"8…"
'Kat it's time.'
Just as Katalina watched the countdown hit 8, she heard Eren's voice on her voice communication channel. She executed her movement spell and appeared right next to him in the next moment.
At the scene, Katalina's sudden use of a movement spell didn't pass unnoticed by the rankers. They saw her approach Tuan without fear of an offensive strike from him. Some of them thought that something was up and started paying attention to them.
"7…"
Tuan took out a bunch of items from his storage space and threw them on the ground.
"6…"
Katalina also took out a bunch of items from her storage space and added them to the pile already present in front of Tuan on the ground.
"5…"
"What are they doing?"
Bianka couldn't help but say out loud after she observed Katalina's actions. She wanted to get Katalina's Titus points for herself. But the surprise organizers had in store threw all her pre-planning down the drain.
Even chasing Lily to draw Katalina out only bit her in the ass. This time, it looked like Katalina was more ready than she was to take her on. Equipped with her flying artifact, potion bombs, and runic scrolls that contained array traps, Katalina became a major headache for Bianka.
The close combat expert became even more difficult to deal with after teaming up with Lily, Ketsu, and Wilder. The teamwork they displayed was not flawless. But they made up for it with their cunning and usage of array traps.
In the end, Bianka gave up on getting Katalina's points. She gave up on her entire raid team and focused on Reva Sunstar. She wanted to isolate Langdon and get him next. But he was nowhere to be found. So Reva was her only choice.
Bianka's team play with Ray and Silvera panned out and they were able to get Reva's wristband for themselves. They immediately crushed it and shared the Titus points equally among themselves.
Katalina and Lily's team decided to listen to Tuan's suggestions after he contacted them. He told them to focus on clearing the monster nest he had given them directions for. His suggestion also gave them lucrative results. That too with hardly any effort.
It was as if the monster nest had been drugged by someone beforehand. All the monsters that were present inside the monster nest were extremely slow and their reaction times were highly compromised. Plus, there was no boss monster to be found. As a result, Katalina and Lily's team only took less than half the time to clear out the nest.
Lily had thought that clearing a monster nest at this crucial time was a terrible idea. But after finding out that Tuan's suggestion was right on the money, she began to see him in a different light.
She had learned from Katalina that he was being targeted by Tim and Langdon before she was forced to leave his side. The close combat expert started looking more worried about him than she was about herself. This sudden change of behavior in Katalina's personality caught Lily off guard. She wondered what kind of magic Tuan had done on her.
Ray became curious about Bianka's words. He followed her gaze and looked at Tuan and Katalina that had just appeared beside him. He then saw them making a pile of some items and decided to cast a long-distance vision spell. They were standing in the opposite direction from Tuan and Kat after all.
"4…"
"They… holy fuck… they are wristbands!"
Ray Rhinehart finally got to know what the pile in front of Tuan was made of. He screamed in shock that bordered on horror.
At first, Bianka and the rest of the rankers didn't get what Ray meant when he was looking at Tuan with wide-open eyes. As if those eyes would come out of the sockets anytime.
It didn't take long for the rest of the rankers to catch up with what Tuan was about to do.
"3…"
Katalina's wristbands had come from the contestants she had beaten in the past. The butcher had given her the idea to collect wristbands and crush them at crucial times. So she had kept some of the wristbands while crushing the rest to keep her ranking competitive.
Eren had then demanded her share of wristbands from her after he branded her with his Sins series ability. The latter was happy to oblige.
She was even ready to give Eren her wristband herself. And the butcher had planned to use it if the situation arose. After all, Katalina was now his people. And the butcher won't shy away from using that to his advantage.
But the moment the butcher's rendezvous point with Team Lily was compromised and they couldn't form a team as he had wanted them to, all his earlier plans were thrown for a toss.
The butcher was going to target Bianka's team first, and then Drin or William depending upon the situation at the time. He planned to take their wristbands while letting Team Lily get eliminated in the process. As per his deal, they still would have been within the top 10 even with their wristbands getting owned by him.
But fortunately for both Tuan and Team Lily, things didn't come to that. After the butcher realized that he was trapped in the isolated space containing the array set up for monsters and mana beasts' bodies, he changed his plan. As a result of the cheat that he was able to introduce into the array set up, he cleared the Field Boss solo.
Tuan first weakened the Ogre Lord by introducing a malfunction in the array setup that was maintaining his live body. After discussing the timing of his appearance with Alephee, the two waited in the isolated space.
He also collected a few more blood slides while waiting inside the isolated space. Then used the same way to exit the space and get back to the ruined library building.
Using Alephee's advice carefully, he chose another spatial tear and exited the distortion. By the time he had come out, only a few hours were remaining.
