Chapter 98: Lacking

On the ground floor of the South wing. There were currently more than 60 people gathered in one of the massive training halls in the castle. At this point, It was already late in the evening and the preparations for Tyler's mini-tournament had been completed.

Surprisingly, there were more than 40 fighters participating. To be frank this wasn't much of a tournament, it was more like a prize-winning competition. Everyone interested would be free to challenge one of the two undead that had been restrained in the center of the hall.

There was no special rules during the fight, one just had to incapacitate their chosen undead within a period of 15 minutes to move on to the next and final round.

When the first round ends those that qualified for the second round would receive a prize. The next round would have them face both undead creatures at the same time and those that are able to win would get an additional special prize.

Of course both prizes were still a mystery as Tyler wasn't even aware of what it was himself. This event was surprisingly quite motivating to everyone, as they felt a special prize would be something incredible, increasing the pressure Tyler felt by a notch.

Of course, there were a few people who Tyler had forbid from participating in this competition namely Rain who was a little too eager to win a special prize. Tyler had a bad feeling she would make a demand of him instead. Not to mention, she was already way stronger than both Undead creatures.

Erin, Liz, Albert, and the recently added Z, a name Tyler called Zomatsu after he kept butchering his actual name. Z had also made it down to observe the competition as well.

With more than 40 fighters participating, the competition was bound to take a long time so Tyler had Albert separate the two undead, giving them enough space for two battles at the same time.

The fighters then split into two semi-equal groups as they chose who they would rather fight against. It seems more had chosen the calmer Lich that stood quietly rather than the savage Black Knight that raged about trying to break free of its restraints.

Z shook his head at their foolishness and Tyler couldn't help but chuckle inwardly. Z's thoughts were correct as the Lich was a more frightening

foe than the knight. The girls sat beside Tyler in the corner of the room where a small seating area made entirely of the dining chairs that had been moved here, it was unknown if they were even interested in this competition as they mostly chatted amongst themselves.

There were also a few ogres, beastmen, and even kobolds that sat there, opting to observe rather than participate. Albert, the events coordinator, stood at the center of the room as he prepared to start the first match. He had worked hard on this and Tyler thought he would get him something as well if he ever figures out what he was going to get the others.

"Begin!" Albert spoke as he snapped his fingers and the restraints on the Black Knight was released.

The battle commences and a beastman with black dog ears, wielding two long swords charged at the released Black Knight, while an ogre ranger with a black crossbow attacked the idle Lich by firing several arrows consecutively at it before dashing forward.

The Black Knight used its Death Wail the moment it was set free and the charging swordsman halted his steps as he tried to resist the attack. A barrier had been set around the designated battlefield so the sound of the wail did not affect the people outside the barrier and while Albert was also within the barriers, he could easily resist the wail.

The Black Knight charged at the stunned swordsman and bashed him with its massive Shield. The swordsman staggered back and tried to regain his bearing but the Black Knight was relentless. It roared and its oppressive and hate-filled aura loomed over the swordsman as the Black Knight swung its sword.

The swordsman tried to block the attack but was promptly sent out of the barrier by the unexpected strength of the strike. The Black Knight tried to madly charge after him but was immediately stopped by Albert who sent the Black Knight flying back with a single backhanded strike.

Meanwhile...

The Black dog eared Beastman had just begun his attack on the Lich, shooting out several arrows from his black two-handed crossbow and dashed forward to make his next move depending on how the Lich planned on defending itself.

The Lich, however, did not make a move. The flames in its eyes flickered a bit and the arrows struck him without any resistance. Contrary to the beastman's expectation though. The arrows hadn't done any damage as most of them had gone through its tattered robes and even the ones that struck its bones did not do damage.

Zomatsu shook his head in disapproval as it was supposed to be common knowledge that skeletal undead creatures had great resistance to piercing attacks but apparently this beastman did not get the memo.

The Lich raised an arm and a burst of compressed negative energy gusted forth at the beastman and immediately knocked him unconscious. Both fights had ended almost instantly which made Tyler a little disappointed at his so-called troops. 

The competition continued and most of the ogres and beastmen kept losing without even putting up much of a fight. Tyler didn't understand why they were all suddenly so bad. He hadn't personally witnessed it but this group had survived a battle against Tier 5 Lesser Basilisks.

He now took this as a serious problem and as he watched each fight he slowly understood why this was happening but he still couldn't be sure. Zomatsu felt the sudden change in Tyler's presence and immediately figured out his concerns.

"Pardon me for intruding but, I think the ogres and beastmen are not really accustomed to fighting a strong opponent on their own. None of them seem to have a bad form or look particularly nervous so that means they are either experience in hunting or had received good training but that training must have been as a group."

"Hmm... So you mean."

