The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 545 : Live commentary Tournament (2)

“NOW, WHO IS GOING TO FIGHT THIS SEBASTIAN NEXT? IS THAT REALLY IT? ARE YOU GOING TO LET HIM GO BACK VICTORIOUS?” the commentator asked as the countdown reached the single digits.

Sebastian didn’t care as he looked around as he waited. He didn’t care who his opponents were, as long as they were not a seeded player, he was sure to defeat them almost immediately.

9.. 8.. 7.. 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..

No one came to the very end.

Sebastian smirked and pressed the button at the systemʼs scream, vanishing at once, returning to his Balcony.

“AND HE IS OUT! NOW, WHO WILL BE THE NEXT CONTENDERS?”

“Allow me…” A voice came not from one of the balconies, but from the auditorium where a blue-haired girl in a white dress jumped into the Arena.

“HERE COMES THE NEXT ONE… WINDY LARSDOTTER FROM THE ICE SOUL SECT!” the commentator said, making everyone look at the girl. The Ice Soul Sect? Many didn’t hear that name before. “THE ICE SOUL SECT USED TO BE A MAJOR SECT UP NORTH, BUT 300 YEARS AGO, DURING THE BATTLE AT THE CAPITAL, THEY SACRIFICED MANY OF THEIR ELITES WHO CAME TO PROTECT THE QUEEN, WHO WAS ONE OF THEIR DISCIPLES, LEADING TO THE SECT’S DECLINE ESPECIALLY AFTER THEY LOST THEIR TOKEN… COULD IT BE THAT THEY ARE GOING FOR A REVIVAL?” the commentator quickly explained using some very obscure information.

“It seems this commentator knows things from the outside…” In one of the balconies, an old grandma said. That info about the Ice Soul Sect was something their family collected with difficulty back then.

“Is it a system artifact or someone?” another grandma asked.

“No idea, but it doesn’t matter… The more the chaos, the better our plan would be!” the third said, making the three young men who stood to the sides sweat a bit.

***

“So? Anyone interested in fighting this lowly maiden?” Windy spoke politely, ignoring the Commentator. In fact, she didn’t want to fight; even her master, who saw the ferocity of the previous battles, told her that she didn’t have to, but a moment earlier, she heard a voice that she almost forgot. It was her secret demonic master, whom she signed a contract with about a year ago. He told her that he would arrange for her to win, so she didn’t need to worry! Although she felt skeptical, she had no way but to obey.

“I will be your opponent!” A young man jumped from the Von Geldstadt’s balcony. “I am Anvil Von Geldstadt… “ he said proudly.

“ANVIL VON GELDSTADT ACCEPTS THE CHALANGE… WILL HE WIN OR WILL HE LOSE…. FIGHT!”

Without further ado, the two began their battle straight away, Windy using a strange double dagger that had a frosty sheen and Anvil using a golden Mace.

PING

PING

PANG…

PING..

“ANVIL IS GOING FOR A HIT AND….. NO! WINDY PARRIED, LOOK AT THAT USE OF FORSTY ARTS, SLOWING HER OPPONENT DOWN… AND ANOTHER HIT… “ the commentary naturally continued as the battle began to drag on.

Then, Anvil made a mistake by missing one of Windyʼs attacks and…

WSssssssssssss…

A bloody line appeared across his neck as he looked at her in disbelief. How did he miss that slow attack? He was sure he parried it.

Windy also couldn’t believe her eyes. How the hell did that very normal attack land?

“AND A HIT! WILL ANVIL CONTINUE…”

“I surrender…..” Anvil said with difficulty as he grasped his neck, disappearing a moment later.

“WINDY WINS!” the commentator announced as the latter’s name appeared on the third pillar.

***

“Anvil, are you ok?” Gary hurried to check on his cousin as the family healer quickly began fixing the latter’s neck as soon as he entered the balcony.

“I am fine… That bitch… “ Anvil said as soon as the critical healing finished and the healer began stitching what was left of the wound. “She used some strange power; her sword was not where I perceived it to be!”

“Oh….” Gary nodded, looking down at the girl, Windy. This tournament really had a lot of black horses!

***

“This seemed fishy… That attack should have never landed!” Mona at the Vip balcony commented.

“It could be one of her powers!” Solara commented.

“No, the moment it happened, she was not using any skills…”

“You can tell?” Solara exclaimed.

“Of course… Telling one your opponent started using a skill is one of the most basic techniques!” Mona said. “Once you get your memories back, you will remember how; it is more of an art than an exact science. With high-ranking proficient players, it would be hard, but with a noob like Windy, it was clear from the start…”

“So… you mean she cheated?” Zoe asked; she also was not fully convinced. The way Anvil parried that last attack was a bit wrong. It was as if he saw it coming from the wrong direction.

