Shiv tried convincing Veil to back out from the duel; he informed her that Tiberius is already a Tier C Adventurer from a bigger city.
Tiberius was titled the Tyrant after reaching Tier C; it is after all, a huge milestone.
Only a few powers have reached Tier C, which is why city lords would grant titles to such individuals.
Tier C is a turning point in the hierarchy of the Underworlds; Tier C Adventurers would be able to serve as direct subordinates to city lords.
If they work their way up, they would soon gain more power and ascend tiers.
The tiers are divided into 3 parts, the high tiers are S, A, B, while the low tiers are D, E, F.
Tier C is the middle, which serves as a massive hurdle in reaching higher Tiers and forms of powers.
Only Tier B above Adventurers is allowed to construct their own cities and govern lands within the Underworld.
That is why the current city lords are very competitive and picky on their resources and quota management, it is their only way to expand their land and amass greater forces.
Once they build a sufficient force, they could challenge an Administrator in the Underworld.
If and only if they defeat the said Administrator could they reach Tier A.
Administrators are like governors of a land mass, they do not have cities of their own, but they own the lands where various cities are built.
All the small percentage of those cities' income under their jurisdiction, will go to them.
However, even these Administrators still do not know how they would reach Tier S, the apex of the Underworld.
Higher lifeforms of the above world do not meddle with the affairs of the Underworld, thus, they would not be the ones to hold the Tier S privilege.
[…]
Meanwhile, Veil finally arrived at the massive arena of the city.
Members of Tyrant Warriors, Tiberius' guild, fill the spectator seats whilst other curious guild members also attended.
After all, this is a battle worth spending their daily earnings for, a newcomer capable of defeating monsters without a weapon!
The hosts of the arena, working under the city lord, did not miss the opportunity to inform the audience of the betting aspect.
The ratio of the bet is 1:3, if Tiberius wins, he would gain the bets in favor of him without any multipliers.
Meanwhile, if Veil wins, the bets in favor of her would be tripled.
As for the bets against the winner, a percentage of that cut will belong to the arena hosts.
While the spectators madly bet, only the Lionblade guild members bet on Veil's victory, after all, Oskar informed his guild leader of Veil's abilities.
The entire Tyrant Warriors' member count is 120 Adventurers, while only 18 for Lionblade.
With that alone, the former could be able to gain a massive harvest against Veil just by betting a single magic essence each.
After the betting phase has finished, the host announced that the battle is commencing.
If Tiberius wins, he will publicly execute Veil, however, if he loses, he will pay a thousand magic essences to Veil.
The condition itself is vicious, gasps could be heard from across the arena, every single person is tuning in to this battle.
However, just as the host is about to start the battle, he took notice of Veil having no weapon.
She was then given a dull sword from the arena's armory, it is the worst quality of weapon a person could use.
Any moment, this sword would crumble on its own, however, Veil still accepted the sword with absolute calm.
Her friends from Lionblade could only pray for her success, even they do not know what goes on in Veil's mind.
The battle conditions are not in her favor, the sword she was given was not even a weapon anymore but a mere fire poker.
Badump!
Hearts of the spectators are madly pounding from the battle, they wish to see a fierce trade between Tiberius and the newcomer Veil.
"I will end you in a single move." Tiberius snickered as he pulled the massive war axe on his back.
"…" Veil did not give him any attention as she inspects her sword.
3… 2… 1… The bell was sounded!
"Die!" Tiberius dashed while he lightly swung his Dark Cleaver.
Skill: Charging Cleave!
The floor of the arena cracked in the force of the Dark Cleaver alone.
Crumble!
When Veil is about to be hit by the attack, she held her dull sword overhead and lightly swung in a straight downward motion.
Vuoosh! Clang!
A loud hum of weapons colliding filled the arena.
When the dust settled, Veil was able to send the massive war axe deep into the ground by slashing it with her dull sword.
"!!!???" Tiberius and every person in the crowd was shocked by Veil's counter.
Veil slowly approached the stunned man, while she abruptly disappeared.
Blink! Swoosh!
As Tiberius flash an extremely confused look, he felt his back of the neck tighten up.
Veil grabbed the big man's head as she shoved his whole body down to the ground.
Grab! BOOM!
Her move was truly unexpected; no one among the audience retained their previous excitement.
The guild members of Tiberius could only stand up in shock, no one among them could ever believe that a Tier C Adventurer was beaten by an unknown newcomer who does not even have a decent weapon or a single magic essence.
With his face planted on the floor, Tiberius remained static, the host then declared the victor: Veil!
Loud cheers from the audience filled the venue, all except Tiberius' subordinates.
Some of them immediately ran down the arena to give potions to Tiberius.
In the Underworld, healing magic is barred; they could only brew potions to heal wounds.
Thorgorm then appeared on the arena entrance to pass the sword to Veil, as if he knows who wins.
This was his prediction since Veil entered his shop, the aura of Veil is like a slumbering ocean, disturb her calm and she will devour you without any remains.
Veil then accepted the reward from the host and passed the 1000 magic essences inside a bag to Thorgorm.
As she receives the weapon, she tied the hilt on her waist.
As for the bets, money rained down on Lionblade because only them bet in favor of Veil, in the 500 magic essences they amassed, they bet all of it.
For 1:3 ratios, they would get 1500 magic essences, minus the cut of the hosts.
All in all, they would bring home 1350 magic essence; however, the guild leader named Zach insisted that they give Veil half.
No one disagreed, if it were not for Veil, a single party of them would have been wiped anyways.
As Veil receives the 675 magic essences, she immediately bought all the materials she would need.
Black cloak, light armor for her torso and armguards, after donning her new outfit, Veil looked in the mirror proudly.
