Chapter 787 – Liam Anworth

Under the guidance of the two princesses, Bai Zemin soon arrived at the area where the soul evolvers who would participate this time in the competition of kingdoms and who would fight for the Gales Kingdom were gathered in an attempt to grant victory not only to the Builux Kingdom but also to their home.

The area where the soul evolvers who would fight for Gales in this year’s competition of kingdoms were located was underneath the stands, underground. However, there was a long corridor leading to the central arena. In some aspects it was quite similar to the coliseums on Earth where gladiators used to fight to the death in ancient times, except that this arena was much larger and the area where the participants rested much more luxurious instead of gloomy.

Although there were not many participants from Gales, the number was still more than Bai Zemin had expected to find.

“Oh?” One of them exclaimed softly, the one who coincidentally was standing facing the side entrance. This person was clearly an assassin as not only was he wearing light leather armor but there were two daggers at his waist.

“Ellis, you finally brought Seraphina.” Said the assassin with a somewhat resigned sigh.

“That was quicker than we thought.” Pointed out someone else, this time a beautiful mage with pale green hair and eyes of the same color.

“Too fast I would say.” A warrior who had two swords sheathed on his back and wore a light cloth tunic folded his arms. His appearance was somewhat cold and proud, something that stood out even more when he folded his arms and asked in a curious voice, “Ellis, did our kingdom develop teleportation magic or did we finally manage to build advanced magic circles?”

“Ah, it’s not like that.” Ellis chuckled and while stroking her younger sister’s hair pointed out, “Guess what? It turned out that just as I was leaving the arena and heading out to find this troubled little girl, she was only a few feet from the west gate.”

A guy with a cloth tunic and a leather backpack on his back, as well as a wooden staff in his hand, looked at Seraphina with amused eyes and said in a joking tone, “Looks like her highness the second princess of Gales really wasn’t joking when she said that the big celebrities always come in last.”

“Giles! If you continue to annoy me then look how I turn around and leave the way I came!” Seraphina immediately bared her teeth.

The guy in the tunic and backpack immediately raised his hands in surrender and no one else dared to bother Seraphina. They knew that even though she was kind and gentle, if they really made her inner little devil come out no one would get out of here unscathed.

They all focused on Seraphina and Ellis, the two princesses and also members of the team that would participate in this kingdom competition. As for Bai Zemin, everyone casually overlooked him… or rather, they were probably a bit too anxious to care about an unknown at this point.

However, Bai Zemin’s eyes were fixed on one person. Probably feeling his eyes, that person turned to look at him and when their eyes met he nodded, to which Bai Zemin responded by nodding and surprising the other party.

That person came a little closer and asked curiously, “Ellis, who is this person? Friend of yours and the second princess Seraphina?”

“Mm? Ah, Liam. Right on time.” Ellis looked at the young man who was given the title of future hero of Gales by the people before looking at everyone and saying with a smile, “Let me introduce you to a friend. His name is Bai Zemin, even though he is only 20 years old he is already level 50, and from what he has told me it seems that two requirements are all that separates him from the Second Order.”

“Peak First Order at the age of 20?”

“Oh! That’s really cool!”

“Actually, if we don’t compare him to Liam, Ellis, or Seraphina, this person is quite talented.”

“But, isn’t his name kind of weird?”

“Maybe he’s from a different kingdom?”

“But… If he’s from some other kingdom, is it okay to let him be here?”

…

Bai Zemin’s mouth opened slightly and a flash of surprise shone in his eyes as he looked at the people in front of him.

‘I expected to meet arrogant people, young people blinded by their own talent who look at no one but themselves.’

Far from meeting what he expected, what greeted Bai Zemin were mostly curious looks. Some praised him even though they were all young and talented, others looked at him with a bit of wariness at the possibility that he belonged to a different kingdom and would divulge information to the competition…. There were several different reactions, but Bai Zemin felt the goodwill of these people.

Of course, if these people had snubbed Bai Zemin or acted proudly, he would directly ignore them and scoff in his heart. At the end of the day, the soul evolvers on Earth were more brilliant at reaching levels as high as these people in a matter of months.

However…

If all the soul evolvers in Gales were this careful and did not disdain others…. Then Bai Zemin believed he had begun to understand a little of the reason why the ancestors of this kingdom had somehow managed to reach peace.

‘Will we be able to get there someday?’ Bai Zemin sighed in his heart and could not help but feel a bit of helplessness and envy.

In his world, 90% of soul evolvers disdained everyone who is not stronger than them. However, here in Eventide World, Bai Zemin received respect from even the three most talented people of the younger generation in Gales even though none of them knew his true power.

