Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 1357: Section 1358 Infinite Battle Tower

On the second day, Angel still took Lyon to watch the battles at the Sky Tower.

There were evenly matched duels and also ones where one side completely crushed the other. The most impressive match for Lyon was one that featured a contestant known as “The Mace Swinger,” King of Blackberry.

This Wizard Apprentice called King of Blackberry, whom they had actually seen outside the tower the day before when they first arrived, was dragging an iron ball whose weight was unknown. As he walked, it made a clang-clang-clang noise that stirred up quite a commotion in the square.

The reason King of Blackberry’s match left such a deep impression on Lyon was that he showed a crazy, cruel side during the battle.

He was an outright killing maniac.

His opponent was about to concede, but just a moment too slow, and he was smashed by the iron ball, his brains bursting out, dead beyond any doubt.

According to the audience around them, this was already the eighth contestant that King of Blackberry had killed in the arena.

While the number of deaths was small, in the lower levels of the Sky Tower, where the strength of the contestants was more or less the same and even in the event of an overwhelming defeat, they usually had time to yield before death. Besides, the Sky Tower had a comprehensive healing system, which could save a person’s life as long as they did not die on the spot.

Of course, this only applied to the lower levels. Higher up, the contestants would not even give you the chance to concede.

This match was the first time Lyon witnessed a death on the Sky Tower battleground. The impact it had on him was profound, and the way the audience seemed pleased that they had bought tickets for this match and cheered for it also exposed to Lyon the Wizards’ Realm’s indifference to such violence.

Lyon felt fortunate that Angel had brought him to observe matches before officially participating in the Sky Tower competition. His mindset was rapidly changing with each match he watched, aligning closer to the harsh realities of the Wizards’ Realm.

After watching several matches in a row, Angel then proceeded to the Infinite Battle Tower.

The matches at the Infinite Battle Tower were not open to spectators unless they were important.

Therefore, even though Angel knew that Nausicaa had a match today, he did not come to watch because of this reason.

When they arrived, it was just at the moment when Nausicaa’s match had ended.

Although the battle was not open to spectators, the screens timely broadcast the results.

“King of Blackberry defeats the Frost Secret Witch and earns the corresponding points…”

From the information on the screen, it seemed highly likely her opponent, the Frost Secret Witch, belonged to the elemental system, which the bloodline system greatly countered. Nausicaa’s entire battle took less than five minutes.

It was either a crushing victory or her opponent had conceded.

Angel judged that if a battle ended so quickly, she would probably fight again soon.

True enough, before long, new text flashed on the screen: “In one hour, King of Blackberry vs Light Slug. Note: This battle is a promotion match.”

Angel was momentarily stunned. A promotion match?

If Nausicaa won this battle, it meant she would ascend to the fourth level of the Infinite Battle Tower!

Moreover, promotion matches in the rules of the Infinite Battle Tower were considered important and were open for spectators to watch.

Meanwhile, the number of spectators indicated behind the screen also started to tick.

Angel immediately bought two tickets and led Lyon straight to the arena. They hadn’t run into Glenn today, so there was no chance of getting through the back door; they had to secure good seats for viewing the match on their own.

However, it was only when they reached the battle arena that Angel realized there was actually no need to rush for a seat.

Because the information on the screen had been displayed for nearly ten minutes, and the number of spectators who had decided to watch this match had only just reached 18, and after a few minutes, it had stopped increasing and was fixed at 18.

Following this trend, by the time the real battle started, the number of spectators probably wouldn’t exceed a hundred.

This was actually the difference between the Infinite Battle Tower and the Sky Tower.

Angel had thought that the battles in the Infinite Battle Tower would draw more viewers because of their higher quality. Turns out, that wasn’t the case. The threshold for the Infinite Battle Tower was indeed high, and the majority of the battles were very high-end, which was reflected by the fact that the viewing tickets were ten times more expensive than those for the Sky Tower.

But what’s referred to as high-end battles mostly involve the contestants above the thirtieth level of the Infinite Battle Tower.

And the battles below the thirtieth level in the Infinite Battle Tower, where the strength of the contestants was basically the same as in the Sky Tower, couldn’t justify the much higher ticket prices. Therefore, naturally, people wouldn’t choose the more expensive battles.

Furthermore, “King of Blackberry” was not a particularly famous contestant. It was normal that her promotion match didn’t attract much attention.

When Angel arrived at the arena, it was just him and Lyon.

After they took their seats, there was still nearly fifty minutes until the match started, so Angel took the opportunity to tell Lyon about Nausicaa and her feats.

Angel brought Lyon with the same intent as before, hoping to broaden Lyon’s network of connections. Besides, Nausicaa and Lyon were both from the bloodline system; perhaps Lyon could learn something from her.

