"Your brother is really going to co?" Maya’s companion asked, looking at the empty spot in their instructors’ seats.
"He will co." As she responded, Maya manipulated her vitalized twigs to entwine around her arms—though not as tender as those from the World Tree, these twigs could still protect their owner.
The first day was between the lower-grade apprentices from different churches, who would fight from the opening battle in the morning all the way until evening—if there were teams whose victory was indeed hard to distinguish, there might even be tie-breakers.
Compared to the middle-grade’s clumsy performances, those of the lower-grade’s had even less spectacle, but what can you do when the lower-grades’ average age doesn’t exceed ten years old?
At twelve years old, Maya was already over-aged here.
"What the heck are those guys fighting in the opening battle, why did the lower-grade team commander from the Church of the Goddess of the Night decide to split the two giants on both sides? Wouldn’t it be better to put both on the left and breach the opponents’ line of shorties, then rush in and wreak havoc on their back row?" The team captain whispered about the situation on the field, "Rember, when we face this team, Maya, you co down hard on those two big guys, shock them down. The rest are no trouble."
Maya nodded, the captain was the commander, and Brother always said that a team only needed one voice, so what she said... was always right.
"What an ugly match." Maya’s teammate also expressed dissatisfaction with the scene.
Indeed, Maya thought so too. The team from the Church of Art and Beauty on the opposite side was equally idiotic; the only caster left the shieldbearer’s protection to attack a giant. Ah, hit by an arrow!
Though the arrowhead was removed, an arrow wrapped in white ash was still very painful when it struck the face.
After the only caster fell, the lower-grade team from the Church of Art and Beauty quickly collapsed.
"What a bunch of trash. They’re terrible at fighting and even worse at formation, the champions of deformity and distortion." The captain cursed, using a colloquialism many churches wielded to mock the Church of Art and Beauty, and then asked, "Who’s fighting in the second match?"
"The sa two churches, but the first match was an East province rivalry. This one will be between teams from the North province," his assistant replied.
"Well, it is the North province; they should fight better than those from the East," the captain murmured with the assistant.
Maya watched the field, where unlike the forr match, even among the lower-grades, the North province’s two teams took on an entirely different pace, with the front and rear lines seamlessly connected and covered. Both sides’ projectiles caused no casualties—in such lower-grade competitions, lee weapons are the mainstay, and shields are each other’s best protectors.
These are tough opponents to deal with, Maya assessed, while recalling what her brother had told her about finding the weaknesses of such teams.
Both sides wore armor, albeit only wooden, but it provided decent coverage and was mostly non-conductive. Low-level Elental Arrow spells could not effectively penetrate them.
But the armor seed to make their wearers cumberso and slow the movent of both front lines.
Turn fossils to mud, throw to the sides, effectively tearing the opponent’s front line; expand and lob towards the center, wiping out the opponent’s front line completely.
Or employ a Lightning Chain, with both Overload Super Ability and Penetration Super Ability activated. Maya’s current Lightning Chain could jump seventeen tis, with the opponent’s nine frontline mbers, it could leap twice over each head. Activating Super Ability posed so risk, but considering each should have so sort of Blessing Spell to lessen the damage... from Brother’s point of view, electrocute them already.
The competition between the North province teams was incredibly tedious, with Maya’s captain and assistant quickly shifting their attention to which young brother looked handso.
For Maya, she thought they must be insane; having fought till their faces were swollen, how could they still look handso now?
In the end, the battle between the North province teams concluded with the Church of the Goddess of the Night’s team succumbing to exhaustion.
"Can’t be serious, are the bunch from the Goddess of the Night not fed well?"
"Exactly, what a disgrace."
The captain and assistant seed incredulous, but Maya rembered what her brother had said: sotis, don’t be eager to draw a conclusion for the opponent. With winners and losers groups for the lower-grade section, according to the rules, the winners of the two churches from North province would face... Maya checked the schedule in her hand.
They would confront the winners between Goddess of Harvest Church and Church of the War God from the South province teams.
The Church of the Lord of Justice and the Church of the War God are both top-tier teams; humans can sotis be very cunning, Maya observed.
Next up was the battle between teams from the Western provinces. Compared to their Northern brethren, the two teams wearing light armor fought faster, with the first volley resulting in seven deaths and five injuries—the Church of the Goddess of the Night lost a third of their mbers, two impaled by throwing spears in the chest, and three more in the abdon. In real combat, this is a death blow, but spears in the chest are judged as kills, and the abdon as critical injuries. Hence, these three could only lay on the ground, praying not to be trampled on.
But the Church of Art and Beauty suffered more—five dead and one injured, mostly the front lines, with one hit in the face, already evacuated by dical staff.
Then both sides completely lost their rhythm, as both teams’ captains and assistants had received exit tickets in the first volley. Eventually, the Church of the Goddess of the Night erged laughing last from the chaotic battle.
