Guild Wars

The joyous celebration went on for a bit longer, and Sienna sighed with envy as to how these talented fellows could enjoy life and liberty so much. Compared to them, the so-called Gods, the mortals were the ones truly living like deities.

As such, the Goddess decided to turn and leave, yet she was suddenly grabbed and pulled into a seat. She was shocked and furious for a second until she saw the smiling faces of the core members who seemed far less inebriated than they acted.

"Where you going beautiful wine goddess? You provide such good booze and don't enjoy it? Not allowed in Umbra!" Misery laughed.

AP fetched a cup for her and placed it before her. "Drink up, Beauty Sienna! Bottoms up!"

Sienna was flustered seeing everyone watching her with wide smiles as she held the cup awkwardly. The Goddess shifted about awkwardly with a blush on her face and eventually capitulated and gulped it down in one go.

Immediately, she sighed with pleasure, and the core members cheered her, making Sienna's rosy cheeks deepen, but she felt at peace.

For some reason, this scene reminded her of the Divine Realm in the old era. Back then, she had been accompanying the Gods of Brewing, her big brother, Dion and a slew of other Gods who would laugh and chat after a day's work. Back then, the Divine Realm had been thickly populated with Divine Beings, and the Dragons alone had made up 60% of her usual drinkers.

Alas, the war came and most of them had perished.

Even her big bro, Dion, had died protecting her, allowing her to survive till now. Of the Gods that used to drink with her, only old Flashflame was left.

Here, drinking with these special mortals, the emotion of that time resurfaced, this feeling of liberty and joy that came with drinking with friends. As such, she couldn't help but tear up and sniffle.

The core members noticed her demeanor, but did not pay special attention to it, leaving Sienna space to sort out her emotions.

Eventually, she composed herself and decided that there was no need to recall this incarnation so soon. After all, her power was not making much difference in resolving the Divine Realm's current crisis.

She was allowed to take a break, right?

............

After some time the core members resolved their inebriation through a potion provided by Happy Saint and Armonia. As for Misery and AP, they decided that the outcome of their match could only be called a draw, hence they both agreed to drop out.

They had already achieved what they wanted, so there was nothing more to prove. Rather, with Sienna here, they had gotten a bold idea that they were itching to hatch once the tournament was over.

This meant that Essence was the favorite to win Group A. The fellow scratched his head at the lack of exciting fights since he joined, but he could only smile wryly, not daring to complain.

The way the core members looked at him was no different from a pureblooded Asian starting at a Kaiju rampaging in his city. If he dared to provoke these fellows by complaining, they might beat him up, like they did Fitter and RamButt.

Group B though, was still undecided. The next match featured Ghostprotokill versus Tunder Power, so the crowd had something to look forward to.

Both men were taciturn loners who preferred to do their own thing without disturbing others. As such, when they both came on stage, Ghostpro with his usual lazy expression and Tunder with a calm smile, they skipped any form of banter and jumped straight to fighting.

Ghostpro shot out fire from his right hand, ice from his left and poison from his mouth. The three combined and swirled like a tri-attack. Orange, cyan and green spun together as they rushed at Tunder whose casual expression shifted ever so slightly.

He directly summoned Houyi's Divine Bow from his bloodline, which was an elegant longbow with star like patterns carved, It was dark purple in color and had stardust dropping from its string like snow.

Tunder nocked the bow and spawned a Space element arrow from his bloodline and charged it up with 1% Bloodline Energy. He then fired it out to meet the incoming blast, his eyes narrowing when they connected.

Both sides canceled each other out, which seemed like a good thing. However, Tunder felt pressure in his heart because Ghostpro's attack had only used about 0.1% Bloodline Energy while he used a whole 1% and only got equal results.

It wasn't surprising, though. Orochi of the 9 God Serpents was the top in terms of combat strength and skill, being Lucifer's favorite general for fights. Ghostpro himself was a frightening smart gamer, and he immediately understood the giant snake's weakness the moment he had awoken.

Orochi had a slew of amazing powers thanks to his 8 heads and 4 extra powers, and Orochi's combat efficiency was high. The problem was his consumption of Bloodline Energy, which Ghostpro had been working on ever since.

Day after day, while the others trained with their classes or had fun, Ghostpro who was missing from screen time was grinding his bloodline control and efficiency. Finally, he got the opportunity to prove the fruits of his labor in this battle by being able to use the least amount of energy to bring about the most damage.

Tunder and Ghost continued to clash using land range methods, Ghost using a variety of mixtures of his power, while Tunder kept firing spatial arrows while kiting slightly. Tunder didn't bother to use anything from his class, since Ghost rendered classes basically useless.

Their fight remained at the probing stage for a while as they tested each other out. Once they got a good grasp of the other's limits, the fight shifted into the next stage.

Ghost teleported behind Tunder and spat out a poison arrow at point-blank range. Tunder simply smiled and allowed the arrow to pass through him as his body phased through reality. Obviously, as a Space element archer, he basically had access to the same class of power and abilities of Essence Stalker's Legendary Class.

