405 Black magician 2 in 1

As usual, Dicaprio continued his conversation starters towards the Tianjing squadron. Being one of the only 2 C rank squadrons that have slaughtered their way into the best of 64, it had to be said that they have proved the point of Dicaprio's eyesight being acute.

Same as before, Dicaprio still possessed his God-given luck, having bumped into an A rank squadron, the Justdiva G squadron. Regardless of the A rank evaluation given to their opponent, the silver long was that they were not an S ranked squadron.

Ma Dong was full of envy of them. " Fuck! Being a C rank and also being crowned as one of the great black horses, how is it that they are so lucky?"

"Different situations called for different types of call to arms. This time, we definitely will be paid attention to. Being able to enter the 2nd round is also something worth celebrating about." Wang Zhong said while patting Dicaprio's shoulder. "Our goal has always been to be matched against an S rank."

"It's all my fault!" Hymin said with a frown.

"Your fault for what?"

"It's all because of my bad mouth!" replied Hymin with a helpless expression on her face, scratched her head. "After seeing that ranged soldier from the Mo's List, I mentioned that I'll feel like vomiting every time I imagine standing on the same stage as that Gaden. Now, however, the prophecy has, unfortunately, came true. Oh my god, as long as I picture that wretched figure...ugh, lemme go vomit for a while!"

Hymin appeared to have indeed said those words before during the introduction of the Mo's List, causing everyone to start laughing upon hearing her say the same words again. With the atmosphere being interrupted by her joke, everyone felt much more relaxed and at ease.

Colby walked forward and proceeded to smooth things over. "Okay, okay. It's already a pretty good thing that we've not bumped into squadrons like Stuart or Ghost Emperor. Although the Bella Dean squadron isn't weak, they absolute not the strongest. What's more, they only have a single Mo's List expert. As for us, we have Wang Zhong and Grai!"

Hearing his words, everyone nodded their heads earnestly, with quite a bit of the smouldering feeling in the atmosphere having dissipated away. As of now, everyone within squadron already had near blind levels of faith in Wang Zhong and Grai, something that caused Wang Zhong to secretly sign in response.

The atmosphere within our squadron isn't right. It's either too pessimistic or too happy-go-lucky. Truthfully speaking, they did not have an accurate understanding towards themselves and their opponents.

Although the announcement of the Mo's List was a massive promotional effort for the CHF, it had also inevitably caused a feeling of inferiority and defeatism in lots of people. There's no denying that its influence in the hearts of people was too great, so much so that people have used it as a judge for the strength of a squadron. There were many a time that people would use the quantity of Mo's List experts for the sake of quantifying the strength of a squadron.

However, the reality was far from simple. Although they had Mo's List experts among their ranks, the Bierlia Academy and Saint Mongols Academy were defeated in an extremely miserable fashion in the 1st round.

When their opponents were confirmed, Wang Zhong had started to research about the lineup of the Bella Dean squadron. Immediately, he could tell that they were absolutely above the level of the Bierlia squadron, especially their captain, Adam Levin Bella Dean. Although Wang Zhong was able to find any of his past combat videos to observe the strength of the latter, being able to make the Mo's List expert Gaden Bella Dean submit willingly shown that there were a lot of issues surrounding this captain.

This had led to a change in strategy he would employ tomorrow. The all-out suppression plan he had enacted against Bierlia Academy would not be too useful against the S rank Bella Dean squadron.

Nonetheless, there wasn't a need to inform everyone about this. Although it's admittedly important to know themselves in order to know their enemies, their confidence was of more importance than that. As long as everyone held the thirst for victory in their hearts, the goddess of victory would stand by Tianjing's side.

Tomorrow, a very, very difficult fight would await them.

On the first day of the best of 64, the opening match was between Tianjing Academy's old friend, the Blazing squadron, and the PPT squadron.

In this clash between 2 A ranked squadrons, everyone was favouring PPT more than the blazing squadron, as the former had shown astonishing might in the 1st round by obtaining a clean sweeping victory over their opponents. Regardless of their performance of statistics, they were a notch above the Blazing squadron, who had a harder time in their 1st round. What's more, they have already revealed all the cards in their hands.

With the final competition entering the 2nd round, the number of people viewing the matches from the competition grounds have increased, and so was it in the Skylink. For many of the participating squadrons, every single step they take in this final competition made them 1 step closer to creating history.

On another competition ground, the match between the Tianjing and Bella Dean squadrons have attracted even greater attention. By the time Wang Zhong and the others have arrived, there was already a sea of humans within the competition grounds. Massive amounts of Bella Dean fans were already present, seizing over control of what seemed like half of the entire viewing gallery. All of them were dressed in golden T-shirts, allowing people to notice them in a glance. The golden colour was a representative of aristocracy and nobility, and was also the colour of the Bella Dean squadron's uniform. Despite having been ousted, they were the previous rulers of the Federation, and were one of the 5 upper families in the 10 great families of the Federation. It's hard for one to imagine how vast their influence was, while their vast number of supporters had vastly outstripped that of a waste city like Tianjing.

