Chapter 104: The Winning Sacrifice
Translator: Double_L Editor: Tehrn
More people began to pay attention to the upcoming matches in the afternoon due to the unexpected outcome that had happened earlier, the surprise had even caught the interest of many media reporters. As known by many, Bernabeu was on their way to advance as an S-Ranked academy; hence this tournament was important to their further development. Everyone was expecting them to lead by a huge gap, yet the result turned out to be 3:2, no one was happy with the outcome even though Bernabeu was still leading.
The METAL Combat matches were scheduled to begin in the afternoon, the remaining five matches were important to both Ayrlarng and Bernabeu. Everyone from Bernabeu began to worry that they might not be able to maintain their advantages completely due to the participation of the famous Ma Xiaoru, Wang Ben, and Hu Yangxuan; especially Ma Xiaoru, who wouldn’t be holding back her actual strength during official matches. As the “princess” of the FFC and also the successor of Tactics of the Enchantress, she had a strong will to win.
However, the pairings were not sorted according to their opponent’s participating order, but the principals of both sides were required to decide the order of their five candidates blindly. It was like playing blind chess, Both Samantha and Martyrus had five chess pieces each, and the fate of their academies was now laying in their hands.
Both parties were hoping to achieve winning sacrifice; hence the two principals had no choice but to guess each other’s arrangements, it was no doubt a gamble of fate!
Fellow candidates began to pray of getting paired with the right opponent as all of them waited patiently for Samantha and Martyrus to announce the pairings. Martyrus knew this would be easy if they had won another round previously, but now things had changed. Ayrlarng would be crowned victorious if they were able to win another three rounds, and if that were to happen, his plan of advancing Bernabeu to an S-rank academy would vanish into thin air. In order to play it safe, he had to make sure Apache wouldn’t face Ma Xiaoru. Martyrus understood the fact that when two strong forces collided, one had to be defeated. He had to secure two wins from Apache for the sake of Bernabeu even if he had to sacrifice one of his candidates to Ma Xiaoru, but somehow, losing against the successor of the Tactics of the Enchantress wasn’t really a big deal anyway.
It only took both principals ten minutes to make up their minds, as both of them had been simulating and studying the pairings and the statuses of fellow candidates way before “D-Day”. The atmosphere across the arena became a mixture of cheers and tears as the pairings were announced.
Round 1: Ma Xiaoru versus Shi Liang
Round 2: Wang Ben versus Luo Manman
Round 3: Hu Yangxuan versus Apache
Round 4: Wang Ben versus Cao Yi
Round 5: Wang Tong versus Apache
Both parties were pleased to see such pairings, especially Bernabeu’s side. As Martyrus expected, Samantha would definitely send out Ma Xiaoru on the first or second round, which was why he arranged Shi Liang and Luo Manman in the earlier rounds; his plan worked even though he had to sacrifice Shi Liang. Furthermore, Martyrus was also happy for the match pairing between Luo Manman and Wang Ben. Luo Manman’s soft fighting style was effective against Wang Ben’s staunch and hardboiled techniques, even if she lost, she would be able to greatly interfere and weaken Wang Ben.
As for the third round, there was a high chance of Apache winning regardless if he was paired against Hu Yangxuan. However, the fourth round of Cao Yi versus Wang Ben was crucial, Cao Yi’s fighting style was specifically created to counter Wang Ben’s techniques, and if Luo Manman was able to weaken Wang Ben in the second round, Cao Yi’s winning ratio would definitely increase.
Martyrus arranged Apache to fight in the final round for safety reason, he would also need time to regain his strength since Hu Yangxuan wasn’t an easy target either.
Both parties still had a chance to win judging from the current situation. However, students and teachers from Bernabeu were somehow upset about Ayrlarng’s unique victory condition, they had no idea why Principal Martyrus would agree to let Ayrlarng claim victory if they were able to win five rounds out of ten.
It wasn’t a really big deal at the beginning, but everything changed when Wang Tong made his appearance. Hence Bernabeu couldn’t afford to make any mistakes in the second half.
Samantha seemed to be quite pleased with the arrangements. She knew her opponent would focus more on Ma Xiaoru, yet Ma Xiaoru wasn’t the key to their victory as all she had to do was to secure another win for Ayrlarng; there were still chances for Ayrlarng to win two rounds out of the first four matches. To be honest, Samantha was expecting a 0:5 defeat in the earlier matches in the morning; however, they were able to force Bernabeu into a deadlock instead due to Wang Tong’s unexpected critical win.
Generally speaking, Ayrlarng would have fewer disadvantages in the upcoming METAL Combats, it was normal for Martyrus to look anxious.
Round 1 of METAL Combat began, since both parties agreed that Ma Xiaoru would only participate in one fight, Shi Liang knew he was the pawn to be sacrificed; nevertheless, he would try his best to struggle.
It was an expected result, Ma Xiaoru won easily as Shi Liang was totally not a match against her. Anyhow, the audience was given the chance to witness the elegance of the successor of the Tactics of the Enchantress for five minutes.
The next round was an important duel between Luo Manman and Wang Ben.
Both Wang Ben and Luo Manman accessed the TPA; however, unlike inside the common TPA which allowed players to use nicknames for their avatars, they had to use real names during school assessments or tournaments, yet there were no conflicts between these two formats.
No matter the angle, Luo Manman didn’t look like a METAL fighter at all, somehow it just didn’t seem right to throw a punch against the delicate and charming girl.
“Mr. Wang Ben, please be gentle with me.” Luo Manman looked worried and intimidated, most guys who were affectionately drawn to soft spoken girls would definitely melt away as they saw her big and watery eyes. Most girls were born with this advantage, and guys would hesitate when they were to face a charming and fragile-looking girl; after all, who would have the heart to punch a beautiful girl in the face? It just didn’t sound right!
Unlike the normal TPA, avatars for this tournament would be the exact copy of the real persons. Even though Luo Manman was wearing a neat and tight outfit for today, the figure of her avatar looked gorgeous with most of her legs exposed. Her chest was well-covered, yet her heaving cleavage loomed as she moved her body, topped up with her delicate and charming expression, she was no doubt the most voluptuous and seductive “lethal weapon” around.
She was the goddess that every “otaku” would dream of having a duel with, yet if that happened, they would be stunned and hesitate because gentlemen were not supposed to hit ladies.
Luo Manman was definitely one of the beauties in Bernabeu judging from the number of her fans and her enormous crowd of supporters. Since Martyrus was confident of selecting her as one of the candidates, clearly this pretty lady was armed with a couple of tricks besides her beauty. After all, skills were more important than beauty during a fight.
“So, what do you think will happen to Wang Ben?” Hu Yangxuan asked with an impish smile, he was best at coping with pretty girls, if Hu Yangxuan were paired to challenge Luo Manman, she would absolutely surrender to his charm and even leaving down her phone number and room address.
“Haha, I think the Principal of Bernabeu just made a terrible mistake.”
“Totally agree!”