“That’s pretty close to your choices there, Dra,” the obnoxious announcer screamed into his microphone. His ceaseless attempts to turn this already entertainment infested, highly unnecessary tradition into a hyped show were inexcusable to Lydia. The crowd was petering out in their applause, stomping on the floor in a rhythmic fashion. Attempts, as the princess realized, was the wrong word here.

“They made the small but fairly important choice to only include one physical fighter, probably with the intent of focusing Thana over Nia,” the sober lizardman said, sipping on his cup. “Not entirely unreasonable, but it means that Mario will have to take care of Nia on his own; the Secundus team is unlikely to just leave her tied up.”

“You sure Thana won’t just waltz over them?” Jeff pointed out.

Dra shrugged. “I guess it all depends on the wildcard here.”

Lydia stepped on the blue platform that materialized at the edge of the viewing area. Every motion was determined. Ladies of the court were expected to move either gracefully or with confidence. Lydia went for the latter, the militaristic stride always finding more agreement with her.

Thana simply jumped past her and straight into the arena, flying dangerously close by to the announcer’s desk. Without following her path in detail, Lydia knew that the blood mage was flipping off Jeff on the path. ‘I will need to reprimand that lack of proper respect later,’ Lydia thought. She didn’t like Jeff, but manners had to be kept in public. At least Nia didn’t do anything weird, following Lydia onto the platform with light motions. Naked feet, hidden by the long skirt, practically hovered over the ground.

“Break a leg, preferably Alexej’s,” John said and gave her a luck wishing smile. Lydia’s heart-fluttered a bit, a feeling she quickly repressed. Now wasn’t the time to be sentimental or lost in romanticism, her country was at stake. No, that was overly dramatic, she didn’t believe that Maximillian would destroy her beloved fatherland. Her vision of her country was at stake.

“Yeah, punch them in the face… wait, no, ya don’t punch… throw some metal in their face!” Rave added to John’s statement.

‘To her boyfriend’s statement’ Lydia corrected herself mentally. The slight sting of jealousy that followed that was harder to quell. Sacrificing one’s life to ruling came with consequences she never thought would prove this difficult to overcome.

‘It seems I am just a young woman after all,’ the princess thought as she gave a diligent nod towards the two of them. The platform started its descent into the sand-floored arena below. ‘But what I am is secondary to what I must be,’ Lydia told herself as she pushed all thoughts of a fool’s love aside. Her own happiness wasn’t her goal, it was being the first servant of state that would immortalize her, just like her grandfather.

She gave a diligent nod, and the platform descended. The discrepancy in her spirit, a conflict of heart and soul, love and duty, would have to wait. Her reasonable side would win at the end, that much she was sure off, but the battle was still going to be fought.

The platform reached the ground and disintegrated underneath them. Together, Nia and Lydia passed Thana, who was busy poking the floor. “What are you doing?” Lydia inquired.

“Just playing whack-an-asshole with the visual representation of my brain damage,” Thana answered quietly, which was quickly followed up by a wild, way too loud laughter as she rammed her fist into the floor; “Don’t worry about it.”

Lydia was very much worrying about it. “I repeat my offer to send you into an actual mental hospital once this is over,” she said. The fact that John didn’t push this on the bundle of insanity was a mystery to her.

“Fuck that,” Thana growled, the dots in her eyes accelerating. “Let’s just do some therapeutic cunt-spanking.”

The princess sighed and let the matter pass. The trio went to the middle of the arena, where the enemy team arrived just a moment earlier. “Ah, Lydia, how nice of you to fight personally,” Maximillian said as the countdown began. She didn’t honour that with a response, instead she prepared for battle. The biome wheel had spun and landed on the standardized arena. The simple brown flat would be their battlefield.

Bits of metal buttons, clips and thin plates unravelled from her clothes and formed a debris field around her. The rest of her team also got ready, the light denying nothingness ripping into existence and seeping into Nia’s clothes. A reality defying material spawned from the vastness of the other side and landed right inside the blanks’ hand.

In the background, the countdown continued. Maximillian and Alexej, a sure grin on both of their faces, took quick steps backwards. Mario drew his sword and took the van, Lydia didn’t even need for it to enter her zone of control to realize that it wasn’t metal. The sword master wasn’t wearing any armour either; apparently, he was going for a glass cannon approach this time.

