Changing the point of view to the outside of the maze, the spectators went crazy a moment ago, those who despised Daimon saying he only chose pretty girls as his teammates, felt as if they were slapped on the face.
"He is a freaking monster!", they all thought.
Never in the previous tournaments a captain was eliminated in a single exchange, and that wasn't all, the fight was obviously one sided, one of the three most outstanding members of the young generation of the kingdom, was crushed to the point that he disgraced himself in public, it was outrageous.
"Booom!", the Blackfin Duke couldn't keep it together anymore, he stood up and hit the table in front of him, destroying it into a thousand pieces.
Since when his Blackfin family has been dishonored like this, his anger had reached a whole new level, in which he didn't care about face anymore, unfortunately for him, even if the Minister sympathized with him, this was his event.
And even if he didn't do anything, Vincent, Aurora or even the captain of the royal guard would act to suppress the Duke.
"Blackfin Duke, losing can also be a blessing, if your son can overcome that he'll become way stronger than what he is right now, now retrieve your aura", said Raymond.
The Blackfin Duke listened to the words of the Minister and he yelled "bullshit" in his mind, he could feel the ridicule coming from all directions, since his son made a fool of himself this time.
And he had no face or reason to stay in this place anymore, since he no longer cared about the result.
"Humph!", the Blackfin Duke coldly snorted as he glared at Annete, in his mind she was vicious enough to ask Daimon to defeat his son in such a humiliating way, not to mention he already had a conflict with Daimon due to that spear treasure.
"Seeya at the royal ball to enjoy a cup blackie", the neo noble general of course didn't let go of the chance to mess with the Blackfin Duke, who abruptly turned around, went to the nursery to pick up his son and then left, while swearing to repay this humiliation tenfold in the future.
He wasn't the only one whose blood pressure had risen due to the previous scene, the Minister kept his cool on the surface, but on the inside was cursing at the son of the Blackfin Duke for getting eliminated so easily, without helping his grandson stall that silver haired youth.
And as he expected the young spear wasn't going to go along with his plans, so now only the crowned prince was left with the possibility of being Walford's temporal ally.
'There is still a big chance to win, that brat got cocky and he left those girls in charge of the throne, Walford only needs to take them out, the crowned prince still has some team mates which will arrive soon as well', thought the Minister.
Leaving aside the members of the Blackfin family and their subordinated families who left in disgrace, accompanying their clan head, the neo nobles were roaring and cheering upon the current scene unfolding in the mirror plates.
…
Inside of the maze Daimon and Lance were facing each other frontwards, ignoring whatever was happening around them, their fighting spirits were clashing as they directly gazed at each other.
The suddenly both dashed frontwards and swinged their weapons at each other, a black one-edged sword and a yellow sturdy looking spear respectively.
"Haa!".
"Clang!".
With a loud shout and the sound of metals colliding, a thunderous shockwave was created upon contact followed by currents of wind, none were using any mana or battle aura to enhance their weapons, it was a purely physical clash, the ground below them exploded as a result, and stone pieces were sent flying in all directions.
Daimon was surprised to see that Lance wasn't sent flying backwards, though he didn't use his full strength, Disaster wasn't as merciful nor interested in an exchange between two warriors and it tried to destroy Lance's spear.
'That spear is strange Daimon, the impact was redirected downwards', said Narasha directly to Daimon's mind.
Daimon looked at Lance who was unscathed after clashing with him directly and his infinity eyes followed the staff of the spear, all the way to the extreme of the staff, he could see a cable made out of dark brown mana which connected the spear to the ground.
'Mm, in an estimated calculus, his physical strength should be around twenty tons, which is amazing for a mage, but still he shouldn't have been able to withstand my slash alone with that', thought Daimon.
Both he and Lance jumped backwards to make some distance, the two of them were inspecting each other trying to find out the strengths and flaws of the others.
He didn't show it on the surface, but Lance was beyond words right now, his innate ability made him able to create a connection with the ground and redirect the impacts of the attacks he parried towards it, that's why he wasn't sent flying after blocking Daimon's monstrous slash and instead the ground below them was blown away.
