novelMage Handball Tournament Round 1 3
| ← Ch.0338 | Ch.0340 → |
After a brief silence during which no one could believe that that devastating maelstrom of destruction had been prevented from hitting its intended target in this way, the crowd burst into loud cheers at the spectacle.
Viewing their excitement, Daneel shook his head while smiling.
His training session the day before with his elder brother had been... very fruitful, and he couldn't wait to enter the ground. He had considered whether to continue training even now, but it wouldn't be smart to leave things completely unsupervised.
Seeing Cassandra's smug smile while she walked to the sidelines of the ground to allow mages to repair the damage, Daneel realized that he had been played by his commander.
She had definitely wanted to do something like this since the beginning, and her impassionate speech before to get the order from him had just been a means of making him give her the permission to do whatever she wanted in the match.
Still, Daneel found nothing wrong with it, because the end result was that the crowd was in his pocket now.
Although there had been a lot of support before, it hadn't been at this level.
Back on Earth, he had read about the home field advantage, where a team which was competing on their home ground would be able to perform better because they would be bolstered by the unwavering support of those from their home.
Both in war and in competitions like these, morale really was a very important thing that could cause a big difference in the outcome of any match.
There were only 5 minutes of the match left after the ground was repaired, but the Arafellians actually managed to hold control of the ball to score thrice.
Of course, this was because Lanthanor had been playing idly, not even resorting to the tank to try and score more points.
In the end, the score was 41-13, and while the team from Lanthanor walked back to the entrance of the ground with many, many shouts admiring their performance, most of the Arafellians had their heads angled down.
Clearly, they were unable to come to terms with the fact that they had been taken for a ride by Lanthanor.
Daneel noticed this, and wondered whether it had been wrong to beat down an ally in this way.
However, he discarded this thought, as this was, after all, a competition where the winning team would carry away the highest honor that was more valuable than anything anyone had earned from a non-lethal event in centuries.
The next match was between Axelor and Eldinor, and Daneel was actually very excited to watch it.
With the addition of the mages from the Big 4, Axelor now had a robust team of spell casters whose average power level didn't fall behind that of Eldinor by that much.
Eldinor was unique among all the Kingdoms in the fact that it was the one with the Exalted Human Mages, but most of these individuals were just elves who kept to themselves and had no interest in competitions or events. 𝙛𝚛𝘦ewe𝗯𝘯oѵ𝚎𝗹 - 🅽🅽novel
They had their passion, with some even having out of the norm ones like studying plant life or animals. Whatever it was, they would dedicate their life to it, with their growth in power just being a means to reach an end.
Hence, although Eldinor had the strongest Mage army in the continent, there was no saying how strong it could be if people like these could also be deployed. However, no ruler ever had managed to do so, as these elves were so individualists and proud that they would rather die than be commanded to do something they didn't want to.
When the two teams made their way to the ground, the constant screams of "LAN-THA-NOR" finally ended. Although the cheering stayed, there were no crowd favorites, so it was more in anticipation of a good show.
Daneel had had some idea about how this match would go, and he smiled with satisfaction when he saw it unfold in that exact way.
There was one major problem with having powerful individuals: the difficulty in making them act as a team.
There was almost no strategy except trying to obtain the ball from whoever held it by shooting powerful spells at them. They would either give it up, or injured fatally.
Although all the team members were wearing protective barriers, again, they wouldn't be able to save them from internal injuries.
Although some team members did pass, they only did so as a last resort, and anyone from Earth would know that this is not how team games were played.
Some analysts, on the other hand, were slightly puzzled.
This had been expected from Eldinor, as it was known to everyone that there was no teamwork between the powerful mages of the elite mage army of the Elves.
However, Axelor's mage army was supposed to focus more on teamwork, because of their lower overall power level.
There had already been a huge red flag when powerful mages had appeared out of nowhere to strengthen Axelor, but some had still held the belief that it could be some hidden trump card.
Yet, seeing their performance now, those who did so realized that this possibly couldn't be the case.
Each mage from Axelor was powerful in their own right, but except a few, the rest tried to win each point single-handedly.
Some onlookers even got the feeling that they were looking down on the other team, as this was evident from the looks they gave to those who managed to use spells to rid them of the ball.
These glances were hidden, but in a situation where hundreds of thousands of people were observing everything with zoomed-in vision, it didn't pass completely unnoticed.
Although some didn't understand the significance of this, those who had suspicions about the origin of these mages shook their heads.
They knew that Axelor was in cahoots with one of the Big 4, but they hadn't expected that it would be so despicable as to take its help in order to win a competition which was supposed to be fought by those who belonged to the Kingdom.
They felt tempted to leak the secret and create a scandal, but the knowledge of the terrifying retribution that might befall them killed these thoughts in their infancy.
With the reinforcements, the overall power level of the Axelorian team was almost equal to that of the Elves.
However, it turned out that the elves had the advantage by 1 or 2 points, mainly because of the fact that they seemed to have had more practice with at least trying to pass effectively.
At the 50 minute mark, the score was 22-20, with Eldinor leading.
In the booth that belonged to the Kingdom of Axelor, the King was watching with a neutral expression.
"Sir-"
As the minister behind him started to speak, the King raised an arm suddenly and made him stop before making a necklace appear around his neck by touching a specific spot on his body.
After the minister closed his mouth, the King gestured him to come closer before squeezing the small yellow round pendant of the necklace and making it disappear again.
"Champion-level anti-eavesdropping trinket. The only one they lent to me. They want so much for me, but they give me useless trash mages whose only interest is to **** women. Speak."
After a pause, the minister spoke in a grave voice, "Sir, the... arrangement you asked for is complete."
This made a smile come to the King's face.
Yet, the smile turned into an eerie expression when he remembered what that'arrangement' entailed.
It was as if there were rivers of blood reflected in his eyes, but this only made him laugh without abandon.
After a few seconds during which the minister tried not to get an expression that might cause his head to separate from his body, the King continued to watch the match.
Both of them stood there in silence and spoke nothing when they saw Eldinor take point after point while the Mages on their team seemed to be getting more and more frustrated.
"Too entitled. It's foolish to think that anyone who has been presented with the best opportunities since birth will work hard to follow some orders. I have no option but to take matters into my own hands. Deploy it in the next one where we risk losing."
After he said the last word, the bell rung, with the final score being 25-21.
As the first round came to an end with Eldinor's victory, Daneel smiled, as if everything was going according to his plan.
Yet, he felt a slight tingle in his spine, but it went away before he could even recognize it for what it was.
| ← Ch. 0338 | Ch. 0340 → |