Marcus…
The day of the tournament had finally arrived and he could not be more on edge.
Julian’s name was on the list of champions who would be competing which meant that Marcus couldn’t kill him without drawing attention to himself. In fact, even if he tried to kill Julian outside of the tournament, it would be a bad idea.
He could ask Azazel if he could…
No, even as a favor, that would be a bad idea. It would turn it into an international incident and he didn’t want to deal with that.
Also, it would be too much to ask. He needed to think of a better solution to take care of Julian without drawing too much attention to himself or incriminating himself.
To make matters even worse, on the first day of the tournament, all the champions had to walk into the arena where the fights would take place to show themselves to the audience.
Julian will definitely be there just to gloat at him that Marcus couldn’t do anything to him.
With only one thing left to do, he went to Alta.
“I need to talk to you for a moment,” he said to Alta, a few hours before he made his way to the arena. The two of them were waiting for the tournament to begin while watching Thalia talk to Selene in the background.
Alta replied, “Okay…, what’s going?”
“There’s someone I want you to be wary of, but I’m sure you already know who I’m talking about, correct?”
Alta narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember.
“You mean that guy Julian? The guy who, at the very mention of his name, pissed you off so much you stormed out of the hall? That guy?”
“Yes, him.”
“What about him?” Alta asked.
“If at any point, Julian decides to approach Thalia, for any reason at all, I want you to kill him,” Marcus ordered him.
Alta tilted his neck and smiled nervously as he said, “Uh...sure. I can do that I guess.”
“Alta, I’m not in the mood to be making jokes. I’m serious. As Thalia’s bodyguard, you are going to be accompanying her everywhere that she goes. The very instant that you see Julian, I want you to kill him immediately. Do not let him approach her in any way. You see him, he dies. Do I make myself clear?”
The nervous smile on Alta’s face slowly began to fade away as he realized how serious Marcus was.
“You can’t be serious about this Marcus… I mean, come on! You’re asking me to kill someone that I know nothing about! That’s insane!”
Hearing that, Marcus grabbed Alta by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against a wall, out of sight from the other members.
“You want some damn incentive? How about this then-,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Alta’s shoulder and pointed at Thalia before continuing, “You see her, right? Look at how happy she is right now. Julian on the other hand, would love nothing more than to make her life, and mine a living hell, and do you want to know why that is?”
Nervously, Alta answered, “W-Why’s that?”
“Because he’s the one who’s responsible for her father’s death,” Marcus said in a hushed tone.
Alta’s head snapped to look Marcus in the eyes, a look of disbelief present on his face.
“You’re not...you aren’t lying to me are you? You’re not just saying that to make me kill someone I don’t know…,” Alta stammered.
“Why the hell would I lie about something like that? Didn’t you notice the look of fear in Thalia’s eyes when she heard his name too?”
“I…,” Alta failed to respond as he looked in Thalia’s direction.
“Knowing what I just told you, do you still intend to just leave matters be? To let Julian approach her, unbothered by you? The very first chance he gets, he’ll take her away like he did before. Part of the reason I’m even in this world is because of him. He kidnapped my sister shortly before Kayron showed up which resulted in her being found by him and dragged into this world.”
Shaking his head, Alta said, “Wait, hold on a moment! Does Thalia even know that her father is dead or that Julian killed him?”
Hearing that, Marcus went silent for a moment before he answered, “No. She doesn’t know and she doesn’t need to know. She knew who he was but she didn’t know that he was her father, and she doesn’t need to know. If she knew and she realized that her father had disappeared one day then...Just don’t say anything about it to her and remember what I told you. If you see Julian, you kill him on sight.”
Without bothering to hear Alta’s response, he left.
And now, he was walking through the hallway and onto the floor of the arena as the names of the contestants were being called.
From what he knew about the Contest of Champion's rules, there were only three.
