Chronicles of the Red Sovereign - Chapter 94

In the afternoon, the Ice Pillar Destruction Event commenced.

Ice Pillar Destruction is played by one person per team. Each team can send anyone, as long they’re part of the current team. Another rule is that, a player cannot participate twice.

The first one we sent was Senior Trent, and we were against Cedi Royal Academy, and their face off was when the sun was starting to touch the horizon.

The event’s goal is simple; protect your ice pillars and destroy your enemy’s ice pillars within a minute. The player with the most ice pillars standing wins.

Easy enough right? But from the practice I’ve had weeks before the G.A. Games, it was actually a little complicated to achieve.

Each participant has around fifteen pillars to protect. They have to make sure they protect the pillars they have and destroy their opponent’s. Going offense and defense at the same time can be a little hard to achieve especially when the participant has to defend multiple items.

One could say timing is very important in such an event.

Senior Daniel was a magus knight with affinity to lightning magic. His offenses were definitely deadly and impressive. Even his defenses were above-average. However, I wasn’t sure about his defenses towards another object. Magus knights and military knights were trained to utilize defense magic on themselves, not on other people. And from my experience with fighting Senior Trent, he was more attuned to utilizing his speed rather than stay in one spot for the duration of a fight.

On the other side was a fire mage, the most effective anti-ice opponent.

But he was chosen as the first participant of the Ice Pillar Destruction Event from our team anyway, so I hoped he had something hidden on his sleeve.

I watched with uncertainty on my seat as the two opponents stared at each other. The timer hadn’t gone off yet and the ice pillars were being placed on their respective platforms. I could feel the tension between the two of them and not even the chatter of the audience could drown it.

“Maybe we should say some encouraging words to our team captain.” Senior George suggested as he ate his snack. He just returned from the stalls lined at the front of the stadium with all sorts of snacks on his arms. He had always had a very big appetite.

-I swear that’s his tenth rice cake.

When I first saw him eat a lot on our first few days of training, I joked about him having an abyss in his stomach. We all laughed at that but I never really got an explanation about his eating habits.

I’m a big eater as well, but not as much as Senior George.

“George is right.” said Senior Anastasia, pausing from playing with Vyfal. “It might be a good way to motivate him.”

“I think the person he cares about should be the one to give it rather than all of us shouting it.” suggested Senior Daniel.

All of a sudden, my teammate’s gazes landed on me with a knowing look, even Freya who I knew didn’t like me.

“What?” I question, confused at the looks they were giving me. They didn’t say anything, instead they tilted their heads towards the arena’s direction.

My eyes widened when I realized what they wanted me to do. They wanted me to be the one to give encouragement to Senior Trent.

“Are you kidding me? Why me?”

“You’re the person he cares for the most.” Senior Daniel said with a pointed look.

“Huh? No I’m not.” I replied.

“Daniel’s kind of right.” Torii seconded which earned her a glare from me.

“It may not be obvious to you but it’s obvious to all of us.” Freya added without even looking at me, her gaze fixed at the arena. “He treats you like a precious little sister.”

“Freya’s right.” Senior Anastasia also said. “If you two were actually siblings, I’d say the guy has an extreme sister’s complex.”

I couldn’t help but scoff at their statements. I wanted to tell them Senior Trent was more like a puppy who wanted to stay by his master’s side rather than an overly clingy older brother. Of course, I couldn’t tell them because then they’d ask more questions about my relationship to the lighting magus knight student. They were already a little suspicious of how Senior Trent acted towards me, and then there was that incident a couple of days ago where he slipped and called me ‘your majesty’. We haven’t really explained that one to them yet.

“It’s just to motivate him Luna.” said Torii, cutting me off from my thoughts. “I’m pretty sure he’d like that, especially if it’s from you.”

I sighed.

-Well, I guess it won’t hurt.

I stood up and leaned to the balcony that separated us from the arena. I took a deep breath and put my hands around my mouth as a means to make my voice louder.

“DO YOUR BEST SENIOR TRENT! SHOW THEM WHAT YOU’VE GOT!”

Cheers of encouragement from the audience followed and I could see Senior Trent’s shocked face morph to a gentle smile. He gave a thumb up on our direction and we returned the same gesture.

Soon, the event started.

A barrage of fire spells were thrown in Senior Trent’s ice pillars but I noticed that he remained still, his halberd emitting a soft glow by his side.

CRACK!

An ice pillar cracked and got totally obliterated afterwards.

-Senior Trent, what are you doing?

All of a sudden, the sky darkened (it was approaching night time but it got even darker) and the thunder rumbled on the black cloud swirling above the arena. I could even see sparks of lightning flicker around Senior Trent and his halberd.

-Eh? Is Senior Trent causing this? Wait, being able to affect the weather like this, is he trying to execute a high-level spell?

Without second thoughts, I immediately deployed an extra barrier on our balcony. I wasn’t sure if anyone noticed, but I also saw another layer of barrier shimmer, protecting the audience from the arena.

Seconds later, thunder boomed followed by a strike of lightning, hitting Cedi’s ice pillars, all of them. A huge explosion resounded and I had to stand even more firmly as the shockwave tackled us. Thankfully, the barriers held on, but I wouldn’t say the same to Cedi’s ice pillars. All fifteen of it was gone, leaving a shocked Cedi Royal Academy student who managed to protect himself with a barrier.

-Wow, a lightning strike with a wide area of effect! Senior Trent has been holding back on us!

Silence enveloped the stadium, probably processing what just happened. The ice pillars of Cedi were all obliterated, while Praiji still had ten pillars standing. I had a feeling the lightning strike destroyed a couple of ice pillars from our side.

“And the winner in this round is Trent Kidlat from Praiji Imperial Academy!” announced the host after probably recovering his wits and hearing.

***

I was on my way back to the residence where my team and I were temporarily staying. With me were my circle of friends; Thomas, Andrea, Bernard, Charles, Peter and Kai. We ate at Andrea’s family’s restaurant and they kept asking me about Senior Trent’s cool spell.

I couldn’t exactly tell them anything about it since it was my first time to see him use such a spell as well.

My team and I did a short celebration after the event, helping Senior Trent to walk since he exhausted his mana reserves, but then we were told to rest. Well the next day, the fifth day of the G.A. Games, was our rest day so we could rest as much as we wanted.

While walking and listening to my friends about their plans for tomorrow, I suddenly felt a massive, yet familiar energy signature coming my way. With this, I stopped on my tracks and stiffened. My friends noticed it and immediately asked me what was wrong.

“You guys should return to the dorms now.” I answered. “I’ll probably rest or train tomorrow so I can’t be sure if I can come with you.”

“Aww… Is that so?” Bernard groaned which I replied with a smile. “Well, I guess it’s understandable. You need rest and stuff. Well, I guess we’ll try to drop by tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

I waved them goodbye and watched as they disappear from my sight. Seconds later, I sensed the same energy signature appear behind me.

“Red hair and jade-green eyes. You must be Luna.” said a deep yet cheerful voice.

I could only sigh. The guy was familiar since I’ve met him before, when I was still Nyxtriel, but he shouldn’t know me as Luna.

-Then how does this guy know my current self?

I turned around and saw a young man with black hair, amber eyes and an odd marking on the left side of his face.

“I’m Sun Wukong.” he said with a big smile. “You’re one of Marii’s, I mean Zaira’s wards right? Nice to meet you.”

-Why does this guy know that?