The end of the countdown was creeping closer as Thana crouched down. One hand resting on the sandy ground, the left one raised in the air, feet pressing into the floor. She was ready to launch herself straight at the enemy king and end it all in one attack.

“Bloodburn.”

With the sound of screeching, metallic violins, Thana’s wings flared up behind her back. Dark red veins of crystallized blood engulfed by crimson fire, semi liquid membranes stretching between, all shifting in a vile pattern of fascinating beauty. Separated into four segment wings, two big ones pointing at the sky and two smaller below pointing at the earth and perfectly mirrored along her spine, their mere existence almost made Lydia choke on a wave of terror.

The grotesque copy of a butterfly’s wings was soaring with unholy power, and as they flared the countdown reached 0. A shrill succession of notes, long, long, short, and Thana jumped forward, the ground shattering where her feet had pressed off.

Lydia was barely able to even follow her, if she hadn’t known for what the blood mage was headed, she would have lost her. Cutting through the air at stupendous speeds, she was aiming at Maximillian’s head with her red-clawed left. The raised hand slashed downwards, perfectly timed to hit the king if Thana’s momentum kept carrying her forward.

Then she was suddenly ripped downwards. Her outstretched claws barely reached Maximillian’s face and carved three bloody marks from his forehead to his chin. The earth trembled as Thana was forced to the ground by an increase of gravitation that should have been impossible.

Even with Maximillian concentrating all of his power in a single spot, there should have been no way for him to completely immobilize Thana, especially while she was using Bloodburn. “That really hurts,” Maximillian complained, blood running from the fresh wound into his right eye, while looking down on Thana.

The blood mage was growling with a mixture of disbelief and mindless anger. Trying to get up by stemming both hands into the floor and working against the magic with raw physical strength. She managed to get off the floor just the slightest bit before Maximillian stepped on her back and pressed her back down.

It was more symbolic than anything, the gravity king’s physical strength would add very little to the drastically increased gravity Thana was experiencing right now. The question of how this was possible still loomed, however. Lydia’s eyes darted over to Alexej.

On the surface, the monk-robe wearing Slav was doing nothing, simply standing there with a relaxed expression. However, on closer inspection, it was apparent how forced that look was. His fists were clenched so tight that his knuckles were plain white, and the look in his eyes was strained. Aura tracing was not Lydia’s expertise, but even she could see what was going on once she engaged that mode of viewing the world.

Alexej’s aura was almost completely gone, connecting through a thin rope to Maximillian’s. Aura sizes were a terrible thing to judge people’s power by at this stage; most people had at least a marginal control over their mana, so they could adjust size and apparent density to a degree. If they couldn’t, some people’s auras would engulf whole buildings.

However, Lydia knew that Maximillian’s wasn’t supposed to be thrice as tall as he was and bristling with foreign power. ‘So that’s your secret weapon, Max,’ Lydia thought. The ability to sacrifice one’s own power to amplify another’s. Alexej didn’t stand any chance to win a single solo fight, but if he could buff Maximillian to a state where he could even immobilize Thana…

“Nia, we must take out Alexej or at least separate that connection between their auras,” Lydia told the blonde, who just nodded in response. Two pairs of blue eyes, one focused towards her singular goal that would lead them to triumph, the other calculating with the coldness of steel, landed on their obstacle.

Mario de Medici held his glass sword in one hand and stared back with determination as he was waiting for them to make their first move. This battle had turned from a 3vs3 into a 2vs1. On paper, that was good for them, but Lydia wasn’t quite sure if this meant that they would win. Thana mopped the floor with the sword master, but that said nothing about his actual strength aside from that he was weaker than her.

There hardly could have been a broader range.

However, they also had information from John’s Observe ability. That spelled a bleak picture, as the sword master had a reported level of 194, which was more than even the combined level of Nia (54) and Lydia (74). Alexej could have tinkered with that for intimidation purposes, but Thana also had confirmed that he was closing in on her speed, so that was unlikely.

‘If only John was down here instead of me,’ Lydia thought, grinding her teeth as she gripped the heft of her rapier. The Gamer’s many elementals and general power level would be way more suitable for this situation. Instead, they were now in a terrible situation that boiled down to one objective for each team.

