Wolf of the Blood Moon - Book 1 - Chapter 97 - Blood and Death Part I

The tournament has been edited. The second round is no longer a duel based tournament. Here is the updated tournament rules for the second round:

The secondary round of the tournament will take place in a magical reality imitating a forest on Tartarus.

Every student will be placed in the same forest in the same magical reality, and they will be given points for slaying demons.

The forest will be separated into two parts.
The outer ring of the forest will have only Class I demons, with their levels increasing as the students get closer to the inner ring.
The inner ring of the forest will have Class II demons, with their levels increasing as the students get closer to the center, which will have a single Class III demon.

Demons will give points depending on their levels.

Demons at levels 1-50 will give one point apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.
Demons at levels 51-100 will give two points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.
Demons at levels 101-150 will give three points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.
Demons at levels 151-200 will give four points apiece to all students involved in their killing, including non-combat focused Guardians.
The Class III demon will give a total of twenty points spread across whoever kills it.

Furthermore, killing another student of the same Class as you or higher will give you a fifth of their points.

Should a student be killed by another student and not by a demon they will be revived in the magical reality.

The rankings will be determined through whoever has the most points.

However, should a combat focused Guardian decide to remove other Guardians from play through killing them and are believed to be specifically targeting non-combat focused Guardians during the tournament, or a higher Class Guardian targets a lower Class one, they will receive a severe handicap in the form of a quantity of their points taken away and distributed to every targeted Guardian they killed, with the specific quantity being decided upon by a panel of professors watching the tournament.

Unrelated to the rankings, five Top class student spots will be added in addition to the top one hundred corresponding to the top five scoring Class I students and 50 Advanced class spots will be added in addition to the top one thousand corresponding to the next highest ranking Class I students not already in that class.

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Scarlet

“Excellent,” the woman says while still clapping, her voice echoing throughout the stadium in the process. “This is the first time that a single student has done this well in decades. Not since the last generation was attending, at the very least.”

I raise a brow at that.

The last ‘generation’ as she calls it is really just referring to the current youngest Class IV Guardians. Which includes Cynthia and Allen amongst those numbers, along with several of the staff at the university. Since taking a job at a Guardians University tends to give the professors some priority for heading to Fractures both in and out of the city without having them join an Association. Meanwhile the Guardians who aren’t in an Association or a GU tend to not be notified about most of the Fractures. Just that if they happen across one, then they’re welcome to enter it and help clear it out, but they will have no backup and no way to call for backup. And they may be stopped by an Association or a GU who already claimed the Fracture beforehand should they wish to stop them.

Some are nice and don’t, others aren’t. Although they can only stop them if the Guardian doing the stopping is a higher Class than the one being stopped.

Such a complicated mess of laws.

“A little over an hour into the first round and I can already tell there won’t be anyone in this room except maybe Necro,” she glances at Necro before returning her gaze to me, “that can defeat you. So how about this. If you wish, I can simply take one point away from every other student in this room and give it you, with the exception of Necro of course, or you can continue as you have been, fighting the others here.” Viper’s eyes narrow and she tilts her head ever so slightly as she asks, “What do you choose?”

I frown at the offer.

It would certainly save my time. But at the same time, it’d lower the amount of points I’d get from defeating everyone. Because even if someone does reject my challenge, I’d be getting the same amount of points as what she offered.

And I need all the points I can manage to get into the Advanced class. What with about a third to half or so of the university being at Class II.

Eventually, I shake my head and answer, “No thank you,” without raising my voice, knowing that a Class IV Guardian like herself should be able to hear me regardless.

She actually doesn’t look surprised in the least by my answer. In fact, she looks pleased as she nods her head and focuses on the students as a whole to say, “Resume the duels.”

But despite her words, no one does so. In fact, everyone instead just stares at me and Necro, making it pretty obvious what they’re waiting for.

And Viper does the same, so I just turn to him to find him still grinning like an idiot while walking towards me.

“Guess you’re finally up?” I ask rhetorically, and he just nods before offering a hand to shake. Then, after I accept the handshake, he extends the challenge and I accept it, sending us both to some sort of hellish landscape that honestly resembles a mixture of both our magics. One of blood and death.

All around the edges of the battlefield are corpses, some with their flesh intact, others only having skeletons remaining. Some absolutely covered in blood, others without any blood, and some even in literal pools of blood.

“A rather unique environment for us to fight in, don’t cha think?” the man asks, drawing my eyes to him to find the black and purple aura of death growing around him just like in the one other fight I saw him participate in.

What was rather surprising to me though is that he only ever fought in one battle. At least, while I was around to watch that is. It’s possible he fought while I was fighting, but for him to do that every single time I fought is saying something if it’s true.

“So, before we start, why have you been studying me?” I ask while activating partial shift. And my question makes him pause for a second before answering, “Just tell Tarankar that his sister wishes to work together.”

My eyes widen at his usage of Tar’s first of his five names. But apparently not as surprised as Tar is.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! She’s here?!” Tar practically shouts in my head, making me wince. “Artemis is one thing, but Artoria!? And she wants to work together?!”

I frown at his shouting, and Necro seems to understand as his death aura lowers slightly and he just stands there waiting.

Another royal fae?

“Yes! But this one is much worse than Artemis,” Tar continues, still surprising me at his loss of composure. “Artoria is damned frightening, that’s what she is. And I really can’t figure out what possessed someone like her to contract with a kid like that.”

So what does he mean about working together?

“Some of the competitions in the tournament are team based, remember?” Tar asks rhetorically before continuing, “To have any shot at winning the whole thing, a proxy has to compete in the team competitions as well. And what Artoria is suggesting is for you and Necro to work together on a team during the tournament for the throne.”

Oh.

I look at the guy as he just casually walks around for a bit before stopping at the edge of the arena and swinging his feet while looking at a pool of blood.

Work together. With that guy?

“My dislike of my sister aside, it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Tar says, surprising me. “From my understanding, this guy is pure offense, and if he works with you and Belle, you would have a decent team. You being able to do most roles including healing and support and combat, Belle being for defense, and him working purely on offense.”

Yeah, that would be a good team.

I guess I’ll consider it.

But first, I activate blood claws and call out, “Okay, I’m ready,” drawing his attention back to me.

First we see just how good he is.

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