Chapter 522: The Quarter Finals Begin with a Bang!

Once the match between Henry and the fire mage came to an end there was another short break period for everyone to rest up for the next set of fights. The further they went into the bracket the smaller amount of matches would happen each round with all of the eliminations. This made it so that the breaks between rounds would get shorter and shorter along the way. This time around the break was just long enough for people to either go get some food or use the bath room. Joshua did the latter before walking back to his room and waiting for the battle arena to summon him and the rest of the contestants to the front stage once more.

When the break came to an end Joshua was immediately summoned back to the arena along with the remaining eight contestants. This time they were a bit more spread out since there was so much room left without having a large amount of contestants to show off to the crowd. This time around Joshua found himself standing between Lily and Madalyn. Lily gave Joshua a small blissful smile before turning back to looking at the crowd, while Madalyn gave him a smirk before doing the same. Joshua looked around at the last eight contestants and took notice of the fact that five of them were members of the alliance. The only ones that weren't members of the alliance at this point were the Raider's Guild leader who was the only one left of his guild, Dmitry who was the last remaining mercenary in the tournament, and Charles who was the last member of the World Government Guild around. If the current situation wasn't a show of how far ahead the alliance was then Joshua didn't know what could be.

The news crew gave a similar rendition of talking up all of the fights up to this point and hyping up the remaining contestants getting the crowd fully back into the swing of things. It was already late afternoon at this point and Joshua wasn't surprised that the battle arena was moving things along swiftly so that the competition wouldn't go on late into the night. After the news crew finished getting everyone settled in, numbers appeared above all of the contestants and started randomly switching from one through eight. Joshua waited for the selection process to end with a bit of excitement. At this point everyone that was left in the competition were the best of the best and there was no way that he wouldn't get a good match out of his next fight. Although Joshua had to shrug at that thought since both of his matches in the last bracket up to this point had been against tough competition.

It didn't take too long for all of the numbers above their heads to settle in and Joshua saw the big number of seven above his own. From that he knew that he'd be participating in the final match of the quarter finals against whoever had the number eight above their head. It didn't take very long for Joshua to find out who he was going to be fighting against since he looked down the line of contestants and saw Charles staring right back at him with the number eight over his head. It was going to be an interesting fight. Neither of them knew all of the capabilities of the other so Joshua would have to be on the lookout for some interesting skills that he hadn't seen up to this point.

Before Joshua could get lost in his thoughts about his own personal upcoming fight the battle arena teleported the contestants so that they were standing in front of their opponent for the quarter finals. With this Joshua was easily able to see the other match ups for the upcoming round. Lily had the number one over her head while Laura had the number two. It would be a match between two members of the alliance to start off the quarter finals and that was going to be a spectacle. Lily with her powerful beast companions against Laura with her insanely powerful fire magic and precise swordsmanship was going to be a sight to see.

The next match was going to be between Dmitry who had the number three over his head and the Boss of the Raider's Guild who had the number four. Both sides were staring coldly at each other while wearing faint smirks. The match up was one where Joshua wasn't exactly sure how their abilities would interact with each other. Dmitry might be able to absorb the energy from the Raider's Guild Boss's shadow but if that weren't the case then the match would be a much more interesting one. Both sides were efficient in fighting in close range so it was likely the victor of the fight would be whoever could use their skills and unique abilities more effectively against the other.

After that fight there was going to be the match between Madalyn who had the number five over her head against Henry who had the number six floating above him. Madalyn was looking at Henry like a snake staring down a fat rat that was just waiting to be eaten. Henry on the other hand let out an annoyed sigh after finding out who he'd be fighting against in the upcoming fight. He knew that trying to take down someone like Madalyn was going to be a pain in the ass after fighting alongside her so many times. The match between the two was going to come down to whether Madalyn's poisons and much stronger fighting capabilities were going to be able to deal with Henry's unorthodox style of using support abilities to empower himself and his spells. It would be a crowd favorite in Joshua's opinion since both contestants had taken down all of their opponents in fairly flashy ways up to this point.

The last match of the quarter finals was the one between Joshua and Charles. This time around Joshua would have to watch all the other matches before his own and that would give him plenty of time to think of a strategy to take on Charles with. He wasn't sure if Charles planned on going in close and fighting or playing the range game against someone that preferred to get in close and personal. Either way Joshua would have to be prepared to deal with it so he just kept all possibilities in mind. The news crew spent a few minutes talking up each of the upcoming matches before everyone outside of Lily and Laura were teleported outside of the arena.

