My Soul card is a Reaper

"Welcome to Day-2 of the Champions League, 1994." The League started with Exea's announcement followed by the wild cheers from the audience.

"Now, without further ado, let's see the battles today. First, solo category."

Group A: Vann Hildegard vs Newton

Group B: Carlton Wells vs Blaze

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Group E: Laurence vs Alva Marble 

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Group H: Willis Leon vs Pepper 

As soon as the second-day fixtures for the solo battles were announced, the crowd erupted in cheers.

After all, a few of the names were very famous for those who follow the competitions.

Vann won fourth place in the previous year's World League, solo category, junior division.

On the other hand, Blaze, the rank-6 expert who was the captain of the Central Academy's representative time, ended up as the runner-up of the World League after defeating Vann in the semi-finals.

Laurence, the captain of Maple Academy, led a team and grabbed the title of world champions consecutively two times in a row at the world league group category and also the winner of the previous year's Champions League in the group category.

The maple Academy's original team was also known for being a champion in many international championships.

However, for some reason, three of the original members were replaced by eighth-graders who were actually first-timers in an international competition like the Champions League.

And the captain was participating solo, which kinda disappointed their supporters at first, but they still cheered in support for Laurence.

Last but not least, Willis Leon is also a captain of the team that is representing Freyles academy.

So, Day-2 turned out to be captain special for the audience.

And the surprises didn't end there.

Unlike Day-1 where the fixtures were displayed after the battles in each category is over, on Day-2, after they have shown the list of matches of solo category, they proceeded to show the fixtures of Duo category and then, group- category.

It was actually a mistake on hosting academy's fault for doing like that. Several teams waited in those waiting rooms only to get disappointed later.

Following the original protocol, for the next day, they showed all the battles that were going to be conducted on the day. It was so that the unrelated teams could leave the arena and go for training.

And the audience who isn't interested can also leave the place.

However, the organizing committee earns 27 million credits per day just based on their 50% share in the ticket price. So, they couldn't let the audience disappoint.

In order for them to coming back, they have to do something interest. While allotting the teams into groups was completely random and they can do nothing about it, still, the organizing committee can arrange the matches within the group in any order they want to.

On the first day, aside from Leah in solo, Ash clan siblings match in duo, they didn't schedule any other match from the top 10 academies as they didn't need to.

However, from Day-2, if they kept on showing boring matches, the audience might lose interest. It clearly showed that Day-2 only started with the stadium only being around 70-75% full.

To increase enthusiasm among the audience, the organizing committee announced the matches with not only just top academies but also the people who are publicly known.

As the audience was cheering wildly, they announced the list of Duo-category. While there are no duo champions in these matches, still, of those eight matches, there was a battle between Dragon Academy and Heavenly Academy.

And there was a battle between Phoenix Academy and Egrein Academy. Finally, there was a battle between Aclein Academy and Sun Academy.

Of course, in everyone's eyes, Egrein Academy is barely a first-rate and Aclein is well, aside from a few exceptional students like Azzy, the others are the third rate. Everyone's eyes are on the representative of these Elite Academies.

And the final nail was hit when the group match was announced in which Aclein Academy is going to battle Neo Academy, which is considered the second rate with the best fighter having low-rank-5 soul power.

Even though the Twilight team is the champion of Aclein Academy, still, in the eyes of experts, they weren't good compared to Team Unicorn.

After all, it wasn't a secret that only the captain of the team is rank-5 and the rest of them are rank-4.

So, they didn't take the match seriously.

The matches started with the battlefield turned into a forest habitat.

With great one-sided battles in the solo category and exciting tough battles in the duo category proceeded, the stadium was filled with non-stop cheer.

The scouts of top academies and organizations were also analyzing the moves of everyone that caught their eye. Along with them, there were also analyzers from a few top academies who are recording the data of their opponents to help out the representative instructor in drawing out the plan. 

However, their expression changed as the team battle in C-group ended with the easy victory of Moon Academy, and the names of the participants from the next battle of each team were displayed on the screens.

"Azrael?" In place of Calder, Azrael was added to the list. This name was no strange to the scouts.

In fact, every scout knew this name by now. They became excited to see Azrael was participating in the tournament as they can see his prowess with their own eyes…

Meanwhile, the students who saw them practice together had mixed results. Some of them were surprised a little bit that he's a participant, not training Twilight team members. And the others felt like it doesn't matter.

However, for the instructors, it was completely different.

If they would have known, they felt like they would have prepared a strategy to tackle him by now.

All this while, most of the instructors were only expecting Azzy to participate solo as he was strong enough to defeat a tournament favorite like Prince Vann. 

When they didn't saw his name in the list, where Leo's name was replaced by someone else, everyone assumed that he will not be participating.

Who could have expected that Azzy's name would be popped up in a group match… They felt that Barton was a sly fellow to sneakily enter Azzy into this category.

Meanwhile, after announcing the names, supporting her own academy, Exea cheered loudly as she further announced the arrival of both of the teams. "Next, give it up for Aclein Academy's champion, team Twilight, and Neo Academy's champion, Team harmony.

Team Harmony has been competing in several competitions for the past year. On the other hand, the Twilight group was formed only a couple of weeks ago. And their second tournament turned out to be an international tournament. For some reason, their team member is also changed to Azrael."

Clearly, everyone realized her favoritism in her words as she didn't give such a long introduction for even top academies.

But then again, for the male audience, this beauty's smile and words were also kind of a blessing. So, none of them complained. Instead of watching the battle, some of her hardcore fans would rather listen to her speech, all day.

Just as her words ended, the first to arrive into the field was team Twilight. They walked into the arena in an inverted V shape with Claire leading, Azzy and Gideon are in the second row, Mia and Snivy are at the back.

They entered the barrier and stepped onto the desert. Walking a step forward, Azzy and others saw their legs were sunk by half a foot deep into the sand.

This is another change from Day-1. With not having enough space to accommodate everyone if they were to choose to train in the same habitat, Barton was forced to implement a change in the battlefield, which is changed for every different category.

The Day-2 group battles were conducted in a desert habitat.

Because of two earlier battles, the desert also became quite uneven, especially in the middle. So, it was indeed a tough challenge for Azzy and others who never participated in such a surface.

In fact, it was Azzy's first time to even see a desert full of sand. Still, it didn't take long for him to maintain balance on it.

A minute later, their opponents also arrived and entered the barrier from the other end.

As the whistle being blown, indicating the start of the match, all of a sudden, to everyone's surprise, the rest of Twilight's team members backed off and Azzy stepped forward.