If they managed to free Thana, Lydia won; if Nia was knocked out, Maximillian won. The blood mage was still fighting against the oppressive force that was her gravitational binding, slowly pressing a body shaped depression into the floor. The backline duo kept their attention on her.

“Head straight for Alexej,” Lydia commanded and then grabbed a vial of mithril. They couldn’t risk Nia getting caught in a melee engagement that she was sure to lose. The only possible answer here was for Lydia to distract Mario for long enough for the blank to do her thing.

Three glass knives flew towards Lydia as she pulled the lid from the vial. Thin blades that could be hidden just about anywhere. She managed to block two of them with her sphere of metal, the third one scraping through a little hole in the forming shield and cutting the side of her neck. It was painful, and it bled, but it wasn’t a concerning wound. Not in the short term, anyhow.

Lydia gulped down the vial’s contained liquid alloy of mithril and mercury at the same moment as Nia and Mario started running. The latter was heading directly for the blank, who in turn was following Lydia’s orders. With their difference in sheer speed, Mario would intercept her before Nia could even reach the halfway point.

The princess started running as well, abandoning all defences as a storm of scrap charged in front of her. The hope was to engulf Mario, but the man was simply running even faster than her metal could fly.

The sword master brought his blade down on Nia, the blank side-stepping at the last possible moment. Thus, being forced to abandon her charge for the moment, having Mario in her back was the same as just accepting to get cut along the back, Nia tried a counterattack with her dagger.

The peculiar nature of Nia’s weaponry worked to their advantage, forcing Mario to distance himself. If he had attempted to parry, the non-existing weapon would have simply sunk through the blade and damaged him in a way that Lydia didn’t clearly understand.

A mere moment passed, in which Mario took a firm stance again. That was all that Lydia needed, and the cloud of metal engulfed the sword master. The first chaotic swarm passed him, for which he only needed to cut through a minor amount of potentially harmful projectiles. Then Lydia came closer, and with her physical presence came her zone of control.

Being this close to a melee expert was a gamble, but if she hoped to occupy him for an extended amount of time, just having him assaulted by a few pieces of metal wouldn’t do. She needed to bring as much of her power as she could, and thus it required that the knight of Rome was as close to her as she could justify without getting in easy reach of his blade.

The chaotic cloud reformed into an orderly assault from all sides, trapping Mario in an ever-shifting cage. Bits of metal flew around him as the knight parried and dodged what he could. The ceaseless assault proved too much for even him to fully handle, but he managed to keep the wounds he suffered to little scraps in non-important areas.

“Go!” Lydia shouted. Her power boost wouldn’t last for long with how much power she was expending right now. The attempt to catch Mario in wires was also unsuccessful, the whirling of his blade cut through them. Accident or cautious measure, Lydia didn’t know.

Nia didn’t need that signal twice and turned to run. All of Lydia’s attention lay with Mario. Metal pieces were flying from all directions, reflected by the glass blade that endlessly weaved through the air in a skilled dance. Lydia kept a close eye, tried to keep up with the knight’s every movement. The blade moved so fast it was little more than a blur.

A flash of light, then pain. Lydia kept herself from reflexively looking down to her shoulder. She knew that there was a knife stuck there without visual confirmation. A second one quickly followed, thankfully hitting one of her ribs and thus causing very little damage.

More would follow, but Lydia couldn’t afford to bring more of her projectiles into a defensive position, nor could she spare any concentration on dodging. If she let up in her attack or presented any gap in the spinning cloud of metal that surrounded Mario, he would break out and set after Nia.

Her conundrum about this turned out to be useless anyhow. Four sharpened pieces of metal clashed where Mario’s head had just been, and he made a break for her. ‘Shit!’ Lydia thought and quickly drew her rapier.

Ferforitum wasn’t hard or particularly suited for this level of combat, but it would at least serve as some defence. The rapier became a giant thin shield, more of a visual defence than capable of blocking, and Lydia jumped to the side just before Mario broke through.

“Nothing personal,” he said in an earnest tone as he twisted around. There was the glint of glass.

Lydia suddenly found herself inside a bed. The first thing she saw was the television, where a camera was currently filming Nia and how she was about to reach Alexej and Maximillian. Then a glass sword hit her in the lower back and toppled her over.