When Joshua arrived back in his waiting room he was met with the sight of Lily and Laura nodding at each other before they backed away from one another and prepared for the upcoming match while the countdown started. Joshua knew that both sides were extremely powerful and either would give him a challenge that would be hard to pass if they ended up going against him in the tournament, but he knew for a fact that Lily had the edge in this match. It wasn't because Lily was more powerful, or even that she had beast companions. The reason that Lily had the advantage was because Laura was primarily linked to her fire magic. Even if she was a great swordsman as well, her potent fire magic that was strong enough to take people out in a single spell was what made her unique job truly special. Lily happened to be the one person left that had a way to completely mitigate Laura's flame magic.

Joshua wasn't surprised that during the countdown to the start of the match Lily started bringing out the beast companions that he was expecting her to use against Laura. Tank came out once again taking up half of the arena, but this time he wasn't the only large beast companion that Lily brought out. Cinder came out as well in a smaller form that was able to stand up on the top of Tank's shell. Even though Cinder was smaller than her full size she was still three stories tall and big enough to be a threat with her size alone. This was the exact combination of beast that Joshua was expecting Lily to bring out. They both had abilities that would be a nightmare for someone like Laura.

Tank wasted no time in conjuring moisture in the air to the point a heavy mist started to form around the floor of the arena. Several puddles started forming around the arena from the light rain that Tank was causing to occur and the sudden shift in weather was already something that would dampen Laura's fire magic slightly. However when Cinder turned into her ice form and started chilling the air around the entire arena as she let out her icy fog the circumstances became even more problematic for Laura. The moment the countdown ended Laura released a couple of the spells she had been channeling during the waiting period. The first was the same giant phoenix made out of fire. The sudden source of heat started melting away some of the ice that Cinder had made, but on its own it would be drowned out quickly by the combined powers of Tank and Cinder. The other spells she used were several small fireballs that were shot directly towards Tank and Cinder.

The sudden attack wasn't meant to actually damage Tank or Cinder since Laure knew full well that the turtle was not something she should be focusing on. If anyone wanted to take down Lily then they were going to have to get past her beast companions and get to her. The fireballs were just for blinding Cinder and Tank for a moment to give Laura time to channel another spell and try to get as close to Lily as she could be for the two beast started trying to take her down. Laura quickly casted a spell that created fire armor around her body that warded off the chill from all of the ice being formed by Cinder, then she casted another spell that created a burst of flame from her back that shot up her speed as she charged for Tank's big shell.

Laura was able to quickly scale Tank's shell with the flames propelling her, but by that point Tank was back on the attack sending several bubbles in her path that exploded if Laura got to close. She was able to push through it and reach the top of Tank's shell, but she was annoyed at the sight of seeing Cinder leap off of Tank's back. Laura wasn't going to just let Lily get away thanks to Cinder and jumped into the air casting another spell that created large wings of fire that allowed her to speed down directly towards Cinder. The giant spider quickly landed and created several ice pillars that were all shooting towards Laura who was flying directly towards them. The large fire wings that Laura had created pulled in close as Laura crashed through the pillars letting the flames burn through them. By the time she had gotten through the last ice pillar the magic forming the wings had run out and Laura was directly in front of Lily with her sword ready to strike her down.

Laura had wasted a ton of mana just to get the chance to attack Lily since she knew a long drawn out match would only go horribly for her. The flaming armor around Laura was weakening, but all that matter was if she could get in one strike, but that would never come to pass. A large shield appeared around Lily the moment Laura's blade got close to her, which was followed up with several tails shooting out of Lily's shadow in an attempt to restrain Laura. Before Laura could get caught she fired off one last spell that created a large wave of heat that shot out from her, but Lily had a spell of her own that shot out a torrent of water to clash with the fire. Normally it wouldn't have stood a chance, but all of the moisture in the air along with Tank helping her out through synchronization was enough to hold off the sudden surge of fire.

Cinder shot out a blast of icy fog directly at Laura as well which only made things worse. For a little bit Laura was able to hold out, but eventually her flames were overpowered by the combination of Tank, Cinder and Lily all attacking her at once. Eventually Laura was frozen in place as her body vanished from the arena.