Azazel…
Taking the form of a servant man in a suit, he stood at the King’s side.
As Azazel’s eyes shifted among the guests of royal status, not only was his King of Duranell present, but the Queen of Brunhildt, The Orc King of the Wastes, The Dark Elf King of New Alfheim, The Ambassador of the Southern Union of Kingdoms, and his own King Razel of Forrosa as well.
There has not been a gathering of kings and rulers like this in all of Erebus’s known history as many of them would be too busy at war with each other to gather in this manner.
In fact, it was such a historic event that Azazel was surprised that no great ceremonies had taken place for their arrival to commemorate the moment.
Perhaps it was because the relationships between each of the kingdoms were still quite strained that they did not want to feign peaceful relationships just for appearances.
Whatever the reason, all the rulers of the world were present and accounted for save for one, the now dead King of Mordran.
Pushing that thought aside, it seemed that the Queen of Brunhildt was not happy with the conclusion of the last match.
Her captain of the Valkyries had been defeated so thoroughly that the possibility of her coming out of the battle as victorious was next to nothing.
Not to mention that it was the ancient enemy of Athena who had defeated her and even showed a kind mercy to Geirolul towards the end.
To Queen Hylla, any warrior that shows mercy with kindness would be seen as an insult. She gritted her teeth in anger and disgust as she looked at Geirolul, who was lying on the arena floor below in exhaustion.
“To withstand the Lich’s horrible death magic and stand up to such a fearsome enemy is quite commendable,” The Orc King said, surprising everyone. It was rare for anyone to hear the words of an Orc warrior, much less that of the Orc King. If he were to freely express his thoughts on the battle, then it either meant a great deal to him, or he was feigning interest and showing respect to Geirolul’s efforts so that Queen Hylla could save face.
Whatever the reason was for him to speak, Queen Hylla breathed out a sigh as she relaxed slightly.
“I thank you for your words of praise towards my captain. It does truly take an immense amount of courage to challenge such a legend from ancient times,” she said to him gratefully.
“Nashandra is not the only legend from previous wars and ages past that will be participating in this tournament. As we have already seen the hero Moyako continue on from the first bracket among many others. In fact, many gods have entered participation, such as Heimdall, Ares, Kali, and even Artemis herself. This is to be a very eventful competition,” King Razel said, speaking for the first time since his arrival.
The Ambassador of the SUK spoke up and asked, “You’re own champion, Frosk was it? He will be fighting soon won’t he?”
King Razel nodded and Azazel noticed as the eyes of the Dark Elf King Rohen narrowed in mild anger but did not turn to look at him.
Azazel thought deeply as to why the Elven King would harbor such anger towards King Razel and his mind surfaced back to the Amaskian War.
It was then that he remembered how the Dark Elf Champion of New Alfheim and the former Champion of Mordran had worked together to bring down Champion Frosk.
Azazel was present during that battle. It was the darkest day of Forrosa since its founding years during the Amaskian War.
Their first battle resulted in the destruction and loss of the Unholy Armament, The Heaven Breaker Spear and left Frosk mortally wounded for several years. With Frosk gone, the city of Alken lost a good amount of its fighting strength as the two of them lead a siege on the city for months.
Retribution came when Frosk rose to fight the two of them again and killed both champions at once while claiming Hoffnung for himself.
King Rohen must still feel bitter about that loss since the Champion of New Alfheim was his own wife.
Ever since the loss of his wife, a new champion has yet to replace her as far as Azazel was aware of.
“I’m curious as to how long your champion Frosk will last in this competition King Razel. Would any of you like to place bets on how long our champions will last?” King Rohen asked with a somewhat twisted smile on his face.
Not bothered by the provocation, King Razel smiled genuinely as he said, “Considering the level of competition present...I will wager that Frosk will last until the third or fourth round.”
Hearing such an honest assessment, King Rohen was somewhat surprised.
“I would have thought that a king would be prideful enough to make the claim that their champion would be the one to win such a tournament,” he said, to which King Razel laughed.
“I have nothing at stake in this competition. I am free to speak honestly on how far I believe my champion will go,” he said without a care.
King Rohen eyed Razel warily before saying, “Indeed. I guess none of us truly have anything at stake aside from our faith in our champions.”