First Rule: there are no limitations to what the contestants are allowed to use to win. Any kinds of weapons, fighting styles, or techniques are allowed including surprise attacks.
Second Rule: a match is considered over when the enemy is either 1. Unconscious, submits to their opponent, is rendered unable to continue due to unforeseen circumstances, or dies and remains dead for more than seven minutes. People who die in the contest can be brought back to life some how by the end.
Third Rule: each battle is strictly one combatant against another. However, any magic that allows a person to multiply themselves or manifest additional support of some kind with their own magic is allowed. Additionally, any support items supplied by the audience such as being given replacement weapons to fight with is allowed up to the point the opposing contestant declares it foul play.
He needed to keep those rules in mind going into this tournament because if there truly are no limitations to what others can do in battle, then he might face an enemy far FAR stronger than what he can handle. He had to make sure he would win, but not just to get the information from Ruvick but also to make sure that Moyako didn’t try to drag him back to the life he’s trying to move on from when the both of them know damn well its impossible to go back.
Pushing those thoughts out of his head, he turned to look at the interior of the arena and noticed that even on the inside, the design of it was very similar to the Roman Colosseum, although this one was five times larger in size and had a special booth at the highest level. The booth itself only contained three seats...or maybe they were thrones.
The longer Marcus stared at the three people seated in that booth, the more he noticed the small details on each one of them.
The first one on the far left was an old man with an eye patch and a raven sitting on each shoulder. He also wore what looked like a bear fur coat tied together with belts made of dragon skin. His skin was marked with so many tattoos that it was hard to tell his skin apart from them. On his waist rested a large hammer.
Is that...Odin?
In the middle sat an old and thickly bearded man with pale skin and wearing a Greek tunic. His eyes glowed with a golden hue and right hand held the handle of a black scythe, the blade of which rested at his feet.
Marcus only knew of three deities in the Greek stories who used scythes. Demeter, Thanatos, and Kronos.
This man didn’t look like the God of Death so...
That has to be Kronos, the Titan of Time.
On the right was a third god, one with bronze tanned skin and tattoos on his chest stylized to be like hieroglyphics. They even seemed to be draw in a chronological order as the first one was drawn on his right pectoral muscle with the image of Khepri, the Scarab god as the sun rose behind him. On his sternum, the image of a falcon rising in the high-noon sun. This was the depiction of Ra as the sun god. On the man’s left pectoral muscle was the image of a man following after the setting sun. This depicted the god of the evening sun Atum.
Looking at the rest of him, he only wore an Egyptian tunic from the waist down and was bare chested. A crook and flail rested on either side of him in his lap but otherwise, he did not wear the pharaoh's headdress.
Regardless, Marcus knew who he was.
Amun-Ra. The three of them are the main Greek, Norse, and Egyptian gods. What are they…
Actually, he had to give it a second thought.
Why was Kronos here but not Zeus? Zeus was the king of the Greek gods, so why did Kronos sit at that throne?
All of these thoughts were going through his head and he became distracted as he ran right into one of the contestants without looking.
“Oh, I’m…,”` he said as he began to apologize but the person in front of him was none other than the man Marcus currently hated the most.
As Julian turned around, his eyes met with Marcus and his face twisted in a sneer.
“Fancy meeting you here, huh?” he said to him.
Upon seeing him, his arm twitched as he had to resist the urge to grab a hold of Julian’s neck and strangle him-no, snap his neck. He wanted to snap Julian’s neck right here and now.
But he couldn’t. Not in front of everyone, and especially not with his sister watching in the audience.
The only thing he could do right now is engage in conversation, as painful as it was to talk to this man.
“Hello Julian. Did you come here to join your father?” Marcus asked as he tilted his head back a bit as if to look down on him.
Hearing that, Julian’s eyes narrowed in anger. He was always quick to temper but it seemed that he was able to control it this time around. He must have also realized that he can’t take any action to kill Marcus in this setting.
