231 Anticipation. (1/2)

The next day arrived and passed in the blink of an eye while Ozul didn't make a stop anywhere this time.

Only when it was around midnight did he notice the tall city structures from afar.

Ozul slowed down and before entering the city, he came down from the sky. Tomorrow would be the starting day of the battles, and if Emperor Luthien had to be there, he would have already left a couple of days ago.

Since it was night, though, he decided to have one good sleep before following along with his plan which he wasn't even sure could be called one.

He had the choice of staying at the branch of his organization here in the Capital city, but he decided not to since it would be a little troublesome to explain that he was their actual leader.

'Now that I think about it, there should be something that can prove the identity of the core members of the organization at the very least,' Ozul thought as he entered a hotel and rented a room for the night.

. . .

-In the Neutral Lands-

Some time ago, people in the Three-Eyed Strangers' headquarters were either preparing or helping others in the preparation for the event tomorrow.

Raven and Blaze spent these two days training as well and they could safely say that they had improved to a new level with just the previous two months of training.

Anyway, they were not concerned about the tournament either. At least not until now.

The two entered the meeting hall where the core members of their organization, together with Haley, Irvin, and Oliver had taken a seat already.

”What happened?” Raven asked confusedly. Haley wouldn't call them here only to discuss some random things.

”Although it isn't official yet to others, here we got the list of all the participants in the finals...” Irvin took out a document and handed it over to Raven.

Blaze looked around and noticed that everyone had serious expressions.

He peeked from Raven's shoulder to read the document. On the very top, it read the list's name, and directly below were listed the name of every participant with a brief introduction.

Just at a glance, Blaze could tell that there would be more than 50 people in the finals. However, amongst them, only around 20 of them had made it here by fighting battles after battles.

The rest more than 30 participants had entered the way Raven and Blaze were going to. These people belonged to factions strong enough that the Mercenary Guild had given them some slots for the direct entry in the finals as well.

”There is nothing to worry about,” Raven handed the document back to Irvin without any change in her facial expressions.

”There is another Rank-8 Mage at the middle-stage. And there are three additional Rank-8 Mages at the initial stage as well,” Haley replied to Blaze's query before Raven could answer.

Blaze narrowed his eyes at Haley's answer. Although they had been training, Raven and Blaze didn't think that they would have competition in the finals of the tournament.

Haley and Oliver even guessed that the strongest participant excluding them might not even get to Rank-8. So these four people were completely out of their expectations.

However, just like Raven, Blaze did not worry about anything. He was confident in his own strength. Not only him, even Raven could take on multiple Rank-8 Mages in the middle stages.

He had huge amounts of raw Mana, while Raven's Magical Spells wouldn't let her get exhausted as long as she managed to get a couple of cuts on her enemies.

The duo's confidence caused the other members to relax a little as well. But it was a different case for Oliver, Haley, and Irvin.

”You both will have to be careful. First of all, we never expected anyone to be able to match the strength of you two. Also, that Rank-8 of the middle stage is from the Church of Light... it could never be a good sign,” Haley advised with a worried tone.