My Soul card is a Reaper

Six more weeks later, the regional tournament started, which saw winners of all the preliminary tournaments that occurred during the past six months, all over the planet.

Competitors from all over the world started arriving at the arena to hand their medallions and register as participants.

Azzy was, however, busy accompanying Nyra, who promised him a meeting with his master.

According to Nyra, her master, Claire, promised her that she would come to this regional tournament, which wasn't worth enough for her invitation, but she was coming for the sake of her disciple.

Since he was meeting with Claire, Azzy didn't see the point of participating in the tournament, but as the closing time was coming near and Claire had yet to arrive, Azzy couldn't help but become nervous. If he missed this tournament, he would have to wait for another six months. Or, choose another planet under Celestial Flame House.

Eventually, not intending to wait any longer, Azzy gave an excuse to meet an old friend and bailed out of there, exiting the Arena, removing the mask, and displaying the soul realm of 6-star as he entered it to register his name.

As soon as he registered his name, they took away his medallion and told him to go to the waiting hall.

Azzy went there to find many fighters spread all over the hall and the atmosphere was quite… pleasing?

"What the hell was this place?" Azzy felt like he had entered a nightmare instead. "This was a fuc*ing tournament, not a tea party."

Everywhere, the Angels were nice conversing with their competitors.

At the very least, in that preliminary tournament, he found some angels commenting in some sort of negative way, but here, where the so-called world's top talents gathered in one room, it was entirely the opposite.

There are two sorts of people in this place.

One, the Angels who stand alone and have serious or fierce looks. And two, the Angels who are mingling among others as if they came to a Ball event.

The overall atmosphere didn't reek of competitiveness as he expected at all. As a result, Azzy had to stand in a corner, all alone, crossing his arms and closing his eyes too. Surprisingly, no one paid attention to Azzy either.

Within an hour after Azzy entered this hall, all the remaining contestants arrived too, and this tourney's guardian angel/referee stepped in with a list, announcing groups of four one after another.

Azzy was in Group 12, and his other three competitors for the first round were all in 5-star rank, just like the other preceding groups. It was as if the guardian angels was purposely grouping 1 6-star rank with 3 5-star ranks. Or, atleast, it has been that way so far.

Azzy had no problem with it. But it is just that they don't look a bit ambitious at all. If anything, they were a bit too friendly. They were standing around him and talking about miscellaneous things. Azzy purposely gave them a cold shoulder, but they merely backed off and chatted among themselves.

Meanwhile, the four-way battle royale started in the arena, with not so much attendance. In fact, the stands were empty. There were only five people up there. One of those was Nyra.

After about three hours of waiting, Azzy's turn came, and when he entered the field, even Nyra was gone, and only one left. If anything positive to be seen in this situation, the one who was watching it is an instructor at the Knight Academy of Aurelis/Celestial Flame.

If one can impress him, they can directly enter the academy without needing to even enter the top 8 for the qualification.

And he looked quite bored, leaning to the back and watching as if he was there on an obligation.

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He sees the next set of four come into the arena and mumbles lazily, "There we go, a decent one and a bunch of weaklings. Not much difference between them. But, in the end, someone in Tier-60s always wins."

The moment the guardian angels sent out the signal, he saw three of them suddenly charge at Azzy altogether as if they had already allied with each other.

Since this has been a common occurrence for the instructor, he continued to lean back in a lazy manner. However, when they reach Azzy, he just sees they bounced back in different directions and crash to the ground, knocked out unconscious.

"The winner is Rael," announced the guardian angel in disbelief.

"What!" The instructor fell down from his seat and saw Azzy, feeling the same thing as the guardian angel, "I didn't even see that attack properly. I thought there would be atleast an intense fight, but just one attack, and everyone is defeated?" He clenched his fist with a smile, "All alright, at last, found a good sapling among the weeds, one that can grow strong and bear fruit."

As the winner, Azzy was escorted to another waiting hall, where fellow winners were waiting for him. Except for two, the remaining nine are all 5-star rankers and the entire hall goes silent as Azzy enters.

This hall is different from the last one. Here, no one talked. They just sat or stood in silence; competitiveness oozing out of their eyes, especially the 6-star rank Angels.

Azzy didn't understand what was going on since it seemed to be followed by a group and not an individualistic issue. Azzy thought it was probably some trait of Angels, and he just shut his eyes and mind and rested until 32 competitors, which is like 18 hours of patience. Some matches after his match went on for hours.

Due to the artificial sunlight technique that illuminated the arena as bright as a day, it went through the night too. No one was given any privilege of having a room or anything. All of them just slept, sitting down and leaning their back against the wall. Some of them meditated and some of them even slept standing like statues.

Azzy was aware that Angels don't get hungry, although they eat fruits to recover their soul energy. But, not having any room to sleep when there are so many waiting rooms in the arena on the upper floors. Moreover, none is allowed to leave the room either. Azzy couldn't understand how they were all so comfortable with such an arrangement.

Nevertheless, he isn't one to complain and make himself feel like an odd one out. Hence, he, too, rested like the rest until a few hours of break after that round of battle Royale was over.

Eventually, the guardian angel arrived with a new list, waking up everyone with a roar like a military commander.

As Azzy opened his eyes abruptly, the rank-7 (Tier-78) guardian angel went on announcing, "Due to an order from the upper echelons, the tournament format changed this year. Instead of a one-on-one battle, you all will participate in another four-way battle again. The top 8 winners will further participate in one more four-way battle, leaving behind two winners. There is no final this time. The two winners will directly qualify for the Tournament of the Knights. Also, you are allowed to use skill cards from this round but restricted to a maximum of five in number.

With that said, contestants: Dairus, Zorathil, Averion, and Rael. The four of you will be participating in the first match. You have ten minutes to prepare."

Fifteen minutes later;

*Boom*

As soon as the energy sphere exploded in the sky like a firework, one charged at Azzy while the other two fought among themselves, like one vs one battle.

The 6-star rank Angel was different from previous opponents he faced.

While he charged, it wasn't a blind charge. Instead, he flapped his white wings after covering the halfway distance between them. Flying high into the sky, a bow appeared in his hand, and a series of arrows rained upon Azzy.

Azzy, however, merely stared at the shower of arrows and took out his weapon, too, but didn't turn it into the plasma scythe. He merely maintained his base form and rapidly spun it around, deflecting the arrows one after another.

None of the arrows hit him and hit all around him. The Angel furrowed his brows, looking at the scene from above, "This is the same guy who defeated his opponents in one punch. These simple attacks won't work against him."

He grabbed the string and pulled it to the back as much as he could, the veins popped up all over his arm as his soul energy gushed out of his body and formed an arrow with the head that resembled a serpent.

"Skill: Serpent of the Skies."

As he released it, the arrow transformed into a large serpent glowing in the light, landing on the ground, and started crawling toward Azzy. Just one look at it, Azzy could see through the skill's strength, "a mid-rank-7, huh? Well, I guess slaying it would probably put a heavy dent in the confidence of its caster as well as the others."