"Aaaandd that's it for the 14th round, everybody, cmon, give a loud applause for our challengers, they have been giving us a spectacular show so far!" Drayce said as he stood up in the air above Reign and the others who were drenched in blood.
The 13 battles they had gone through after the one with Pentos were all surprisingly easy. None of the enemies was even close to the level Pentos was after using his skill and transforming, which made it impossible for them to even come close to pressuring Reign and the others.
As for Pentos and the enemies they fought against and killed, Reign and the others were shocked to see them sit in the arena and observe them.
It turned out that the arena was a place where death was not true. As long as one was below the Transcendent realm, the arena would bring them back to life after they died, making it an incredibly useful place for training.
Thanks to their luck being quite good in all the 13 matches they had after the one with Pentos, Reign and the others had managed to regain most of their stamina and mana. They didn't even fight the enemies altogether as the weaker ones were defeated by a third of them, making it possible for somebody to always rest up.
"Let's see, match 15, who will I draw out," Drayce said as he grabbed a piece of paper and took it out of the jar that was next to him.
As he read the name on the piece of paper, he smiled widely and glanced at Reign and the others before standing up.
"Match 15, it will be the pleasure of the arena to call the Death Riders to enter!" The arena went quiet for a moment before an eruption of cheers exploded. The cheering was even louder than the ones for Pentos, making Reign and the others apprehensive as to who they were going to fight next.
"It's gonna take a little bit of time for them to arrive though." Drayce suddenly said as he appeared behind Reign and the others.
They quickly turned around and glared at him as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Hey, don't look at me like that, it's not like your efforts in fighting strong opponents won't be rewarded, this time I have full authority to give you rewards since the arena is a treasure I put in this challenge."
"A treasure?"
"Oh, right, you guys are oblivious to anything above the leveling realm, well, it's like an item, just a higher grade, of course, this whole arena is mine and I can do anything I want with it, like reviving those that died inside of it, reducing their Tiers and more."
"Reviving, so that really is Pentos huh?" Reign asked as Drayce nodded at his words.
"Wait, what do you mean reducing Tiers?" Wolf suddenly asked as Drayce looked at him weirdly.
"Exactly what it sounds like, for example, Pentos is a Tier III combatant, yet he fought you as a Tier I, it's not only good practice for you, but for him as well."
"Tier III!?" Reign and the others sucked in a breath of cold air as they heard Drayce's words. To have fought against a Tier III combatant in the arena, although a heavily suppressed one, was not something they knew they would have a chance to do.
"Well yes, I do have sympathy for the kid, his family is quite strict and thanks to his unknown origins, he was heavily ostracized and barely had any resources and chances to improve, making him much weaker than his siblings and cousins, and yet he is the one with a more superior bloodline, really, what a shame."
"Wait, you're telling me that this guy is 'only' Tier III because he didn't have a lot of chances to improve?"
"Well yes, when he came to me a couple of months ago, he was just Tier II, now he's on the verge on reaching Tier IV, ah, I can't wait to see the looks on his family's face when he returns to them, hahahahahaha." Drayce laughed as Reign and the others stared at him, not knowing what to answer.
"Anyway, seems like the riders are almost here, a quick warning though, they're the personal troops of a friend of mine, and each of them is Tier VI originally," Drayce said with a serious expression.
"You can go all out, the arena will allow you to use any skills again after a round has ended, after all, cooldown only matters during a battle."
"Why didn't you say that before?!" Shadow cursed angrily as Drayce disappeared.
A gate opened and soon the arena was silent. Footsteps could be heard from the gate as Reign and the others stared apprehensively, the angels were sent back to the edge of the arena as they would be useless to them during this battle.
Tank's four generals were sent back to the other dimension while Beast had only left Blackie next to him. Laura was already drawing multiple pentagrams on her body, the ground, and the air as she was planning on taking the enemy by surprise and killing one right at the beginning of the battle.
As the footsteps drew closer, a heavy aura descended on the arena, the spectators were silent, each one understanding that the beings coming into the arena preferred silence. Amongst them were beings that were stronger than the Death Riders, but their identity and talent were what made them behave in front of them.
Four knights suddenly entered the arena, each one dressed the same as the others. A pitch-black suit of armor that produced a metallic sound with each step the knights took adored their bodies. The helmet on their head masked their face completely, only leaving two slits open for their red eyes to be shown.
A red ribbon was tied to each of the helmets as a symbol of a skull being skewered by a sword could be seen on it.
Laura's arm suddenly became purple and demonic, she punched the pentagram in front of her and quickly activated the other ones, sending one powerful beam of purple mana followed by multiple smaller ones at one of the Death Riders.
The Death Rider quickly took out his sword and met the attack, only to be sent flying against the wall with great power. Nobody was able to see what was happening as the beam of mana still hadn't disappeared, the other ones all made their way to the rider and an explosion took place.
Laura panted a bit as the attack expended quite some energy on her. Mia and the other angels looked at her with astonishment, they had never seen her use such a powerful attack before. It was something that a healer should not have as they were usually the ones that relied on the protection of others to survive a battle.
They knew that Laura was not a normal healer from the first day, but they were still astonished to find that what she had used before was just the tip of the iceberg.
"No need to go easy, let's activate our marks right away!" Reign said as he and the others all charged at the riders, their marks shining and visible from underneath their armor.
What they didn't expect was that Mia did the same, a mark appeared on her back and shone with a pale blue color as her hair changed a bit, and a few strands of blue hair appeared.
'She has a mark too?' Reign asked with a calm expression. He wasn't shocked to find that Mia had a mark as she was powerful and definitely worthy of getting one.
'Think later, fight now.' Reign told himself as he attacked the rider that Laura had attacked at the very beginning. He knew that the possibility of the rider dying was slim to none and since Laura had expended so much power, she wouldn't be able to heal the others and attack at the same time.
He took on the one that was probably injured simply because he wanted to alleviate some pressure from the others.
As Reign neared the wall that was now filled with cracks, he opened his mouth and a beam of lightning was launched from it.
The beam hit nothing however and a shadow quickly moved past Reign who quickly ducked and slashed back, his sword hitting a hard object.
As Reign looked at the person behind him, he was able to see the rider that Laura had attacked. His armor was in a worse state than before but it was still fine. His sword looked brand new and seemingly too no damage from the collision with Laura's beam.
As for the rider's strength and agility, it was incredible. Reign was being pushed back right away and had trouble fighting him. Even with his lightning working at its full capacity and his mark activated, he was only a little bit faster than the opponent.
"Well, let's see what you got big guy." Reign said with a smile as he stared at the rider who charged at him once again.
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