They had only gained one level during the whole course of the stage, but the bonus reward for placing highly gave them another two levels on top of that. That put the two of them at level one hundred ten, which was far higher than Beth expected them to be at this point. The closest Warder grunted angrily at them as they stood there, causing both girls to jump before they hurried to clear the area. They left the array room and headed back to their temporary quarters, where they rested just for a brief ti before stopping to get so food and heading back in. With the last part of the previous stage being so light, they didn't really need to take a rest, and decided they would imdiately start the next stage.
Beth asked at the counter to start stage twenty-one, and that the stage be kept private, before they were redirected to the Warders. This ti, the Warder they spoke to made them wait even longer before signaling that it was okay for them to enter. Upon his signal, they leapt into a very dark orange portal, experiencing that weightless mont of disorientation and blindness before they erged into the next stage.
When they got over the brief second of disorientation, they found themselves in what appeared to be one of the waiting rooms of the CRA. Beth had looked into a few of these before, and she was familiar with the rooms that were used, mainly by groups, to get ready for upcoming fights on the arena floor. The room itself was rather lavishly appointed, and Beth took a quick look around before focusing on the older-looking man sitting in a chair in front of them, who gave them an enthusiastic, friendly nod.
"Challengers! Welco! I'm so glad you decided to participate in this special tournant! And I hear you've traveled from quite far to do so…" the man said.
"Of course, sir…" Beth replied.
"Oh, pardon , how silly of this old man. I am Regis Fortian, Hall Master of this CRA Hall and Mithril Emblem of the Ruby Branch of the CRA. I've been given the honor of hosting this special tournant for you young folks. Though, I shouldn't really call it a tournant, as it's more of a special event," Regis said.
"And what does this special event entail, sir?" Beth asked after showing Regis her emblem, which drew a smile from the white-haired man.
"It's a grand lee, of course," he replied with a hearty laugh. "In the old traditions of a lee, where a massive group of fighters are entered on the field of battle, and the last person standing wins. The longer you can hold out, the greater amount of ti you are on the field, the better your position in the ranks at the end. Also, the number of people that you knock out from the tournant gives you a bonus, to encourage you to not sit around and try to hide, or even play extrely defensive. The desire is for a brawl, for a grand clash, for grand excitent!"
"That sounds pretty interesting," said Blood. "How many people are participating in this, uh, event?"
"Why, no fewer than the greatest number of valiant youths we can gather!" he exclaid in his hearty, booming voice. "To directly answer your question, young miss, we've gathered five thousand participants for this grand lee."
"Five thousand!" Beth and Blood exclaid in unison, causing Regis to laugh heartily.
"Of course, of course," he replied, still chuckling. "We have another two hours, or just under, until the tournant starts. We've got people in every waiting room, every room, and every box right now waiting for the start. I must confess, it'll be a bit of a juggle to get all the participants out of the viewing boxes before our ticketed viewers are here, but we'll manage. Never you fear!"
"Just one more question, sir," Beth said.
"Of course, of course," Regis said.
"How are we going to fit five thousand-plus people on the arena floor?" she asked.
"Haha! I see you haven't participated in or seen a large-scale battle on the arena floor!" he said with a booming laugh. "A full arena bout has the ability to totally transform the arena, as the small bouts do, but the full bouts can call upon much greater spatial expansion. We can make a simulated arena for you lot that's a thousand miles across. Of course, we're not going to do that, we want a lee, not a bunch of sniping and traps! But never fear; we'll get you just enough space that you aren't packed in like core fish!"
"That's pretty neat," Blood replied with a grin.
"I've gotta say, I'm getting pumped already," Beth chid in, flexing her arms as a huge smile crept across her face.
"That's what I like to see!" Regis bood out with yet another hearty laugh. "I love the burning spirit of our youth these days!"
After making sure they knew where to be and when, motioning to the clock on the wall to make sure they had the current ti, Regis left to talk to a few of the other latecors to the event. He also had a lot of administrative work to do in overseeing the grand lee, though Beth did get the impression that the man had a bit of a mischievous spark in him that she wouldn't be surprised saw him shirking a little bit of work.
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The two waited in the luxurious room for the next hour-and-a-half, watching so shows on the wallscreen while they sunk into the plush couch in the center of the room. When it was getting close to ti, they left the ready room and headed towards the gathering point they were supposed to wait for the march onto the floor from. They found themselves in hallways filled with other young hopefuls and spirits were high, much laughing and joking and good natured bumping and shoving occurring as friends, old and new, jostled for position and boasted of their still-upcoming performance. Beth and Blood exchanged a few polite greetings with others, but went largely uncontested as they made their way up three floors, and around the arena a quarter turn. The CRA Hall they were in was the largest they had experienced yet, likely twice the size of their "ho" Hall, and they made it to the room just in ti.
The room they were packed into was quite large, but they were still ass-to-elbows in the room where more than three hundred of the competitors were waiting. Even with that, there were competitors out in the hallways and waiting to co up through the underworks, showing just how massive of an event this really was. Beth and Blood were both thankful that they were in that room only a minute, as everyone needed to get out onto the arena floor to present themselves and get ready for the start of the fight.