"What is all this ss, why were they so huddled together, what use was there wearing armor as thin as undergarnts, and there’s even a case where a spear wrapped around a shieldbearer’s head penetrated it. Don’t their shields even use wooden boards?" The captain and assistant routinely vented while issuing an order to prepare—the two churches from the South province would finish their match, and it would be their turn to face the Church of the War God.
"How has your brother still not arrived?" Maya’s friend lanted, "I was actually hoping to show off in front of Mr. Malin."
Looking at the freckled face before her, Maya offered a rather formulaic smile.
The hymns of humanity are indeed songs of courage, just as her brother had said.
With that thought in mind, Maya witnessed a crushing defeat; two casters from the Southern Province team of the Church of the Goddess of the Night managed to breach their opponents’ defenses with just a few fireballs, leaving their contemporaries ashen and grimy.
"We’re up!" the captain clapped his hands.
Everyone was getting up, and Maya also stood, at the sa ti pulling her friend to her feet.
"How co your brother hasn’t shown up yet?" she muttered.
"He’s here," Maya said with a smile, gazing towards the arena.
"You’re kidding!" Her friend glanced at the ntor’s seats, which were still vacant.
"No joke, I can sll him," Maya said, and then, stretching out her hand, her vitalized twig transford into a Shaman’s staff.
She pulled up her hood and lowered her mask, beginning to cast protection spells for her teammates.
"Left-side tactic," the captain began organizing the strategy from the back row of the team.
Three giant half-bloods then took their position on the left side of the team, their imposing shields creating a formidable presence as they stood together.
Maya swapped places with a teammate in the back left row; behind her, the seeds she scattered grew into two-ter tall tree people that wrenched themselves from the ground.
This hesitation cost the Church of the War God team, which had two wolves accompanying them onto the field.
"I still haven’t seen your brother," her friend’s voice ca from beside her, sounding like a wounded young beast as she held up her shield.
Maya laughed and turned around to look at the high entrance of the competition arena, where her keen eyesight caught her brother making his entrance.
The match began, and an opponent activated their invisibility spell. Maya turned her head, stamped the staff on the ground, and the elents in her hand whipped into a long lash towards the void, sweeping the half-human out of his invisible state. A protection spell that descended just in ti blocked the elental damage from the whip, but not the force that flung the half-human out of the arena.
While the opposite caster was preparing sothing, Maya didn’t bother to figure it out as it was her teammate’s duty as a spell hunter. All Maya did was raise her forearm, then lift it high, and the whipping electric lash transmuted into a spear before being hurled out, ultimately piercing the hastily erected stonewall and bringing down the caster behind it—the electric spear dissolved at the last mont, so the elents hit the opponent in fragnts, as expected, taking him down with a shock.
In the anti, the frontrunners of the Church of the War God had advanced, the Highlanders among them engaging with the giant half-bloods on the left while pressing hard against the front right side of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest.
Maya directed her tree people to the right to relieve the pressure.
The two wolves circled the left and charged at Maya, only to beco ensnared by vine tendrils that shot up from the ground.
Maya didn’t concern herself with the wolves; the bloodsucking vines would take care of that for her as she began to prepare lightning chains—her staff had already turned into a longbow, its string made of elents, and as Maya raised the bow and sidestepped twice, she aid at a distant elven half-blood who had been sheltered from shooting by the giant half-blood but was now forced to choose another target due to the pressure upfront. When Maya made her presence known, he instantly had to decide between evasion and return fire.
The elental arrow ca with its own homing ability, making evasion useless. Facing reality, he could only respond with his own shot, but the elental arrow, far faster than any physical bolt, struck him down.
Just then, her friend blocked an arrow for her: "I did it!" she exclaid happily, only to be struck by a thrown spear on her helt, yelping as she went down.
Maya sidestepped again to avoid a second pursuing arrow, simultaneously drawing her bow. The string of elents was fully taut, with another arrow forming on the bow, its destination the desperate face of an opposing archer.
As he fell from the electrical shock, Maya shook the longbow, the string of elents starting to resonate, the next arrow ready with a burst of elental fury, the chill of frost replacing the surge of lightning, ready to sweep through everything in an instant.
At the sa mont, she heard a whistle and saw the referee on the ground raise the flag of the opponent’s surrender, and she noticed the helpless expression on the face of the opposing ntor.
Thus, Maya lowered her longbow, watching as it deconstructed from its vitalized twig form.
"I told you, aim for the left side, ha-ha! Those idiots from the Church of the Goddess of the Night would never have guessed we’d confront them with the very adversaries they hoped to avoid," the captain chuckled with glee amidst the team.
Maya turned around to look at the figure taking a seat in the ntor’s stand, lifting the edge of her skirt ever so slightly with a smile.
Brother, do you see? This is how I fight.
"Mr. Malin is watching ! I’m so happy!" her friend’s voice rang out inconveniently.
Maya let go of her hand, tilted her head slightly, and her thick tail coiled up. The not-so-happy Cat Girl thought about sothing her brother often said—humans are truly a capricious species; despite being civilized, sotis they don’t use their brains and blissfully aim to bumble their way through life, living quite carefree.
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