"Fuck. They've really turned this into their hosting grounds. Aren't they just an S rank seedling squadron? So what if they have so many fans?" upon entering the competition grounds, Ma Dong started to nag like a broken recorder. Regardless of how much he played down Bella Dean in his words, that was just his mouth and not his brain doing the talking. Anyone who had lived their lives in the Federation would treat the so-called 10 great families, especially the 5 upper families, with a naturally born respect that was hard to resist.

The golden coloured sea present in the viewing gallery created quite a lot of pressure onto the Tianjing squadron. Ma Dong could only sound like a broken record as he mumbled about, while Colby had already visited the washroom 3 times over. What's more, this fellow had apparently not taken a sip of water since waking up this morning.

The pressure coming from their opponent was always present, though it has intensified as time drew near to the start of the match. At this moment, Wang Zhong and Grai were the only ones that were truly able to remain calm.

Naturally, words would mean nothing and be of no use in such a time. Therefore, Wang Zhong did not continue thinking about how to mobilize his members. The formation arrangement for him would be a first time experience for him.

Wind God was the host arranged to cast for the Tianjing side. Although he had played the role as an extreme anti-Tianjing in the 1st round, he had racked his brains and honoured his commitment to eating a table after the match. Over the past 2 days, Wind God's popularity has skyrocketed. The only thing painful for him was the damage he suffered trying to eat that cake shaped table. Even 2 days later, he would get the feeling of vomiting upon seeing anything related to cakes. In the competition grounds, Tianjing and Bella Dean have already started to make their preparations for the match.

At another competition ground, the Blazing squadron has already started their match against the PPT squadron, who had sent out their captain. Obtaining a win in the 1st duel of the match seemed to be the strategy of choice for all of the squadrons. Being an assassin, he wasn't afraid of picking a fight with Sharmie. When 2 squadrons that have similar levels of strength are matched up together, the 1st duel would be the exceeding crucial towards the determination of the victor.

The Blazing squadron had sent out their vice-captain Mario as their vanguard.

Although he had the nickname of the "Black Magician", the very few people who were paying attention to the Blazing squadron felt that Mario was totally just a henchman of Sharmie. He wasn't able to fight, wasn't able to curse, and can't do anything other than to bootlick her. It's said that the nickname of Black Magician was given to him by Sharmie. Although it appeared extremely imposing, it had caused people to feel a strong sense of defeatism. What's more, it was extremely hard to deal with this strategy of PPT once the 1st duel is lost. Was the Blazing squadron really giving away the 1st duel like that?

"Without a doubt, the Blazing squadron is prepared to give up on this duel to avoid facing off against the strongest member of their opponent, their assassin captain. From the looks of it, they've made a rather successful prediction." the person casting the match was a petite girl, giving an extremely reasonable explanation to what the Blazing squadron had done. Truthfully speaking, she wasn't too happy towards Sharmie, as she felt the latter only had a big chest as her redeeming trait!

However, it was at such times where unexpected events would surface.

On stage, Mario was unexpectedly strong and sturdy, while possessing a firm and solid soldier foundation. This allowed him to remain not one bit inferior when faced against the PPT captain, who was ranked as one of the 10 great assassins of the Federation for 2 years in a row. It seems as though this vice-captain wasn't as horrible as everyone had thought. However, he would still be unable to change the outcome, as his opponent was still the stronger one.

However, just when everyone was predicting the impending loss of Mario, he gave the world a surprise and showed off his real strength as a special ability user!

He possessed an extremely rare dark attribute special ability. Following a shout of "light's off" by Mario, darkness enveloped the PPT squadron's captain. Losing one's sight was an extremely frightening matter for an assassin. However, there were even more frightening matters in wait, as dark halo proceeded to encircle the PPT captain, In a split second, black coloured flames gushed out from it, instantly engulfing Marios' opponent. When Mario had recalled the flames back, his opponent had already breathed his last.

A powerful assassin had been shoved to the point of collapse before even a second had elapsed. The miserable shrieks seemed to linger on in the air. Seeing his opponent writhing uncontrollably on the ground, Mario felt somewhat disturbed, as he truly wasn't too willing to use his special ability in a fight. That's because his special ability was too powerful, resulting in him not having full control over it. Nonetheless, he was even more afraid of losing the duel than losing control over his special ability.

Not only was the audience shocked, even the members of both squadrons were also dumbfounded by what they saw. Other than captain Sharmie, no member of the Blazing squadron knew exactly where did Mario obtain his nickname of Black Magician from. From what they could recall, he already had this nickname since his admission into the academy. What's more, he did not display any of it during the previous CHF, waiting all the way till now to showcase to the world!

The entire competition grounds turned deathly silence in response. Although many experts have emerged over the course of the 1st round, especially people like Wang Zhong who had reached the top of the list through his win over a Mo's List assassin, the killing power and ending result of Mario's special ability attack was too cool and too shocking for people to handle.

Furthermore, with the power of his dark attribute special ability, he was already able to manifest 2 unique abilities from it, being the removal of vision, and the dark flames of hell. Such traits would propel him to a 1st rate existence in the dark era, what more today. Without a doubt, Mario's fame and reputation were about to shoot towards the heavens.

