"So wh- what about the other one? Fuentes Estella, is it?" Jason inquired, still reeling from the shocking information he had just received on the fearsome Rutger Reigin.
"To understand Estella Fuentes, you must first have some knowledge of the province she's from." Illenia began, albeit unwillingly, as Estella Fuentes was the last person she ever wanted to discuss about. "The Darkya province has a special kind of phenomenon; it is dark all year round! In this province, a special kind of darkness covers the atmosphere and acts like a curtain, restricting the light of the sun, the moon or any form of light for that matter, from penetrating into the province. So it is night, even during the day. The air in that province is also very dense, the gravity is a lot heavier than normal and it's eerily cold all year round; and this is all brought about by this strange darkness.
There are several rumors and false facts about the origin of this darkness. Even with the large number of books in daddy's library on historical facts, before the birth of Arges, I couldn't find a concrete history of the darkness in Darkya. All I know is that this phenomenon dates back to about eight or nine thousand years ago, long, before Arges became a nation.
This province has the fewest population in Arges, with only about two thousand or so residents. I mean, no normal person in their right senses would want to live there. Even the scouts that were sent there, pleaded with daddy to never send them to that place ever again. Though, they admitted that they were protected from the dense air and heavy gravity by a black orb, provided to them at the border and the people in the province were genial and lovely and treated them with so much love and respect, due to the residents rarely having visitors from other provinces, but they wished to never go back there. They recounted that they felt a certain inexplicable evilness, hover over them from time to time. It was like they were been stalked by a predator. They found it hard to sleep or relax.
But, that wasn't the main reason for their fear of ever returning to Darkya. It was mainly because of Estella.
The residents of Darkya use mana to generate something called dark energy. This dark energy is synonymous to the strange darkness covering the province. This dark energy can materialize into any material thing, depending on the amount of mana one has in his mana reserve. Some, whom are extremely talented can create entities called shadow demons. This are dark, shadowy figures that take the shape of a normal person and are essentially used for combat or to do the creator's bidding. It requires a lot of Mana to create one shadow demon and this shadow demons strength vary on the ability, strength and mana of the creator.
Now, back to Estella. Fuentes Estella is the only child to the Grand Duke of Darkya, just like Rutger Reigin. But unlike Reigin who was taught respect and royal etiquette, Estella was brought up spoilt and grew up to be a fucking bitch. But then one uneventful day, her rude and spoilt attitude suddenly morphed into one of extreme cruelty. She stabbed her female attendant to death to satisfy her curiosity and then, just like a wild animal who had gotten its first taste of human blood, she went into a murder spree. She hunted down every single guard, attendant, servant; every single person in the palace at the time. She hunted and killed every one of them. All forty-two of them. All of them died for nothing. All died to satisfy her bloodlust. And she was just eight at the time. She had just gotten her first taste of controlling dark energy and this morphed her into a bloodthirsty demon.
News about this spread through the province like a wildfire. Every one avoided the palace like a plague. To gain the confidence of his people, he chained and locked his only child in a special dungeon, under the palace and only he had access to this dungeon. Not even Estella's mother was allowed in there. It was in that room that Fuentes Estella developed into a monstrous dark energy manipulator.
With nothing to do and with no contact with the outside world, she trained like crazy. Every day, every night, 24/7; she developed her abilities to extreme heights. She was already a natural in the dark arts, a genius even, but with such odious, extreme training, well you can imagine, how she would turn out to be. Her father also helped out, after he discovered his daughter's talents. He brought several books, ancient scrolls, stone tablets dating back to several thousands of years, on the various applications of this dark energy. Estella comprehended them all. She produced results, even in the ones that were complicated and difficult for the top officials and the strongest practitioners in the province.
Estella was locked in that dungeon for fifteen years. She escaped once, when she was about fifteen or so, but before she could go on yet another killing spree, her father and other top powerful officials forcefully held her off and placed her back in the dungeon; only after reinforcing it, to the extent that not even a fly wouldn't be able to escape.
But a year ago, she was released to participate in the preliminaries. Her talent couldn't be ignored and Darkya badly needed a fierce competitor for the tournament, as it had been some editions ago, since they managed to scale through to the finals. Estella was released and sure enough she caused havoc. She killed every single opponent without mercy."
"But, but, how could she do this? Weren't her opponents smart enough to surrender, before losing their lives? Couldn't they comprehend the gravity of their situation and see that their struggle will only end in deathly futility?" Douglas asked, as he wondered if her opponents were just plain stupid or they had some sort of death wish.