“Oh wow, he must be out of throwing knives,” Jeff commented with the heartless joy of an entertainer. Lydia’s nails dug into her palm as a nurse came over and explained that she would remove the knife now. It wasn’t from the pain. Nia tried to stand up again, the tip of the blade sticking from her stomach. Her blood, red and swirling white, dripped from the blade and into the sands.

Her weapons vanished, replaced by a sphere of anti-magic as she tried to crawl the rest of the way to fulfil her objective. If she could get in range to interrupt them just for a moment with a shockwave, surely Thana would be able to take them all out in that moment.

Mario wasn’t about to let that happen, hurrying over and pulling out his blade. The anti-magical shockwave fired, killing all magic around Nia but stopping a half-metre from Maximillian. The knight then sent Nia into the bed next to Lydia’s.

“What a stunning display of martial prowess!” Jeff continued; “He beat two enemies on his own.”

“Despite his earlier failure against Thana, he is still a knight of Rome,” Dra stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

“That he is!” Jeff said. “Which makes the power of that little girl Thana that much more impressive.”

“…You acknowledge that and yet refuse to stop provoking her.”

Their commentary was an affront to Lydia’s ambition. They treated all of this as their little game, as something that just happened for their entertainment. The masses, the viewers, the commentators, all the people that organized this whole thing, they all made this political struggle into nothing more than a show fight. A battle for the soul of the nation, reduced to a parade.

Lydia closed her eyes, but she couldn’t drown out the cheers coming from the television. Were those the people she was fighting to govern? Did they even deserve a good future if they were willing to applaud this embarrassment?

‘Calm down,’ she told herself and was reminded of what Thana and Rave had told her. The average person didn’t care about politics and had no stakes in this tournament. Why would they? They weren’t able to decide the outcome whether it was who won the vote of an elite council or a contest of power.

“It seems they are unable to take out contestant Thana,” Dra noted, causing Lydia to look again. Indeed, the enemy trio was surrounding the blood mage. Alexej was kneeling next to her head, probably poking fun at her or something.

“Well, that is a bit of a situation then,” Jeff combed his hair as he watched Mario stab Thana in the heart, which still didn’t send her over to this hidden Apothecary camp; “It seems the contestant can’t move, but neither can they muster enough aggressive power to take her out. Are we seeing the start of an eternal encampment or something?”

“No,” Dra said and looked at his cards, “if a stalemate persists for more than 10 minutes then the team with less members loses. So, we wait.”

10 minutes passed, and the expected announcement was made.

