"Let"s surrender, Master."Izawa"s words caused everyone in Seiji"s party to fall silent for a moment.
"Earlier, you used such underhanded means to prevent me from surrendering. Why are you suddenly saying this now?" Kanna looked at her Spirit-branded Retainer.
"That"s because earlier, I believed that it was a bad idea to surrender without even trying. But now, I believe that it will be too dangerous to remain here. For Master"s safety, we should surrender now and leave here immediately," Izawa spoke seriously.
It was quite evident why Kanna"s loyal Spirit-branded Retainer suddenly changed his mind. It was due to the way that the enemies who attacked them had died!
The enemies had all become nothing more than withered corpses that were frightening to behold. It was only natural to think that continuing to partic.i.p.ate in this tournament would be extremely dangerous.
"I"m happy that you"ve finally come to my way of thinking. But…" Kanna sighed. "I think it"s too late now."
"I agree," Seiji added.
In the current situation, it would be far too foolish to think that it was still possible to leave safely just by surrendering in the tournament.
Ever since the black mist appeared everywhere, the tournament rule where "one could leave safely after surrendering" was probably completely useless.
"The Bloodwine Spirit which acts as the judge of the tournament is able to use magically enforced contracts to prevent tournament partic.i.p.ants from attacking others who are defeated or surrender in the tournament. However, it"s unable to stop non-tournament partic.i.p.ants, such as the black mist or all those ghostly figures… My guess is that anyone who surrenders will instantly be swarmed and attacked by a large number of ghostly spirits, or something even worse." Something flashed in Seiji"s eyes. "In other words, we"re currently in a highly dangerous location. The only reason why we"re still alright is because of the Bloodwine Spirit, or perhaps I should call it the ritual tournament contract"s existence.
"This entire island is currently under the effects of the Bloodwine Ritual tournament to drain spiritual blood from the losers and finally create a powerful Bloodwine to be awarded to the victorious team. The tournament contract should have a preceding effect over the Spirit World creation ceremony that the Revenge Alliance is probably trying to perform here. That"s why this black mist is unable to directly harm the tournament partic.i.p.ants. Only if a ghostly spirit invades a tournament partic.i.p.ant, or when some tournament partic.i.p.ant is defeated or surrenders, will the black mist be able to absorb energy from them. Basically, this black mist is stealing their physical bodies and souls as sacrifices to create a Spirit World.
"Surrendering now and canceling the tournament contract is equal to directly exposing oneself to extreme danger! Unless you"re powerful enough to directly resist the full powers of this current ritual realm we"re in, it"ll be impossible to leave.
"All of the above is merely my hypothesis. However, I don"t wish to experiment to see if I"m on the mark. Nor do I wish to see any of you experiment."
"…Do you see now, Ryuuno?" Kanna sighed.
Izawa nodded.
"I"m sorry, Master…"
"Let"s not waste words here. The most important thing right now is how to survive."
"One possibility is to win and become the final overall victors of the tournament," Seiji stated. "However, I think that"s a really low probability."
"Even if that works, if only one team can survive this entire tournament… I don"t think that Izawa and myself are capable of defeating you and Kagursan, so we"re still going to die." Kanna shrugged.
"If I sacrifice myself, it should be possible to defeat Harutkun," Izawa spoke seriously.
"Even if it"s a joke, I don"t want to hear it. I want to hear it even less if you"re being serious, Izawkun." Seiji smiled bitterly.
"Shut up, Ryuuno," Kanna ordered, displeased.
Izawa fell silent.
However, he secretly resolved himself. If he and Kanna were forced to fight with Seiji Haruta in the end, he would sacrifice his very life if need be to make sure that his Master Kanna would become the final victor!
"Another possibility is that we follow the request of that mysterious voice and go to stop a certain person," Seiji continued. "The person this voice wants us to stop is highly likely to be the creator of the Spirit World creation ceremony here on this island. Only by stopping this person will we be able to dispel this realm of black mist and let all of us survive. But, the problem with this is that we currently have no idea who this person is. And even if we find out who this person is, if he or she isn"t on the enemy Red Team, it"ll be difficult to discover them."
In the first round group stage of the tournament, the Bloodwine Spirit only provided the tournament partic.i.p.ants with the magical minimap ability to sense the names and locations of tournament partic.i.p.ants on the other team. Since Seiji and his group were all on Blue Team, they were unable to sense the other Blue Team tournament partic.i.p.ants. Of course, they were also unable to sense anyone who wasn"t a tournament partic.i.p.ant.