“Impossible… No one can cheat here; the Rules set by her highness can’t be broken!” Malcolm said proudly. “It must have been a fluke!”

“Oh…” Zoe nodded.

Lily, on the other hand, was frowning. Did Victor do that? She was sure he was behind it, as Windy was one of his agents, and the chance of this happening with her without him being behind it was minimal. The problem was that technically no powers from outside of the Arena should be able to affect it once the battle started.

She quickly tried to connect to him, but he declined as he was very busy!

“NOW, WHO WILL FIGHT THIS ICY WINDY?” The commentator said, establishing Windy’s new title. ”HER ICE POWER IS SO AMAZING, MAKES HER ENEMIES SLOW DOWN, EVEN THEIR LITTLE BROTHER WOULD SHRINK IN HER PRESENCE…”

“Pervert…” Lily silently cursed at him and connected to Victor’s soul fragment. “How did you do it…” she asked directly as soon as her consciousness entered the necklace.

“Guess…” the soul fragment that sat in the middle in a meditative pose dodged her question.

“You… Could you have sneaked into their balcony and poisoned that guy beforehand? But that wouldn’t make any sense. First, you need von Geldstadt’s token to enter that place, and secondly, how would you have known that he would accept Windy’s challenge…. So that can’t be it…. Tell me!” she demanded.

“...” he sighed. “Fine… It is because that guy wanted to imitate Sebastian and jumped from the balcony; before his feet touched the ground, I stuck him with a delayed illusion. If he were to use the system menu to appear directly in the arena, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything!” he lied. Technically, what he said was very possible, but it was too sloppy for Victor to actually use.

“Oh…Then how could you be sure when it was activated during the battle?” she asked.

“I couldn’t; that’s why it was not perfect!” he explained. “If I could use my powers, no one would have suspected a thing!” He lied again. He made it a bit unnatural so that when he planned to do it perfectly, no one would see a thing!

“Right…”

“Then continue watching; today will hold many surprises…” he chuckled.

The truth was he simply didn’t have to do anything; his disguise ability was at work here. As for the reason the Rules couldn’t stop him, it was simple. It didn’t have the authority!

AS for Lily… He really didn’t want to lie to her, but after she got her memories back, he could no longer 1000% trust her, especially now that he knew how absurd the system’s contracts and fate power could be. The secret of his Absurd authority should never be revealed, and even if someone were to suspect a thing, it would show that he has 100,000 authority points at most, as Lily believed at the moment!

It was amazing, but smart people would quickly suspect that he might inherit some lord or something!

***

“AND WINDY WINS AGAIN AND ROXAN LOSES…. WHO IS NEXT?”

“I will do it…” A guy jumped from the audience.

The next battle was not amazing… The same was the one after it and the one after…

Windy still kept her position, and the next three wins didn’t appear ‘wrong’ like the first one; on the contrary, Windy really began to show her prowess, as she got used to fighting.

So after that, many of the powers who suspected foul play and sent their men to test her quickly dismissed their earlier suspicion of cheating.

20… 19…18…

“IS NO ONE GOING TO TAKE THAT BEAUTY DOWN?” the commentator asked again, urging the viewers, but no one was in a hurry now with 30 slots still available, so in the end…

3… 2…1

“AND IT IS….. OVER!” the commentator said as Windy pressed the button and vanished, returning to her seat to take some rest.

“ELDER SISTER… THAT WAS AMAZING!”

“JUNIOR… WE REALLY UNDERESTIMATED YOU…”

“WINDY… NOT BAD!”

Her fellow disciple and even her usually stoic master all nodded in approval.

“NOW WHO IS NEXT?” the commentator asked.

***

“Young master… How were you so sure no strong players would attack her…” Ruby, who sat beside Victor constantly applying her power to stabilize his soul lest he said something unnecessary, asked as soon as he finished with his last comment.

“All the contestants in this round are not the seeded players of their powers. People like Sebastian are a minority here, you know; there should be only about 10 others max who have enough power to make a one-strike victory, so as long as we avoid that, we have a lot of room to play around!” he smirked. “Now… Focus…” he said as a new contestant jumped down.

***

“ROY VON WEISE ENTERS THE ARENA!” The commentator announced as Roy’s feet reached the ground. “THE ILLEGITIMATE SON OF THEODORE VON WEISE WHO ONLY MANAGED TO BECOME A PLAYER LESS THAN ONE MONTH AGO… IS THIS REALLY A PLACE WHERE HE SHOULD BE?” he said, revealing a few things that made many people’s eyes shine. If this was a new player, wouldn’t that mean he was an easy target?

Almost immediately, a masked girl jumped down from the stands.

