<strong>November 8th, 1994;</strong>
<strong>Evening 6:30, Central Academy of Arcana, Silver city;</strong>
It's the day of the finals and the audience is naturally excited. Of course, it isn't just about the matches. WAMO has invited global stars to perform at the joint concert.
Firecrackers were dancing in the sky and people were cheering and dancing around as if they were in a music festival. It lasted more than an hour.
Popular actress Amelia along with a famous TV personality Wester acted as the host for the finals. After that, the Mayor of Silver City, the organizing committee head, and finally WAMO's Vice President (Ramiel Crescent) gave formal speeches for the next fifteen minutes.
Once the stage is clear with only the hosts standing together, they directly went to announce the battles following the guidelines from the organizing committee. Unlike with the Champions League or any other international tournaments, there was no short interview with the finalists held before the battle.
Now, usually, the Group category final match was always the first to be held but an exception arrives when a finalist in the group category also made it to the finals in another category. After all, there would be substitutes in a team if a finalist got injured in a solo/duo match but the match is as good as done if the finalist gets heavily injured in a team battle.
As a result, the Group final was pushed to the end and the Duo final match was pushed forward. Of course, before that, the bronze medal winners should be decided in a match between the loser semifinalists.
With Team Freyles dropping out of the tournament, Team Silver, the representative group of the hosting academy was automatically awarded the 3rd position.
And now, in the duo group, Team Miare will be against Team ACT. Claire was cool and all but Mia appeared to be fired up.
Watching the girl, who was aggressively fighting in close combat, Louis commented, "Today, Mia is very fierce, eh. She must be determined to get that medal."
As soon as the comment left his mouth, Azzy, Gideon, and Calder abruptly turn their head and stare at him.
"What?" Louis was taken aback, "Did I say something wrong?"
Estella also wondered the same and looked at them curiously.
"Don't you know who her father is?" asked Gideon.
As Louis and Estella wondered whether her father has some history with the opponents, Azzy then said, "She's the daughter of the Ex-president of Northern Qudour and they belonged to the special forces of Southern Qudour."
Northern Qudour and Southern Qudour are enemies and everyone knows it. Unlike Azzy who just hails from the south, Team ACT basically serves the nation. There's no more explanation required other than that one sentence from Azzy to make Louis understand.
Back to the battle, as the Oak Tree was just standing at the end while extending its roots below the battle platform, Mia was throwing punches at one of the archers without letting him gain the distance and shoot the arrow. At the same time, Claire was doing the same with her aggressive swordplay.
Maybe, the past three days of hard work really paid off. After spending almost 60 hours in a room with 20g, they became hella faster and until the end, they didn't give any opportunity for the opponents to properly injure them once.
The final strike was done by the Oak Tree, piercing the remaining opponent with its root spikes.
"Victor was knocked out. Team ACT is in no condition to continue. Team Miare wins the bronze medal match. Congratulations.
The Proctor announced the results.
This time, it wasn't Neal who was supervising. As he couldn't stop the death of a participant in the quarterfinals, the organizing committee felt that a stronger Proctor might be needed for the finals.
As a result, an expert with high-rank-8 soul power was selected. This man is none other than the vice-captain of Zero Squad, Leaf.
Anyway, at the moment, his identity is of no use to anyone other than to keep the finalists or the outsiders in check.
The battles continued with Leah's win against Luciana Hearth. Originally, after facing the loss, she was a little bit ashamed to even show her face to the public as she never expected to lose in the first place. But then, she had to swallow her pride for the glory of Camelot. Eventually, she won it, easing up slightly because of all the cheers.
Now, she had hoped that Velez wins the finals without trouble. It was so that the people back at Camelot won't question her decision to join the senior division and continue to look at her as a strong princess. The more Velez appears stronger, the more people think that she did great in making him go all out against her. In fact, she was even secretly hoping for non-participation in Azzy and Team Twilight's loss.
