Chapter 394 The Fourth Round (Part 5)
Daimon and the sisters kept advancing through the maze, naturally it didn't escape Daimon's eyes, that suddenly a lot more of traps started to appear in his way, which he already expected.
'That old bastard is starting to panic, what a shame, even if you come here yourself you can't prevent what's about to happen', thought Daimon.
The sisters suddenly felt a ticklish sensation on their ski as Daimon increased the output of his boosting martial art, luckily for him, he could achieve similar effects with either spells or martial arts.
Normally he uses the spell Lightning Discharge created by Aisha as his default speed boosting spell, the only thing that changed is that he used battle aura instead of mana, he had this facility, probably because of his mana core that allowed him to be both a mage and a knight.
Daimon suddenly jumped and ran on the wall for a couple of seconds, a whole area of the floor fell, revealing a huge trap door, Daimon's knees slightly bent and then using the wall as support, he jumped and zig-zagged using the two walls, until he left the area where there was no floor.
Outside of the maze, the Minister was fuming, that trap was something he was reserving for when most of the participants had gathered near the throne room, he was going to use it to get rid of a lot of competitors of Walford.
But now he wasted it on Daimon and he didn't get anything out of it, if the same trap popped out more than once aimed at the same person, others would naturally think he was playing dirty, which would be a problem.
"That little bastard must be cheating, that trap covered such a wide area and appeared out of nowhere, there is something fishy here!", said the Blackfin Duke as he smashed his hand against the table, only to be mocked at by Dominic.
"Blackie don't you know that comparisons are a source of depression, if you are using your son to measure that kid's reaction time and battle reflexes, let me break your bubble, that lecherous son of yours can't hold a candle against him".
"Knights are often heavy and lack in speed, but that kid has lightning affinity, in terms of speed it's the best element and even more important his reflects can keep up with that, to be honest even if the all the members of the other teams besides the captain, join to fight him, he will still win, as it seems he is used to fights against a large number of enemies… a one-man army so to speak", concluded Dominic with a curious voice.
Unlike the majority of people here, though he supported Lance as he is his disciple, the neo nobles respect the strong, so he was dying to see Daimon fighting against the captains.
Back at the maze, Daimon whose eyes were glowing behind his mask, saw through the two doors that appeared at his sides, one lead to a dead end, and the other was occupied by a group who was fighting.
"There, Jasmin and Cassy are inside at the other side of that door",
"Daimon…", Yvonne tried to say something, but Daimon smiled at her and she just nodded knowing he understood her intention.
This time he surprisingly didn't slowly opened the door and told the sisters to stand behind of him, he instead just opened and jumped inside of the room.
Naturally it was for a good reason, metal spikes covered in paralyzing poison raised from the ground and also fell from the ceiling, this was a trap that was aimed at his previous way of opening doors.
Unfortunately, no matter what tricks the Minister tried to pull off, Daimon's eyes could see the gears and arrays that moved through the maze with his infinity eyes, not to mention as a lightning affinity user his reaction time was unparalleled within the same realm.
Daimon's fighting style just as Dominic stated, was created to deal with large numbers of enemies, the only way to "counter" him, was with a 1v1 battle with someone that could contain him, otherwise he would just sweep through everything, that is if there was a sole person that could rival him in the vicinity of course.
Daimon suddenly raised his left hand grabbing the edge of a dagger that materialized out of nowhere.
"What, you stopped my dagger with your bare hands!", a voice came out of the air, as a guy wearing light black armor appeared.
Before the assassin who turned out to be a member of the crowned prince's team, could gain some distance, Daimon stabbed his own dagger which the assassin discarded in a try to step backwards, on his neck.
Or at least he aimed to do that, but the life-saving array activated and the dagger was blocked almost completely, the tip still managed to pierce the skin on the neck of the assassin who was pale as paper right now, if there was no array the dagger would have pierced his throat and killed him.
"Even the subordinates of the crowned prince can't be all outstanding I guess", mockingly said Leslie.
"Nice Yvi", added Liliana.
The assassin has darkness affinity, but so does Yvonne, with her Night Sparrow lineage whose specialty, is messing up with the mind and perception of others, how could she not see through such a "poor" disguising ability, not to mention her eyes could see the flow of mana, and of course a floating mana flow in the middle of the air was suspicious.
Daimon nodded at Yvi, he of course also noticed the guy, but she deserved the credit for being able to see it too, since she wasn't using her wings even, and yet she could see through the spell of an eighth star mage.
