NOVEL NEXT Chapter 201: It’s time to t-t-team tournament!
The team tournament started a few days after the Imperial Council Gathering.
On the last few days leading up to the tournament, Alexius was the absolute most busy he had ever been in his life. Who knew that so many things could go slightly wrong at the last minute! He was like a spinning top, running around and making sure everything fit his vision for the team duelling tournament.
The tournament was scheduled to span several days. Duels would be held at both the Imperial Palace’s grand duelling stadium and at the Imperial Magical University’s main duelling field. There would be two duels going on at the same time on each duelling field. Duels could take anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour, so there was no fixed schedule time for each duel.
It was going to be chaotic, but it was a result of having to pack all the duels in just a few days.
The opening ceremony, and opening duel, was at the Imperial Palace’s duelling stadium. The stadium was packed with spectators, excitedly discussing what they expected to see in this tournament.
When King Edric came forward to speak, everyone quietened in anticipation.
“Good morning, all,” King Edric said, his voice reaching every corner of the stadium.
“We greet His Imperial Majesty!” the crowd chorused.
King Edric inclined his head. “I welcome all of you today to Sedaveria’s inaugural team-duelling tournament.” His gaze swept across the audience. “Sedaveria has a long, distinguished history of duelling, and many capable mages. Over the next few days, enterprising teams of mages will duel against each other, showcasing their skills and abilities. I will hand it over to Prince Alexius, one of the organisers of this conference, to explain the rules.”
Prince Alexius stepped up, his eyes bright and his heart thudding with nervousness. He was dressed in his duelling attire, looking neat and smart.
“Hello, everyone,” Alexius said.
“We greet His Highness Prince Alexius,” the crowd greeted.
Alexius felt a boost in confidence. “All teams have been divided into five groups, based on five power rankings…”
He explained the structure of the tournament, and ended with, “Good luck to all teams, we look forward to what you will show us all.”
The audience clapped.
Then, Prime Minister Duke Mauveine stepped forward.
Alexius quickly walked down to meet up with his team. Seeing Tierri, Adrienne and Günter in the same matching duelling uniforms, Alexius felt a swell of pride and belonging.
Duke Mauveine talked about the logistics of the two duelling field locations and where tournament match details could be found.
Then, King Edric stepped forward once more. “Now, without further ado, let the tournament begin!”
The stadium burst into applause.
“And now, let us have the first opening duel,” King Edric said.
Alexius took a deep breath.
“On one side, we have Prince Alexius, Lord Günter Blewitt, Lord Tierri Mauveine, and Lady Adrienne Obsidian.”
Alexius and his friends stepped forward together and bowed to the audience. Their team had two ice mages, one psychic mage, and one shadow mage.
“And on the other side, we have Lady Nicola Storm, Lady Sophia Cyan, Lord Edrich Grey, and Lord Killian Crimson.”
Nicola Storm and her team stepped forward and also greeted the audience. Her team had two lightning mages, one metal mage, and one fire mage.
“Do both teams agree to magically duel?”
“We agree,” they said.
“Mage personnel, cast and check the personal shields,” King Edric instructed.
Alexius straightened, as his Imperial Mother came over to cast his personal shield.
“Good luck,” his Imperial Mother said.
Alexius gave one firm nod.
“Teams, take your positions.”
Alexius’s team and Nicola’s team stepped onto two different floating platforms. The platforms took them to opposite sides of the field.
For consistency, all the fields in the tournament were plain fields. This also made it easier to conduct cleanup after each duel and speed up preparation for the subsequent duels.
However, after all the complex terrain fields, they now had more appreciation to the open field. The open field had its own difficulties. It was more difficult to hide, more difficult to dodge. If duellists wanted to access the higher airspace, they needed to use their own magic rather than employ the field’s construction. Of course, duellists could also terra-form the field during their duel if they wished.
Alexius’s team stood in a row and faced the opposite side.
King Edric’s eyes swept between the two sides. “Let the duel begin!”
Tierri immediately established a telepathic team connection, while Alexius and Günter worked together to send a powerful ice attack.