One can't blame her to think that way as the image is everything for people sitting in high positions like her.
Anyway, after the conclusion of the bronze medal matches, it's time for the finals.
Just as Leah hoped it to be, Velez had completely overwhelmed Prince's attacks right from the start, making it an extremely one-sided battle.
But, even then, he couldn't gain the cheers from the majority of the spectators. Being a necromancer has already put him at a disadvantage because of the stereotypic society. His ruthless attacks only made him look like a villain. People were cheering for his opponent 'Prince' until the end but the latter couldn't live up to their expectations.
In the end, he was fallen and Velez was declared the champion of the world league.
After his battle, the Ash clan siblings put up a spectacular performance like usual and win the finals.
In the audience section, a guy was seen shaking his head in disappointment, "I thought finals would be filled with most intense battles ever. But, so far, even including the bronze medal matches, all of them are one-sided. Did I pay 50,000 credits for this?"
There are several others like him thinking the same. They came from far away, stayed in a queue all night, and paid a high ticket fee. However, all they could feel was that they came here to watch the joint concert, instead.
The girlfriend who was sitting beside this guy then pointed to the screen, "Hey, the last match won't be boring. It's Team Twilight. They have like three platinum-grade users. I'm sure that they will go all out in this match."
"I'm not sure." The guy let out a sigh of disappointment, "that Velez guy is too strong. Not only his powers are great, but he was also the sole rank-7 in the competition. You saw how even Prince was defeated with ease. Only Camelot's princess gave him the trouble. And we don't even know how powerful his teammates are. They didn't even show their Arcana until now."
Upon hearing him, the girlfriend stayed silent.
Without any expectations, the guy watched both of the teams enter the barrier.
"Hmm?" A trace of surprise appeared on his face as Estella stayed behind along with Calder as the rest of the five stepped onto the platform. "They left one of their strongest outside. Are they idiots?"
The opponents were as surprised as several spectators when they saw it. However, they didn't bother to give a remark because of Azzy's presence. He killed rank-7 experts. So, even a person like Velez wouldn't underestimate him.
With Zona standing outside as a substitute, there are no words exchanged between them and everyone from Team Twilight quietly summoned their Arcana. Azzy summoned the black lotus.
As for Team Abel, just as in the semifinals, only Velez had his Death Knight out but he no longer hid his soul power either. The audience couldn't help but feel that members of Team Abel are too arrogant for their own good and secretly hoped that they would be taught a lesson, although not having expectations of Team Twilight's win.
*Ding!
As soon as the timer reached zero, Louis conjured an arrow and drew the bow before landing on the black lotus; Mia took out her dual handguns; Claire unleashed her soul skill, the Descent of the Heavenly guardian, making her theoretically invincible against the peers; Azzy stood on the spot, absorbing the natural energy from the surroundings at a terrifying pace; and Gideon just brandished his lightning sword Raiga.
On the other hand, everyone from Team Abel stood still on the orders of their leader.
"C'mon, let's see what you have got." Velez gestured for them to attack. He planned on using his passive skill to throw everything back at the opponents.
But, to his surprise, no one made their move and they just took their positions. That's all.
After a 20-second of silence, Velez opened his mouth for the first time, "If you aren't going to attack, then, I will."
It was at that moment that Azzy suddenly made his move. His soul energy along with the natural energy formed a dual-layer over his body, alerting Velez. "I guess I spoke too soon, huh."
Azzy charged forward at his maximum speed. In just a fraction of a second, he covered the distance between, taking the others by surprise. Velez didn't expect such a high speed but as he was prepared to receive the attack earlier, he activated his passive skill without hesitation.
The team members of Velez expected Azzy to be just stuck in a loop but they only saw Azzy's punch hit their leader's stomach, instead.
Velez spits out blood as he blasted away. A couple of his teammates who were standing behind him were pushed away by Velez's body as it flew at a blazing speed.
The whole stadium fell into silence for a moment.
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