Tunder reached out to grab Ghost who was close, but failed to touch him as Ghost disappeared from the spot easily. The archer searched for his foe and eventually found him behind himself once more, pressing his left palm to the floor.

Ice spread out and covered the entire stage, forcing Tunder to jump and remain a few inches above the ground as he levitated. Ghost simply stared coldly at the flying Tunder and rose to his feet, throwing over a fireball the size of a small car.

Tunder dodged it rather than let it pass through him, for remaining phased required precious Bloodline Energy and the more things that passed through him, the more energy was taken away.

Rather than that, he was more worried as to what ghost was trying to achieve. Seeing that the fellow was so taciturn, Tunder sighed and nocked an arrow with 5% Bloodline Energy. He fired it towards Ghost, whose eyes narrowed.

Instead of dodging, Ghost let the arrow strike him in the chest, lodging itself deep inside and causing him to spit blood. Then, the spatial energy attached to the arrow exploded and blew open a part of Ghost's torso, causing his right arm to disappear along with his right chest.

This kind of damage was egregious and the core members watching by the side grimaced while many others looked away. Tunder himself was not pleased by the fact that he had harmed Ghost so badly, but was rather sweating as he felt something was wrong.

He parsed everything he knew about Ghost, his habits, his powers, his likes, dislikes and modus operandi. After running his brain on overdrive for a second, Tunder understood why he was feeling that everything was wrong.

Ghost had the ability to block all forms of damage and be invincible, and then reflect the damage back to the attacker twofold!

However, his arrow pierced Ghost and did so much damage, which meant that Ghost deliberately allowed Tunder to harm him this much.

Why?

After all, the damage was not delayed. It couldn't possibly be delayed from what Ghost has shown so far. It was instantaneous, Ghost got hit with damage, blocked it and then reflected it.

Still, knowing this logic, Tunder couldn't help but feel apprehensive and decided to phase his body in case Ghost had some trick up his sleeve.

Meanwhile, Ghost staggered painfully, his lazy frown warping into an annoyed grimace, but his body quickly regenerated back to perfection. This was one of the four extra powers, of Orochi.

Ghost sighed with relief and then focused on Tunder once more. He then released a poisonous mist that coated the entire stage, causing it to fog up. The mist had both the corrosive and toxic properties, meaning that it will scald the skin and if ingested or inhaled, would wreak havoc internally.

Tunder proactively fired three arrows downwards, using the spatial energy explosion to clear the mist a bit, but ghost continued to spray it out, causing the thickness and concentration to reach insane levels.

What was truly worrying was that it was as if the mist had a sort of semi-sentience. It did not cross over the edges of the arena and rather rose up in the shape of the arena's air field, forcing Tunder to his higher and higher.

Yeah, he could phase through it, but gas was his worst enemy in this form. An energy attack or a physical/magical one would simply pass through, take its toll, and then leave him to deal with the aftermath.

Gas would constantly cycle through him, causing a sustained and continuous loss. It was fine if it was harmless like natural gases that were breathed in, but considering the potency of Orochi's poison, it would be like draining water from a bathtub.

In truth, Tunder was impressed. Ghost had got him somewhat in check (technically) with this method. If he could keep spitting out gas, Tunder would only have to go higher and higher until there was no more up, and the situation he dreaded would occur.

But there was no reason for Tunder to let Ghost achieve his aim, was there? Tunder, now airborne and unable to see anything but toxic green mist wafting upwards, smirked slightly.

He nocked an arrow and charged 50% Bloodline Energy into it. When he fired it out, it literally tore any green mist it encountered on its way and dissipated it permanently. When it crashed down, it released its usual spatial energy explosion, but this one covered more than the arena's boundaries.

Tunder reached out and used his power to control the range of the explosion and let it focus and condense within the arena's boundaries. Just like what Ghost did, he planned to force Ghost to defend using his normal trick or accept the damage from it.

When the dust settled, Tunder frowned deeply when he found that Ghost was lying in the rubble, his legs destroyed up to his waist and his leg arm gone. However, unlike before, Tunder did not give him a chance to recover and regenerate.

He immediately began rapid firing arrows down with Bloodline Energy attached. His arms were like a blur, and the arrows came down faster than a semi-auto gun. The arrows landed around Ghost, exploding to his east, west, north and south.

This was no different from watching an AC130 raze a piece of land into nothingness when you considered the small scale spatial explosions.

In fact, from a certain point of view, this looked like the dreaded Accel Dance that ended the life of a certain valiant hero and allowed his twerp apprentice to unlock his racial transformation.

However, unlike Future Gohan who was absolutely minked by the repeated blasts from the two Androids, Ghost's body seemed to withstand all that abuse as he continually regenerated amidst the bombardment.

Eventually, the fellow rose to his feet while still being struck and gazed upwards.

Amidst the purple glow of the spatial energy exploding all around him, Tunder looked down and saw - to his surprise - that for the first time since the battle began, Ghost was smiling.