“Hmph, surprised?” Seraphina looked at Bai Zemin and said proudly, “We people from Gales are not snobs!”

Bai Zemin raised an eyebrow and gave her a sidelong glance as he muttered under his breath, “Tell that to the expression on your face, ponytails princess.”

“You!” Seraphina immediately became furious and gnashed her teeth.

“Pahahahaha!”

“Ponytails princess? Hahahaha! Bai Zemin, I like you!”

“This guy really has balls!”

“Giles, can you watch your vocabulary?”

“Bah, Anna stop being such a crybaby will ya?”

…

It was more than obvious from the way they interacted with each other and the way they addressed the two princesses by their first names or joked with them that this group had not been casually formed for this competition.

‘They’ve all spent a lot of time together. Friends, huh?’ Bai Zemin reasoned in his heart.

He had no doubts now. Even without seeing the other side’s competitors, it was clear that victory would be the Gales Kingdom’s as Bai Zemin doubted that the other kingdoms would have this kind of unity.

‘Even if one of the other kingdoms has powerhouses that can rival against Gales, the understanding of comrades on the battlefield will make the difference.’

“Bai Zemin, right? That’s a rather peculiar name, of course, no offense.”

Bai Zemin looked at the young man standing in front of him and was again surprised.

This young man was very handsome, a little too handsome one might even say. Tall, muscular but not exceedingly burly, face handsome enough that even Bai Zemin had to admit that perhaps even he was not comparable, white skin that contrasted with his jet black hair, etc.

However, what caught Bai Zemin’s attention the most were this young man’s eyes and ears.

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard the same multiple times over the past few hours.” Bai Zemin replied with a smile and took the young man’s outstretched hand.

The young man’s eyes sparkled with a hint of surprise that quickly turned to joy. He used his free hand to let Bai Zemin’s hand between his own and gave his hand several shakes.

“It is a pleasure to meet you! My name is Liam, Liam Anworth. I hope we can get along well!”

Bai Zemin didn’t quite understand the sudden joy of the future hero of Gales, however, he could feel the genuine goodwill oozing from his voice and eyes so he didn’t reject his intention and smiled slightly.

“Sure, I hear your main weapon is a giant sword? I use a greatsword too, maybe we can learn from each other in the future.”

“You use giant swords as your main weapon too? That’s great! Zemin, when the competition is over let me show you a unique way to use the greatswords, I’m sure it will shock you!”

“Haha, I’ll look forward to it then.”

Seraphina and Ellis exchanged glances before sighing in relief.

In fact, they all sighed relieved in their hearts before looking at Bai Zemin with eyes several levels kinder compared to a few seconds ago.

* * *

“Epanem!”

“Presha!”

“Batish!”

…

Bai Zemin watched from the shadows and hidden by large columns in the resting area of Gales. Beside him, the 12 members who would be participating for the first and last time in their lives in the competition of kingdoms on representation of their kingdom began to get nervous as the shouts from the stands became more and more fierce with each passing second.

Actually, they were nervous not only because they were young and because this was something new to them, but amidst the shouts of those who had come to support their kingdoms, the distinctive shouting of people supporting them from the stands could be heard.

“Gales!”

“Fight, Gales!”

“Go for the victory, Gales!”

…

“Shit, somehow this is making me more nervous than when I killed my first monster.” The young man with the backpack and tunic, Giles, squirmed in place as he looked at the fervent expressions of his compatriots.

“Y-Yes… I feel my hands starting to get wet from the sweat. I’m afraid I might not be able to hold on tightly to my staff haha…” Anna, who Bai Zemin learned about 30 minutes ago was Giles’ girlfriend, didn’t reprimand her boyfriend for saying rude words since she was so nervous.

“Hmph! All those people cheering for other kingdoms, just wait and see! This princess will make sure to send you all home with pitch-black expressions on your faces!” shouted Seraphina loudly as she pointed her finger in the distance.

“Seraphina, you…” Ellis was speechless as she looked at her little sister and hurriedly pulled her back before anyone saw her.

“Hey, Ellis.” Bai Zemin looked at the first princess who was around his age and asked curiously, “What’s next now?”

Ellis came to his side, and while looking towards the center of the arena said softly, “Soon, one of the competition supervisors will arrive at the arena and give a speech regarding the importance of this competition. After the speech ends, each kingdom will send one participant as a delegate to take a ball. This process will be repeated several times in a single day, let me explain the reason.”