FWOOSH!
Ice collided with fire and burst into steam.
Ball lightning crackled into and through the steam, racing towards Alexius’s team. Adrienne immediately constructed a vacuum shield and blocked the lightning. Tierri followed up with an earthen shield to block the metal arrows following behind.
Alexius didn’t like this feeling of being on the defensive. Günter, Tierri, cover! he commanded. Adri, target Grey.
Yes! his team acknowledged.
Adrienne took to the air, speeding towards the opposing team. Below her, her shadow grew and grew, larger and darker. Attacks flew towards her, but Tierri blocked them with levitating chunks of the duelling field. He swept the chunks across the air, collecting sharp metal along the way.
Darkness and purple lightning crackled in Adrienne’s hand, forming a sharp, long spear.
Alexius rush forward. He formed a sharp wall of ice that cut the duelling field, racing ahead of him. Opposing fire slammed into the ice, but Alexius didn’t let that stop him.
Lightning tried to cut across Adrienne. Adrienne blocked it again with a vacuum shield, while Tierri and Günter transferred all their efforts into bombarding Nicola, Sophia and Killian,
Alexius and Adrienne were both much closer now. With a bam!, Alexius’s ice hammer slammed between Edrich Grey and the rest of the team, forcing them to separate.
Adrienne’s shadow tendrils on the ground latched onto Edrich’s feet, as she simultaneously threw her spear.
Edrich scowled, a metal shield forming in front of him. His team members immediately tried to help him, but splitting their attention between protecting themselves from Tierri and Günter’s almost reckless heavy bombardment meant Alexius was easily able to block them.
Adrienne immediately followed with arcing wind attacks that curved around the metal shield and hit Edrich straight in the back. Edrich’s shadow grew, and the tips turned purple with poison magic. Those, too, struck Edrich’s personal shield.
Sophia gritted her teeth and countered with healing magic, but Alexius blocked it completely.
With Alexius protecting her, Adrienne focused entirely on crushing Edrich’s shield.
“Lady Adrienne Obsidian has taken out Lord Edrich Grey!”
Edrich’s eyes widened. “No!”
Adrienne immediately pulled back, as the magic of the referees lifted Edrich out of the field.
Günter and me, Crimson next! Alexius commanded.
Adrienne turned into defensive mode to cover Alexius, while Alexius and Günter targeted the opposing team’s fire mage.
The field was full of explosions as attacks collided with attacks. Lightning crashed down from the sky a few times, but Alexius’s team was able to block them.
Adrenalin rushed through Alexius’s veins as he constantly assessed the field, gave commands, and cast spells.
Switch attack targets for a moment!
Return!
Günter, there’s a gap! Left!
He and Günter took down Killian Crimson in a hail of ice, and then Tierri and Adrienne ganged up on Sophie Cyan.
“Lord Günter Blewitt has taken out Lord Killian Crimson!”
“Lord Tierri Mauveine has taken out Lady Sophie Cyan!”
Nicola Storm cursed and raised her hands to form cloud-to-ground lightning.
However, Nicola Storm was no King Augustus, and after Prince Rian’s and Ayden’s duel with King Augustus, many mages learned anti-lightning techniques, reducing the edge that lightning mages historically had when it came to duelling. Not to mention, Alexius’s team had had practice with Ayden casting cloud-to-ground lightning on them.
Tierri and Günter formed a shield to protect themselves, while Adrienne and Alexius attacked Nicola the moment she was absorbed in casting her lightning.
CRACK-BOOM!
—Slash!—
“Prince Alexius Azure has taken out Lady Nicola Storm!”
“The duel has now ended, with victory to Prince Alexius Azure and his team!” King Edric announced.
The stadium burst into applause.
Alexius froze in a moment of disbelief. Then, joy burst in Alexius’s chest, transmitting down his telepathic link with his friends. Hug!
Tierri and Günter and Adrienne complied, grinning and smiling as Alexius hugged them and jumped up and down in happiness.
“We did it!”
Then, Alexius straightened, calmed down, and led his team to where Nicola’s team was, and shook hands with each other.