***

At the same time, in a huge hall full of monitors and little girls in maid dresses scurrying around…

“Come on people, quickly find anything you can about a girl called Tora Asti… Browny, Green, you two search for any gossip about the Asti family online…. ” Margret who sat in a huge operation room dug inside a mountain, gave orders left and right as she eyed the huge 6-screen computer setup in front of her, relaying any info Victor asked her about.

At the same time, she eyed another monitor to the side that was relaying the feed that was projected through 12 crystals that were placed in a strange array in another location.

If one were to look closely, they would realize that it was a full video of the tournament!

“Mistress, we got the info here….”

“Oh… A runaway… Victor would love this!” Margret chuckled before beginning to relay the info to him.

***

“THE CHALLENGER IS NONE OTHER THAN….. TORA ASTI… NOW THAT IS GOING TO BE A GOOD BATTLE BETWEEN NOOBS!” the commentator said, pausing for a moment before continuing, “TORA IS 17 YEARS OLD, AND COMES FROM THE ASTI FALLEN NOBLE FAMILY. SHE IS AN ILLEGITIMATE DAUGHTER WHO CAME HERE BEHIND HER FATHER’S BACK!” he added. “NOW WOULD SHE RETURN WITH A WIN, OR WOULD SHE BE BROUGHT BACK TO BE MARRIED OFF TO THAT FAT MAN FROM THE VON ZWEI FAMILY? THIS BATTLE WOULD DECIDE HER FUTURE!”

“Tora! IS THAT YOU!” her father, who sat at the other side of the stands, shouted at her, realizing that this was his disobedient daughter!

She ignored him as she glared at Roy. “Let’s fight…” she said as she pulled her delicate saber from its scabbard.

Raising one eyebrow, Roy nodded. He really liked girls like this one… Anyways. He also pulled his sword. This one his father gave him the day before the tournament, telling him to quickly get used to it. Sadly, this caused him to miss saying goodbye to his mother, who ‘according to his sisters’ had two shifts and didn’t come home that night… Anyways, this didn’t matter….

Pushing the random thoughts out of his mind, he readied his weapon!

PAM

BOOM!

A fierce battle began!

Not the heroic kind, but the noob kind with both the challenger’s swords clashing randomly at each other using basic forms. It should have been ultra boring. Thankfully, with the commentator’s notes on Tora’s past, many people in the audience felt a bit sympathetic to her; some even shouted toward Roy to let her win, while others wanted Roy to kick this disobedient girlʼs ass. No matter what their opinion was, they all wanted to see how this would end!

The battle took 15 minutes, but in the end it was clear. Tora could never defeat Roy, who not only had 3 times her stamina, but also had the overpowered Light Avatar class that was the exact nemesis of her Darkness Servant… So as their superpowers technically canceled each other, the battle turned into one of physical strength and skill…

BANG!

Noticing Tora’s fatigue, Roy took a chance, and with one sweep of his sword, he disarmed her; a moment later, his sword was aimed at her neck.

“Surrender…” Roy said, not willing to harm her.

“Just kill me…” she bit her lip with tears welling in her eyes under the mask. Now with her loss, her future was doomed. Her father would surely send men to wait outside for her!

“...” Roy sighed. “I will talk to your father… Your marriage will be called off, I promise!”

“Like he would listen to you…”

“Then I only have to propose to you… DO YOU MARRY ME?” Roy asked in a loud voice.

“WHAT…. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL IN THE IMPERIAL TOURNAMENT? ” HAS THIS WORLD GONE CRAZY?” the commentator said, alerting all of those who didn’t just hear what Roy said.

“Ah…. What… I… But you don’t even know what I look like…” she quickly blurred.

“That’s easy to fix?” Roy asked, using the sword to knock the mask off her pretty face. Not bad at all! About 87% on his scale. “Now…. What is your answer?” he asked.

“I… I…” she blushed, her cheeks about to burst out as they turned red in shyness, as she finally inspected Roy’s handsome face. Could this be real?

“Don’t worry, I am bluffing… now that I proposed, no one would dare to marry you and anger the Von Weise family!” he whispered to her with a smirk. “Just say yes…”

“BASTERD…” she spat angrily. It was her fault for believing a stinky man for a second. “I surrender…. Hmph…”

A moment later she vanished, returning to the stadium where she looked around before quickly sitting down, burying her face in her hands in embarrassment.

“You didn’t give me an answer!” Roy shouted toward her in the stands.

She chose to ignore him.

“ROY WINS… WHAT A WIN… WHAT A PLAY! THAT’S A REAL MAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… THAT’S A REAL MAN… NOW, IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO WANTS TO KICK THIS REAL MAN’S ASS?”

58… 57… 56… 55…

Thankfully, due to Roy’s gentlemanly act, no one wanted to play the villain and challenge him for now, so in the end…

3… 2… 1….