That's pretty close to your choices there, Dra, the obnoxious announcer screamed into his microphone. His ceaseless attempts to turn this already entertainment infested, highly unnecessary tradition into a hyped show were inexcusable to Lydia. The crowd was petering out in their applause, stomping on the floor in a rhythmic fashion. Attempts, as the princess realized, was the wrong word here. They made the small but fairly important choice to only include one physical fighter, probably with the intent of focusing Thana over Nia, the sober lizardman said, sipping on his cup. Not entirely unreasonable, but it means that Mario will have to take care of Nia on his own; the Secundus team is unlikely to just leave her tied up. You sure Thana won't just waltz over them? Jeff pointed out. Dra shrugged. I guess it all depends on the wildcard here. Lydia stepped on the blue platform that materialized at the edge of the viewing area. Every motion was determined. Ladies of the court were expected to move either gracefully or with confidence. Lydia went for the latter, the militaristic stride always finding more agreement with her. Thana simply jumped past her and straight into the arena, flying dangerously close by to the announcer's desk. Without following her path in detail, Lydia knew that the blood mage was flipping off Jeff on the path. I will need to reprimand that lack of proper respect later,' Lydia thought. She didn't like Jeff, but manners had to be kept in public. At least Nia didn't do anything weird, following Lydia onto the platform with light motions. Naked feet, hidden by the long skirt, practically hovered over the ground. Break a leg, preferably Alexej's, John said and gave her a luck wishing smile. Lydia's heart-fluttered a bit, a feeling she quickly repressed. Now wasn't the time to be sentimental or lost in romanticism, her country was at stake. No, that was overly dramatic, she didn't believe that Maximillian would destroy her beloved fatherland. Her vision of her country was at stake. Yeah, punch them in the face wait, no, ya don't punch throw some metal in their face! Rave added to John's statement. To her boyfriend's statement' Lydia corrected herself mentally. The slight sting of jealousy that followed that was harder to quell. Sacrificing one's life to ruling came with consequences she never thought would prove this difficult to overcome. It seems I am just a young woman after all,' the princess thought as she gave a diligent nod towards the two of them. The platform started its descent into the sand-floored arena below. But what I am is secondary to what I must be,' Lydia told herself as she pushed all thoughts of a fool's love aside. Her own happiness wasn't her goal, it was being the first servant of state that would immortalize her, just like her grandfather. She gave a diligent nod, and the platform descended. The discrepancy in her spirit, a conflict of heart and soul, love and duty, would have to wait. Her reasonable side would win at the end, that much she was sure off, but the battle was still going to be fought. The platform reached the ground and disintegrated underneath them. Together, Nia and Lydia passed Thana, who was busy poking the floor. What are you doing? Lydia inquired. Just playing whack-an-asshole with the visual representation of my brain damage, Thana answered quietly, which was quickly followed up by a wild, way too loud laughter as she rammed her fist into the floor; Don't worry about it. Lydia was very much worrying about it. I repeat my offer to send you into an actual mental hospital once this is over, she said. The fact that John didn't push this on the bundle of insanity was a mystery to her. Fuck that, Thana growled, the dots in her eyes accelerating. Let's just do some therapeutic cunt-spanking. The princess sighed and let the matter pass. The trio went to the middle of the arena, where the enemy team arrived just a moment earlier. Ah, Lydia, how nice of you to fight personally, Maximillian said as the countdown began. She didn't honour that with a response, instead she prepared for battle. The biome wheel had spun and landed on the standardized arena. The simple brown flat would be their battlefield. Bits of metal buttons, clips and thin plates unravelled from her clothes and formed a debris field around her. The rest of her team also got ready, the light denying nothingness ripping into existence and seeping into Nia's clothes. A reality defying material spawned from the vastness of the other side and landed right inside the blanks' hand. In the background, the countdown continued. Maximillian and Alexej, a sure grin on both of their faces, took quick steps backwards. Mario drew his sword and took the van, Lydia didn't even need for it to enter her zone of control to realize that it wasn't metal. The sword master wasn't wearing any armour either; apparently, he was going for a glass cannon approach this time. The end of the countdown was creeping closer as Thana crouched down. One hand resting on the sandy ground, the left one raised in the air, feet pressing into the floor. She was ready to launch herself straight at the enemy king and end it all in one attack. Bloodburn. With the sound of screeching, metallic violins, Thana's wings flared up behind her back. Dark red veins of crystallized blood engulfed by crimson fire, semi liquid membranes stretching between, all shifting in a vile pattern of fascinating beauty. Separated into four segment wings, two big ones pointing at the sky and two smaller below pointing at the earth and perfectly mirrored along her spine, their mere existence almost made Lydia choke on a wave of terror. The grotesque copy of a butterfly's wings was soaring with unholy power, and as they flared the countdown reached 0. A shrill succession of notes, long, long, short, and Thana jumped forward, the ground shattering where her feet had pressed off. Lydia was barely able to even follow her, if she hadn't known for what the blood