“That was a good match, Nicola,” Alexius said.
“Thank you,” Nicola said stiffly.
“We now have half an hour until the next duel,” Duke Mauveine announced. The break was to allow people to travel to the University duelling field if they either had a duel there or wanted to watch a duel there.
The stadium burst into noisiness and movement.
Queen Mira and a group of healers came over to check Alexius’s team before letting them go.
Alexius turned to his friends. “I’m going to watch Ayden’s match! What about you?” Given that they just had a match, they wouldn’t be scheduled on again for a while yet, until the first round of matches in their power-bracket were finished.
“Of course,” Günter said with a snort. “Come on, we need to get a good seat.”
Tierri and Adrienne nodded.
Ayden’s team duel was going to be located at the University’s duelling field.
“Let’s go over with them,” Alexius said, spying Ayden (and Rian) a distance away.
Across the crowd, Ayden met his gaze and quirked his lips. He stopped and waited.
Alexius went over happily. “Ayden, do you feel ready for your match?”
“I should first say, congratulations on your first victory,” Ayden said, looking at Alexius and his friends.
Alexius beamed. “Hm, thanks to you!”
“What about me?” Rian asked.
Alexius was the better man and said, “And you too, dear brother. Now, let’s go.”
Ren Xiyang and Rian were in the top power-bracket, and aside from them, the other teams consisted entirely of (young) adults. The duels in this group were louder, brighter, more explosive, and fast. Almost everyone in this bracket had mastered some form of magical flying, and the field was always chaotic. If teams wore similar colours, it was sometimes hard for spectators to even determine who was who.
Ren Xiyang and Rian’s team completely defeated the others. Be it teams who focused on the weaker members first—Baltasar and Prince Pollux—and thus didn’t leave sufficient power to block Ren Xiyang and Rian, or teams who focused on Ren Xiyang and Rian and neglected Baltasar and Prince Pollux’s sneak attacks, the end result was the same for all teams that went against them: defeat.
Alexius watched Ayden’s team’s duels whenever possible—not only was Ayden awesome, but watching these duels allowed him to study how Ayden (and Rian and the others) duelled, which gave him tips, tricks and ideas on how to duel himself. It also started him thinking about how he would defeat Ayden if they were to duel each other again.
However, he did have to miss out on a few. His team was considered in the second-top power bracket, and their duelling field did not coincide with the top power bracket.
All the training and practice he and his friends had done over the year all contributed to every single duel they had. They communicated faster, they were more in-tune with each other, they could use more magic spells and magic elements, and they could defend against more powerful attacks.
“The duel has now ended, with victory to Prince Alexius Azure and his team!”
“The duel has now ended, with victory to Prince Alexius Azure and his team!!”
The days were packed with duelling, and the evenings they ate a lot of food and slept like a log. The punishing schedule meant that teams had to be strong, skilled, and have good endurance to continue on.
After several exciting and exhausting days, the winning teams of the five power brackets emerged.
“Prince Alexius Azure, Lord Günter Blewitt, Lord Tierri Mauveine, and Lady Adrienne Obsidian take victory in the second power-bracket!”
Applause and cheers filled the stadium.
“We did it!!” Alexius hugged his friends after that final duel, while jumping up and down—he was too excited to stay still.
“Of course we won,” Günter said.
“We did,” Tierri said, trying to act serious, but grinning.
Adrienne also smiled and nodded.
Alexius’s team had done it! They had won within their power-bracket! Alexius was overjoyed!
However, they couldn’t rest yet—there was the final phase of the tournament remaining: determining the overall winner.
Thank you to antheastrezze for the tapas ink support~!
Thank you to lovely7deer for the name “Edrich”, and KeKe for the name “Killian”!
The idea of power-brackets came from the tournament I wrote in Dao of The Salted Fish 😆
A friend, Owl (you may know of this author, of The Grandmaster’s weird disciple [BL] fame), has self-published her first horror/mystery BL: The Book of Vermin.
And you can read the first few chapters for free here: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/999834/the-book-of-vermin/
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