Needless to say, but the previous fight, had left the audience of the tournament in awe, the revelation that Mellie could boost her realm up, took them by surprise, everyone knew the queen could do it, but they supposed it was her who was a monster, so now everyone was interested on Mellie too.
If their heirs were to manage to win the heart of the little princess, won't their offspring be amazing, meaning their families will rise in the next years, not to mention getting a connection with Annete meant they also got on the god books of Vincent, it was an incredibly good deal.
But the surprises didn't stop there, they then saw her using Annete's renowned ability to dispel martial arts and spells equally, which is what granted her the position of queen, besides the support of at least one of the pillars of the kingdom, the title of queen was supposed to go to the strongest woman in the kingdom.
And while there were a couple of female early-stage Stellar ranked experts among the files of the kingdom, they were utterly defeated by Annete when she was only a middle stage Half Stellar ranked, thanks to that abnormal ability of hers.
So now seeing Mellie fighting they were reminded of the time when Annete debuted, back then there was no one who could come out unscathed from a confrontation with her, the heads of the many clans and forces still remember the crushing defeats that their outstanding members of the young generation suffered at her hands.
And now the history was repeating itself, even the twin princes who have the blood of the royal family which is supposedly the strongest in the kingdom, flowing through their veins were a match for her.
And yet it didn't escape the many important figures of the kingdom eyes, that she wasn't the captain of the team, she wasn't even the vice-captain, which increased the interest they felt in the silver haired masked youth, that was now carrying almost all his team, through the corridors of the maze.
Not everyone was positively impressed though, the mother of the twin princess who was sitting at the left side of the king was gritting her teeth with a hateful expression on her face, the way her son was rejected by Mellie was out for everyone to see.
And that wasn't all, Bryan was beaten up like a dog by the little bastard that has been causing troubles for them, the fact that her son couldn't withstand even a single punch, nor have the capacity to dodge or counter attack meant he was nothing in front of that silver haired guy.
'That cunning woman, where did she find that monster, was she raising him in the shadows to be that little bitch's partner from the very beginning, this isn't good we have to get rid of him!', she inwardly swore.
The others who were at the border of getting an attack right now, were the mother of the crowned prince, since the talent she personally scouted for her son's team, was single handedly eliminated by the younger sister of the woman she hated the most.
Not only that, but in his way, Daimon eliminated a lot of the other participants that were left, among them there were members of the crowned prince's team, he simply rushed through the maze one-shooting everyone in his path.
What was worse is that she saw him get even more vicious towards anyone holding a sword, to the point that he even destroyed the weapons to the point of them being irreparable.
She didn't care about the others and their weapons, her husband in the king, thought the royal treasury is out of their reach, thanks to Annete tightening the leash on them, they had a lot of wealth thanks to the incomes of their territories as well as other external sources, what worried her is that, the psycho that Annete brough to her side, would target her son, getting in the way or his victory, because he also used a sword.
Speaking of that, the Blackfin Duke was livid right now, out of the nine sword users Daimon destroyed so far, seven were from his family, meaning he lost seven Half Stellar ranked treasures, he was trembling due to anger.
Dominic on the other hand was laughing his ass off at the Blackfin Duke's expression, each time a sword was destroyed, his face twisted and that made the neo noble general amused, that being said he isn't a simpleton as others might believe, at least not when in comes to anything related to fighting.
'That kid's battle experience isn't any less than Lance's, I wonder where did the queen found such a talent', he thought.
At the judge's skybox, the Minister's face became unsightlier with each second that passed, he also noticed the pattern of Daimon mercilessly crushing every sword user in his way and his grandson is also a sword user, but that's not everything, he realized his calculus were wrong.
He underestimated the strength of the champion of the beast hunt, disregarding his overwhelming score as luck and the help of the princesses, but now he had no other option but to believe that another monster like the crowned prince appeared in the kingdom.
While Annete, Vincent and even Aurora were all smiles satisfied with Daimon's performance, the captain of the royal guard Tideus and also the Delphini Duke Carlos, were gritting their teeth, one saw the talent of Mellie who should have belonged to his family and the other saw his disciples being utterly defeated.
The only one who remained calm was the old scholar, he has never heard of the queen speaking well of anyone who didn't deserve it, and so he based his expectations on the fact that Daimon was as strong as Annete mentioned, even then the results he witnessed were quite hard to believe, the whole team was insanely strong, not only the captain.
Back at the maze, Daimon who was rushing to the throne room, suddenly heard an alarm going off, which meant the countdown to end the tournament has started, in other words Aisha opened the door of the throne room and sat on the throne.
