During these next few days, quite a few disciples were trying to discover Mira's identity. They wanted to know why the Elves were so terrified of her. They asked the locals, their Sect Elders, and even tried asking some of the Battle Maiden Sect Disciples, but the only information they had was that Mira wore a mask and had silver hair. When they asked the Battle Maiden Disciples they got different answers from them. Cold, cruel, beautiful, amazing, strong, tortuous, great teacher and other descriptions were said about Mira, but this information wasn't useful at all! The only thing they learned after their short investigation is that they need to look out for her during the tournament.
Soon, the day of the tournament came and the disciples spent time mentally preparing for this.
"Time to go to the Colosseum, Mira!" Maria yelled from outside her door.
Mira got up with Dominique and left Rhydian in the inn. She made her way out and noticed the other disciples had gathered and were already going towards the Colosseum.
The 3 of them made their way towards the Colosseum and even realized that there was an exclusive area for them to sit at during the tournament. The Sect Master also passed her a token with a number on it, which was number 2, but she didn't explain what the number is for.
After all of the Sects and their disciples made it to their designated areas, a large muscular man stepped out into the middle of the arena. This man is the City Lord of Lunar Fox City.
"Thank you all for coming today to spectate this years' Inter-Sect Tournament! It's been a long time since our city has hosted the tournament so I'll be going over some of the rules. There will be several parts to the Tournament this year. We'll be having duels and group battles this year. For the Duels, we've split up the disciples into 4 groups of 64 and each group will be a part of their own battle royal to determine who the Top 16 of each group will be. The duels will then take place after the Top 64 have been determined. I'll explain the Group Battles when we get to it."
"Now let me go over the rules of the tournament. Anything goes as long as you don't kill the opponent, if your opponent surrenders then you have to stop attacking, and if they are knocked out then they lose the match. If you are knocked off the stage, that also counts as a loss. Now onto how to score points. During the Battle Royal Phase, making it into the final 16 will grant you 5 points and during the duels, every win is worth 3 points, but a loss will make you lose a point."
"Alright! Let's move onto the battle royal! Those of you with a token with the number 1 on it, come up to the stage!" The City Lord bellowed.
*WOOO*
The crowd started cheering as they were getting right into the action! Around 4 people from each Sect stood up and made their way towards the center. Mira noticed that Maria, Celaine, Nisha, and Ellie were part of this group and was looking forward to seeing how they perform in something like a battle royale. Mira then felt a tug on her sleeve and noticed Dominique was trying to grab her attention.
"How do you think they'll perform? Do you think all 4 of them will make it to the final 16?" Dominique asked curiously.
"I'd say 3 of them will make it to the final 16. Ellie is the weakest one in the group, but who knows? Battle royales are extremely messy so anything can happen." Mira explained and Dominique nodded her little head in understanding.
The middle of the Colosseum started to fill up and soon all 64 disciples were out on the stage.
Mira noticed Maria discussing something with her companions and figured they must be discussing some sort of strategy, but this was nothing special since every other group was also talking with each other trying to discuss some sort of strategy.
Mira just shook her head and knew this was why battle royales were so messy. Most people will want to stay in groups and will avoid frontal confrontations with another group. This is an effective strategy, but not if that's what everyone does.
After people realize that nobody is fighting because they want to pick off individuals is when the true battle royale begins. The main thing to worry about is not getting sandwiched between several groups. Mira was looking forward to seeing what kinds of strategy these 4 are coming up with.
"Group One, Begin!"
The disciples on stage all formed their own groups and just looked at each other. They were waiting for someone to make the first move, but nobody was stupid enough to just rush out into the middle of everyone.
Mira was watching carefully and noticed that Maria's group was hiding Nisha in between the 3 of them. Nisha then cloaked herself in darkness and slowly walked towards the nearest group. Some of the other disciples noticed her, but they were too far away to do anything so they just waited.
Nisha moved to the nearest group, snuck up behind them, and waited for the signal. Maria nodded her head 3 times then moved towards the group Nisha was positioned behind.
Nisha immediately slashed one of the disciples and threw him off the stage. The group that Nisha was at was too focused on trying to deal with Maria's group that they didn't even notice Nisha wreaking havoc behind them.
Nisha did the same thing to another person in the group and by the time Maria's group made it over, they already lost 2 people due to Nisha. As soon as Maria reached them, it didn't take much effort for them to slash them a few times, knock them unconscious then throw them off the stage.
This caused a chain reaction on stage as everyone started battling with each other. And like Mira predicted, the stage turned into a giant mess.
At first, the groups tried to stick together to deal with the other groups, but since these disciples have never fought like this before, their synergy was extremely poor.
The groups started to split up and the stage soon turned into a free-for all. Most skirmishes started as a one on one, but after one of them got defeated the winner would turn to their teammates to help them out making it a two on one.
When some noticed that they were at a disadvantage, they fled towards where their Sect members were to seek assistance only to force their entire group into a worse situation.
Mira didn't care about any of this and just decided to pay attention to Maria's group. She wanted to see what decisions they'd make in this messy battlefield and Mira was not disappointed. Nisha kept coating herself in her Darkness Element and doing hit and run tactics. Maria was the vanguard of the group, Celaine acted as the middle-guard and provided support to Ellie and Maria, while Ellie was the rearguard and support. Nisha was the assassin that helped them take out groups with extreme efficiency.
Maria's group rampaged through the stage in a systematic manner. Finding Nisha was incredibly difficult to do in such a chaotic situation so most groups that fought against Maria's group were always put into a disadvantage at the beginning. Taking out Maria and Celaine is also not an easy feat since Maria is used to being in crazy situations with Mira and Celaine is a crazy talented fighter. This combined with Ellie as the rearguard and support, their synergy was unbeatable.
The people and disciples watching this battle royale were surprised to see a group move with such precision.
The only other groups that was worth noting were the Elves as they also moved swiftly and cleanly through the battlefield, but this was to be expected. The Elves were the ones to win the last Inter-Sect Tournament and perform well in every tournament.
Mira noticed something about one of the Elven Sects and it was that one of them had 16 people participating instead of 15. Mira asked the Sect Master and was told that because they won the last Inter-Sect Tournament, they get to have an extra person participate.
The battles raged on and only got more intense with less people. There were a few lone wolves out there that were just running around trying to make it to the end of the battle. Quite a few groups tried to target them as they would be easy to take out, but other groups also used them as bait.
Not much longer, there were only 16 people left.
"That's the end of Group 1's Battle Royale! The 16 of you go wait near your Sect and wait for the battle royales to finish! As for the losers, you are no longer able to participate in the duels."
The Battle Royale for Group 1 ended much quicker than everyone thought. There were only 2 full groups left at the end and that was one of the Elven groups and the Battle Maiden Sect group. The rest of the people on stage either got lucky or spent the majority of time fleeing after their group got defeated.
Maria, Celaine, Nisha, and Ellie raised their heads high, proud of being able to make it past this battle royale.
The crowd roared at how amazing that first battle was and had high expectations for the future battles.
The winners walked off the stage and the City Lord announced Group 2 to come up.
"We'll now move onto the next battle royale! Group 2, come up!"