"Well, one of my scouts reported that the first guy she went against, successful surrendered. But, the injuries he had sustained was too grave and he couldn't recover. But he was lucky. At least, he could take solace, wherever he is, in the fact that he died with his full body still intact. The rest weren't so fortunate.
After Estella wasn't able to perform her gruesome evil deeds on the first guy, she developed an evil plan for her next opponents. I told you before that extremely talented geniuses could cause a shadow demon to materialize, well Estella can create hundreds in a sitting! But she would start weak with like two or so and when the opponent was busy struggling, she would sneak from behind and target the opponent's vocal cords. She would snap them so skillfully like a surgeon, that it wouldn't kill the opponent. The opponent wouldn't be able to shout out 'I surrender' to end the fight.
Then, Estella would perform gruesome and unspeakable acts. She would dismember from limb to limb. At times, she would remove ones intestines and shove it down one's throat. Or one time, one time, she cut off a guy's d*ck and forced it down his a*s. She literally f*cking tore the guy a new a*shole. Such horrible acts that would even implant fear into the demons in hell. Gods, just imagining them makes me feel like puking. It was like she was doing an experimentation on how much pain the human body can take, before death. Such blood curdling torture. And she couldn't be stopped by the referee, as long as the opponent didn't shout out the words.
She did this to like two more opponents. The next ones got wind of her plan. They had planned to surrender, immediately the match begun, but Estella changed her strategy. I mentioned that the darkness in Darkya province increases the gravity pressure and density of the air. Estella can mimic this as well, and at a more concentrated rate!
The moment the match begins, she sets up this trap around her opponent. The opponent wouldn't be able to move or even breathe properly, much less talk of speaking, and then with joy and glee on her face, like a child playing with new found toys, she tortures and perpetrates unspeakable, hair raising evil.
But this didn't satisfy her bloodlust. It only made her hungry for more. She had been starved for too long and she needed more. Much, much more. After she had brutally tortured and killed off her final opponent in the preliminaries, she turned her attention to the audience and created a spectacle. A spectacle on par with Rutger Reigin's.
She trapped the whole audience in her dark energy! I mean, the entire f*cking audience! More than a thousand people and none of them could move or escape; not even the representative from Zion! They couldn't even move an inch! Can you imagine that?!
With fear evident on their faces, they helpless looked on as hundreds of bloodthirsty shadow demons emerged and were about to wreak havoc! The shadow demons were about to harvest their lives! My scout said that the representative from Zion, shat on his pants right there and then.
It took the desperate pleading of her father to calm her down. Luckily for everyone, she's a daddy's girl and she takes his every word as law, or else every spectator would have lost their lives.
She's a fucking grim reaper, a monstrous demoness. And that bitch has been placed in the same group as me. Gods, I hope I can surrender in peace. Gods, please don't let me die!"
Douglas felt a chilling sensation course through every section of his body. This two prime candidates had terrifying, outwardly powers, and one was even a brutal, murderer. He couldn't help but wonder how far he would fare, if he qualified from his group and was fixed to battle anyone of this guys. Would he even be able to survive the aftermath of the battle?
Silence ensued between the trio for about a minute or so. Illenia took a deep breath to calm herself from her dilemma, before continuing on with background of the other two Xis.
"Cole Thelma represents the province of Gilliard. She is the child of a very wealthy merchant. Gilliard grooms youngsters skilled in the manipulation of Mana in the Gilliard provincial University of Elites. Though the fees were steep, but it didn't pose much difficulty for Thelma's father. She is quite a genius in water manipulation, so she didn't struggle in topping her class. She participated in the preliminaries against formidable opponents, including children of royals and top military officials of the province and now she's here, representing the province of Gilliard."
"Oh?" Douglas exclaimed in surprise, "That's quite a short summary compared to the rest."
"Yeah, she's not really as unique as the rest and in my opinion she's the weakest amongst the Xis. She struggled in the finals of the preliminaries and she wasn't spectacular, unlike the rest, so I don't really regard her that much. Unless she has a hidden trump card or something, I think she will only make it as far as the quarter finals. I don't see her going much further than that.
Alright, so the last person is Jade Anastasia, representing the province of Sapphire. She's the top disciple in the Frozen Fairy Asgard and the successor to the Ice Queen."
"Jade Anastasia" Douglas slowly and softly called out the name, just been mentioned by Illenia, as he placed his hand on his chin and thought aloud, "I have heard that name before. Where exactly have I come across this name?"
"What? How could you have forgotten so soon, Douglas?" Jason chided. "It's Anna, man! The three of us were under the tutelage of Master Jehoshaphat, right from when we were kids! Come on man, how could you have forgotten so soon?! How could you forget someone so important to us, as Anna?"