'I'll be there in a second mom', he thought as he accelerated even more, leaving a trail of purple lightning behind of him.
…
A few moments ago, in front of the throne room, which's door is of a dazzling golden color instead of the red one that symbolizes the "boss" rooms so far, a purple fairy arrived at the entrance.
Aisha's pretty lips slightly curved upwards, she was the first one to arrive at the throne room, but she waited until Daimon had picked up Mellie and the others, to open the door.
The golden gates opened and the insides of the throne room were revealed, it was a large open room with a huge throne at its back, there were two rows of torches that lit up as soon as Aisha entered, and a red carpet which led all the way to the throne.
Aisha quickly inspected the place and realized there weren't any traps set up here, so she casually walked towards the room while she happily hummed, imagining the reward her darling will give to her later, and then jumped to sit on the throne, the throne had around twenty meters of size, so it wasn't an exaggeration to say, Aisha who is quite tall for a girl her age, looked small in comparison.
As soon as Aisha leisurely leaned backwards on the throne, an alarm went off and then a giant hourglass appeared on the ceiling, which then started the countdown of twenty minutes to end the tournament.
Aisha simply stayed there waiting for Daimon's arrival, but not everyone was as carefree as her right now.
The four captains who were not that far from the throne room heard the alarm going off and they all accelerated, without caring of stalling the other, naturally how could they outrun a lightning mage who specializes in speed as Aisha, so even when they were moving without any obstacles, they were still a step too late.
That being said, three of them had the hopes that their subordinates were the ones who found a shortcut and arrived earlier than them, the only one who was running as if his ass was on fire was Walford, because the Minister sent him a message saying that Aisha was the one who did it, he didn't even care that Corey was left way behind of him.
They soon arrived at the gates of the throne room which remained open, since they had already been claimed by someone, and their expressions when they saw Aisha leisurely sitting on the throne were worth watching.
Lance sighed, if Aisha who he considered Daimon's right hand was here, that meant his scholar lost, she didn't even look tired nor had any damage on her clothes, so it was safe to assume it was a one-sided battle.
"Did you defeat Julio?", he asked with a calm voice, to which Aisha nodded.
"Yes, "he" was a decent opponent, unlike the subordinates of those guys", said Aisha as she disdainfully pointed at Ezequiel, Walford and the crowned prince.
Lance softly laughed and then he retired to one of the sides of the throne room, leaning his back against it.
"I want to battle Gabriel in my best state, so I'll stay out of this for the time being".
Seeing Lance's relaxed attitude, Ezequiel gritted his teeth.
"Oi, you battle idiot, if we don't make her leave the throne and take it for ourselves, we'll all lose, your neo noble faction will lose its glory and face you know!", he angrily shouted.
Lance whose eyes were closed slightly opened them to glare at Ezequiel.
"Will glory and face make me stronger, I'm just here to polish my skills, what use does status have when you can crush your enemy anyway, look at her for example, she isn't even a noble and yet she arrived before any of us", he said as he pointed at Aisha, before closing his eyes again.
"Tsk, what a fool, whatever don't come crying when you end up in fifth place", said Ezequiel as he snorted, before he turned to see Walford and the crowned prince.
"What do you say, if we attack together, we can eliminate her fast, that guy will be arriving soon, we can take his right arm first, then focus on who will win?".
Walford immediately agreed, he knew Daimon's team will arrive here alongside him, Aisha was his vice-captain, so taking her out was a wise decision, especially because with the help of two other captains, he wouldn't need to use his trump card yet.
The crowned prince also agreed quite easily, if his vice-captain wasn't here, then that meant he got done in on the way here, on the other hand he could feel that some of his team mates were still on the game, so he didn't panic, still one enemy less was a deal he had no reason to refuse.
Ezequiel grabbed the war axe he had on his back and then black mana poured out of his body, Walford also grabbed the heavy sword that he had on his back and his ice battle aura exploded out of him, as for the crowned prince he elegantly unsheathed his sword out of the blue mineral scabbard which made it also work as a flute, light blue mana gathered around him.
The three of them then slashed towards the throne, the idea was to force Aisha to leave the throne, so they didn't restrain their strength, in any case the life-saving array will protect her, from their attacks if she was stubborn enough to not move out of the way.
"What a shame that beauty is working for that idiot, blame yourself for choosing the wrong captain!", shouted Ezequiel, he purposedly poured even more mana into his battle axe, increasing the strength of his attack.
The three slashes advanced towards Aisha, who had a careless expression on her pretty face, she didn't even flinch despite the discharges of mana and battle aura that were coming her way, then at the last second, she actually smiled.
