Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Good day, everyone!

Dear mortal guests and respected rankers, please feel at ease in your positions. I, Gladius Red, welcome you all to the final round of the Titus tournament."

Gladius Red started his speech with his loudest and most cheerful voice. His enthusiastic speech was accompanied by the sound of musical instruments playing in the backdrop.

Today was the day of the Titus tournament's final round.

There were 32 contestants in the final round. This was the event that pitted one of the most talented competitors the Arangar Colosseum had produced throughout the year against each other after all.

The colosseum was packed with people. People of all kinds of backgrounds had been summoned under one roof to cheer for the competitor they had been rooting for throughout the year.

There were loads of spectral screen panels of all sizes showing various things to their viewers. Some showed the previous battles of the competitors that were taking part in the final round of the Titus tournament. Some screens compared one competitor with another, making crowds of people argue over what they were seeing.

Some people in the audience would call stats bullshit. Some of the nerds would even venture ahead and develop their own version of statistical analysis to make predictions about a certain competitor.

The betting houses were busy. The food vendors were even more so. There were even merchants selling doll-size replicas of various competitors. The event spurred the city's economy to far higher heights than previously estimated.

The reason for that was simple. This year's competitors were exceptions among exceptions. Each of them had its own fanbase by now. Each competitor had its own fan booths in the colosseum where its most loyal fans would gather around. Novice rankers and mortals would hoist the flags bearing the name of their idols or the effects of their signature spells. The fan booths had created their chanting style and songs too, which would highlight the competitor's feats they supported and discourage their competitors.

There was silence in Tuan Aag's room, making him feel removed from the clamour of the colosseum. This was the waiting room he had been given to use before the game.

"Tuan" wanted to smoke his Stellar Sativa. But that would break Tuan's character, so he controlled his urges. Instead, he drank to calm his nerves.

'This is going to be tough without me not having access to my lightning spells. Then again, sending real Tuan in would be no different than giving up on price money.'

Tuan sighed as he thought to himself. He then drank Frostfoam straight from the bottle and looked outside the only window the room had.

Tuan had been given a waiting room that was located at the uppermost level of the colosseum, like every other participant. He could see it packed to its brim with a sea of people and couldn't help feeling a bit stressed.

He was stressed because he was going to act as Tuan in front of such a large audience. Plus, Tuan's dedicated fanbase was no joke. They would analyze his every move and compare it with the moves or actions the real Tuan had taken in previous battles.

The butcher had practised enough to get in Tuan's skin. Even taken tips from real Tuan by spectral calling him. Still, he wasn't sure everything that he'd do will jell well together.

'I need an act. Something that can justify any flaw that I might show.'

Tuan said to himself and looked at the bottle of Frostfoam in his hands. He then thought of the real tragedy that had struck Tuan and thought of an idea. The butcher within him couldn't help but flash a cunning smile after finalizing the idea.

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"Ladies and gentlemen, now's it's time to move on to introducing our competitors. They will all enter the grounds with an aim to win this year's Titus championship trophy awards.

So it's your job to cheer them and show your support for their goals as I call out their names. The first name on the list is… Drin Dawn."

A young man in his 20s suddenly appeared right in the middle of the colosseum's battle ring. The runes of the spatial array were lit up around him.

The fireworks were released as soon as he arrived at the scene. They soared high in the sky before bursting in the most eye-catching way possible. The explosion of multi-illuminance light depicted a short scene of Drin winning over his opponent before dispersing.

Drin had been teleported to the scene. Spending Extols on a spatial array and unique alchemical products just to have a unique visual appeal for the competitors was akin to burning money away for a bit of warmth.

But the organizers of the events knew this was all worth it. For today's event, they had already warned the audience about not using the audiovisual artefacts to record the fight scenes. The colosseum's security had already confiscated a lot of those artefacts that the rankers had tried to slip into the colosseum with as well.

This was so that the organizers could see the recordings of each fight on a separate array disk. The fights would be spectrally recorded, allowing the viewers to relive the fight as it happened through lifelike spectral projection.

Pre-booking money for the fight recordings had already been collected from all over Edinburgh. And with seating tickets ten times more expensive than normal, the colosseum's administration was practically swimming in the pool of Extols and Eddies. A bit of expenditure on fireworks, array operation, and other visual effects was no biggie.

Drin was a solid-stage Ace ranker. With a medium build and a stature that was neither tall nor short, he looked insignificant and lacked overwhelming presence in the ring. But his 20ish something appearance attested to his talent as a ranker.

"This is troublesome. I could have entered the place normally."

Drin sighed as he walked out of the spatial array. Although he was trying to walk normally, he could feel that his centre of gravity had been a bit altered. His body felt heavy. And his blurred vision was slowly returning to normalcy. These side effects were caused by the spatial array.

The side effects were only temporary and would wear out after a couple of minutes. But that didn't mean Drin would like them. As a result of his mood, he didn't wave at his fan booth. But that in turn made his fans cheer for him even louder.