mage was headed, she would have lost her. Cutting through the air at stupendous speeds, she was aiming at Maximillian's head with her red-clawed left. The raised hand slashed downwards, perfectly timed to hit the king if Thana's momentum kept carrying her forward. Then she was suddenly ripped downwards. Her outstretched claws barely reached Maximillian's face and carved three bloody marks from his forehead to his chin. The earth trembled as Thana was forced to the ground by an increase of gravitation that should have been impossible. Even with Maximillian concentrating all of his power in a single spot, there should have been no way for him to completely immobilize Thana, especially while she was using Bloodburn. That really hurts, Maximillian complained, blood running from the fresh wound into his right eye, while looking down on Thana. The blood mage was growling with a mixture of disbelief and mindless anger. Trying to get up by stemming both hands into the floor and working against the magic with raw physical strength. She managed to get off the floor just the slightest bit before Maximillian stepped on her back and pressed her back down. It was more symbolic than anything, the gravity king's physical strength would add very little to the drastically increased gravity Thana was experiencing right now. The question of how this was possible still loomed, however. Lydia's eyes darted over to Alexej. On the surface, the monk-robe wearing Slav was doing nothing, simply standing there with a relaxed expression. However, on closer inspection, it was apparent how forced that look was. His fists were clenched so tight that his knuckles were plain white, and the look in his eyes was strained. Aura tracing was not Lydia's expertise, but even she could see what was going on once she engaged that mode of viewing the world. Alexej's aura was almost completely gone, connecting through a thin rope to Maximillian's. Aura sizes were a terrible thing to judge people's power by at this stage; most people had at least a marginal control over their mana, so they could adjust size and apparent density to a degree. If they couldn't, some people's auras would engulf whole buildings. However, Lydia knew that Maximillian's wasn't supposed to be thrice as tall as he was and bristling with foreign power. So that's your secret weapon, Max,' Lydia thought. The ability to sacrifice one's own power to amplify another's. Alexej didn't stand any chance to win a single solo fight, but if he could buff Maximillian to a state where he could even immobilize Thana Nia, we must take out Alexej or at least separate that connection between their auras, Lydia told the blonde, who just nodded in response. Two pairs of blue eyes, one focused towards her singular goal that would lead them to triumph, the other calculating with the coldness of steel, landed on their obstacle. Mario de Medici held his glass sword in one hand and stared back with determination as he was waiting for them to make their first move. This battle had turned from a 3vs3 into a 2vs1. On paper, that was good for them, but Lydia wasn't quite sure if this meant that they would win. Thana mopped the floor with the sword master, but that said nothing about his actual strength aside from that he was weaker than her. There hardly could have been a broader range. However, they also had information from John's Observe ability. That spelled a bleak picture, as the sword master had a reported level of 194, which was more than even the combined level of Nia 54 and Lydia 74. Alexej could have tinkered with that for intimidation purposes, but Thana also had confirmed that he was closing in on her speed, so that was unlikely. If only John was down here instead of me,' Lydia thought, grinding her teeth as she gripped the heft of her rapier. The Gamer's many elementals and general power level would be way more suitable for this situation. Instead, they were now in a terrible situation that boiled down to one objective for each team. If they managed to free Thana, Lydia won; if Nia was knocked out, Maximillian won. The blood mage was still fighting against the oppressive force that was her gravitational binding, slowly pressing a body shaped depression into the floor. The backline duo kept their attention on her. Head straight for Alexej, Lydia commanded and then grabbed a vial of mithril. They couldn't risk Nia getting caught in a melee engagement that she was sure to lose. The only possible answer here was for Lydia to distract Mario for long enough for the blank to do her thing. Three glass knives flew towards Lydia as she pulled the lid from the vial. Thin blades that could be hidden just about anywhere. She managed to block two of them with her sphere of metal, the third one scraping through a little hole in the forming shield and cutting the side of her neck. It was painful, and it bled, but it wasn't a concerning wound. Not in the short term, anyhow. Lydia gulped down the vial's contained liquid alloy of mithril and mercury at the same moment as Nia and Mario started running. The latter was heading directly for the blank, who in turn was following Lydia's orders. With their difference in sheer speed, Mario would intercept her before Nia could even reach the halfway point. The princess started running as well, abandoning all defences as a storm of scrap charged in front of her. The hope was to engulf Mario, but the man was simply running even faster than her metal could fly. The sword master brought his blade down on Nia, the blank side-stepping at the last possible moment. Thus, being forced to abandon her charge for the moment, having Mario in her back was the same as just accepting to get cut along the back, Nia tried a counterattack with her dagger. The peculiar nature of Nia's weaponry worked to their advantage, forcing Mario to distance himself. If he had attempted to parry, the non-existing weapon would have simply sunk through the blade and damaged him in a way that Lydia