That is a technique he developed to hunt magic beasts, who are known for their strong bodies and physical strength, it's a big part of what made him able to hunt an early-stage Arch rank magic beast despite he being just a middle stage Mage Lord, since unlike the crowned prince he didn't have a boosting type innate ability.
Still, he was amazed at the strength of the previous attack, if he wasn't using his ability then his hands would have broken for sure.
"Damn, I know you are a knight but what kind of training did you undergo to double the physical strength you should have at the early stage of the middle Mortal level", said Lance.
He went through countless of battle and training to become physically strong enough to use his own ability, as a mage with enough hard work it isn't that hard to gain a few tons of physical strength, since that is not something they gain by innate in their path.
Even Lance who went all the way and was the physically strongest mage in the neo noble faction in his range of age, couldn't begin to imagine what kind of training did Daimon do, to double his strength as a knight.
One must know that for knights, getting stronger separately from their knight cultivation is way harder, it's a common knowledge problem, since their bodies get stronger the more, they advance, then regular exercise means nothing for them, most of knights give up on the idea of using regular training to become physically stronger and just focus in improving the intensity and purity of their battle aura, which makes them stronger anyway.
In other words, they chose the easy way, but Daimon is different, his battle aura doesn't increase his physical strength, so besides the increase he gets by breaking through, the rest was earned by him through Aura's hellish training.
Daimon smirked in response.
"Aren't you the same, that slash would have normally destroyed the arms of a normal Mage Lord, even if it used a boosting earth or metal spell, but you look pretty well if you ask me".
Lance rolled his spear, he has never been someone that likes to drag things, he tapped his spear onto the ground and then his mana exploded out of his body, just like Daimon suspected he is a dual affinity mage, and of a strange combination on top of that, a wind and earth mage.
Two completely opposite elements, were perfectly balanced and surrounding his body, Lance's skin turned bronze green, while his yellow spear was cladded in a whirlwind, the crowned prince frowned upon the current state of Lance.
'He hasn't used that against me before…', he thought.
Lance then gazed at Daimon, as he pointed his spear at him.
"This is the combination spell I developed to fight against Terry, it's the second time I successfully cast it, so be careful", upon saying that, Lance became a flash of green light that appeared in front of Daimon a second later with his spear piercing at his chest.
Daimon smiled; his white battle aura poured out of his body with such a wild force that it caused a distortion on the nearby area.
He could feel Narasha's excitement to clash against that spear which Lance was holding, so he slashed frontwards and met Lance's spear head on.
Before they clashed, a third figure appeared out of nowhere, Corey who was left behind finally caught up to the crowned prince, and tried to take both Daimon and Lance by surprise, so that they would lose their focus and their attacks lost control.
Strong spells and martial arts are hard to control after all, and the idea wasn't bad at all, the problem is that he miscalculated something, the current battle wasn't something in which him with his mere early-stage Mage Lord battle prowess could meddle with.
"Get lost!", both Daimon and Lance shouted at the same time, and a gust of wind as well as blast of white flames separated from the clashing point, and hit Corey directly.
"Ahhhh!", the left side of Corey's body was covered in deep wounds, while his right side was horribly burned, since the attacks hit his chest and not his head, the life-saving array only activated after he suffered enough pain to wish he was dead.
Completely ignoring the fate of the idiot that was throwed against the wall after trying to interfere in their battle, Daimon and Lance laughed and then clashed their weapons once again.
"Booom!", Lance's wind was crushed by the purely physical shockwave generated by Daimon's slash, but surprisingly the white flames were deflected sidewards, accidentally or not, the blasts of Demon Light were redirected towards Walford and the crowned prince.
"Oi, don't mix other in your troubles, you psychos!", shouted Walford, he had to create an ice wall to protect himself against the white flames.
The crowned prince on the other hand surrounded himself with a whirlpool made out of his blue mana, to avoid being burned alive by Demon Light.
Once again, the clash ended in a tie, Daimon's eyes glowed, wind element is probably the worst match against fire which is base form of Demon Light, and yet he was able to use wind to deflect fire.
