Scarlet

Some time passes and eventually Belle and Cynthia stop talking about annoying things. And I am very grateful of this.

“So are there any other students you’re worried about competing?” Allen asks, sounding curious as we both watch the battles going on right now. And as if drawn by his words, my eyes gravitate towards one particular screen where I find a girl with stark white hair and white irises walking through a room, leaving behind the corpse of the student she had just quite literally blown the mind of on the ground.

“Lost is most likely the biggest threat to me,” I answer while watching the girl no older than myself whose seemingly lost gaze gave her the namesake as she walks straight to the core and holds her finger out to it, sending some sort of needle of white liquid through it. Then my gaze turns to another screen where a guy seemingly a little older than me with blood red hair and a maniacal smile laughs in a rather disturbed manner as he rushes from one place to the next seemingly with no pattern or plan for his actions. He has crimson irises, along with random parts of his body turning into a very thick blood. “And then there’s Crim.”

“The current most powerful mental magic user out of all the new Guardians this year and the supposedly insane berserker who uses blood magic just like you,” Allen mutters before nodding his head and adding, “also both Primary tournament competitors, so it’s good to be worried about them.” He glances at me. “There anyone else?”

I nod while turning my gaze to another screen where I find a rather large man seemingly in his mid-twenties, but probably younger standing in place while taking all of the hits sent towards his team with a golden red glow surrounding his body. And despite every last attack hitting him, none of them seem to do any damage at all. In fact, his eyes seem to be glowing brighter and brighter with each hit.

“The Molten Angel,” I answer right before the man, whose feet seemed to have been merged into the ground, suddenly grows in size with two large angelic wings made out of pure magma growing out of his back as he stares down at the other team.

Then the bright light shining from his body grows even brighter and flashes out in a single direction towards the other team, sending a wave of magma along with it that engulfs half their team, burning parts of them.

I turn my attention to the last of the four I’m feeling wary of. Or, rather, it was five, but one of them actually ended up losing due to their team. So now it’s four.

“And the Shifter,” I finish as I turn to find the man whose name I learned from Denise to be Lucas Walsh. A student from the university her father is the headmaster of, and another Primary competitor, just like the other three.

The man in question is wearing a set of full black leather armor and has glowing red eyes with various markings streaking across his skin as he charges forward, shapeshifting his arm into that of a black bear’s paw before using it to straight up grab the fist of another student and then slowly crushing it if the sounds of snapping bones echoing in my ear are anything to go by.

I’m pretty sure this guy was one of the ones mentioned in that interview with the Knights that had Blue originally finding out about me. The main choice for the betting sites aside from myself to be the winner of the entire Primary tournament. Some people are actually saying that he’s stronger than I am. And for good reason, considering his Tier A physical strength.

“Good,” Allen says with a nod. “Make sure you study how they fight, because I would be surprised if they don’t make it to the finals.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him as I watch the screens. Although Lost already finished her second battle right when Allen asked, so there’s not much left to study there beyond recordings.

Not that I could study much in the first place since I don’t know how exactly her mental skills affect the mind, nor do I know how to defend against them.

A pity that I won’t be getting any achievements for fighting a mental magic user during this tournament though.

Stupid magical reality.

“That ‘stupid magical reality’ is the only reason all of your fellow students are still alive,” Tar comments. “And the magical reality not counting towards the System is also the only thing keeping the other people from eventually figuring out that you gain EXP from killing humans.”

Yeah, I know. Just annoyed that the hard work I put in during the tournaments doesn’t actually matter beyond the rewards I’ll win at the end of it, along with getting my name out there.

I already have a plan for dealing with the Molten Angel, since I have some experience with a similar magic thanks to Sentinel from the ranking tournament for Lion’s Heart. But I have no idea what to do about Lost. The only things that come to mind are letting Belle defend me, using blood boil and life drain in conjunction with Emily’s skills to cause her a lot of pain and break her focus, or just to leave her to the other teams. Since mental attacks are my weakest area, even if they’re technically still above average.

The other two will just be a matter of combat. Just another battle.

Although Crim could be annoying depending on what blood skills he has, since I don’t want him to somehow wrestle control of my skills or something. But his form of magic seems to be transformation focused. Specifically, transforming parts of his body into pure blood in exchange for strength. Kind of like my blood sacrifice, but in a different direction.

So I don’t think he will be too much of a nuisance.

And Shifter is a straightforward brawler using his transformation abilities to attack with animal assets, like he did with that bear claw earlier. A bear claw that appears to be his go-to transformation.

I smile a little as I watch the three fight, just studying their skills and fighting styles.

This’ll be fun.