"Hello, we're Sentinals," a pair of twin brothers introduced themselves loudly as soon as they entered the waiting room. Even though they were only at peak-rank-5, the young twins looked energetic and they comfortably took the seats.
As if they came on some picnic, both of them took out chips packages from their storage card and even offered them to the others, taking everyone by surprise. However, as the tournament is about to start, everyone is wary of their behavior, thinking that it can contain things like poison.
Maybe, they were just optimistic. Neither of them didn't mind anything as their hospitality was refused and just started eating by themselves.
The crunchy sounds slightly disturbed the other participants in the room who were trying to calm their minds.
Meanwhile, Azzy and Leah joined their palms, practicing one of the abilities that came along with the Soul Amalgamation technique, which was given to them by the spirit of Demigod Amerys, a while ago.
With their souls linked to each other, not only they can converse with each other but even their respective Arcana can also chat with each other as long as Azzy and Leah's palms were connected.
Unlike last time, when they used the hollow tunnel that linked their mindscapes and lose their consciousness in the real world, here, they don't even need to close their eyes and just talk through telepathy.
"So, Lord Tezca… I mean, does Lord Chronos think the same?" asked Leah.
"Yeah, it appears so. But, I'm not sure about killing them just because they are from the demon race." Azzy replied to her, expressing his discontent with the plan proposed by the Reaper. Not surprisingly, Excalibur also advised Leah the same.
He further said, "Beasts are different because they don't have the ability to think or have any strong willpower to resist their urge to kill and eat the humans. They just view humans as enemies and will not coexist with us either.
However, the demon race is different. They are an intelligent race just like humans. Sure, their ancestors once invaded the humans and caused havoc on the continent before getting exterminated. However, that was them. And these two might not have committed any sins to face the death."
As the Reaper thought about how Azzy still thinks about ideals even after encountering the werewolves' incident, Leah made him realize something with her argument, "how are you sure that they are innocent? It is okay to think that not all scorpions would be venomous but it is foolishness to stand its path and think that it won't sting you. Whether it's you or a six-month baby, the scorpion won't show any bias. It's in its nature to sting the person that is bigger than its size, i.e. threatening its life.
The demons might not have done any bad but we shouldn't also forget that it's in their nature to cause destruction. It is something we shouldn't forget. And once we spot their madness and their intent to kill, neither you nor I should hesitate to take their lives."
Azzy contemplated her words and for some reason, he felt like she was right. Perhaps, it is because he no longer thinks killing is a sin like before. He thought it is okay to kill if they weren't innocent as they seemed on the surface.
In the end, he agreed with her, making the Reaper sigh as he watched them. "It would have been nice if these two become a couple but Azzy was unfortunately fated with Claire. And there was the curse of Eros too. Changing his fate would require a lot of groundwork."
A little more than half an hour passed away. As the clock hit 7, a young man in a suit entered the waiting room and greeted everyone with a bow before he gave them a piece of shocking information regarding the ever-changing tournament format of the senior division that is conducted every 5 years.
This time, there are a total of 3263 duo teams are participating in the tournament. They were divided into four batches based on the time they registered.
Azzy and Leah were in the first batch of 816 teams. And those teams were further allotted to each Arena. Overall, 272 teams were currently waiting in their respective waiting rooms with 4 teams in each room.
And according to the new format, the ones in the same room will participate in a battle royale. The winner will proceed to the next round and from there on, it will be knock-out rounds.
The respective winners of these 272 teams will once again fight in one vs one. Whenever there are an odd number of participants, they will draw a lot and 1 duo team will proceed to the next round without any battles. So, luck also plays a huge role here.
Eventually, from each Arena, a winner will emerge. That means from three Arenas, there will be three winners.
The fourth and final participant will be selected based on the three-way battle royale between the runner-ups of each arena.
Once four winners were done, the preliminaries of the second batch of 816 will start.
After the second batch, it's the third, and then, it's the fourth. During this time, the winners of earlier batches can get to rest or prepare for the upcoming battles.
In the end, four batches will give rise to 16 winners.
Like with the duo category, once the top 16 emerged from both solo and group, one after another, top-16 and top-8 battles will be conducted in the Grand Arena on one day.
After a two-day break, the semi-finals and finals will be conducted, ending the senior division world league.
Coming to the present, the announcement of the Battle Royale style during the very first round surprised almost every duo team in the three Arenas. After all, everyone was prepared to battle another team, not three teams. Only a few teams that have insiders in the core committee know about this.
But, why the surprise? It's not like this is the first time WAMO had put such a type of battle before everyone.
Even during the past few preliminaries, there were battle royale style rounds but the problem here is that it's almost been half a century since they last used this style right at the starting round.
What's scary about battle royale style round is that not only people would gang up on one duo to kick them out of the tournament, but there's also a high risk of betraying temporary allies at any moment. Not to mention, the risk of death also rises significantly.
Before leaving, the staff member didn't forget to remind everyone that they are prohibited to leave from the waiting room until they were called to the Arena. Only after they finished the match, they are allowed to leave.
As they can't leave yet, Leah contacted the General who was leading her knights and ordered him to take notes of the winners and their abilities.
In the meantime, silence filled the room. No one is in the mood to have a friendly conversation with others. However, they need to ally with someone for sure in order to survive. But who is the best choice? That is something that they have to think about.
If one goes by soul power, Azzy and Leah have an advantage over everyone but they were young and inexperienced, at least in everyone's eyes. As for the energetic twins, they appeared to be too weak.
So, the two middle-aged men approached Edwin Light and Therald. The two young men were actually in a dilemma on whether they should approach Leah or not.
But then, as these two veterans made their first move while doesn't look like she was interested in teaming up with anyone, he got up on his feet and asked others to follow him to a corner so that they can discuss their strategy.
It was obvious for the other two teams but they only focused on talking with their respective partners. The peak-rank-5 experts of Sentinals were discussing nonsensical things that have no relation to the tournament. Meanwhile, Azzy and Leah were communicating through telepathy to discuss the new developments.
Roughly 15 minutes after the staff members left the waiting rooms, four duos entered the field where the audience and the proctor were waiting for them. Because there are too many Arenas and the preliminaries will go on for a while, the audience barely reached 500 in number when it started.
As a heavenly academy located in the Arcana world, there were no TV screens or electronic equipment. Neither could anyone record it with camcorders. So, the people in the waiting room could only wait for their anxiously while increasing their senses to the maximum.
Two more hours passed away and the number of deaths in the tournament reached 18 already.
With Leah's General providing her information, which was then passed to Azzy, the latter was also learning about the developments and gets displeased every time death occurred. He couldn't understand why these people don't think that life is something that is very easy to throw away.
But then again, he knew that he too signed up for death when he registered for the tournament. So, he could only put away all those distractive thoughts and focus on his upcoming battle.
At around 9:20 in the morning, the same staff member entered the waiting room no. 15 and informed everyone, "It's your turn."
Everyone got up on their feet.
"Let's go, Azrael." Leah was the first to walk towards the exit. Azzy followed her. Neither of them looked even behind until they step inside the field.
Just like with the junior division, there was a platform and a barrier here too, except that there's quite an amount of blood spilled all over the platform. It wasn't cleaned at all.
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