“AND ROY KEEPS HIS POSITION FOR NOW!” the commentator announced as Roy returned to the von Weise balcony.

***

“Not bad!” Theodore said as he patted Roy’s shoulder as soon as he returned. “As expected of my son! Winning a key for the girl at the same time!”

“Ah... Dad…” Roy quickly waved him off in embarrassment as the rest of the von Weise family eyed him, some with envy while others with appreciation, like his grandma Ann, who sat on the other side of the balcony.

“Don’t worry, I will send George to bag her for you as soon as we leave here…” Theodore, enjoying his virgin sonʼs reaction, said.

“I just wanted to protect her… I have no feelings for her; we basically know each other…” Roy tried to explain. That girl reminded him of his sisters, and she looked kinda a bit young…

“It doesn’t matter, one better place to get to know a girl than in bed!” Theodore lent Roy a deaf ear as he turned to his other sons. “You too prepare; if, like Roy here, you manage to secure a key, you will be made into elite heirs!” he said. “Max, you next…”

Max, who hid the envy in his eyes looking at Roy, quickly said, looking toward the Arena. He thought for a moment if he should jump, but decided to wait and see who would appear first; with the commentator helping around, no need to take risks!

“Max, go!” Ann, who seemed to have read his mind, commanded. “Von Weise heirs are never cowards!”

“Shit…” cursing silently as he realized that the family’s suspicion of him was not clear yet, he had no choice but to really jump in… He didn’t really physically jump, but used the system function to appear in the Arena directly.

***

“LOOK! IT IS MAX VON WEISE, ROY’S ELDER BROTHER… DID HE SEE HIS BROTHER’S VICTORY AND GET JEALOUS? NOW, WHO IS THE PRETTY GIRL WHO IS GOING TO FIGHT THIS ONE AND WIN HIS HEART?” the commentator quickly said.

“I will!” After a brief moment, a young man with blond hair jumped out of one of the balconies, the same one Jasmin jumped out of some time earlier.

“LOOK, IT IS ALEX DONNER! THE HEIR OF THE THUNDER SECT AND THE NEW SON-IN-LAW OF THE SWORD SECT!” the commentator said.

Many of the audience cheered, but many didn’t… On the contrary, a frown appeared on their faces!

***

“Didn’t I kill this bastard?” Caspian, who sat at the Heavenly Sect’s balcony, asked with a frown, remembering the wedding where that bastard Victor screamed, ‘NO! MY BROTHEL BUDDY!’ after Alex was killed. “After the tournament, investigate him!” he told a young man behind him.

“Yes, young master!” his follower nodded.

***

“...IT IS THAT DAMN BASTARD!” Sebastian screamed as he eyed Alex, who held a long spear in her hand. It was the piece of shit who locked him up with the spider, then at Waterfall Town! Now he finally got a name!

“Do you know him?” Orion, his master, asked casually.

“Ah… He tricked me before… Do you know anything about him?”

“Of course, he is pretty famous… The player council had been looking for him after the Thunder Sect’s incident. “I doubt they would be able to touch him now, though with the Sword Sect as his backing…”

“Oh… Sebastian nodded as he looked down. Damn it… If he didn’t have his position secured already, he would have gone down to kick that bastard’s ass. But at the moment he could only watch. They would definitely meet in the second round; then he would settle his debts!

***

“It’s him…” a young man at the Player’s Council’s balcony said, opening a strange magical book to a page where Alex’s photo was displayed with a lot of info about him.

“...Shall we send someone…”

“Yes, but don’t defeat him… MARK HIM!” the young man sitting at the center of the hall said, looking down.

“Yes, your eminence!”

“Familier faces keep coming up… Could it really be that deranged maniac? Did he make it across too?” the young man said, talking to himself as a murderous gaze reflected in his eyes.

***

“Isn’t that…” Theodore raised one eyebrow, looking at Alex.

“You know him??” Ann asked as a butler to her side quickly whispered a few things about Alex’s background.

“He is Victor’s…. Friend…” Theodore swallowed the ‘Brothel buddy’ words. “The one who died at the Wedding! We discovered his identity right after...”

“Oh…” Ann nodded; she read the report. “Ask Victor if he knows anything about this guy still being alive when we return!” she said, making both Rita and Mike swallow.

“Yes, mother!” Theodore sighed and nodded.

***

“Impossible…. This young man looks just like…” a twin-tailed young girl in a very revealing, red shrine maiden garb leaned onto the stone ledge of a high balcony, looking down in shock.

“Like what?” her friend, a taller girl with bob-cut hair, asked.

“Like her Lordship!” the twin-tailed girl said

“That’s blasphemy, you know…” the tall girl said. They were the only two on this balcony.

“I am just saying…” the twin-tailed said. “Could he be…”

“Yes… That bitch really did it! What a great sin! What a great transgression!”