Chapter 104: The Winning Sacrifice (1/2)
Chapter 104: The Winning Sacrifice
Translator: Double_LEditor: Tehrn
More people began to pay attention to the upcoming matches in the afternoon due to the unexpected outcome that had happened earlier, the surprise had even caught the interest of many media reporters. As known by many, Bernabeu was on their way to advance as an S-Ranked academy; hence this tournament was important to their further development. Everyone was expecting them to lead by a huge gap, yet the result turned out to be 3:2, no one was happy with the outcome even though Bernabeu was still leading.
The METAL Combat matches were scheduled to begin in the afternoon, the remaining five matches were important to both Ayrlarng and Bernabeu. Everyone from Bernabeu began to worry that they might not be able to maintain their advantages completely due to the participation of the famous Ma Xiaoru, Wang Ben, and Hu Yangxuan; especially Ma Xiaoru, who wouldn’t be holding back her actual strength during official matches. As the “princess” of the FFC and also the successor of Tactics of the Enchantress, she had a strong will to win.
However, the pairings were not sorted according to their opponent’s participating order, but the principals of both sides were required to decide the order of their five candidates blindly. It was like playing blind chess, Both Samantha and Martyrus had five chess pieces each, and the fate of their academies was now laying in their hands.
Both parties were hoping to achieve winning sacrifice; hence the two principals had no choice but to guess each other’s arrangements, it was no doubt a gamble of fate!
Fellow candidates began to pray of getting paired with the right opponent as all of them waited patiently for Samantha and Martyrus to announce the pairings. Martyrus knew this would be easy if they had won another round previously, but now things had changed. Ayrlarng would be crowned victorious if they were able to win another three rounds, and if that were to happen, his plan of advancing Bernabeu to an S-rank academy would vanish into thin air. In order to play it safe, he had to make sure Apache wouldn’t face Ma Xiaoru. Martyrus understood the fact that when two strong forces collided, one had to be defeated. He had to secure two wins from Apache for the sake of Bernabeu even if he had to sacrifice one of his candidates to Ma Xiaoru, but somehow, losing against the successor of the Tactics of the Enchantress wasn’t really a big deal anyway.
It only took both principals ten minutes to make up their minds, as both of them had been simulating and studying the pairings and the statuses of fellow candidates way before “D-Day”. The atmosphere across the arena became a mixture of cheers and tears as the pairings were announced.
Round 1: Ma Xiaoru versus Shi Liang
Round 2: Wang Ben versus Luo Manman
Round 3: Hu Yangxuan versus Apache
Round 4: Wang Ben versus Cao Yi
Round 5: Wang Tong versus Apache
Both parties were pleased to see such pairings, especially Bernabeu’s side. As Martyrus expected, Samantha would definitely send out Ma Xiaoru on the first or second round, which was why he arranged Shi Liang and Luo Manman in the earlier rounds; his plan worked even though he had to sacrifice Shi Liang. Furthermore, Martyrus was also happy for the match pairing between Luo Manman and Wang Ben. Luo Manman’s soft fighting style was effective against Wang Ben’s staunch and hardboiled techniques, even if she lost, she would be able to greatly interfere and weaken Wang Ben.
As for the third round, there was a high chance of Apache winning regardless if he was paired against Hu Yangxuan. However, the fourth round of Cao Yi versus Wang Ben was crucial, Cao Yi’s fighting style was specifically created to counter Wang Ben’s techniques, and if Luo Manman was able to weaken Wang Ben in the second round, Cao Yi’s winning ratio would definitely increase.
Martyrus arranged Apache to fight in the final round for safety reason, he would also need time to regain his strength since Hu Yangxuan wasn’t an easy target either.