Iris's Background And First Fight(Unedited)

As Iris's opening speech was canceled to an unexpected occurrence, everyone was quickly lead by the staff of the tournament to their respective booths inside the coliseum in order to finally start the tournament.

As she wanted to stay as close to her Daddy, Iris stayed with the group as they were led to their booth.

When they arrived, Nex saw that Louis seemed to want to say something to him. So after he convinced Iris to stay with everyone, he walked out with Louis.

"You bastard! Do you want to get us all killed!?" the moment they walked away from the booth, Louis grabbed Nex's neck and began to shake it without even giving the latter time to react.

"What the hell did you do to her ladyship that she is treating you like that!? Do you even aware of what kind of forces did you just messed with!?"

"I didn't do anything!" Nex quickly defended himself, "It's because of her race!"

"What do you mean her race?" Louis asked suspiciously, "No one knows a thing about her and her mother race!"

"That is quite a rare clan after all," Nex sighed as he felt the grip on his neck loosen, "They have a special soul attributes since they were born. And because I also have those attributes that kid saw me and thought of me as her father who she has never met."

"Are you kidding me!?" Louis called while cursing his luck for putting him in this horrible mess, "Just what kind of horrible things I did in my past life to get involve in that kind of mess!?"

"It is quite funny huh?" Nex scratched the back of his head, "What exactly is her background anyway?"

"Much worse than you could imagine," Louis shook his head, "Just with her position as the Royal Prophetess she is among the most important people in the kingdom, not to mention who her mother is."

"Her mother?" Nex seemed curious.

"We already spoke about that person," Louis depression seemed to hit rock-bottom, "She is one of the most powerful and terrifying people in the continent and the absolute powerhouse of the country."

"The Kingdom Protector."

♦♦♦

"No! I am staying here with Daddy and his friends!"

When Nex and Louis returned to the booth they saw Iris yelling angrily at a familiar middle-aged Elf in butler clothes and a pair of identical-looking maids that seemed to be past their fifties.

"Daddy! You back!" Iris's angry expression immediately turned happy upon seeing Nex enter the room and while ignoring the people she just yelled at, she quickly ran to him and jumped straight to his embrace and coiled her legs and arms around his torso like a baby koala.

The two maids' eyes widened upon seeing that scene while the butler elf frowned deeply, "Your Highness! Please behave yourself and come with us! You're the main guest of this event and you shouldn't act in such childishness!"

"I don't care about that grandpa James!" Iris pulled her tongue at him and hugged Nex even tighter, "Daddy said that I act as I want around him! And besides, Mommy promised to me I am allowed to do whatever that I want here! So I am going to stay here with Daddy!"

Seeing their little lady, that until now acted perfectly elegant and obedient without ever showing such rebellious side outside of the home, the maids stared at Nex with shock before starting to giggle while James' face turned red and he threw Nex a furious gaze before sighing.

"Very well, since you have Her Eminence permission, then so be it. But I still suggest you to let go of that man, his fight is about to begin."

Nex smiled bitterly when he heard James's tone when he called him, 'But it is kinda my fault huh?'

"Ah!" Iris let out a cute cry when she suddenly noticed that James was right and the stand in the booth that is meant for participants is glowing for some time now, "Daddy I'm sorry! Here, let me give you good luck blessing I always get from Mommy before you go!"

And before Nex managed to react, Iris gave him a peck on his cheek and jumped down before leading him to the glowing stand, "Put your hand on this and you will get transported to the arena. Now quickly go before they will disqualify you!"

Realizing he is about to enter a fight, Nex's mind instantly turned sharp and he turned around to everyone with a smile before putting his hand on the stand.

"See ya in a moment!"

♦♦♦

At the next moment, Nex found himself in the arena of the colosseum with another two people each equal distance from him and from each other.

"So in the preliminary stage, it's three people against each other huh?" Nex murmured while doing some light stretching and staring back at his opponents who examined him warily, a thief and a swordsman.

Both were peak first awakening Lord Bosses and around their mid-late teens.

"I guess that you were told to not go easy on me because of my relationship with Iris?"

"That's right," the swordsman nodded slowly while the thief tightened the grip on his daggers. Even though it was seemingly just a normal Traveler in front of them, if the Sword Saint only sent him to participate in the tournament then they would never be foolish enough to treat him like one.

"Her Eminence the Kingdom Protector released a message that no one is allowed to hold back against you no matter how much Her Ladyship is fond of you."

"Great," Nex smiled widely, "I was afraid that the tournament will get too boring if people will get too cautious around me."

He then pulled his dagger and played around with it before smirking at the two.

"Now come."

The two didn't need any more than that to immediately enter into action.

The thief moved and instantly disappeared into thin air while the swordsman charged at Nex with speed and power that shouldn't be possible for someone at his stage, closing the distance to Nex in a moment and slashing his sword at him.

"Above level 30 huh?" Nex murmured right before the sword hit him, part of his upper back shone and he disappeared from where he was leaving only an afterimage behind.

'From behind!' the swordsman quickly slashed while turning in place the moment he sensed where Nex went to, but when he was in the middle of turning around he received from a blind spot a heavy kick to the back of his knees that made him lose his balance.

"It's futile to use skill and techniques against me," Nex smiled before hitting the back of the swordsman's head using the hilt of his weapon, making him lose his conscious and disappear in a flash of light, "You need to combine them with absolute force and speed to stand a chance."

"Now for the other one," Nex upper back flashed again and at the next moment, he moved like a flash to the side while turning around and stretching his right hand and catching the hand of the thief that just tried to stab his back.

But the latter reacted unnaturally fast and stabbed with the dagger that he held with his other hand at Nex's hand, only to see his target shine before his dagger passed through it as if it was made from water.

"What!?"

"Too bad huh?" Nex smirked as this happened before knocking the shocked thief out using the hilt of his dagger once again.

"If that's what I'm up against then it isn't that bad," Nex thought out loud while the unconscious thief disappeared before he himself shone in light while a voice declared.

[Winner: Nexus!]

"Wow! Daddy!" immediately after appearing back at the booth Iris charged at him to hug, "You were so cool!"

"It's all because I got your good luck blessing," Nex smiled and patted the kid, "Or else I wouldn't fight against such silly people."

"Big Bro! How did you do that?" Eddie asked eagerly, "When you suddenly moved extremely fast or had your hand become intangible. That didn't seem like normal magic or skill at all!"

Louis and James, the two most powerful in the booth, stared at Nex in question as well. Eddie guess was correct, that wasn't the work of magic, Martial Arts or even Spirit Techniques! Although they had a few guesses to what it was, they wanted to hear first what kind of crazy thing this silver-haired man will bring up.

"It's actually quite simple," Nex grinned and rolled up his right sleeve to the elbow, revealing part of a tattoo that shined in blue and gave off a fierce and wild aura.

"Since I can't directly power-up by myself, then why not embed the power of others in me?"

"That's a beast totem!" James' eyes widened slightly as he now was able to sense more than one of those tattoos, "How is possible that you have several those!? It is only usable if you are at a similar strength and soul power level to the beast! but this totem is clearly from Second Awakening Lord Boss!"

"Well, you can go around it quite well if you can do certain things," Nex waved his hand while causing it to shine in a peculiar silver light as he said he word "certain".

"[Soul Arts]!"

James, Joseph, and the maids became shocked while Louis had an unpleasant "I knew it!" expression on his face.