.
"What the hell…" It was all Cobalt was able to sound out as he saw Azzy suddenly turned into a blur, spilling an enormous amount of sand particles into the air.
However, to his surprise, Azzy reappeared in the middle of the desert, hundred meters away from his team while the opposing team only covered one-fifth of the distance.
It wasn't the high speed that surprised Cobalt. Azzy didn't attack them or started to prepare for some attack. He just stood in the middle of the desert and folds his hands to the back.
He stood there in silence as if he was provoking them to come and get him.
Cobalt was the first to attack. He swung his bat vertically at the head.
However, just as it was about to hit its target, Azzy sidestepped while sweeping his foot at the same time.
Azzy's leg hit his opponent's foot and stretched his leg wide until Cobalt's legs split horizontally.
"Argh…" He moaned in pain as his body doesn't turn out to be flexible. Meanwhile, the other team member who is a swordsman, and the two beasts that are right behind him arrived at the same time.
The two summoners on the flying card ordered the beasts to attack Azzy, leaving the assistance to the captain to the swordsman.
But, what they faced in the cruel reality.
As soon as the peak-rank-4 tiger and the lioness beasts lunged at Azzy at the same time, the latter first powered up his body with the soul energy, depleting nearly 20% of his soul power.
A thin outline of soul energy covered outside of his body as a result.
Then, he dodged the tiger with another side-step and then, made a fist to give a powerful uppercut at its chin.
As the tiger landed on the ground, the lioness that was supposed to bite him was hit by his punch and got blew up in the air, spilling the blood all over Azzy who was right below it.
"No…" Its summoner shrieked in response while the headless lioness fell on the ground before slowly disappearing.
With half of the face covered in blood, Azzy turned his head towards the tiger and set his eyes on it.
When their eyes met, the mutated gold-grade tiger took a step back in fear as it saw the illusion of a death reaper behind Azzy.
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