didn't clearly understand. A mere moment passed, in which Mario took a firm stance again. That was all that Lydia needed, and the cloud of metal engulfed the sword master. The first chaotic swarm passed him, for which he only needed to cut through a minor amount of potentially harmful projectiles. Then Lydia came closer, and with her physical presence came her zone of control. Being this close to a melee expert was a gamble, but if she hoped to occupy him for an extended amount of time, just having him assaulted by a few pieces of metal wouldn't do. She needed to bring as much of her power as she could, and thus it required that the knight of Rome was as close to her as she could justify without getting in easy reach of his blade. The chaotic cloud reformed into an orderly assault from all sides, trapping Mario in an ever-shifting cage. Bits of metal flew around him as the knight parried and dodged what he could. The ceaseless assault proved too much for even him to fully handle, but he managed to keep the wounds he suffered to little scraps in non-important areas. Go! Lydia shouted. Her power boost wouldn't last for long with how much power she was expending right now. The attempt to catch Mario in wires was also unsuccessful, the whirling of his blade cut through them. Accident or cautious measure, Lydia didn't know. Nia didn't need that signal twice and turned to run. All of Lydia's attention lay with Mario. Metal pieces were flying from all directions, reflected by the glass blade that endlessly weaved through the air in a skilled dance. Lydia kept a close eye, tried to keep up with the knight's every movement. The blade moved so fast it was little more than a blur. A flash of light, then pain. Lydia kept herself from reflexively looking down to her shoulder. She knew that there was a knife stuck there without visual confirmation. A second one quickly followed, thankfully hitting one of her ribs and thus causing very little damage. More would follow, but Lydia couldn't afford to bring more of her projectiles into a defensive position, nor could she spare any concentration on dodging. If she let up in her attack or presented any gap in the spinning cloud of metal that surrounded Mario, he would break out and set after Nia. Her conundrum about this turned out to be useless anyhow. Four sharpened pieces of metal clashed where Mario's head had just been, and he made a break for her. Shit!' Lydia thought and quickly drew her rapier. Ferforitum wasn't hard or particularly suited for this level of combat, but it would at least serve as some defence. The rapier became a giant thin shield, more of a visual defence than capable of blocking, and Lydia jumped to the side just before Mario broke through. Nothing personal, he said in an earnest tone as he twisted around. There was the glint of glass. Lydia suddenly found herself inside a bed. The first thing she saw was the television, where a camera was currently filming Nia and how she was about to reach Alexej and Maximillian. Then a glass sword hit her in the lower back and toppled her over. Oh wow, he must be out of throwing knives, Jeff commented with the heartless joy of an entertainer. Lydia's nails dug into her palm as a nurse came over and explained that she would remove the knife now. It wasn't from the pain. Nia tried to stand up again, the tip of the blade sticking from her stomach. Her blood, red and swirling white, dripped from the blade and into the sands. Her weapons vanished, replaced by a sphere of anti-magic as she tried to crawl the rest of the way to fulfil her objective. If she could get in range to interrupt them just for a moment with a shockwave, surely Thana would be able to take them all out in that moment. Mario wasn't about to let that happen, hurrying over and pulling out his blade. The anti-magical shockwave fired, killing all magic around Nia but stopping a half-metre from Maximillian. The knight then sent Nia into the bed next to Lydia's. What a stunning display of martial prowess! Jeff continued; He beat two enemies on his own. Despite his earlier failure against Thana, he is still a knight of Rome, Dra stated in a matter-of-fact tone. That he is! Jeff said. Which makes the power of that little girl Thana that much more impressive. You acknowledge that and yet refuse to stop provoking her. Their commentary was an affront to Lydia's ambition. They treated all of this as their little game, as something that just happened for their entertainment. The masses, the viewers, the commentators, all the people that organized this whole thing, they all made this political struggle into nothing more than a show fight. A battle for the soul of the nation, reduced to a parade. Lydia closed her eyes, but she couldn't drown out the cheers coming from the television. Were those the people she was fighting to govern? Did they even deserve a good future if they were willing to applaud this embarrassment? Calm down,' she told herself and was reminded of what Thana and Rave had told her. The average person didn't care about politics and had no stakes in this tournament. Why would they? They weren't able to decide the outcome whether it was who won the vote of an elite council or a contest of power. It seems they are unable to take out contestant Thana, Dra noted, causing Lydia to look again. Indeed, the enemy trio was surrounding the blood mage. Alexej was kneeling next to her head, probably poking fun at her or something. Well, that is a bit of a situation then, Jeff combed his hair as he watched Mario stab Thana in the heart, which still didn't send her over to this hidden Apothecary camp; It seems the contestant can't move, but neither can they muster enough aggressive power to take her out. Are we seeing the start of an eternal encampment or something? No, Dra said and looked at his cards, if a stalemate persists for more than 10 minutes then the team with less members loses. So, we wait. 10 minutes passed, and the expected announcement was made.