"Yes, they were most likely trained to work with and feed off their teammates. Even hunting parties generally move in groups and never fought monsters on their own. This might very well be the first time they've ever engaged in combat against a truly strong opponent without a team."

He was indeed correct. In the last fight with the trolls, only a few of them had been able to fight the trolls on their own and the rest had worked with teams. As freemen, it wasn't really efficient to train fighters with low or average potential on how to fight on their own as their limited resources were better off elsewhere.

They would train people like that on how to survive dangerous situations and not how to win. It was better to focus on fighting as a team, compensating for your teammate's weakness.

Tyler understood where that line of thinking was coming from but he could not apply that to warriors who generally only had low magic potential to begin with. Warriors needed all the training they could get to surpass their potential otherwise they would always lack behind mages and magic warriors.

Looking at the sorry states of most of the fighters challenging the undead. Tyler knew they needed better training and equipment. Most of them seem to lack effective skills and even the few mages didn't have a wide variety of spells. It was clear that most of their fighters hadn't even reached their potential yet and were just lacking the necessary resources but some just needed to work harder.

The competition continued and so far, no one had even come close to defeating the undead Duo. Tyler was wondering what Z would think if he found out that the two undead were his former companions but he quickly took that thought off his mind as something interesting finally happened.

The shield warrior known as Hart, the one Tyler considered a very lovable idiot took on the challenge of the Black Knight. He had done well against the trolls but Tyler wanted to see how he would fare on his own. He roared like a beast as his body glowed in a slight orange hue as he charged at the Black Knight who also charged at him.

Challenging the Lich right now was Jarret, he wasted no time using a skill as razor-sharp wind tore through the air at the Lich that still hadn't moved from his previous location even after battling so many opponents.

Tyler was secretly impressed by the Lich's swag but he still rooted for Jarret. The Lich quickly cast a spell and a wall of flame rose from the ground, absorbing the razor wind however, Jarret wasn't done yet. He swiftly moved behind the Lich and forcefully swung his sword diagonally.

°Tempest Blades°

Several blades of powerful howling wind followed his strike and before the Lich could create a defensive barrier to defend himself they all descended on him, sending the Lich tumbling back to the ground. 

This was the first time the Lich had been moved from his spot and it didn't look happy about it. As Jarret moved forward to press on his attack the Lich's mouth opened and a ghastly voice rang out as it cast another spell.

"Bone Immure."

Bone spikes shot out of the ground as it trapped Jarret in a cage made of pure white bones. Jarret tried to destroy the cage but his weapon bounces off it like he had just struck a hard metal surface. Before he could compose himself to try again with a skill the Lich had already cast its next spell.

"Lightning."

A bolt of dark silver lightning streaked out of his fingers as it aimed at Jarret. Trapped in a confined space there was no way he could block or avoid the attack, he would surely die the moment the lightning reached him.

With no way out of this, it was clear to him that he had lost this fight. As the lightning descended on him. Albert appeared before him and simply crushed the attack with his bare hands. He waved a fist and the bone cage shattered releasing Jarret.

The Lich took a step back as it had no intentions of fighting this opponent. It wasn't sure why they kept sending weak opponents at him but it looked like they didn't want him to kill those opponents. 

With Albert interfering, it meant Jarret had lost and the next opponent stepped up to take on the Lich. Meanwhile, Hart's huge frame had been sent flying out of the barrier which was a disappointment fir Tyler.

Tyler sighed, both of them had done better than the others but still, they had fallen short of his expectations. Perhaps the undead's aura of Hate and aura of death had something to do with this but he couldn't be sure.

The next fighters were Jin and Raz, fighting the Knight and Lich respectively. Their fights were quite impressive but they had also fallen short of expectations. It took a while and Tyler had almost given up on the settlement when someone finally won.

Nadine had managed to defeat the Lich while Gail had defeated the Black Knight just by launching enchanted arrows at it and nimbly maintaining her distance. The next challengers had also won their battle as Lora and Talen had also managed to sneak out a win. 

Naturally, Azar and the two unique trolls had won their battles but to their surprise, it wasn't an easy fight. The competition had really saved the best for last and even the spectators behind Tyler had gotten louder towards the end.

With Rekaz and Kazko defeating their opponent, the competition came to an end. It was somewhat enjoyable and a good fare ware event for Tyler as he wouldn't be here to watch the next round against both undead. Only seven people had qualified for that but it was bound to be more entertaining.

However, Tyler had other things to worry about. He also needed to design a rigorous training regimen for the settlement. He decided to have the self-proclaimed genius design the training and also give Albert command of his two Tier 2 Black Knight for the weaker members of the settlement's training.

_______________________

Consider joining the Discord Server: https://discord.gg/XvdFxsBkwe

_______________________