Chapter 516: The Second Round Begins

After the short fight between Dmitry and Adam all of the first round matches had come to an end. It had taken a little over two hours to get through all of the matches and the battle arena seemed to know that it was time for a short break so that the crowd could stretch their legs and get a breather before the next round of high level combat. There was a countdown of thirty minutes that started in Joshua's waiting room the moment the first round ended and for the time being it seemed as if the news crew was entertaining those who were watching with recaps of matches from the first round.

Joshua had already spent enough time watching the previous matches and decided to just lay back and wait for the countdown to end. At this point it was clear that the alliance had the greatest amount of talented explorers of any group in the hub city. Even if you considered the Raider's Guild as an ally to the World Government Guild the two of them combined still wouldn't have as many high level explorers as the alliance had. At the moment nine of the sixteen contestants that had made it to the second round of the final portion of the tournament were all from the alliance. That meant only seven people left in the tournament weren't a part of the alliance.

One of those seven was a lucky mage that hadn't been forced to fight against anyone above their level up to this point. Two of those seven were mercenaries in Vince and Dmitry that had nothing to do with any guilds. Then there was the leader of the Stranger's Guild that was still a bit of a mystery in all of the things her runes could do, and she stood alone as the only well-known large guild leader left in the tournament that wasn't connected to the Alliance or the World Government Guild. All in all there were only three members of the final sixteen that were related to the World Government Guild in some way while the alliance had three times that amount. It opened a lot of people's eyes to who the true power house in the hub city was at the moment.

In all honesty Joshua believed there would be even more members of the alliance still around if there weren't several matches where alliance members had to face each other even before the first round of the final portion of the tournament, but the amount of attention they were gaining at the moment was more than enough. In the end they had already gotten more out of the tournament than anyone else even if one of them didn't win it all. They had already shown why they were able to conquer large town ahead of the much bigger World Government Guild and now Joshua wouldn't be surprised if they ended up having to create some more small guilds for all of the recruits they would gain after this tournament. Joshua highly doubted the Fenrir Guild would stay as a mid-sized guild for long.

When the countdown ended and the crowd was once again filling the stadium the battle arena decided it was time to get things started once again. The news crew started getting the crowd amped up for the next round of fights and during that time Joshua could once again feel his body getting teleported away to the arena. When he appeared this time it wasn't just him against his opponent, but instead he was in the large arena along with the other fifteen remaining contestants. They all stood in a line so that the crowd could see all of them and try to get their attention if they wanted to.

Joshua once again found himself standing right next to Dmitry who simply smiled at him briefly before turning his attention back to the crowd that was watching over them. Looking at the sixteen people that still remained in the tournament Joshua noticed that just about all of them seemed confidant outside of the one fire mage that had lucked into fights against similar level opponents to get to this point. The news crew did a short introduction for each of them while numbers appeared above all of their heads. It was clear that they were going to sort out the next round of matches in a similar fashion to how they had set up the first round. There were less people that Joshua could end up fighting against now and there was a good chance that he'd end up fighting against someone else from the alliance. He could only wait to see who the random number generator will end up matching him against.

By the time the news crew had finished hyping things up and most of the contestants had stopped waving at the crowd the new matching process had started. Joshua could see the number above his head shifting between the numbers of one and sixteen for well over a minute as the battle arena drummed up the anticipation. Eventually Joshua ended up with the number three floating above his head. With that he knew that he would be in the second match of this round and wouldn't have much time to wait before he'd be called to the battlefield once more. Joshua looked to his side and noticed that Dmitry had the number ten above his head which meant they wouldn't be fighting each other just yet. Dmitry seemed to know this as well and looked a bit disappointed that they wouldn't be fighting each other right away.

Joshua started looking around the room to see who his opponent for this round was going to be and the first thing he noticed was Adrian with a bit of a frown having the number nine over his head. It would be an interesting battle between him and Dmitry and would be the one that Joshua was most interested in for the next round of matches outside of his own. Joshua ignored trying to figure out all of the other matches for the moment and focused on finding out who he would be up against. When he finally noticed who he'd be fighting he had to sigh after realizing the situation he was being put in.

The person that had the number four floating over her head was bouncing on her toes as she looked around to see who she would be fighting against. When her eyes landed on Joshua they widened for a moment before a big smile floated across her face and a look that could only be thought of as excitement seemed to bloom into being. Both brother and sister looked at each other as they realized they'd be fighting each other soon. Everyone else in the alliance seemed to realize the same thing as they smiled a bit at the enthusiasm that Amy was showing.

After realizing who he'd be fighting against next Joshua looked at the rest of the participants to figure out who would be fighting who. He didn't have to waste time thinking about how he should go into the fight against Amy since they had fought against each other so many times in the past. Before he could finish lining everyone up with who they'd be fighting against in his mind the battle arena did the work for him. Just like during the first round the battle arena teleported the contestants in a way that the ones that would be fighting each other were standing in front of one another. Joshua had already figured out that he'd be fighting his sister so he didn't really pay attention to the excited look that she was giving him, but instead looked to see what the other match ups would be.

Joshua looked down the row and the first match up he took notice of was between Lily and Rex. They had the number one and two respectively and the matchup between the two was one that would be interesting to see. Rex was amazing with a spear and probably had his fair share of taking down giant beast during his time as an explorer, but he didn't likely have to deal with several beast like the ones Lily had to support her. Joshua just couldn't see Lily losing the match and in his mind Lily was one of the few people in the competition he was actually worried about facing himself. He just couldn't see her losing a match to Rex.

After that match was the fight between himself and his sister so Joshua just moved on to the next pair since he already had a decent outlook on the fight with his sister, although he'd make sure to look out for any surprises. The third match was between Natalie and Charles which would be a rather close one in Joshua's opinion. Neither of the two had showed off all of their abilities up to this point in the tournament, but Joshua had to give Charles the edge since he had versatility on his side. If he was able to get in close against Natalie then he would most likely win the match unless Natalie had something special to deal with fighters like Charles.

The next pair of people standing in front of each other were Madalyn and Aito. Madalyn had a big grin on her face while Aito looked annoyed at the match that he ended up in. Madalyn and Amy were probably the two worse possible matchups for Aito because of their insane speed and he had just got done with a close match against someone that had high speed and the capability of getting in close against him over and over. Now he'd have to worry about poisons as well which would just make things even harder to deal with.

Moving onto the next match Joshua could see his longtime friend Adrian looking up at Dmitry and he knew that was most likely going to be the match to watch for this round. Adrian's excellent swordsmanship would be put to the test against a monster like Dmitry. Joshua had no clue who would win, but it was a match he would make sure to pay attention to since he knew that at some point he'd probably have to face one of the two of them. The sixth match was intriguing in a different sort of way. It was a fight between Laura and the Stranger's Guild leader. Both fighters were able to change their form of combat so there was no way that a single rune could hinder all of Laura's abilities. At the same time there was no way that Laura could rely on just magic or swordsmanship on their own to take out someone with so many tricks like her opponent.

The seventh match was between the Raider's Guild leader and Vince. Joshua didn't know exactly how that match would go since he had no clue how the Boss of the Raider's Guild abilities work. Vince's illusions could end up giving him the upper hand, but if his opponent had the ability to see through them in some way then he'd be in trouble. The last match was an easy one to predict in Joshua's opinion. There is no way in Joshua's mind that Henry could end up losing to the random fire mage that didn't even have the same level of skill as Julia. It was probably the match with the most obvious outcome of any of them.

By the time Joshua finished looking through all of the match ups he was teleported out of the arena along with most of the other contestants. The only two that were left were Lilly and Rex. It was time for the second round to begin.