"Boom!", suddenly a horizontal line of white light got in the way of the three attacks, blocking them from advancing even a single centimeter ahead, the clash of the attacks raised a curtain of dust that blocked the sight of the three captains as well as the spectators.
"It's good to see you three don't bother in fighting as a group, that way you can't complain if you are bombarded in an 11v1 battle", Daimon's voice came from within the dust, then with a swing of a strange looking black one-edged sword, the dust was dispelled to reveal the current situation.
Daimon who was pointing his sword at the three captains, was sitting on the center of the giant throne, at his right Aisha was leaning onto him, the Risha sisters at his left and the others were sitting equally split in the two directions, with Chris and Cassy sitting on the armrests of the throne.
"That was new darling, I wonder how are you going to explain those four, how you were carrying these many new girls all over the maze~", whispered Aisha with a playful voice, that only Daimon could hear.
Daimon bitterly smiled, but he didn't answer and instead now that he had been sitting on the throne for around a minute, he stood up and craned his neck, then his white battle aura exploded out of his body like a fountain.
"I told you, you will be eliminated first, you aren't even a sword user so get lost you useless piece of trash", said Daimon, his image flashed and the next thing Walford and the crowned prince saw was that he appeared in the middle of them.
The crowned prince reacted on time and blocked with blue mana, while Walford condensed an ice wall in front of him, Demon Light which was covering Daimon's body, was destructive enough to wound others even without the use of a martial art, just by touching things after all.
While those two were blocking the white flames that spread across the nearby area, due to Daimon's sudden appearance, Ezequiel's pupils contracted like needles, he felt as if a huge boulder was now pressing down on his chest.
Still, he forced his arm to move and blocked with his giant battle axe in front of him, Daimon tightened the grip on Disaster's hilt and his forty tons of physical strength accompanied by the forty tons of weight of Disaster, exploded as Disaster roared excited to clash against another magic weapon.
"Claang!".
"Crack!".
A thunderous sound of metals colliding followed by the sound of something breaking echoed through the room, as Ezequiel's battle axe was destroyed to bits, that wasn't all, Ezequiel felt as if a mountain had clashed against him.
Even when he focused all his weight and released as much mana as he could, he was forced to retreat around one hundred meters until his back clashed against the wall of the throne room.
"Boom!", Ezequiel was smacked against the wall, leaving behind a trail on the ground caused by his feet which were protected by metal boots which had spikes on its soles, even with all that he couldn't withstand the impact and was sent backwards.
"Bleghh!", Ezequiel whose left eye, mouth and ears were bleeding, panted, his arms were trembling and his right hand was broken, he was in disbelief at the strength that a single slash carried behind.
Walford was in shock too, he immediately jumped backwards and took some distance from Daimon, the crowned prince on the other hand frowned as he slowly walked away too, leaving space for Daimon to solve his personal matters with Ezequiel.
Ezequiel refused to believe what just happened, his precious battle axe which was especially crafted for him, was destroyed in a single exchange, and he was deeply wounded too.
"What the hell are you, you damn monster!", he shouted, ignoring the pain in his throat and the blood coming out of his mouth.
Unfortunately for Ezequiel, Daimon had no interest in talking with him, his image flashed once again, and then a fist covered in white battle aura and lightning aimed at his face.
"Booom!", a thunder exploded out of nowhere as Daimon hit the life-saving array which activated to save Ezequiel's head from exploding like a watermelon hit by a hammer.
Still the shockwave wasn't negated and the wall behind Ezequiel cracked due to the impact, he also not only fainted on the spot, but he even peed himself, because he could feel the sensation of death coming his way.
The feeling of the grim reaper approaching one's neck, it's not something easy to forget, if not dealt with, it can become a lock that will prevent you from advancing in the mage or knight path forever, in other words, just as he previously stated, Daimon thoroughly eliminated Ezequiel from the tournament.
Daimon then turned around and saw Lance opening his eyes, and taking his spear out of his back.
"I wonder if you can spare some time for a decent battle, originally I aimed at Terry, but it seems a better target has appeared", said Lance.
Daimon smiled, that guy was the only one who didn't attack Aisha, and he didn't even seem to care about the result of the tournament, he was only here to become stronger and he could respect that.
"Sure, those two can't approach the throne now that they are here anyway", said Daimon as he gazed at the girls who were watching the fight with curious eyes.
Walford gritted his teeth, he was being looked down a lot, even the regularly elegant and cool crowned prince was frowning with an angered expression, those words sounded as if those women could block him from getting the victory.
And so, the final confrontation was about to start, with the elimination of Ezequiel as the greenlight.
