It was just a matter of time before tomorrow became, you know today.
The qualifier matches were to continue today as announced. The arena was all renewed as if nothing had happened before. Today was the final match. Me, Celeste, and Kowalski.
I was already in the arena before everyone because I wanted to get a glimpse of how it felt to be inside the battlegrounds.
I passed the waiting room, then ran downstairs to the huge mechanized door that led to the battleground.
I tapped the screen on the side and the door slid open. The first person I saw, more like the thing I saw was Atreigon. He was seated on the ground in cat form.
He looked unhappy.
"Atrei…."
"Don't Atreigon me," he interrupted, "ever since you got that system thing you've become distant."
"Have I Atreigon? Or is it you who has been MIA ever since the training session?"
"I was MIA because I was keeping an eye out for you, until yesterday,"
I sighed with misery, "You felt it too, didn't you?" I was asking about my little visit from the evil god yesterday.
"Yes," he answered, "and it only gets worse after that. There was an attack on a progenitor, the demon progenitor to be exact. She was attacked by a new human dark blood. It seems the demon lord's blood is more effective on new humans."
"Is the progenitor alive?"
"Yes, she was able to escape from death by teleporting away. She claims her attacker goes by the name the red witch, she bares a red-colored tattoo on the left side of her neck,"
I crossed my arms and started thinking. Where could the demon lord be possibly hiding? Could he shape-shift? Maybe that's why he's so hard to find.
I heard footsteps walking in our direction.
"Thank you for the heads up Atreigon. We will talk about this later," I whispered to him,
He agreed then vanished.
"Go…go…good….morning Ralph," Rebekah appeared in the battle area. I didn't expect her to be here so I was surprised to see her here since her match ended with a victory.
"Good morning Rebekah, how are you?"
Her face was red from blushing and she didn't want me to look at it. She was the nervous Rebekah again, I guess the alcohol wore off and she was now back to normal.
"I..am…fine…Ralph. I wanted to ask you something," she said quietly,
Did she find out I was secretly listening to her conversation with her brother? I am so dead…
She inhaled slowly as if she was getting to say something intense. She faced me and asked out loud, "Do you want to go out with me tomorrow night?"
My mouth dropped and I felt my entire body freeze from that question, my heart picked up speed and the morning changed from cold and windy to so hot that I needed to take a nap in a freezer.
Did a hot girl just ask me out? Was this finally happening? After sixteen years of proposals and rejections, this was the moment I have always been waiting for my whole life.
"Wow…that was so sudden," I was so confused I didn't know what to say,
"If you don't want. It's okay, I just wanted to spend time with the guy who saved my life back in Tlavacus," she said with so much emotion.
"No…I mean…yes, I want, its…"
"Cool…I will text you the place and time." and she ran off without letting me finish what I was about to say. I was going to say that this was going to be my first date in forever.
I quickly forgot that when I saw the camera drones turn on. It was time for the matches to resume.
.
.
.
.
It didn't take long for the entire arena to once again get fully packed to capacity. I was up in the waiting room with the rest of my team. Well, apart from Tessa who was still recovering.
Celeste walked in and her presence shifted the air. We still hadn't talked about what happened yesterday, I didn't even see her come home last night. She moved towards me and looked into the window.
I glanced at her and noticed had changed her hair back to silver and her eyes were no longer red, but crimson. Her skin was very pale and her fangs could be seen if you gave her a closer look. She must have been feeling bad about what happened to her fellow progenitor.
"Did you hear what happened?"
"Yes, new humans are being even more powerful thanks to the demon lord's power," she flinched at her words. "This plan of ours is taking too long. The demon lord is acting even faster than we can imagine."
I could see the pain in her eyes, but there was more than just the attack that she wasn't going to tell me about. So I chose not to bring it up.
Our bracelets chimed and the next match was displayed. Celeste was going against Nancy. The painful look on her face vanished and a grin grew on her face, she was excited.
"A worthy opponent," she laughed,
The reason why Nancy was a worthy opponent was that the two are supernatural beings with Nancy being a tree spirit. Nancy was also a member of the knights that fight dark forces meaning her combat skills were next level type.
