Chapter 346: Knight's Tournament

The first three days of the tournament were made for the squire's advancement to become a knight; during this period, finally, from 300 squires, 100 had successfully chosen to be knighted.

But the tournament has not yet ended, as now the next two days would become the most anticipated part of the tournament.

These two days will be the part where the divine order would choose 10 knights to be given the silver title.

But, the participants weren't going to be just the 100 squires, it was open for all knights under 30 years from the 7 kingdoms. 

All participants were veteran knights, confident enough to receive their much-coveted advancement this year.

This arrangement may seem unfair to the newer squires, but the purpose of the tournament itself was to find the best knights to receive the silver title.

The other reason was to teach the newly advanced squires not to be complacent.

These young successful squires needed to quickly understand what they needed to aim for next, these methods proved to be effective to drive all the kingdom's young knights to improve their skill and strength.

With less experience and most likely still tired after their three days of competition, it was almost inevitable for them to lose to the more experienced knights.

There were only 10 open silver knight positions. Practically every year, all of them were taken by the senior knights. On rare occasions, some genius young talent would get it right away.

From Lanzo's performance, everyone knew he was the best one from all the squires this year. But the question remained, would he be able to display his brilliance and compete against the veteran knights?

Just like yesterday, today's session would be a close combat tournament. They would each fight 5 times and by tomorrow, 40 would be selected to compete again to find the top 10 and the champion to receive the title.

The knight commander welcomed the veteran knights, while the trumpets played their tunes, marking the start of the match.

In the last few days, the audience had seen the squires compete for their desired title. Now, they would witness a fight between knights who had done many valuable deeds for their kingdom.

Many had shown their strength in the same arena the past few years. But the fact they were still here meant, they had been failing over and over again

After the top 10 spots slipped away from their hands all those years ago many vowed not to repeat that mistake. 

All the veterans came armed with experience and determination. Confident to make it up there for sure, this time.

Bracccckkkk!

A knight swung down his sword hard. The strike shattered his opponent's wooden shield into splinters.

In fights where one of the participants used a shield, that was the most common form of defeat. The moment they were out of strength and fall, will be the end of them.

However, Emery's fight was quite different from the rest.

Though he had a shield, Emery's footwork was swift and accurate, enough to dodge attacks within a hair's breadth and attack while his opponent was distracted. Thanks to his speed, and skill, fighting against him would often end with him disarming the opponent's weapon.

As Emery won his fights using speed and technique instead of raw strength, the audience enjoyed watching his fights more than others.

There were a few names that were chanted by the audience in each fight, but as the match went on, the name of the young champion Lanzo almost never left their lips.

"Lanzelot!! Lanzelot!!"

Once again, on the fourth day, the audience chanted his name in adoration.

The cheers became heated up. The audience was completely invested in the fights, while the royal stage was abuzz with discussions.

"Princess Gwenneth, I am pretty sure your champion down there will get his silver title in this tournament." Said Arthur while looking down at the ongoing fight. Where Lanzo just managed to disarm his opponent. 

Before the princess could answer, another voice joined the conversation. It was the minister from Norgales Kingdom.

"My prince, I respectfully disagree. The young man has good footwork, but that is all he has. Once he gets tired or someone manages to catch him, it will all be over."

The princess frowned upon hearing the words from the Norgales minister, but then the prince Arthur once more said his mind

"No need to worry, Princess. He's ignorant. Your knight is really a genius swordsman and i see he is trying to hide his strength. If anyone thinks he is weak, they are completely wrong. Trust me, that knight will become a famous swordsman in the future."

"Thank you for the kind words, Prince Arthur."

"But although you don't need to worry about his skill, You do need to worry about whether he would continue to serve as a knight in your kingdom. I had people check on him, I know that he came from a lower noble family without any real ties to the Lioness Kingdom. Tell me, Princess, after he becomes the new celebrity of Briton, will you still be confident he will stay in Lioness kingdom?"

The princess fell silent. The truth was, she knew from the start that Lanzo is special, but never this big. Hence she had no answer.

The prince smiled and added. "If you really don't care about it, can you send a few good words so he'll consider choosing Logress instead of the other five?"

The princess opened her mouth in surprise, but before she could reply…

"I am just joking, Princess. Don't take it to heart." The prince smiled.

Unconsciously the golden prince finds their conversation to be more enjoyable each day. He found the princess to be more interesting than he thought.

The fourth day of the tournament ended and Emery still tore through the ranks, defeating everyone who dared to cross his way.

----------------------------------

Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,