Chapter 175: Contemporary Art
In Inigo’s faction, the situation was a complete disaster. Almost all of his soldiers acted on their own, thinking only of themselves. With teamwork practically nonexistent, they were stuck at the very bottom of the rankings.
"Watch out!" the faction’s flag bearer suddenly shouted in sheer panic.
Only a small group had been assigned to protect him. Although the Super Genius himself was nearby, the heat of the battle and all the chaos caused the guards to lose focus for a split second.
That was enough.
Like a lightning bolt, a swarm of insects rushed in to create a distraction while a nimble figure shot straight toward the flag bearer, snatching all seven flags in one go.
In the blink of an eye, all the hard work Inigo’s faction had put in until then was thrown straight into the trash.
Consumed by rage, the faction members unleashed a barrage of attacks at the thief. But before he could be hit, the mage managed to throw the loot toward a swarm of flying insects passing nearby.
The creatures quickly flapped their wings and carried the cargo straight back to Sallya’s faction.
As for the poor mage who had carried out the theft...
...he was beaten so brutally that he lost consciousness. Even so, trading a few broken bones for seven guaranteed flags for his faction had definitely been worth it.
Inigo was the angriest of them all. His army was a complete, disorganized mess.
At that point, only a little over a dozen flags remained, but they were all far from his faction. With no way to catch up on the scoreboard, he growled a merciless order: stop chasing flags and focus entirely on hunting down the other factions.
The entire battlefield, already engulfed in chaos with hundreds of mages destroying barriers and sprinting across the desert, began shifting into a different kind of battle—one of brute force and violence.
It only took one faction making that move for all the others to follow.
Capturing a flag was no longer the hard part. Bringing it back safely had become the real challenge. If an enemy group spotted you on the way, they’d try to steal it before you reached your flag bearer.
However, everyone participating was a mage with remarkable abilities and excellent escape techniques. Even when a weaker group was cornered, its members could still use escape spells to retreat safely.
As a result, Inigo’s faction couldn’t collect anything, and all of their robbery attempts ended up being a complete waste of time.
Five minutes of the competition had passed.
At that moment, Daraen’s faction was in first place with thirty-four flags.
To everyone’s absolute shock, despite using what was supposedly a defensive strategy, Priam’s faction was sitting in second place with twenty-nine flags.
The others struggled to steal flags.
Shione, Lumiere, and Flaris didn’t.
From the very beginning, the three of them had been carrying out those thefts with flawless precision. By now, the looks of admiration directed toward them were impossible to miss.
Right behind them was Sallya’s faction with twenty-one flags. In fourth place, despite having a little over six hundred members, was Walhart’s faction with eleven flags.
And finally, Inigo was dead last, sitting at rock bottom with exactly zero flags.
Shione handed her latest flag to Dandara and immediately swept her gaze across the desert. Only five of the hundred flags scattered across the battlefield were still left.
Looking farther ahead, she realized she wouldn’t reach the nearest one in time. The rival mages were practically on top of it already.
"That one to the west!" Flaris suddenly roared.
Shione didn’t understand why, but she didn’t hesitate. She instantly changed direction and shot westward like a bolt of lightning, where a crimson barrier had just been destroyed.
Long before she could cover the entire distance, one of Sallya’s groups had already reached the spot.
But...
Suddenly, two crimson lights pulsed violently around the group, appearing out of nowhere, completely beyond their senses.
"FUCK! DEFEND!"
*KBOOOM!*
Two explosions erupted one after another right on top of the group.
Even combined, they weren’t particularly powerful offensively. But because they had appeared out of absolutely nowhere, catching those mages with their defenses completely down, they were enough to force them several meters backward in the middle of the blast.
Shione, already charging toward them at full speed, flashed a confident smile as she saw the opening and rushed in to seize the flag.
At the same time, in the rear, Lumiere and Flaris waved.
Their partners came back. The two tiny Elemental Spirits, which looked like little living flames, were now pale, almost transparent, and completely exhausted.
That had been their final move. They had burned through every last drop of energy to pull off that theft.
"Good work. Get some rest," Flaris murmured gently, drawing his partner back into his body.
Priam let out a quiet sigh as he watched everything unfold. The three of their Elemental Spirits had made an enormous difference.
His own partner, meanwhile...
...was still sleeping soundly, without the slightest sign of waking up.
The very instant Shione was about to touch the flag, a terrifying survival instinct suddenly took over her body.
A violent gale tore through the air behind her.
Without thinking, she instantly dodged to the side, putting several steps between herself and the flag.
When she turned her head, she saw Walhart standing where she had been just a moment earlier, his attack having missed.
He landed heavily beside the flag before turning to look at her.
"Your reflexes aren’t bad," he spat with an unfriendly expression. "You’re really pretty. I like you, so just run now before I change my mind. After this is over, we can have a proper talk."
Shione planted her feet in the sand and clenched her fists.
The moment Walhart reached out to grab the flag, something went wrong.
"!"
The space around the flag suddenly flashed and froze solid.
A split second later, the ice shattered like glass.
The flag inside was blown to pieces in the blink of an eye.
"You bitch!"
Walhart spun around in a fury and threw a brutal punch at Shione.
Shione narrowed her eyes, but a mocking smile spread across her lips.
She still had a small amount of her partner’s soul power left.
Did that brute really think he could look down on her?
Perfect.
Instead of retreating, Shione moved so fast it looked like she had teleported.
She appeared like a ghost at his flank, wielding a crystal-clear ice sword, and attacked at the same speed she’d appeared.
Walhart’s eyes widened, and he hurriedly twisted his body to block.
**BANG!**
The moment their attacks collided, a deafening boom echoed across the entire desert, drawing everyone’s attention.
Both of them were sent flying in opposite directions.
Walhart was stunned by her strength, but...
...he didn’t even have time to process what had happened.
Before he could hit the ground, Shione seemed to appear out of thin air, materializing directly beneath him.
Her slender leg was instantly coated in a thick layer of jagged ice and...
"!"
Every single man who witnessed the scene felt an almost physical stab of pain.
Even the Elders atop the peak unconsciously held their breath.
It was a powerful, brutal rising kick, executed with the clear intention of erasing any possibility of Walhart ever leaving descendants in this world.
"GUAAAW!!!"
The poor bastard screamed with every last bit of air left in his lungs, letting out a high-pitched cry that echoed across the entire desert.
The hood covering his face fell back.
Walhart’s face had turned completely purple, which, combined with the dozens of black tattoos mercilessly covering his skin, turned his expression into a genuine work of contemporary art.
"Tch... pathetic."
Shione spat the words coldly.
Without wasting another second, she dashed back toward her faction.
The very moment Shione returned, the first seven minutes of the competition came to an end.
All one hundred flags on the battlefield had already been claimed.
The overall rankings remained unchanged.
With the exception of Walhart’s faction, which had just watched its leader get humiliated in the most disgraceful way imaginable, all four of the other factions managed to add one more flag to their score.
Now, the first phase of the competition was over.
All the mages began regrouping, reorganizing their formations.
Immediately, the disciples looked around, judging which faction was closest.
That assessment took less than two seconds.
In perfect unison, the eyes of four entire factions turned toward a single target.
There stood the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Priam’s faction had just become the primary target to be hunted down by the entire battlefield.