Scarlet

“Looks like you were right,” Emily says as we all see the man whose title I believe was the Shadow Blade vanish after dying with his neck still held in my hand. “Aquatic Pride really did send their stealth Guardian straight to us at the start.”

I glance at Denise after that to find her letting out a sigh and saying, “It was inevitable. Their team leader, Ace, is a childhood friend of mine, and he was rather upset that I didn’t go to Aquatic Pride. Even though he was the entire reason I didn’t go in the first place.”

“Wait,” I mutter, bringing everyone’s attention to me, “was he the one you were looking for on day one of the first semester?”

She nods her head.

“Even though you knew he went to a different university?” I prod with a brow raised.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it past him – or father for that matter – to get into Lion’s Heart and try to convince me to go to Aquatic Pride,” she says, sounding rather displeased with that fact.

Huh. Guess I’m not the only one with parent issues.

None of us say anything for a few seconds before I turn to Michael, saying, “That was a pretty good plan by the way.”

He smiles and says, “Why, thank you! I knew Emily’s AOE skill would come in handy for this particular round because it’s different from the others. Different in that the round – while we technically don’t have to attack – is set up in a way that encourages the teams to attack other teams’ towers and destroy their cores.” He looks around at the others who are all listening to him as we walk over to the balcony to look outside. “And when Denise mentioned her past with Ace, I thought it was a perfect opportunity.”

Yeah, certainly worked well alright.

Who knew Emily had a skill that let her diffuse various different illnesses and even acids into the air that she somehow indirectly controls to not attack allies. A very useful skill when fighting against an enemy that will be in one large location for a decent length of time, just building up sickness during all of that.

Then she has that Corruptive Sacrifice skill of hers that lets her immediately burn all of the maladies created by herself in other people to exacerbate their effects for a length of time.

Both work very well for traps.

“I know our plan revolved around Scar finding him when he came, but I’m still a little surprised you found him so easily,” Denise suddenly says, bringing my attention to her before I shrug.

“His footsteps were pretty hard to miss,” I comment. And I’m being completely honest.

His footsteps were echoing across the hallway. Not sure how the others didn’t hear.

“That’s another benefit of the ears of a blood lycan, not to mention Tier A perception in general,” Tar says, his voice echoing in my head. “There isn’t much that can hide things from your ears. Only things I can think of are skills that are either legendary or mythical in rarity, or at the very least lower rarity skills used by people who are much higher leveled than you. Like entire Classes above you.”

“I couldn’t see or hear a thing,” Belle says with a shrug, and Emily and Michael both nod their heads in agreement. Then Denise makes eye contact with me and explains, “No one at Aquatic Pride has ever managed to find Jordan when he was honestly trying to hide. At least, according to father that is.”

“Well, I have Tier A perception, so…” I state as if that answers everything. And it really does. So I turn back to Michael as I ask, “So what’s next on the plan?”

Michael blinks at the shift in topic before getting right down to it, “The final round is different from the other rounds, as you all know. So unlike how we all went in when assaulting another tower, and all stayed at the tower when defending it for the other rounds, this one we’ll be splitting up. And the ideal number of people to defend and attack should be about three people on the defense, and two on the offense.” He quickly focuses on me as he adds to no one’s surprise, “Scar will, of course, be leading the offense.” But what does surprise me is when he turns to his sister and says, “And Emily will be joining her.”

Before anyone can say anything to that, he raises a hand and explains, “Don’t worry, we already got rid of the only stealth Guardian, and Emily can keep her defenses up even at a distance.” He lowers his hand and looks between all of us. “Not to mention that we need both me and Belle here for defense and healing, and Denise is needed as the only other combat Guardian aside from Scar. Meaning the only person other than Scar that we can send is Emily.”

Good points.

“Not to mention,” he adds while turning his attention between me and his sister, “didn’t you two have pretty good chemistry between some of your skills?”

I grin at that.

“Yep,” I answer with a nod before turning to Emily to find her smiling as well.

This will be fun!

“I feel bad for the other students already…” Tar mutters, likely referring to how they’re gonna be feeling the pain of having their blood burned, life drained, and having various maladies forced into them, all at the same time.

Well, too bad for them. The pain in a magical reality is only set to fifty percent of the actual pain they would be feeling in the real world, not to mention that they have to get used to pain since the demons aren’t going to just let them go when they’re hurt.

“True,” Tar says, agreeing with that. “It’s still not something I’d ever want to go through myself.”

“Before you go,” Michael says, bringing both my and Emily’s attention towards him again. “Would you mind helping with some more traps first?”

Emily quickly nods at that and begins following after him, following his instructions.

And while they do that, I walk over to the edge of the balcony before trying to decide which of the towers I should target first.

This is going to be so much fun!