TBATE| The Walking Catastrophe

Chapter 20 - Catastrophe of the Central Dominion

Cordelia Aurelius Pov

The next day, Aryaan and I were abruptly woken up by a needlessly loud Jaden who informed us that the challenges were going to be announced soon and that we needed to get off of our asses.

Not particularly excited to go, I slowly rose out of my bed and lazily threw on a new change of clothes while Aryaan waited outside.

As I walked out of the room, I did a quick double take at my nightstand and grabbed the necklace that he had gotten me, throwing it on before walking back to the stands.

While most of our Central Academy classmates that were at the Victoriad went off to private viewing areas with their bloods, the advanced striker dueling class decided to stick together since we were all so close anyways.

I also figured it was partly because I didn't have a blood to go with as well.

And honestly, nothing brings a group together more than a general feeling of superiority compared to that of their peers.

Meeting back up with our group, Aryaan and I were greeted by our friends and to my amusement, Zane kept his head down, clamping it between his two hands in order to block out all of the noise. It seemed that he was hung-over.

I shuffled past the poor teen and sat down beside Sophia, letting Aryaan take the spot beside me with Zane to his left.

Following a few minutes of nothing really happening, we began to discuss who we thought the possible candidates would be. Rumor had it that scythe Cadell would be opening challengers to vie for a spot as his retainer since he didn't have one as the most recent scythe.

For whatever reason, since his introduction a few years ago, the High-Sovereign hadn't deemed it appropriate for him to have one just yet.

"Have they announced the challengers?" I asked. And Sophia shook her head.

A lot of people suspected Lyra of highblood Driede to not only compete, but win the spot. After all, she was the strongest non-Vritra blooded ascender known. Topping literally every list, it was essentially a no-brainer.

As a group, we brainstormed about who could potentially attend and we began listing off famous ascenders that weren't in attendance yesterday.

We had it essentially boiled down to at least Lyra and Ssanyu, but we couldn't figure out for the life of us who any other challengers could be.

Eventually, a magical gong sounded and we all ceased our conversations to listen in.

The audience went eerily quiet, no one dared make any noise until the collective halted breath was interrupted by someone marching across the stage.

The lone man, despite being mostly covered by his dark hood, was instantly recognizable as the retainer of Vechor, Uto.

The entire crowd's attention was entirely fixated on the ground below as the outwardly harmless-looking lanky man sauntered across the stadium. Although, I knew that despite his seemingly non-threatening appearance, Retainer Uto could slaughter everyone in the audience without much effort. Finally, upon reaching the center, he turned to the highbox and bowed to the giant of a man.

But still, even with the distance between the scythe and myself, I could feel his pressure uncomfortably gripping my insides. 

Following his brief appearance, Scythe Dragoth then stepped backward and I turned my eyes to the colosseum as another man appeared.

Wearing his signature dark armor and purple cape was Cylrit. Retainer of Sehz-Clar.

I instantly averted my attention away from the man who held a piercing gaze that could invoke fear into the mightiest of warriors.