After a short pause, she continued, “There are a total of 49 balls with different runes according to the 49 participating kingdoms, however, one of those balls is actually a fake. The lucky kingdom that takes the fake ball will be considered the winner of an invisible match since the number of participants is uneven. As for the rest, they will all fight against the kingdom that draws the ball that complements the runes of their ball.”

“In short, 48 kingdoms will fight in each round facing each other in 24 groups while 1 will go directly to the next.” Evan, the assassin of the group, interjected.

“Mm?” Bai Zemin blinked in confusion and asked feeling somewhat perplexed, “49 participating kingdoms? I thought the three parent kingdoms didn’t participate.”

“Stupid orc, the parent kingdoms are naturally participating in the competition. Even though the wars were stopped thanks to the competition of kingdoms, that doesn’t mean they won’t try to increase their chances of victory.” Seraphina walked over and stood between Bai Zemin and Ellis before saying in a tired voice, “More than that, the balls didn’t catch your attention?”

“Uh… Now that you mention it.” Bai Zemin frowned.

Seraphina was about to explain when suddenly Ellis took control of the conversation away from her again.

“Each ball has runes engraved on it, as I mentioned before. The runes engraved on the balls are different, but they share something in common and that is that they all have a rune of mutual attraction. Once all the participants have finished drawing their balls, the judge will use the mother ball so-called, which will cause the balls with half runes to struggle to unite in an attempt to complete the broken rune.”

“Oh, now I get it.” Bai Zemin nodded. “That way be will form the pairs for combat.”

Seraphina looked at her sister hesitantly as if she wanted to ask something, but after several seconds she finally gave up and said nothing.

Approximately 20 minutes later, what Ellis had told Bai Zemin actually happened.

A soul evolver who was in the initial levels of the Third Order came into the arena and raised a hand for silence, which caused the crowd to slowly stop talking.

After a speech of about 5 minutes during which she spoke about how important this competition was to keep the peace among the humans and thus join forces to fight against the enemy races, the powerful mage waved her right hand and said in a voice clear and audible to all, “Let the representatives of the 49 kingdoms enter the arena, it’s time for the team matches to begin!”

The crowd immediately became agitated as they slowly began to see a person coming out from underground from different hidden parts of the arena. They all shouted out the name of the soul evolver representing the realm each of them belonged to.

Bai Zemin couldn’t help but shake his head, these people were clearly just trying to suppress the voices of the others in an attempt to have the name of their kingdoms and their team’s representative overwhelm the others.

He looked at the two princesses and noticed that neither of them was moving.

“Mm? Seraphina, Ellis, which one of you will represent the team this time?”

It was natural to expect that one of the two talented princesses from the Gales Kingdom would represent the team that would represent Gales. However, to his surprise, the two princesses shook their heads.

“This time, the honor goes to someone else.” Seraphina looked at the young man standing in the back with his eyes closed and said softly, “Status doesn’t matter here, it doesn’t matter. It’s only talent and efforts what count.”

Liam’s eyes opened and everyone immediately noticed the change in his aura.

Bai Zemin felt as if he was looking at a completely different person from that cheerful and even somewhat immature young man who had greeted him with enthusiasm earlier.

“Everyone, I’ll be back soon then.”

Liam smiled slightly at his team and nodded to Bai Zemin before moving forward with firm steps in the direction of the arena. Looking at his back, Bai Zemin for some reason couldn’t help but feel that the cheerful 18-year-old he had met a little over 1.5 hours ago, suddenly and somehow looked somewhat lonely.

Somehow or other, Bai Zemin couldn’t help but remember the times when other people would tell him how lonely his back looked at times, and thinking that this was how others saw him, he somehow understood some of the sadness they felt.

It was a very difficult feeling to understand, and much more difficult to explain.

It was then when Elllis’ whisper answered some of his doubts: “Liam has a very sad past… As you may have noticed by his red eyes and pointed ears, he has demon blood in his body, that’s why he was so happy when you didn’t discriminate against him even though today was the first time you guys met. Despite knowing that he will face everyone’s mockery and insults when he leaves, he still asked me if he could represent the kingdom this time… How was I supposed to say no to him when his eyes were so determined?”

Demon blood? Bai Zemin looked straight ahead with a frown.

“That boy is really brave.”

Followed by the unmistakable scent of fresh roses, Lilith’s voice sounded beside Bai Zemin, and when he turned his head he saw her standing looking at the young man’s back with somewhat complicated eyes.

“If he doesn’t collapse today before the demons in his heart, then he will definitely be a powerful existence in the future as long as he can grow up properly.”

* * * * * * *

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