Negative comments came spewing out from the spectator’s mouths as it echoed all around in the Colosseum. Once the first blood was made, to be more accurate, once Luon made his statement without any sense of shame to express gender equality, a wave of negativity rose up from the dark depths of many fans hearts.
Arisa looked at the numerous people spewing venom at Luon’s display and sighed, she only thought that these people honestly have nothing better to do with their lives. Clinging to idols instead of improving oneself in this convoluted, dark world where war was only several planets away. It’s ironic how many unsung heroes fell to the enemy while popular idols rise to scare away the darkness in people’s heart. Without the warriors on the front line, everyone would have perished several centuries ago.
Fortunately, not all were like that, besides the crazed fanboys there were a few understanding male students who only nodded and smiled at Luon’s remark, on the other hand, many females were cheering once Luon had eliminated one of those idols. Jealousy is quite a fearful thing.
Arisa thought, ‘At least I don’t go about advertising how beautiful and pretty I am. It’s less troublesome, and already so obvious.’ She was already confident about her looks, so she didn’t intend to increase her amount of followers.
What was more surprising was that the teaching staff was divided into three different opinions based on Luon’s statement. One faction, the militaristic combatant one, advocated Luon’s statement was correct. On the battlefield, gender is the least one had to worry about. The more cultured, honor-driven faction within the teaching staff argued that Luon should have made a less gruesome death and that his ranged attack was not only scary but cowardly. They emphasized that Luon should’ve fought more cleanly and elegantly with a sword instead of a robot with a rifle. This statement caused the other faction to debate whether or not honor, surprise attacks, and cheap but highly effective tactics have a place in the battlefield.
The final opinion was supported by only one man on the faculty who stated that Luon should be eliminated for his heartless, cruel attack on his angelic, holy idol. He cursed and spouted nonsense hoping for Luon’s demise which caused many onlookers to shake their head. Before his opinions could escalate even further, one of the other members of the teaching staffed silently walked up behind him and knocked him out cold. A teachers honor is shared as a whole, to have this guy ruin it was a shameless piece of dirt in their teaching community.
Arisa who saw everyone’s reactions to Luon’s heartless actions simply thought, ‘Those girls sure built up the hype at the start of the match, it looks like regardless if they won or lost, they would always have fans supporting them.’
Looking away from the crazed manner of her fellow human beings, she watched the monitor anticipating for the outcome.
…
“This! It isn’t how it was supposed to be!” cried one of the idol members.
“That ruthless bunch! How could they aim for the face! Don’t they know that being an idol it’s all about the face! Come on sisters, let’s go get revenge!” another one angrily said. She dropped her rifle and began to pull out her sword from her waist while motioning her surfboard forwards, but just as she placed her hand on the hilt, she was stopped by a shadow in front of her.
“Hold your line girls, you heard what master and Janet said about using swords unless the opponent is worthy enough to use it on, we should keep it hidden as much as possible,” said the girl who stopped her.
If Luon were at the scene, he would have noticed this female idol member was the intelligent looking one who told him his charges during the opening ceremony.
“Vice-captain! That will make these swords look like decorative pieces if we don’t use them!” Not giving up despite the restriction, the idol member protested. There were only 3 of them left alongside the summoned units that they had brought with them. The Vice-captain looked at the other girl response, and she politely gave the nod in agreement.
The Vice-captain sighed as she said, “They don’t just look like decorative pieces, they are decorative pieces. However, the situation is different than what we anticipated. If only we took the time to study our opponent’s tactics instead of doing idol activities we may have known this beforehand. Alright, let’s retreat from firing range and let me go ask Janet for instructions.”
At this moment, Team Diva halted their advances and retreated further away from the border until their figures couldn’t be seen by the naked eye that easily. Luon who saw this action pondered about their next set of actions, Bendan who had no idea what the current situation was asked Luon, “What’s going on? Why did they retreat?”
Luon turned to the ignorant Bendan and said, “They’re being careful. You know how they’re good with the sword? In this open ocean front, how could they even approach us to use them? With ranged weaponry and no cover to use they are placed at a disadvantage since their hypnotic songs don’t work on us mainly because of two reasons.”
Luon raised his fingers slowly as he continued, “One, the distance, they are too far for it to be more effective is, if they managed to get closer then it might have been more troublesome. Two, besides you and Tyron, who was drooling over their bodies which were only covered by a slim bikini and a sheathed sword on the side for aesthetic appeal, the rest of us aren’t affected by it.”
Bendan didn’t reject the opinion where he and Tyron were drooling over beauty, unfazed by the remark he said, “Oh, okay. So what do we do now?”
Luon turned to face their camp that was hidden in the trees, from the forest a series of mysterious sounding footsteps echoed throughout the forest as several weird creatures appeared before their eyes, it was tall and red like a lobster while having a series of sharp looking legs. It resembles a water strider only several times more menacing, they were a type of aquatic-based Inzektor.