“Tch. At the moment, you can’t kill me and I can’t kill you. So what? You’ve decided that the next best thing to do is trash talk each other? Ten years since I’ve seen you and that’s the most creative thing you could come up with to greet me?”
Hearing that threw Marcus for a loop.
Ten years…? Does that mean that he was sent back ten years into the past?
“Talk as much shit as you want Marcus. You’re gonna die in this arena one way or another. Don’t think that just because you killed a big ass dragon that it makes you some kind of big shot. You’re gonna die here and Its gonna be by my hand,” he said.
Just as the last contestant’s name was called and the champions were told to head back, Julian shot him one last glare before he turned around.
“Hey Julian!” Marcus said to him.
Julian turned back around to look at him but before he could respond, Marcus punched him in the face as hard as he could without using his magic. He could feel the bones in his nose break like pretzels from the punch as he stumbled back with blood leaking out before he stumbled back and fell.
A sudden cry of shock and surprise sounded from the audience as they witnessed what had happened but Marcus figured that this alone would be harmless.
“Between the two of us, the only one who is going to die is you,” he said as he turned around and walked away.
When he made it to his reserved seat next to Thalia and Selene, he was immediately berated by both of them.
“What the hell is the matter with you?!” Selene demanded.
“Marcus! I know you hate him but now is not the time!” Thalia shouted.
“Shut up! I know!” He said to both of them and they got quiet but maintained the same criticizing stares.
“I couldn’t help myself. After what had happened to Thalia before we came to this world, I really wanted to just get it over with but I knew that it wouldn’t turn out well with so many people watching so I just punched him,” he said but Selene didn’t look satisfied with that explanation.
“In any other circumstance, you would be eliminated from the tournament and for a stunt like that. Attacking another contestant during the event but outside the actual tournament itself is not a good look. For you or for the brotherhood,” she said.
“You make it sound like I wanted to join this tournament in the first place and not like it was against my will,” he said and Selene closed her mouth.
“I thought you wanted to start a new life away from your past and not making new enemies! Doing something like that is a good way to make people not like you,” Thalia said.
“People already don’t like me, and besides, he absolutely deserved that punch since he kidnapped you before we even came to this world but no, you had to stop me from choking him to death so that we didn’t have to deal with him ever again,” he said and she immediately went quiet.
Neither of them seemed to have anything more to say and even looked somewhat guilty for having said anything which made him feel terrible for berating them.
He sighed before saying, “Look, I understand your concerns. You’re right to be mad at me but listen. I punched him not just out of anger, but also to send a message. Now, the people in the audience know that I have something personal against him. He’s no longer a random person who applied to be apart of this tournament. He’s a personal enemy of mine and they know it. All eyes are going to be on him now which means that he won’t be able to move around as easily as he has been before. Also yes, part of it was self satisfaction, but can you blame me?”
Selene then said, “No...I guess not. But please, don’t do that again. I’ll have to deal with Dean yelling at me over this.”
“Alright then. I’ll keep things to a minimum then. If I remember right, Moyako is fighting first right? I’m interested to see what the ‘strongest woman in the world’ can really do.”
Moyako…
As she walked onto the floor of the arena spread out before her, she could hear the roar of the audience chanting her name with excitement.
“Moyako! Moyako! Moyako!” they shouted with glee.
However she was not amused nor entertained by the fact that they viewed her as some kind of hero after all the things she did during the war.
She didn’t feel especially heroic and she certainly didn’t feel so now either. The only thing she felt in this moment was the desire to crush her opponent so thoroughly as a declaration of war against Marcus that he would be too intimidated to continue and surrender to her.
It was a fool’s wish but she thought she might as well go for it anyway.
Her opponent, Orsted, Champion of the Ordovis Sect, walked onto the battlefield to greet her.
Looking him in they eyes, she gave him a sickly sweet smile, pulled her sword from her sheathe, and spoke in Japanese as she said, “Gambare! [Do your best!]”