However, this strategy has a drawback.
In tournaments requiring consecutive battles, Spirit Beasts are often forced to fight while still injured.
After all, real life isn't like games or anime, where an injured Spirit Beast can instantly return to full health with a simple healing skill.
Despite the mature medical system for Spirit Beasts and advanced techniques that mimic healing abilities, the Spirit Beast with severe injuries still require time to heal fully.
That's why in team events at major tournaments, it's rare for players to opt for a gauntlet-style match format, even if the rules permit it.
Most of them prefer the safer 1v1 approach to minimize the risk of serious, non-recoverable injuries to their Spirit Beasts.
This loophole is precisely what the Silla and Sahalir teams exploited.
Starting from the Round of 16, they repeatedly targeted the Montis team's Spirit Beasts with underhanded, critical attacks that ignored the match's outcome.
Although most of these attempts to cripple the Montis players' Spirit Beasts were skillfully neutralized, there were moments when sacrifices had to be made for victory and national honor.
Such was the case in Quintus's match against the Sahalir team captain, Novik Radimir.
Quintus was the second player from the Montis team to compete.
After winning his initial match, he could have chosen to step down, allowing his teammates to take his place and giving his Spirit Beasts more time to rest in preparation for the finals against the Oryza team the next day.
However, due to Sahalir's seemingly prophetic lineup strategy, Quintus was forced to stay on the field and face their captain, Novik.
According to the Montis team's roster, the next player to compete after Quintus was Samar Swapnil who is a specialist in Aqua-type Spirit Beasts.
As the runner-up in this year's Four Pillars tournament, Samar was even stronger than Quintus.
Unfortunately, all of Samar's contracted Spirit Beasts were completely countered by Novik's lineup in terms of both attributes and species.
Based on the Montis team's pre-match analysis, Novik was expected to appear either last or second-to-last in Sahalir's lineup.
The reasoning was straightforward—Novik was the only player on Sahalir's team that was capable of challenging Alexei, the captain of the Montis team.
If Novik didn't reserve his spot to face Alexei, Sahalir would have no chance of winning this quarterfinal match.
Would anyone, on the grandest stage of the World League Tournament—a competition that draws the eyes of the entire world—risk their nation's honor and reputation like that?
Quintus couldn't.
So, he chose to stay and fight Novik himself.
This was his decision: rather than sending Samar to the field to be brutally overwhelmed by Novik, which would force Alexei to win two consecutive matches to secure victory in what was supposed to be an easy win for the Montis team, Quintus decided to take on Novik in Samar's place.
Even if it meant trading injury for injury.
At the very least, Quintus's sacrifice ensured that Samar, who was scheduled to compete after him, and Dogukan Yuksel, the vice-captain of the Montis team, could each secure at least one victory for their country.