The gaze everyone sent towards Mario had instantly change, with Sharmie being the only one that didn't.

As he walked down from the stage, waiting for him was a fist hurtling out from Sharmie, showing not one bit of courtesy towards him. "Why the hell are you still keeping your hand at this stage, huh? If you do smash him, he'll beat you into a pulp! When you go onto the stage, you should just beat his ass to the ground! If you waste my time for any other match, don't blame me for getting violent!"

The demon king standing on the stage while towering over the world had turned into a little chicken in the next second. With a bitter and pleading look on his face, appearing as though he could never win a fight or return a scolding thrown at him.

Quite a few people who were still stupefied by Mario's performance on stage were now wholly dumbfounded by what they saw, while the worship and dread rising within their hearts being instantly tainted by quite a few weird shades colour.

Contrary to everyone, Mario did not give a single care about those gazes that were focused on him.

He was born from an extremely ordinary household, while dark attribute special ability people felt was ruthless and powerful had brought him gazes of terror and loneliness. Due to the dark flames of hell being not easy to control, after a few mishaps during his childhood, there was no friend left by his side. Even his family members were scared and terrified of him, with this trend continuing all the way to the appearance of Sharmie in his life.

It was during middle school when his family had sent him to Blazing City to study. Mario knew that all of these was due to his family members fearing about the hard to control special ability of his. Therefore, all they could do was to plead for him to leave them as far as he could. Not long after entering a school, a few of the little hooligans started to eye him up, though he did not retaliate at all. They took his living expenses, and throw him into the garbage bin. Nevertheless, he did not stand up against them at all. That because he knew that the people here would definitely hate him if he were to start using his special ability. He would rather be bully than to be abandoned by people. It was at this moment, when an angel-like Sharmie had appeared. Never, ever in his entire life would Mario ever forget the sentence that was said to him while he was in the garbage bin.

"In the future, you'll become my lackey. If anyone dares to bully you, you'll just report the name of your elder sis! My name's Sharmie!"

This was the tyrant of Blazing City, ever since she was little.

Sharmie was the first person in his life that wasn't afraid of his dark flames and special ability, and was also the first person that has treated him as her friend. To Mario, Sharmie was his everything.

Although he proceeded to make exaggerated responses while begging for his life, Mario was very happy. This was the happiness that others would not be able to understand.

The confidence filled PPT were clearly smashed out of their rhythm by Mario's explosive display. With the advantage, the Blazing squadron sent Sharmie out for the 2nd duel, obtaining another point in clean fashion, giving them a 2:0 lead.

The audience seemed to be able to see the first signs of an unexpected development, while the casters had started to change her tone. However, just after she had given her verdict that the Blazing squadron was about to execute an absolute reversal of all predictions, the resulting outcome blew the minds of everyone watching! The Blazing squadron proceeded to send 3 substitutes for the next 3 duels, ending the duelling phase with a 2:3 loss to head into the group battle.

Such a reality was proof that Sharmie's choice was right. PPT was very strong. The strengths of their various members were stronger than the Blazing squadron's. Rather than risk everything to obtain 4 points for the victory, why not wait for all the way to the group battle to obtain the remaining 2 points with ease? Be it her or Mario, both of them were participants for the group battle. That's why she had sent such a line up for the last 3 duels in preparation for the final battle.

Their opponent, the PPT squadron was also mustering their effort to pull off a reversal. However, as they entered the group battle, Mario, who was no longer planning to conceal his strength, finally started to display the supergroup battle prowess of the Blazing squadron. Compared to the earlier duel, he pulled out an even more exaggerated version of his "Lights off". His special ability is group-oriented, with its radius being sufficient to engulf an entire battlefield. With the shutting of the lights, he had also opened the feelings of death in the hearts of their opponents. Even though experts were able to react to certain things while in total darkness, everything would be negatively affected. However, the most lethal of attacks came from the flames of hell. Coupled with Sharmie's superpowered cannon fire, the PPT squadron, who were already lacking their captain, weren't even able to put up a wave of proper resistance. Unable to properly regroup after the initial barrage from their opponents, they were blasted into bits with a split second!

Most flames would cause injuries at the very best. However, If Mario doesn't control those flames of hell to pull back, they would burn at their target relentlessly down to a crisp.

The blazing squadron, had pulled an upset!

A new force to be reckoned with has emerged! The envoy from hell!

The Black Magician, Mario!

The Blazing squadron had shown their resolution and strength to their opponents. After obtaining the victory, Sharmie did not hold back to her post-match interview. "Do you see! This is a strategy! This is intelligence!" waving her cannon about as she spoke, causing a pile of dribblings from those watching via Skylink. What Sharmie was trying to say that she has boobs, and brains!

The Tianjing side was much more lively. Due to the large quantity of Bella Dean supporters entering the competition grounds, it had forced the competition to postpone its commencement. After the 1st round, the Federation had enacted a plan to ensure greater convenience in such relevant matters, especially towards students. Any of them who had left for Stuart City to watch the CHF were given great priority from the armored railway to the competition venue. Ever since the 1st round, the popularity of the official site had triggered a few academies. If they were that awesome, how would they be lacking in audience?