'So, his body is connected to the ground as a shield to block physical impacts and the spear is flexible and fluid to deflect energy type attacks, what a strange way of fighting', thought Daimon.
Lance was having fun right now, he and Daimon became flashes of light and kept clashing, normally his wind would have returned the attacks of the enemy right back at them, which is how he hunts magic beasts, using their strength against themselves.
But no matter how much his wind pressed those white flames to go back at Daimon, they never do it, as if they were unable to harm him or something like that, it's the first time he sees something like this.
One must know that even if casted by oneself, a spell or martial art can harm the caster, that's why control is incredibly important for both mages and knights, but Lance had a hard time believing Daimon's control over his battle aura had reached such a level.
"In this state I killed an early stage late Mortal level magic beast you know", he said.
Daimon looked at the amount of Demon Light he has used so far, it was enough to fry an early-stage Arch rank magic beast as well, he changed his focus to outside of the room, where the sound of footsteps reached his sharp ears.
"Let's end it with the next attack, since there are some nuisances coming our way", said Daimon.
Lance sighed, still he understood that while he didn't care about the result of the tournament, not everyone was the same, Daimon should have his reasons to want the win, so he nodded and then took a deep breath.
"Phew", he exhaled and then he basically used all the mana he had left, the projection of a green bronze spear man appeared behind him.
"This is the best I can do for now, if you block it then it will be defeat", said Lance.
Daimon saw that projection and he raised an eyebrow; it seemed as if Lance was trying to imitate the battle aura Avatar of an Archknight using mana and probably what was a lineage ability.
"Fine let's do it your way", said Daimon, purple lightning covered his body mixing with the white flames, resulting in a savage look, in which Demon Light became wilder, instead of the normal flame form it takes by default, right now it had become white and purple lightning which was surrounding Daimon's body.
This was a new fusion technique he wanted to try, Demon Light was created using mana, battle aura, fire, lightning, darkness and light, so technically he only increased the amount of lightning to take over the base form from the fire element.
This was the easiest change he could do, since lightning was the element in which he was the most skilled besides darkness, but he couldn't show he had darkness affinity as Gabriel, so lightning was the obvious choice.
Lance saw the current Daimon and he bitterly smiled, even before the clash he already knew what the result will be, still his determination didn't wave and he rushed towards Daimon, with his spear leading the way.
"Bronze Titan Thrust!", he pushed his spear frontwards and the image behind of him did the same, for Daimon it was as if the ground itself was aiming at him.
Still, he also had to finish this because this form was hard to maintain since it was experimental, his image flashed and then a dazzling white light forced everyone to close their eyes.
"Boooom!", when the light finally disappeared, a five-meter-deep line had appeared on the ground of the throne room, Lance was still standing, but everything on the right side of his body had evaporated, armor and clothes included, that being said he wasn't wounded at all, but the tip of his spear had disappeared too.
Daimon who was standing a few meters behind him, couldn't help but nod in approbation, even if he was defeated, Lance managed to redirect his slash, so that his body wasn't cut in half, or this case the life-saving array didn't activate, as he would have survived, unfortunately that costed him not only all the mana he had left but a piece of his weapon too.
And Daimon had told Narasha to not destroy it to the point of it being irreparable, out of respect, Lance equaled him in his strongest state, without the use of Core Synchrony, sure he might have a high realm, but that didn't make it less amazing.
Besides Aisha and maybe the troublesome lioness Aleah, he was probably the strongest member of the younger generation in offensive terms he has faced.
Lance collapsed on the ground, he wasn't wounded but his body was at the verge of collapse, he squeezed till the last drop of mana he had earlier after all.
"Next time I'll land a solid hit on you", he said as he recognized his defeat, the array then appeared and took him out of the maze and thus the second captain was eliminated from the tournament.
But the way he left was completely different to Ezequiel, not only that, there was no shame in his defeat and besides the neo nobles and their supports who were cheering at him, others couldn't help but do the same as a way to thank him for the incredible fight he showed them.
