Chapter 55.1- Doom Days

I hadn’t paid attention to the duels during the qualification. There was nothing wrong with that: it was probably the wise thing to do considering just how many duelists are had been and how bad most of them were. I’d dueled someone who struggled to cast a shield spell! While it had been the right choice to make, it did mean that I was taken by surprise when the Round of Sixty-Four began with an okay duel and only got better from there.

At this point, I was certain that my duel had been one of the least entertaining. We’d had elemental battles— someone had called forth a whole firestorm in the middle of he blizzard and melted all the ice around him to water (I could have done that but the illusion had been more efficient), another witch had used the sand in the sandstorm to form dozens of mannequins that she crowded the srtage with, until her opponent, a fleetfooted Spaniard was forced to give in. Two transfiguration masters in the making had had a chess match out of their duel, both of them conjuring, animating, and transfiguring creatures, structures, and figures to fight for them until one surrendered after. The other’s champion had defeated all of his. The Asian girl— the mind arts boy’s sister— had used her legilimency to good effect, frustrating her opponent as she countered his curses before he could even cast them, dispelled his transfigurations before ehe could even finish his wand movements, and turned his charms against him. It was a convincing victory.

Those were just some of the duels that took place in the round of 64. Now that we were down to 32, I was expecting things to get even more intense, so when I heard my name called first, it brought a thrill to my soul. No illusions this time. Part of me was a natural showman. I enjoyed it when others quaked in fear at my genius, appreciated it, understood just what I was. And then the name that was called after mine, Mateo Álvarez, almost made me whine in disappointment. Not at facing one of the best here, but the fact that I had to do it so early. I just had to hope that the rest of my matches would probe to be so entertaining.

I left the room and he did so as well, but he did not even bother speaking to me and any signal I gave of being interested in a conversation was ignored as he watched his back as he left. Of fucking course, those silly theories. The idiot actually thought it was needed to curse him here to win the duel. Oh what a fool. I would enjoy disabusing him of that motion— thoroughly.

We made it to the platform half a minute apart, and then the wheel began to spin. We had seen all the environments so far, so there was no chance of surprise. It was either going to be: blizzard, ocean, sandstorm, volcano, or tempest. Almost like it could read my mind, the wheel stopped at that beige colour.

“And so the first environment for our Round of 32 is Tempest” I heard Russo’s voice call as clouds began to gather above the stadium again.