Tuan then contacted Katalina and told her to focus on clearing the monster nest that he had rigged the monsters off. Meanwhile, he rushed towards the Field Monster that only he knew had been weakened so much that a few hits from him were enough to destroy it.
Tuan's position skyrocketed and he was recorded as 2nd place holder after he solo-killed the Field Monster. The result of his battle with the Field Boss was that Ogre Lord couldn't be rendered into a mana body anymore. That was because he died soon after his mana body was destroyed by Eren, thanks to the array's gradual malfunction.
"2…"
"Fuck. Stop him."
Bianka was driven nuts when she saw what Tuan was about to do. She didn't know why she was so mad at him when he had hoodwinked all the contestants at the same time.
Somehow, due to her prior meeting with Eren, she took Tuan's deceptive actions quite personally.
Bianka cast her movement spell and approached Tuan. Her raid partners didn't follow her. The team was broken after they had defeated Reva Sunstar.
It was a miracle that they didn't fight among themselves. So following Bianka in her assault didn't make sense to them.
"Ugh! Get the fuck off!"
With no interest in his voice, Tuan pulled out the labrys he had collected from the Field Boss. Maybe his luck was exceptionally favorable today. Because the artifact was compatible with fire-element mana.
This was a weapon carried by a 12-foot muscular monster. So obviously, it was larger than normal weapons. The two ax blades the artifact featured were broad and gave off a threatening vibe with the runes inscribed on them. It was as tall as the butcher, and its weight made him wield it with both hands while channeling his Ace rank mana into his arms.
The weapon was clearly oversized for Tuan's stature and build. But that made him wield it with even more passion.
This was the first transcendent-grade weapon artifact the butcher had his hands on in both his timelines. Even when he wasn't compatible with the weapon's art, its rarity alone compelled him to try it when he got a chance.
Tuan didn't do anything fancy even though the weapon had an inscribed spell etched onto it. He simply channeled his fire-element mana into it before releasing it all at once into a compressed flying slash.
Whooom!
A blazing trail was created on the ground as it split apart, creating a 6feet deep trench. The butcher was almost liable to lose his balance and fall off on his butt after swinging the oversized artifact. More than half of his remaining mana from his mana storage was zapped away in that single flying slash.
The butcher felt like his Ace rank mana was not enough to bring out the weapon's true power. He could feel that only Adept-rank mana could somehow scratch the surface of the weapon's potential.
The butcher only had to scare Bianka away with his new weapon. And that goal was achieved without a hitch. Bianka remained frozen in place when the trench dug out by the weapon was only a few meters away. If Tuan was a bit more off-balance, Bianka did not dare to imagine how her condition was going to be at this time.
Tuan had already understood the weapon's potential after using it for the first time. His forehead was dripping with sweat as his mana circuits were made to work overtime by the weapon's ever-so-hungry mana consumption. His breaths were uneven, more so now that he finds wielding this badass weapon to be exciting.
The other rankers were also shocked by Tuan's display of might. They also recognized that the weapon belonged to the Field Boss. This realization hit everyone like a wrecking ball.
'Was that Field Boss only meant for a show?'
Bianka and almost everyone had the same thought after they saw Tuan possessing the transcendent-grade weapon. They regretted the fact that they didn't try their luck with the Field Boss and simply chose to ignore him, enabling a chance-grabber like Tuan to get his hands on such a sought-after artifact.
Even Drin and Willaim paused their fight when they saw the commotion. They both looked in Tuan's direction only to find out that he too was looking at them with the same smile he had first greeted them with.
"Thanks, Drin. I'll treat you to a drink someday."
As the butcher said out loud to Drin, he channeled fire-element mana through his right leg.
"That fucking fire bastard. Drin… you fucking moron. He… that… oh fuck…"
William Shanks saw what Tuan was about to do and what the outcome of his actions might turn out to be. He became mad after approaching Eren with uncontrollable anger in his eyes, using his movement spell to its fullest potential.
He wouldn't have minded if Drin won the first position because he knew the guy had more potential than him. But for some reason, the crafty 'fire bastard' as he liked to call Tuan, winning the tournament didn't sit right with him.
'Too late.'
Said Drin to himself before smiling mirthlessly. He dropped his shoulders and watched the spectral screen above him show an updated digit. Meanwhile, upon Tuan's orders, Katalina had already distanced herself from him.
"1…"
With his blazing right leg, Tuan crushed the pile of wristbands that had laid in front of him in one move. His wristband was getting updated with Titus point so fast that it projected a spectral screen that kept on adding Titus points to his default score.
"O…."
Just when Tuan's wristband was done updating, the countdown timer of the Titus tournament hit zero. And with that countdown, the Titus tournament was officially over.
The winner of the tournament along with all the other placeholders was decided at that point.