"We will continue our conversation later. Right now, I need you to watch and learn what they call true magic and swordsmanship," there was her pride again. There was that look in her eyes that said 'I will win this'
She turned away from the window dramatically by swinging her hair to the left and faced the door.
"For team Merlin," she said with energy,
Kowalski burst out in tears as if he was looking at a goddess. "for team Merlin," he whined.
Celeste charged out of the room, and it didn't take long for us to see them appear in the center of the Arena.
Nancy had a staff in her hand and she was holding it with a confident glare in her eyes as she stared at Celeste. "Am not going to hold back," she warned,
Celeste said nothing. She instead made her katana blade appear from thin air, "I wasn't expecting you to," she said, then shifted to a fighting position.
The entire school was silent.
They waited till the speakers sounded the word 'Begin'
There was a flash of light the moment Nancy's staff collided with Celeste's sword. We hadn't even seen her move at all.
"blazing suns," yelled Nancy and her staff started glowing out a bright light with each strike. She was doing this to mess with Celeste's vision.
Celeste countered the first three strikes but the third one was so bright, that she missed to counter and Nancy was to strike the top of her staff into Celeste's abdomen. She looked like she had used little force but the strike was strong enough to send Celeste flying and crashing into a wall that was on the other side of the arena,
Nancy then skillfully spun her staff and pinned it to the ground. Her eyes glowed green and a magic circle generated itself below her feet.
Green plant vines sprouted out of the circle and attacked Celeste.
Students cheered, probably the agriculture club.
*SLASH***
It all happened so fast for the human eyes. We just saw lightning crackle from where Celeste was and electric blue lines that we came to notice were coming from Celeste's katana as she sliced through each vine that tried to get near her.
she needs to teach me that move
Celeste leaped forward, her eyes red as ever, fixed on her target. She swung her sword. Nancy put her staff and made a wall of ice between them.
They had to limit their abilities since they were pretending to be new humans.
But the ice shattered. Celeste had used a fire spell to blast through the ice.
A cold breeze howled throughout the entire arena. Everyone was now quiet. All their attention was fixed on the match.
"Celeste and Nancy are S ranked," Kowalski finally caught up. He was mumbling from the shock of what he had just discovered,
"Yep," I said. "They are both top-shelf magic users."
"So they are like you?
" B-ranked?"
"No, you pipsqueak, S, like you,"
"Am not an S-ranked user. I can sometimes be an S only during specific moments."
"So it's an on and off state," Kowalski inquired,
"Yeah, you may call it that. I didn't know I could do an S-ranked magic spell until I tried one in the school lab. I succeeded, but I earned myself an expulsion," I chuckled after remembering what my parents looked like after hearing what spell I had performed. They were mad but not surprised,
They never explained. That's how they have always been…secretive. All in the name of protecting me. I can't even tell them that I know what I am.
The windows rattled and I was back to earth. I faced the screen.
Whatever had happened. Nancy was on the ground, she was pressing her left arm on her body using the right. Her hand was probably broken. She glanced at Celeste. Her staff was broken in two.
"And the winner is, Celeste!!!"
Celeste then helped Nancy up and the display stopped.
Our bracelets chimed with a statement that read;
Due to Joseph's exit from the tournament. Kowalski's match has been neutralized and so the winners of the qualifier matches for the annual mage tournaments are group B.
_Administration
"Yes," Kowalski celebrated,
I Knew Kowalski had been involved in Joesph's sudden exit. He may have…
The display suddenly switched itself on. "We interrupt your program to report breaking news. It breaks my heart to announce that the head minister of magic Dante O' Folio has been found dead in Pretoria. His body was discovered…."
The reporter became inaudible after I heard
"Dead."
Just hearing that word made the world feel like it was moving in slow motion. My breathing got heavier and I started to feel dizzy,
**Humanity and the supernatural stand no chance against us**
I remembered those words before I had my first vision of the holy relics. I saw a golden crown and a cave with runes carved on the walls.
I stumbled and fell to the ground and I was back in the room.
Kowalski ran to my help, but he disappeared and I was in the cave once again. Staring at the crown, I could feel it calling me and drawing me closer.
I gasped when I felt something impale my neck. I was back in the room, facing the ceiling with Celeste on top of me. She was drinking my blood. Everything was now fading to black.
Oh no, my memories….