She now looks like a proper Adventurer, more than so when she was still in Terra.
She was then invited by Zach to a small gathering of Lionblade and to welcome Veil.
She joined the gathering and dinner without hesitation, but she respectfully declined the offer to join the guild.
[…]
Meanwhile, in the city of Ariovale, Tyrant Warriors' home base, Tiberius was seen recuperating on his bed.
Someone knocked on the door of his room, before the woman entered, Tiberius tried to get up and welcome the woman.
The mysterious woman then waved her hand, before approaching Tiberius.
The two discussed Veil, the newcomer who sent Tiberius to this bed with one hand.
Tiberius let the woman know of Veil's danger to their growth, if they do not develop a contingency plan against Veil, she will soon grow into a thorn on their side.
The woman sneered at the thought of that weakling hindering their progress.
She just left after giving Tiberius a black potion covered with a tight lid.
As Tiberius struggled reaching the bottle on the small table beside his bed, he shortly grabbed it after feeling the pain all over his body.
He pulled the lid up and immediately felt the effects of the potion through its scent alone.
He then drank it without much thought, as soon as the liquid passes through his body, he felt invigorated.
All the pain from the battle was instantly gone, even his head feels as light as a feather.
He could perceive sharper than before, the mana on his room even dances on his palm as he flexed his muscles.
Feeling tremendously powerful, Tiberius secretly contacted the assassins of his guild, they are clearly brewing a plan.
The following days, Veil temporarily joined Lionblade's hunting quota, this way, she would be able to help her friends and at the same time, be more familiar in the combat here.
The combat techniques being utilized here by the Underworld denizens are all fundamentally different than the techniques above.
If the combat above is like an unstoppable onslaught through constant bombardment of skills and attacks, combat in the Underworld is sophisticated and disciplined.
Mages would not even launch attacks if the monster's agro is not yet on the melee combatants.
However, being used to the barbaric brute force of doing things, Veil would one shot every monster that strays near her on their adventures.
They were able to go deeper onto the neutral lands without city lords' governance.
These neutral lands are owned by nobody, not even Administrators are allowed to settle there, or more likely, they do not know what to do to conquer a neutral land.
Without civilizations and residents, neutral lands have become the den of stronger monsters.
If one has no sufficient combat knowledge and skills, even a massive army of Adventurers would definitely fall.
Fortunately, with Veil around, the entire Lionblade guild traversed the borders of neutral lands pretty swiftly.
It is a place they have never reached and that is why they could only grind on the outskirts of their city, where lone monsters would appear.
They even split their guild into 3 different parties with 6 members each so they could at least maximize their time efficiency.
Now that they could grind larger monsters that have more magic essences in their corpses, they increased their quota up to 500 magic essences per day.
With this income, they would last longer even without going back here; they could just remain in the city and train in the arena there.
The arena has various training rooms available, using these rooms; one would be able to train their bodies, skill usages, mana control and more.
The mana available in this room is powered by magic essences processed by Underworld engineers, thus, training here compared to outside would produce better results.
This is also one of the reasons why city lords never run out of magic essences, even if they spend all into different infrastructures, they could always earn it back so long as the services they provide are improving and being used by players.
[…]
After travelling back to Onaross, they heard a commotion on the other side of the gate; people who they bumped in to were all saying they are being attacked.
Veil immediately hurried towards the origin of the chaos, when she arrived, she saw a winged humanoid monster wreaking havoc in the place.
When the monster spotted Veil, he sneered and spoke: "There you are, now, you will die by my hands!"
The monster grabbed his war axe, which is the Dark Cleaver, this monster is Tiberius.
Skill: Charging Cleave!
However, just before he could hit Veil, he felt a similar situation from when they were dueling in the arena.
Due to his instincts kicking in, he immediately stopped his attacks and jumped before flying.
Veil slightly smiled when she saw her opponent feeling her killing intent.
When Tiberius, in his monster form saw Veil smiling, veins bulged on his head as he furiously sent dozens of slashes.
Skill: Tyrant's Fury!
The cleaving slashes rained down on Veil, she moved like flowing water as she deflected the attacks to collide with each other.
In turn, the slashes cancelled each other out; the technique used by Veil is just mind-blowing.
Before the flying monster could retreat, Veil threw her Wolfrim powered with mana towards Tiberius.
Swuooom! Splatter!
She was able to tear Tiberius' wings, which she immediately towards the freefalling Tiberius to send a kick on his side.
Boom!
With a downward swipe of her legs, she sent Tiberius crashing to the ground.
She also sheathed her sword as she approached Tiberius shrinking back to his human form.
However, instead of being angry, Tiberius flashed an evil grin.
"?!"
Veil spotted various assassins holding Firaga and Lira with blades on their necks, these two tried to catch up when she heard the commotion.
But now, they were being held as hostages, the tables have turned against Veil.
Tiberius laughed maniacally, as he sent a slap towards Veil.
Slap! Thud.
Veil fell down on her back, if she fights back, her friends would be in danger.
She took beating after beating by Tiberius, before he spoke: "Give me that sword in exchange of your friends' safety."
Veil then passed the Wolfrim to Tiberius before turning her head to the women.
Tiberius licked his lips while nodding to his assassins.
The assassins then let go of the women, however, they kicked their backs to send them flying towards Veil.
Aughh!
They could only vomit blood after being kicked by Tier D assassins, the gap in their strengths are visible.
Their guild leader was only a Tier D after all, while the rest of the members are all Tier E.
"I…I am so sorry sister Veil…" Firaga apologized with tears.
While panting heavily and wiping the blood off her face, Veil replied with a cold tone: "Do not mind it; I will step out for a moment."
[…]