It was blissfully quick, the two girls moving along with the flow of bodies as everyone walked down the wide hallway onto the floor. They were t with a pulsing roar as they hit the floor, the stands packed with over a hundred thousand spectators for the big fight. Beth was a bit startled, but she was already slowly getting used to being in front of a large crowd, and she noticed that so of the people around her weren't nearly as attenuated to it. Several people staggered just from the sheer force of the noise, the overwhelming presence of so many spectators yelling and clapping pressing down like a physical weight.
It took a handful of minutes to gather everyone on the floor, but it wasn't that long before the floor of the arena was packed to the brim with contestants. Regis appeared on a platform at the north end of the arena and there were imdiately cheers and even greater enthusiasm when people saw his image pop up on the large screens overhead. He waved to the crowd and smiled and laughed, seemingly greatly enjoying...not necessarily the crowd’s attention, but more so their great enthusiasm. He gave the place a mont to continue the reaction before raising his hands to signal for quiet.
"Ladies! Gentlen! Others! It is my great honor to welco you to this incredibly special event; the first Mallian Grand lee! Let take just a mont to explain what is about to happen. We will have these five thousand brave young souls enter into a pre-determined arena, where they will all compete against each other for the title of Grand lee Champion! Let's hear it for our contestants!"
The crowd roared again, and Regis gave them just enough ti to really let the excitent build before he cut in again. Raising his hands, he said, "The contestants will be randomly placed once the arena changes. I wish you all good luck! Rember to give it your all, as the standard rules of healing and rest apply! Now, let the gas begin!"
As soon as Regis was finished speaking, the arena transford in an instant, Beth and Blood experiencing the blinding light but not the strange sense of twisting they did as when going through portals. As soon as they could see again, they scanned their surroundings as they readied for combat, noting that they were nowhere near each other. The arena had transford, transporting them to a sandy desert, with twin suns burning brightly overhead and loose sand already infiltrating their boots. It would be harsh terrain to fight in, having to battle the footing as much as the other contestants, but it was a way to put them in a fairly simple arena that still added a twist to the battle.
The whole area was sothing like two miles across, bounded by a massive set of cliffs in every direction, giving the five thousand people just enough space to spread out a little without making the area so large that people could hide or avoid battle. Beth found herself close to four other contestants, all of them wearing light armor and already moving to engage in battle. She leapt forward herself, targeting the closest person as he turned towards her, swinging her blade at his neck as they both adjusted to the awkward footing.
Fortunately for Beth, she at least had a bit of experience fighting in poor footing, though this was the worst she had had to deal with so far. The man was not so fortunate, having much less experience with fighting with terrible footing, and he stumbled after only four exchanged blows. Before Beth could deal the finishing blow to knock the man out, a woman nearly caught Beth herself in the neck with a swipe from a longsword.
Beth quickly learned what it ant to be in a grand lee as the battle heated up, and that aning was embodied in one word: chaos. She would fight soone, and that person would get knocked out by soone else, while two other people would jump her back, trying to swiftly eliminate her. It was a continuous blender of blades and spells, a madhouse of battle that simply never stopped and threatened to eliminate anyone at any ti. The initial chaos lasted for quite a while as well, as the absolute disordered nature of the battle led to people being eliminated at a bit of a slower pace than Beth had predicted.
She constantly found herself under attack and often by multiple enemies, though it felt a little less like she was being targeting and more that she just wasn't particularly lucky. It made the whole lee exhausting right from the start, as she didn't have a second's rest for first minutes, then over an hour. By the ti they were reaching the ninety minute mark, close to three-quarters of the contestants had been eliminated, and many of the remaining contestants, including Beth and Blood, were battered and beaten and bruised. The two still hadn't co into contact with each other, and they might not until the end of the lee.
It was also becoming vastly more dangerous, not that it was easy to start with, but now every contestant was going wild. Those that had a Presence were using them freely, many of them not seeming to care about exhausting themselves, just that they could get one or two more kills before they were eliminated. So even seed to only desire to drag their killer down, using everything they had while enacting their Presence at its utmost to take the person who eliminated them out as well.
Beth was much better about managing her stamina than others, seemingly quite ahead of others of her age with her ability to have a limited use of her Presence and not just keep it deployed permanently. The fight was still tiring, and she was frustrated with her low skill levels in her regeneration ability requiring her to stop and focus to do any healing. That was a definite weakness she needed to work on, though she was concerned she really wouldn't be able to push that skill to even Silver until after at least one rebirth.
She had been in constant battles before, but fights against beasts just weren't the sa as fights against other Wayfarers, especially when it was just an all-out brawl, where anyone could attack her from any angle at any ti. The one thing she noticed that she really had as an advantage over a lot of others, apart from her better control over her Presence, was higher resistances. A woman throwing two fireballs at Beth's face followed by shards of ice seed to expect Beth to dodge the fireballs and get heavily injured by the ice, but her eyes were wide and jaw slack as Beth straight-up punched her way through both spells while taking only a small amount of damage before punching the mage's lights out.
The more she fought, the more she experienced the differences between her and many at her level. Most of the contestants seed quite young, though the average age did appear to be a little bit older than her, and many of them didn't seem to have had the best training. Many didn't seem to have all that much combat experience in general either, as she knocked several people out of the lee who simply weren't paying attention to their surroundings, so engrossed in a fight or even using a skill or casting a spell that they barely even registered Beth rushing them down. Though that certainly wasn't everyone, as there were definitely several contestants that matched or exceeded Beth in terms of both raw power as well as skill and experience.
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