The ambassador of the SUK held a hand on his chin as he commented thoughtfully, “From what I’ve read on the brackets, among all the rulers present, the King of Forrosa, the King of New Alfheim, and myself only have a single champion among us, aside from the Queen of Brunhildt who has lost her first champion. The King of Duranell and the Orc King all have two champions each representing them. That sums up to nine champions representing all of us out of the original sixty four. Eight of ours remain now with sixty other champions to contend with. I wonder how this will conclude…”
“Ultimately it is dependent on the first bracket to shape how the rest of it plays out. As soon as all thirty two battles of the first bracket are finished, only then we will get a solid idea of how things will continue,” King Razel replied.
It was at this time that King Arobynn spoke, “Whichever way the first bracket concludes, I am certain that one of my two champions will be the one to win this contest.”
Hearing this, Azazel and King Razel both turned to look at King Arobynn.
King Rohen and Queen Hylla both managed to mask their surprise at his bold claim but the Elven King spoke first.
“What leads you to believe that your champions will win? Do not forget that the Hero Moyako is also participating.”
King Arobynn chuckled before saying, “I have not forgotten. However, I alone can boast that one of my champions had managed to kill the long feared Archdragon Malthael single-handedly. He seems to be a man of such great power that Moyako herself had gone out of her way to declare war against him. Though I know not the reasons, that very action speaks volumes.”
Queen Hylla narrowed her eyes as she heard this and asked, “Remind me, what is his name again?”
“His name is Marcus Wright,” King Razel said before Arobynn could open his mouth, “You would do well to commit his name to memory as I am also confident that he will raze all those who stand before him.”
As Azazel listened to King Razel, he could not help but smile.
Marcus…
He had watched the fight between Nashandra and Geirolul play out with Ruvick standing next to him.
“That fight wasn’t nearly as eventful as I thought it was going to be,” Marcus said as he was snacking on some popcorn. He offered some of his popcorn to Ruvick but was rejected.
“Hold on a moment...what happens to your body when you try to eat things?” he asked curiously.
“Well...it used to be that it would just clog my body with unnecessary weight until I cut my body open to remove it since it couldn’t process it. I wasn’t even able to taste anything for several hundred thousand years until after I came to this world and engraved rune formulas to allow me to taste things again. Any food or drink I consume passes through my throat normally and then converts to heat and vents through my body like that. I only eat for pleasure now if I feel like it. I don’t have biological urges to eat anything anymore.”
Marcus gave him a look of being mildly impressed by that explanation and said, “Huh...cool,” and returned to snacking on popcorn while he waited for the next match.
Ruvick then eyed the popcorn curiously and said, “Actually...I don’t think I’ve had that before. I think I will give it a shot.”
Marcus passed the bucket of popcorn to him and Ruvick hummed appreciatively as he tossed a few into his mouth.
With a mouth full of popcorn, Ruvick said, “Next maph ishh- Ahem, excuse me. The next match is probably going to be my second champion.”
Hearing that, Marcus did a double take to make sure he heard that right.
“Your second champion? What, Moyako wasn’t enough of a challenge for me?” he asked.
Ruvick gave him a sideways glance as if to say not everything is about you dude…
“Who said that she’s meant to be your challenge? No, Reyna is meant to be one of Moyako’s obstacles to get through.”
He couldn’t really picture why Ruvick was deciding to test Moyako as well but something was nagging at the back of Marcus’s mind when he heard that name.
Reyna.
Reyna…
Where did he hear that name…?
“Hang on...you said her name is Reyna?”
“Yes,” Ruvick replied as he grabbed another handful of popcorn.
“Not that long ago, I had a dream about a newborn being named Reyna. An archangel named Gabriel approached her parents and had named her. That’s surely just a coincidence, right?”
“Nope. That’s her alright. Same person and everything. Reyna is likely the only other human being alive who’s nearly as old as I am. Although, its a bit of a stretch to say that she’s still human at all. She’s more like a demon/dragon/god hybrid of sorts. Its difficult to explain,” he said nonchalantly while sucking the salted butter off of his fingertips.
Marcus just stared at Ruvick like an idiot until the man looked back at him with an oblivious expression on his face.
“What?” Ruvick asked, with butter covering his face.
“Couldn’t you have found a better way to present that level of information to me than while you were munching on buttered popcorn?”
Ruvick chucked the empty bucket of popcorn at Marcus and said, “You’re the one who offered it to me.”
“How the hell did you eat the rest of it that quickly…,” Marcus asked as he stared at the bottom of the empty bucket.
“There she is,” Ruvick said as he pointed to a woman appearing on the arena floor.
Marcus squinted to try and get a better look at her and his eyes widened, “Oh my god! She’s huge!”
It was difficult for him to tell just by looking at her from so far away but just based off of his heightened senses, he could judge that she was over six feet tall and she was extremely muscular for a woman. Her arms were larger than his own and her legs looked like they crushed redwood trees for fun.
