chapter 17: The Princes' Duel
A few weeks later
Today, a dozen horse-drawn carriages arrived from the Kingdom of Moritan. These were students of the Moritan Kingdom Academy. They had improved relations between Asina and the Kingdom of Moritan, and they planned a combat tournament between the two kingdom's academies.
The tournament was set to begin in a few days, and Ethan had earned the right to participate. After all, only the top 128 would compete, half from Asina Academy and the other half from Moritan Academy, making a total of 7 rounds in the tournament.
Additionally, the 11-year-old first prince of the Kingdom of Moritan would also participate in this tournament. So, everyone was expecting a match between the two princes. Soon enough, the tournament began, and Ethan entered his first match. He faced a lizardman wielding an axe. Lizardmen were one of the few tribes existing in the Kingdom of Moritan; after all, they lived in a small desert in Moritan Kingdom.
The match began, and Ethan attempted to read his opponent's mind. Although it required the opponent's mind to be emotionally intense for mind-reading, his opponent was naturally going through intense emotions being in a fight. Ultimately, it was either anger or fear.
Ethan blocked his opponent's move, changed his direction to the right, and delivered a strong blow, then used gravity magic to weigh down his opponent's hands. The lizardman was quite resilient, but he also had weak points. So, after a few moves, Ethan managed to defeat the lizardman.
He managed to breeze through several rounds like this and reached the quarter-finals. Ethan was resting in the room below the arena prepared for resting. Meanwhile, Anna was fighting the Moritan prince, but she was already on the verge of losing. Actually, reaching the quarter-finals was surprising in itself. Anna's skill in magic and weapons was slightly above average, but she had won so far thanks to good strategy and changing her weapon selection according to her opponent in each round. But this time, she faced a formidable opponent.
She eventually said she surrendered to avoid getting injured. After all, she wasn't the type to enter a battle she couldn't win. Moritan Prince Lucius was quite impressed by Anna's performance, so he looked at her with genuine interest. He could sense that she was different from the other girls he had met.
Lucius said, "You were quite good. What's your name?" as if giving an order. Anna replied, "Thank you, Your Highness. You were quite impressive too. My name is Anna." Anna saw Lucius as another opportunity. If she could build a good relationship with him, it could be very useful in the future.
Lucius said, "Anna... you have a beautiful name. So, would you like to be my wife?" Although he asked it as a question, it sounded more like a command. Anna looked at Lucius with a shocked expression, trying to understand if she had heard him correctly. But when Lucius spoke again, she realized he had indeed just proposed to her.
Lucius said, "Why are you hesitating? Do you have a better option than me? I will be the future king, and you will be the queen. So, you need to say yes quickly." However, Anna's response would surprise him greatly.
Anna said, "Thank you for your offer, Your Majesty, but I don't want to accept it." She was quite angry; after all, she didn't like being treated so rudely, as if there were no other options available to her. Lucius was initially surprised by Anna's response; after all, for the first time in his life, he couldn't get what he wanted. So, he quickly became angry and started attacking Anna even though the match was over.
Lucius said, "You bitch, who do you think you are to reject me? Don't you know who I am? You ignorant bitch, you'll die today" With these words, he began to attack Anna. Anna immediately tried to defend herself, but due to Lucius's strong sword strikes, she soon fell.
The teachers in the arena immediately came to stop Lucius, but he managed to make one last strike and opened a wound on Anna's face. "A face like this suits a bitch like you," he said. Meanwhile, Ethan, who had returned to the arena for the match, heard this and immediately ran to Anna's side.
"Are you okay, Anna? Why did he do this to you?" he said, anger evident on his face. Anna reached out and hugged Ethan; she was quite scared. "I didn't do anything wrong... I just rejected his proposal, and then he suddenly attacked me," she said, looking quite frightened. For a moment, she recalled the bad memories with her brother.
Ethan said, "What proposal are you talking about?" "He suddenly proposed to me to be his wife, and I rejected it," Anna said. Ethan looked at Lucius, who had been watching them all this time, with anger, and had quite bloody thoughts in his mind, but first, he took out a healing potion and gave it to Anna to heal her wound.
The academy director considered disqualifying Lucius after this incident, but decided against it as it could harm the relationship between the two kingdoms. The tournament continued, and when the time came for the grand final, Ethan and Lucius faced each other.
Approaching Lucius, Ethan said, "Be ready to pay for what you've done," with an angry voice, after all, he had developed some feelings for Anna during the time they spent together. Lucius scoffed, "So that's why... So, that bitch seduced you too, don't worry, my friend, I understand you" in a mocking tone, but he was inwardly furious.
The duel began, and Ethan began to attack with all his might. He immobilized him using gravity magic and threw a large fireball. Lucius was skilled in earth magic, so he immediately created a wall and threw a solid piece of earth at Ethan. Ethan managed to escape using air magic. Lucius then used his special magic to immobilize Ethan with chains. But Ethan quickly freed himself from them as they were burned with high-intensity fire.
Lucius's greatest feature was having a lot of mana, and Ethan knew this. It would be bad for him if the fight dragged on. So, he drew his longsword and used gravity to lighten it. He threw several fireballs at Lucius and used his remaining mana to accelerate them with air magic. While Lucius tried to get rid of the fireballs, he noticed Ethan approaching.
He quickly created chains and used them towards Ethan, but Ethan quickly got rid of them. When he finally approached Lucius, he added most of his mana to the sword and used gravity magic to immobilize Lucius, preventing him from moving. Ethan swung his sword with all his might towards Lucius's head.
Lucius tasted metal in his mouth and soon widened his eyes in shock, he saw what the audience saw, and finally only saw the open blue sky, Lucius was dead. The first prince of the Kingdom of Moritan had been killed with a single blow by the third prince of the Asina Kingdom, giving these two kingdoms a big reason to fight.