Daimon grabbed the dagger from the ground, since nothing prevented him from taking the possessions of others, the participants were taken out with what they had on them, if they dropped something, it would be returned after the round ends.
He just took the dagger out of convenience, but to be honest he was impressed by the result of the gloves he asked Vincent to get for him.
Outside of the maze, the Minister glared at Vincent.
"You old bastard, did you give that kid tactical equipment from the army?".
Vincent snorted in response.
"I think you are forgetting that the one funding the equipment of the army lately is me, since a certain someone reduced the funds of those who defend the protect the east and west territories, besides the materials were proportionated by the Black Empress, because she wanted to grant her newly appointed general a weapon for the tournament, backers are also part of one's strength right", said Vincent with a sarcastic voice.
The Minister gritted his teeth, the Maelstrom Sea had resources which were unknown for the kingdom, all the equipment of the team of the crowned prince is at the peak of the Half Stellar grade, but there are still differences due to the ones who created them, not everyone had the qualifications to receive a treasure from the best artisans and blacksmiths.
"You are all forgetting something important, that kid has two maximum Stellar ranks, the ruler of a quarter of the Maelstrom Sea behind him, not to mention the queen of a kingdom as well as the richest Duchess, did you really think he was going to fight with his bare hands~", playfully said Annete.
Daimon looked at the gloves which were covering his hands, that were as thin as silk and practically unnoticeable and he had to admit that Thea proportioned an incredible material.
'Iron scaled jellyfish huh, these were made to purposedly be on the Half Stellar rank, I'll be sure to ask them to upgrade them after the tournament is over', thought Daimon.
This jellyfish's outer layer was immune to any piercing or cutting attacks, unless there were laws imbued in them of course, according to Karmandi, the Empress killed it… with her own fists.
In any case no matter how high ranked a weapon was, of the user couldn't power it, which was the case with everyone here, what made the difference was the strength and skill of the user, Daimon's skin could be cut by the dragger, but the gloves prevented that from happening, he was stronger than the assassin so he could easily stop him from moving the dagger as well, it was similar as to why Yvi's arrows pierced through the defenses of the enemy, they couldn't activate the arrays so they were only hard pieces of armor to counter weapons of a similar rank.
"Let's go", Daimon sheathed the dagger on his belt and then he continued advancing, to where the sounds of fight kept coming, this room was split into two areas, separated by a corridor, the assassin was in charge of getting rid of anyone who entered, but he was done in by Daimon.
…
"Now Cassy, Silver Spear", Jasmine rolled her staff and the then tapped it on the ground, the jewel in the middle lit up and then the image of a spear appeared behind Cassy.
The daughter of patriarch Underwood, was surprised, she felt her body brimming with strength.
'Jas's spell previously doubled only the strength of the next spell, I still can't believe that now it triples every single aspect of it!', thought Cassy, the difference between the Jasmin she knew and the current Jasmin was incredible, but it seemed to be a positive change.
"With this I can use it, Demon Subduing Wood Sword!", Cassy's sword covered in a pretty green light, she then slashed at her enemy who turned out to be Walford's vice-captain, in other words the recently revealed ice mage of the Arcarius.
"Ice Shell Mirror", the mage used her own defensive spell with a confident smile on her face, ice is hard to cut and Cassy isn't a knight, she could already imagine the Cassy's hands trembling and she receiving the recoil of her own attack.
"Crack!", but the result was very different to what she expected, the sword had no edge, instead of that, when it clashed against the ice shell, it fully destroyed the ice and landed on the mage's body being only blocked by the armor.
"Blegh", the poor mage girl spit out blood, Cassy was an early lord rank just like her, and she received Jasmine's buff which tripled every aspect of her next attack.
That wasn't all though, the mage collapsed on the ground but at the same time, a tsunami of fire fell on Cassy.
"Humph, Silver Fortress", Jasmin's mellow voice came from behind the battlefield, and the image of a white brick small castle appeared in front of Cassy who was once again positively surprised, she slashed her sword and a ray of green light was shot from it, easily splitting the tsunami of fire.
"Shit, how is that bitch suddenly so strong, that's even past the level of an average vice-captain!", the one who used the opportunity to sneakily attack them, was none on other than Ezequiel's strategist.
Her spell was so easily countered by Cassy, and she also heard some sounds coming from the corridor, she saw the other two mages who were casting spells trying to take down Jasmine, failing miserably, due to that same strange white castle spell and she gritted her teeth.