About twenty minutes in, a few scattered spectators began to trickle into the stands.

As the match was only ten minutes away, the viewers who had booked seats finally all arrived. Angel had overestimated earlier; in the end, the number of spectators was only a bit over thirty.

Among these spectators, Angel even spotted a familiar figure.

The little loli perched on the neck of a big bruiser—Shan, was at this moment in the front row closest to the arena, expectantly looking at the entranceway for the contestants.

Shan, Xiliu, and Nausicaa were friends, a fact well known to Angel, so it wasn’t surprising to see Shan here.

However, Angel wondered if Xiliu had come?

Yesterday, Glenn had told Angel that Jiebo was here to participate in the Newcomers’ Tournament, so would he end up facing Xiliu? If they actually faced each other, that would be interesting.

While Angel was musing, the competitors finally emerged from the contestant tunnel.

Glowing Slug was a man in a white wizard robe, whose eyes seemed to shine from afar, but upon closer inspection, one would discover it wasn’t his pupils that were luminous but the white slugs crawling around in his eyes.

On the other side, Nausicaa also made her entrance.

Having not seen each other for nearly a year, Nausicaa’s figure and appearance seemed not to have changed in the slightest.

Her brown, tight leather suit accentuated her voluptuous body, and coupled with the hair that fell over her shoulders, she exuded a sexy and enticing aura. However, the rapier at her waist, the shoulder armor over her leather suit, and the cloak connecting the shoulder armor, gave her an air of valiance and dominance amidst the sensuality.

After Nausicaa entered, she greeted Shan and then completely blocked out all external information, focusing all of her attention on her opponent.

As time passed, the starting whistle of the match sounded, and both sides made their moves.

The end of this match came even quicker than Angel had expected.

In less than ten minutes, the only person still standing in the arena was Nausicaa.

Lyon was still in a daze because, out of all the matches he had watched, this was the only one he couldn’t understand at all.

From beginning to end, his eyes couldn’t even keep up with the movements of both sides, and he could only see two gray shadows moving rapidly.

How Nausicaa had won and what had happened in the process were things Lyon hadn’t seen.

In the end, it was Angel, using illusions, who restored and slowed down the most important scenes of the match, allowing Lyon to discern the key points.

“Their strengths were evenly matched, but unfortunately for Glowing Slug, he had bad luck,” Lyon reflected after watching.

“Really just bad luck?” Angel laughed and shook his head upon hearing this, “Take a closer look.”

This time, Angel didn’t just slow down the pace of the illusions but also specifically enlarged a few key moments.

After looking carefully, Lyon was stunned.

His initial judgement wasn’t entirely wrong; in terms of strength, Nausicaa and Glowing Slug were not much different.

But the reason he thought Glowing Slug’s defeat was due to bad luck the first time was because of the final close combat encounter.

Glowing Slug, a summoner, was very adept at controlling slugs, and he used various slugs as his means of attack during the match. However, these slugs were all countered by Nausicaa one by one.

During the last encounter, it looked as if Glowing Slug had no more slugs to summon, and having lost most of his techniques, he was approached by Nausicaa in close combat.

It could be said that Glowing Slug was in the most dangerous situation.

However, at the last moment, Glowing Slug used some method, with the blood on his tongue, to spit out a highly poisonous blood slug.

By the time Nausicaa reacted, the blood slug had already bitten onto her arm.

Glowing Slug even felt he would win at that point, but then Nausicaa retracted the covering over her arm, revealing a steel prosthetic.

Even if the blood slug had potent poison, biting on a mechanical arm would be ineffective.

In Glowing Slug’s despairing gaze, a bright light flashed in the palm of Nausicaa’s hand.

As a whirlwind emerged, Glowing Slug was blown out of the arena.

From Lyon’s perspective, this was just bad luck; Glowing Slug had made a misjudgment, and if Nausicaa’s arm had been real, she probably would have been affected by the slug’s poison.

However, when Angel used the illusions for a second demonstration, Lyon noticed something.

When Glowing Slug spat out the blood from the tip of his tongue, Nausicaa’s skin developed a faint pattern because she was wearing thick armor, Lyon hadn’t noticed this detail before.

“This is the special pattern that emerges when the Nidhogg Demon bloodline is activated, possessing extreme defensive capabilities and resistance to poison. Even if the blood slug landed on Nausicaa’s skin, it would still be ineffective,” Angel explained.

Most importantly, Nausicaa activated her bloodline only once during the entire match, and even then, it was a localized activation. If she had activated it fully, even transforming into a Nidhogg Demon, she probably would have finished the fight even earlier.

Another point was that Nausicaa only made use of the mechanical arm Angel had crafted for her at the very last moment, which shows that Nausicaa had actually been holding back a lot during the match.

Her victory was by no means a stroke of luck.