“What the hell did you feed her, creatine?” Marcus joked.
“No, but to be honest with you, even I find her to be very physically imposing.”
“Looks like the match is about to start,” Marcus said.
“Well then, I guess its almost time for us to go then,” Ruvick said as he turned around like he was getting ready to leave.
“You’re not going to stick around and watch the fight?” Marcus asked.
Ruvick shook his head no and said, “I told her not to make a big spectacle of her early fights and finish them instantly until she gets to Moyako. Then she can do what she wants with her.”
“But what about the one after that? There’s still one more fight left after hers,” he said but Ruvick shrugged.
“Personally, I’m not all that interested in the last two. If you want to stick around and watch, then by all means. Go ahead. Though, I’m going to go find something more interesting to do while I wait for the next two days.”
By the time Marcus turned around to look at Reyna, she had already beaten her opponent as she held their unconscious body off the ground, holding them up by their face gripped tightly in the palm of one of her hands.
That was anticlimactic…
He then went back to sit next to Selene and Thalia and it seemed like both of them had lost interest in seeing the next fight as well as they were waiting for him to come back so that they could leave.
“I’m surprised that neither of you two wanted to stay for the last fight,” he said.
Thalia shrugged and said, “I don’t know...I’m just getting tired of sitting in the same place for too long. I want to go try out all the food in the stalls…! Wait, how am I gonna pay for it all?”
Marcus rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay for it.”
Thalia then looked at Selene and said, “You’re coming too, right?”
“Uh...sure. Yeah!” she said as she stuck close to them.
Selene then stood a little closer to Marcus than normal for a moment. When she noticed how close she was to him, she backed away bashfully.
What was that all about…?
For the next several hours, the three of them walked around and started trying out different foods from various vendors and while the food was good, he didn’t feel all that invested in it.
For some reason, he felt a little empty. He felt that he was lacking motivation to do anything at the moment.
It probably had to do with the fact that he had already gained everything that he had set out to gain since he came to this world.
He has money, he has a finished home for his he and his sister right now. Julian is within arm’s reach if he ever needs to take care of him, although Ruvick had assured Marcus that he wouldn’t be a problem. He had hired Alta as Thalia’s bodyguard just in case. He had even gone out of his way to remake the electronics from Terra for entertainment using both of their world’s technology.
What else could he work towards right now? What other parts of his life could he have moved on from to make him feel fulfilled and happy?
What the hell should I do now…?
“Hey Thalia, I…,” he started but his voice trailed off as he realized that she was out of earshot standing with Selene at a vendor.
While they were able to get the food easily enough, the merchant still looked ready to get rid of Selene as quickly as possible.
After the two of them got their food they walked away and started up a conversation.
As Marcus looked at Selene’s face and how easily she seemed to get along with his sister, he started to think about what that could mean for him.
As the day slowly came to an end, Thalia waved Selene goodbye as she left to go home to her apartment while Thalia sat on the couch and started to finish off some of the food they had bought earlier.
Marcus began tapping his fingers on the counter as he thought about how he was going to start his conversation with his sister.
He then took in a deep breath and walked over to her. As he did, he made sure to check that Alta was still upstairs in his room and wasn’t listening in on their conversation as he sat next to her.
“Did you have fun today?” he started and Thalia nodded with a grin as she stuffed her face.
“That’s good...good,” he said with a sigh, dreading what he was going to say next.
“Thalia, I need to ask you something,” he said and she turned to look at him, as if waiting for him to continue.
“You like Selene right?” he asked.
She took a moment to swallow her food before replying, “Of course. We’re like friends! Why?”
“Because I’m thinking about asking her out on a date,” he said and Thalia stared at him blankly as if not understanding what he had just said.
“Really?” she asked him.
“Y-yeah… I figured that now might be the best time I guess,” he said and her face broke into a big smile.
“Its about time! I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend before!” she said excitedly.
“Well, its good to hear that I have your support at least,” he said.
“I’m curious but...why did you decide that now was the best time to find a girlfriend and not earlier?” she asked him.
“Well, when we were living on Terra and I was working for Romano, I would have had to worry about not just keeping you safe, but also anyone else that might be too closely attached. It would have been to much responsibility. That, and I doubt Romano would have let go of me so easily if it were just for a girlfriend. At least this way, I can try it now that we’re both in the safest conditions possible,” he said to her.
“Well? What are you waiting for then? Go for it! Don’t let me stop you,” she said to him.
Marcus laughed and said, “Thank you sis.”