[Bonus chapter for 900 golden tickets :)]
Dyon scanned the neatly arranged rows of warriors before him. He sat, hovering in the air on a stage made for him. However, anyone who knew Dyon would know that a simple place in the top ten wouldn't erase all wrongs he had felt – especially since it was so far below what he deserved. In fact, he was feeling quite angry at the moment, despite the small smile on his face. Because they had put him in the top ten, he couldn't fight Lionel as quickly as he wanted.
In the end, Dyon decided to push those thoughts to the back of his mind, reclining on his array to look into the sky.
'So sad. Ri and Madeleine wouldn't let me fool around with them last night because they wanted to spend time with mother and father in law. Such injustice…'
Seeing Dyon's demeanor, quite a few of the bottom ninety rankers were angered. How important was this event to them? And yet this Dyon was pretending as though their challenges didn't matter at all!
However, they were smart enough not let their anger influence their decision. To them, Dyon was a masochistic bastard with sadistic tendencies. He had allowed Femi Geb to think he was winning, even going so far as to get beat within an inch of his life, just to win easily in the end. How could such a person be normal? They were beginning to think the Demon Sage title suited him almost too much…
Elder Den casually scanned the crowd of warriors. This was supposed to continue until every one of these ninety either relinquished their right to challenge, or every one of them used their singular challenge. But, it seemed that they were just as apprehensive as they were every year.
Truthfully speaking, despite the top ten being in a tier to their own, you could still make rough estimates on their power by taking a few things into account. The most important was age and amount of campaigns undergone. But, this world tournament was truly an anomaly.
In past years, it was simple. The top ranked would usually be someone on the older side, like Tau Aumen. He was a person who had accumulated almost 20 campaigns and thus deserved to be ranked first. People would then usually have it as consensus that he was the strongest simply by virtue of having cultivated the longest and having the most experience.
This year, though, it was different. Because of discovering a legacy, Lionel Belmont had leaped to the first place position. This legacy had even affected the ranks of other who had entered, like Madeleine for example. However, unknown to everyone else, the only reason Madeleine wasn't within the top ten herself despite having actually inherited the legacy was because Amethyst's flames had destroyed everything on her person aside for her spatial ring and Dyon's gift to her. This meant that Madeleine's tracker hadn't recorded the final acceptance of the legacy.
As if that wasn't convoluted enough for everyone to wrap their heads around, there were other strange occurrences in the top ten. Saru Shruti and Zabia Jafari had come out of nowhere to break into the top five despite both having less than ten campaigns to their name. And, the most shocking part was that they had purposefully skipped some campaigns, tracking no points at all on several occasions!
Then, the greatest wrench in this entire system was Dyon himself. Those who were truly intelligent were starting to doubt whether he had really cheated at all. Maybe he had a similar interaction with the gates as compared to Lionel? In fact, considering how many treasures he had on his person, many were truly beginning to believe this. After all, why would someone as powerful as Dyon ever feel the need to cheat and sustain such a stain on his name?
Everyone here knew that there were many other bottom ninety rankers that had strength that might rival the top ten despite being on the younger side. There was no shame in being too young to rank highly. Everyone was aware that Dyon was only 19 years old and they all knew that it was his first campaign. No one would have looked down on him even if he didn't manage to rank at all. It just didn't make sense for him to take such a risk…
In the end though, Dyon was fully aware that the only reason people were beginning to change their minds about him was because of the power he displayed. There was no sympathy or logic. They only acknowledged him because he had the power to force them to do so. It was that simple.
Suddenly a loud boom and the crackling of lightning snapped everyone out of their thoughts. Dyon felt the array holding him up nearly shatter, but his eyes quickly flashed with a golden light as his array reinforced itself.
Raising an eyebrow, Dyon remained reclined as he tilted his head to the side to find a familiar figure standing on a few stages down from his. Dyon couldn't help but inwardly chuckle, 'You're not even challenging me, yet you felt the need to make sure I knew you were stepping up? If you're so scared, don't bother me.'
A few hundred meters away, Vidar Ragnors sharp blue eyes pierced toward the air to land on Dyon. He was pissed.
How much blood, sweat and tears had he put into his training so that he could put Dyon in his place? And yet his father had gave him expressed orders to not challenge Dyon and to first secure his place in the top ten. He felt his pride was being completely trampled over, and yet he didn't dare to disobey his father. Patriarch Ragnor was not a man who liked to repeat himself twice.
Lightning danced along Vidar's black robes as a silver spear appeared in his hand, slamming into the already formed crater at his feet.
The undulations spreading from the spear left no questions… This was a spiritual level weapon.
