"As the students enter their respective areas. I will explain the first round of the tournament. Since we have 384 participants, we will divide them into four groups for each arena. Each group will fight in a free for all until only 8 in each group are remaining."
"Weapons, techniques, and even teamwork is allowed in the first round. I will now announce the participants in each arena. In Arena 1 we have ..... Mera.... In Arena 2 we have ..... Isabella ..... Pedro ... In Arena 3 we have .... In Arena 4 we have ... Are the referees ready?"
Leo was disappointed he couldn't watch Pedro's and Isabella's match, but now he understood why each arena had two judges. With the number of students fighting at once, it would be hard to manage all 96 students. The judges gave Aarav the signal, and he announced, "Begin!!!!"
In Arena 1, the beastmen were all in the arena, and they linked up right away to combat all the warriors around them. Forming a triangle formation, no tempered warrior was able to get the drop on them. The only other outstanding warrior in Arena 1 was Gladier's direct disciple. He was clad in metal armor similar to Gladier and a long sword in hand. People in the crowds were cheering him on seeing him take out student after student with one blow.
"Deus! Deus! Deus!" The crowd chanted.
Over in Leo's arena, it was far less entertaining. The only notable warrior was the mermanian princess. She was able to manipulate water even at the Tempered warrior level with ease. Misera couldn't take her eyes off the princess, and even a look of pride was represented in the smile she was showing. The rest of the participants were disorganized and sloppy but showed a lot of promise for kids.
In Arena 4, many outstanding warriors were showing out their skills. This group had the two humans from Divine City, the young draconian noble, and two elite warriors personally trained by Clash. With this many elites, the rest failed to outshine the others.
In Pedro's and Isabella's arena, things were heating up. Two draconians teamed up and launched several fireballs at the opponents scorching the stadium's ground.
Isabella teamed up with Pedro right away to support him. Pedro stood in front of her taking up the vanguard position. A large canine beastman boy leaped at Pedro. A root shot out of the ground and grabbed his foot, and this caused the beastman to fall forward. Pedro stepped forward and landed a right-hook infused with Shock Touch. The beastman was incapacitated.
Shadow smiled seeing that their teamwork was flawless as ever. They fought a lot but trusted each other. Shadow was even surprised that Isabella's control over the root was better than when she was in Machu Pichu. All of the studying she did pay off unexpectedly.
After a student fell or was knocked out, Clash or Shadow would jump in and remove them. They would be taken outside the arena to healers waiting on stand-by.
The battle became more chaotic as time went by and Pedro and Isabella were starting to show signs of exhaustion. Several times now, people attacked Isabella to disrupt their teamwork. The hand-to-hand fighting, she learned with Pedro helped her delay until Pedro could assist her.
After the last ambush, Pedro and Isabella were standing among only about 20 remaining participants.
"They're not even from our school."
"Yeah. Let's knock them out first."
"Get them!"
The majority of students teamed up against Pedro and Isabella. The ones that had long-range attacks fired on them. Arrows and techniques flew towards the duo.
Pedro drew back his boomerang and unleashed it. The lightning projectile arced around and collided with several of the incoming attacks slicing through them. The remaining attacks were far and in-between leaving Pedro and Isabella enough time to dip and dive out of the way.
Pedro caught the boomerang and retreated against the arena's wall with Isabella. Luckily for them, the draconian duo attacked the group while they teamed up to attack Pedro and Isabella. The flame art burned about 8 of the contestants.
Shadow swooped in and removed the burned participants leaving only 12 to scramble for that final eight slots.
A large bear-beastman with a short spear and shield attacked the draconian duo. He blocked the rapid fireballs with his shield coated in water mana. He then stabbed one in the gut and kicked the other.
A feline beastman followed in pursuit and knocked the two of them out with a shadow strike. She then said, "that what you two get for betraying us."
Clash removed the two draconians as the others attacked Pedro. A bald human boy struck with a bow staff. Pedro tried to block it with his bracers only to be blasted back by the dense polearm. A winged human caught him flying back and tossed him into the wall.
Isabella tossed down a light-green pill that exploded into a yellowish-green dust. The warriors in the area eyes started to tear up and cough uncontrollably. Isabella covered her mouth and picked up Pedro.
"Thanks..."
"Thank me after we make it into the final 8."
The two mermanians on the edge of the smoke bomb backed away quick enough not to be affected. They saw Pedro and Isabella escape and ran after them. The two of them attacked with their sabers in hand.
Pedro blocked one with his boomerang and Isabella leaped back to evade the other.
Pedro activated Shock Touch making the mermanian drop his saber and swung his boomerang across his chest slicing him diagonally. The mermanian fell over in pain.
Isabella asked the roots to encompass the other, and she was dragged to the ground and was immobilized. Seeing as the last two contestants were down, Aarav announced the final eight contestants of arena 2.
"In arena 2, the final 8 participants are Reul, Cross, Nail, Jeun Li, Papeia, Brick, Isabella, and Pedro. Can we get a round of applause from the crowd?"
The crowd went crazy. Seeing the children fight skillfully stirred on the passion within the entire crowd. Cheers and clapping could be heard all the way to the other areas.
Hearing Isabella's and Pedro's name, Leo smiled as he watched the match proceed in his stadium.