Without a second of hesitation, she turned around and ran away leaving behind the two mages, which were also Ezequiel's subordinates.
The mages cursed the woman, but they had no time no time to waste, because Cassy was coming at them, all the spells they shot at her, were destroyed with a slash of her green sword.
The two mages knew one had to block for the other to use long ranged spells, so one of them unsheathed his sword and rushed forward, to which Cassy smiled.
"Demon Subduing Wood Sword, Zen", Cassy extended her free hand and a sword made out of wood appeared on it, this time she used that one to slash at the enemy, and naturally it was cut in half since the opponent was using a Half Stellar grade magic sword, but that didn't stop Cassy.
The piece of the sword she was holding and the one which was floating about to fall to the ground lit up in green light, and then to the surprise of the mage the both turned into tree branches which held on onto the mage, locking him in place just in time for Cassy to smack her edgeless sword against the face of the mage, knocking him out of combat.
She didn't pay attention to the other mage, because a purple flash clashed against it, not only knocking him out of combat too, but even breaking his weapon which was a sword.
"One less", mumbled Daimon, he dispelled the lightning surrounding him to reveal, the slightly messy appearances of the Risha sisters, only their hairs were a bit disheveled though.
"That's an interesting way of using a sword", said Daimon, he has never seen a sword without edge, or more accurately a swordsman who fought with his sword sheathed, because his infinity eyes could see through that green sword, and below the wood layer, there was a real sword.
Jasmin saw the sisters holding onto Daimon and she raised an eyebrow, but she also couldn't help but softly laugh at them.
"The one who ran away was Ezequiel's strategist, we should chase and eliminate her, or she can cause troubles", said Cassy, noticing that Jasmine seemed to be on the moon or something.
Daimon nodded, he entered in time to see a figure escaping through the door, but he didn't pay too much attention to it, he instead focused on destroying the sword of the other mage, that's why the Risha sisters ended up a bit dizzy, Daimon accelerated one more time and then he used Disaster to cut the sword.
"Let's get rid of her on the way", said Daimon as he beckoned at those two, it was faster to move this way.
While it took Cassy a second to react, Jasmin casually held onto Daimon's right arm, just like Leslie, which made Cassy sigh, she grabbed Daimon's free shoulder and then they were all covered in lightning and became a purple flash once again.
Others might think that carrying other people would made you slower, but what burden could those light as feather girls cause Daimon, when he's got forty tons of physical strength running through his body, even without using a martial art.
Outside of the maze, the spectators were in chaos, starting by the ones from the Bamboo Forest sect, including patriarch Underwood.
"Oi, Underwood, what the hell is the meaning of this, if your daughter has reached the middle stage of the middle level realm, why didn't you told her to lead the team of the Elemental Sea, and instead sent her with the princess to that guy's team!", said Skyfire.
The spell Cassy used is only available for middle stage Lord ranks, it condenses a great amount of wood mana to make an "undying" sword that with each cut traps the enemy more and more.
Underwood's eyes glowed, he knew his daughter hasn't reached that point yet, the only thing he could think off was the buffing spell of Jasmine, but if that was the case, then Jasmine was a monster, because Silver Spear should only increase one time per each big realm, in other words, for her to triple the strength of a spell she had to be at the Arch rank, that's how the buff spells of the Light Palace worked.
There was another person who was going crazy right now, the Blackfin Duke who saw the broken sword laying on the ground of the room, completely destroyed.
"What did that bastard do, that is a freaking Half Stella grade treasure!", he shouted, his heart was bleeding.
Meanwhile Dominic was laughing, he knew how it happened, what happens when two weapons of the same rank clash, the answer is that the best user will win the confrontation, apparently Daimon's sword was fierce enough to cut through treasures of the same grade, so if the other part didn't have a strength equal to his, then his sword will just push through the other.
What did surprise him, is that the broken sword should have still be able to be repaired, but looking at the piece of scrap that was reflected in the mirror plate, that was no longer possible.
"The weakness of every weapon is the same, the user, get ready blackie you are about to lose a few billions of sea crystals", said Dominic, which made the Blackfin Duke pale.
He didn't gift the equipment to Ezequiel's team, they were just lent to them for the sake of face during the tournament, and now he just lost one of them.
"Why did he do that to a sword, wait, most of the ones I gave to those useless bastards were swords, don't tell me…", the Blackfin Duke had a sudden bad premonition.