Although, using Inzektors could be a shameful thing to do, there many people who had done so in reality for experiments, mounts, and slaves. It was similar to how black mages were thought to be cruel, and merciless. However, their capabilities could create a hefty amount of contribution. Necromancers, on the other hand, had it worse. They were already considered the scum of society for their dark magic, and to revive Inzektors made them even more hated.
Attached to the backs of these creatures were a series of rifles, and spears that had looked freshly created. Luon took this opportunity to hand out to the orcs the rifles and armed the fishmen with spears. He knew what Gizmo was thinking of and what kind of machinations he was up to since they debated and had deeply analyzed each other’s strategies. Luon had also noticed a little box on one of these creatures, he opened it up to find a bundle of bluish stones.
He picked one up and used his Eye of Insight to analyze it.
[Water Stone] [Rank – Rare] [When in contact, allows the user to breathe underwater.] |
Luon counted the amount as he handed them out to the orcs, after he gave himself, Bendan, and Tyron one. The box had exactly the right amount for all of them. These stones were extremely helpful if the orcs who were unable to breathe underwater naturally like the fishmen
And were to fall into the water, then it would have been a waste of resources and decreased their manpower. Even though they could swim, if the boats were to fall and there was nothing to support them until they could reach land, they would end up like sitting ducks waiting for their deaths.
Almost everything they needed to win was here at this moment, orcs armed with rifles on boats, fishmen armed with spears on the new mount along with Bendan and Gizmo. Everything was ready except for one thing.
At this moment, Luon looked over at the forest one more time as he noticed the stampeding of trees that had just happened, their trump card had arrived.
…
The group departed into the ocean, the match had gone for over 15 minutes, if one of the commanders had saved their points until now, they could have already conjured a Kraken which was renowned for its ability to overturn the seas.
They quickly advanced on the ocean. The plan was to storm the enemy based with overwhelming force, although Team Diva was superior with blades, with the clear line of sight it was highly unlikely that they would engage in close quarters combat. Even though they moved at quickly because there was nothing on view above the water, they were careful about the beings underneath.
Besides a couple of fishmen that were dismounted to scout the sea, their vision was shallow as the darker depths were shrouded in darkness. Soon the shape of an island could be seen from a distance which caused the group to be a little warrier. Their pace slowed down by a notch.
But it wasn’t without reason, from dark depths of the sea, a series of attackers appeared and ambushed the wary fishmen. Realizing some strange activity in the ocean water, they started doing some counter-maneuvers that Luon had discussed to the group along the way. The fishmen dismounted from the water striders like Inzektors and dove into the ocean to support their comrades, replacing their position the Orcs who were on the boat jumped on top of the Inzektors.
Bendan and Tyron jumped into the water to battle against the enemy, the battle was intense as there were already corpses of a variety of fallen warriors. It was a mess, blood spewed from fallen bodies causing the ocean water to be coated in a shroud of death. Everyone fought as they pleased, from close quarters to ranged attacks, a numerous number of actions took place.
Bendan could even see an orc fall into the water dead with an arrow stuck in the middle of his body. He looked at the enemy that they were up against. Team Diva was indeed to the name of Diva, they have never summoned a single male being so far. From beneath the sea, Bendan and Tyron could see the three idol members in bikinis on a dolphin swimming by their allies and stabbing them with spears.
Apparently, instead of using swords the group were equipped with spears making them look like underwater valkyries. Besides them, there were many topless female mermaids with arrows supporting several female human knights who were on salamanders. If Team Ascension were to lose right now, then the match would be over. There was nothing to stop these female knights from raiding their base if they were defeated.
Bendan and Tyron who noticed the value of this battle began to reap the lives of their opponents near them, Tyron shot them from afar while Bendan managed to steal a salamander before causing havoc for their foes. Noticing the newcomers the three idols turned and charged towards Bendan and Tyron who barely managed to fend off their blows.
With the intervention of the idols the two of them were suppressed, they struggled against the idols but found themselves much slower than them underwater. Just as one of the idols was about to end Tyron’s life, a shadow quickly enveloped her before anyone could notice it, it was like a flash, with a single blink of an eye, the person who was just at the spot disappeared as people barely manage to see the darkness retreating from where it came from.
The other two stopped their assault before retreating from a distance, whatever it was that attacked them was too fearsome to battle against. They stared at the dark section of the sea as a large figure slowly came to light.
The battlefield had turned silent from intimidating pressure it had emitted. This caused everyone to sweat bullets despite being underwater.
A man stood undaunted, unfazed at the battlefield with the being beneath his feet. Luon smiled at the fearful expression that the Vice-captain made and said, “Did you forget about me?”
The ambush was countered by another ambush.