"Even if we find out who this person is and find them, the next problem is whether or not we can stop them," Kanna added. "Are we really strong enough to deal with someone who"s powerful enough to create an entire blood sacrifice ceremony to create a Spirit World?"
"That"s right, that is indeed the final and most important question." Seiji sighed.
If that person was extremely powerful to the extent of being undefeatable, then it would be useless even if Seiji and his group discovered this person. That was because reality was no game. There was no guarantee that the hero would be able to defeat the demon king.
"But if we don"t try anything at all, we"ll never learn anything… and we can"t just sit around here and do nothing," Seiji spoke in a heavy tone. "I want to find out who this person is! Although I don"t know who he or she is, there"s still a few clues."
Seiji felt that there was an over eighty percent probability that the person behind the strange black mist on the island was the leader of the Revenge Alliance!
There would definitely be someone in the Revenge Alliance who knew the leader"s real ident.i.ty. And, there was one person that almost certainly knew the leader"s ident.i.ty and seemed to have a high rank within the Revenge Alliance—Daikawa Rota!
And in order to find the Revenge Alliance members, Seiji would have to go find their targets—the 7321 faction members!
Seiji really hadn"t wanted to get involved with the battle between the Revenge Alliance and the 7321 faction members. But, for the sake of himself and his companions" safety, he absolutely had to go check out the situation.
He then checked the "enemy team minimap" senses that he had been too busy to check on with all the earlier fighting.
Seiji and his companions all checked and sensed the names and locations of all remaining enemy Red Team members.
There were far fewer people than when the tournament started… it would seem that some major battling had occurred.
Even the 7321 faction members had been greatly reduced!
Seiji already had information on the 7321 members" names and ident.i.ties from Hana. But, right now, he could only sense that Natsuki Shuurin, n.o.buhiko Kurosaki, and s.h.i.+gure Tendo were still in the tournament. All the other names, including his never before met relative Shuntou Haruta"s, were no longer active on the minimap.
Wait a moment, something was strange about s.h.i.+gure Tendo"s existence on the minimap senses. He seemed rather hazy…
To use a game a.n.a.logy, if everyone else on the minimap was a clear human-shaped mark, then s.h.i.+gure Tendo was currently a blurred mosaic.
Had s.h.i.+gure been invaded and possessed by ghosts?
No, those possessed wouldn"t be sensed anymore on the minimap, because they would be judged by the Bloodwine Spirit to have been defeated.
Then why was it that s.h.i.+gure"s appearance on the minimap was so strange? It was as if there was some signal interference…
Just as they were being confused about this, Seiji and his companions sensed s.h.i.+gure Tendo approaching Natsuki Shuurin on the minimap. Right after that, Natsuki Shuurin"s dot was eliminated from the minimap, judged to be defeated from the tournament!
Did s.h.i.+gure Tendo just kill his companion!?
Still, Seiji figured that the 7321 faction members weren"t exactly friends to begin with. They were likely only a temporary team, so it wouldn"t be strange if they had internal fighting amongst themselves.
Did the 7321 faction defeat the Revenge Alliance and then start fighting amongst themselves?
However, Seiji then sensed on the minimap that s.h.i.+gure Tendo was now rapidly approaching other Red Team members and kill his "teammates" that should have been nominal allies of his in this tournament group stage. Seiji felt that this was truly abnormal.
That was because s.h.i.+gure Tendo was too fast!
Even if s.h.i.+gure Tendo was ridiculously strong, his speed in killing his fellow Red Team members was far too fast! He used only an instant to kill every single person that he approached! It was as if the others couldn"t even resist and were just waiting there for him to kill them.
Was this a legendary one-hit kill technique?
Rather than that, Seiji preferred to believe that it was connected to the strange sense he got from s.h.i.+gure"s existence on the minimap.
Perhaps the hazy way he appeared on the minimap was because s.h.i.+gure was currently in a unique condition that even the Bloodwine Spirit had difficulty keeping a connection with. This condition gave s.h.i.+gure tremendous combat strength, but also made him lose the ability to separate friend from foe!
The next event to occur only reinforced Seiji"s inference.
On the minimap, he saw s.h.i.+gure Tendo"s existence stop in front of a Red Team member by the name of Keimi Umetani. s.h.i.+gure"s existence on the minimap suddenly became much clearer before going hazy again. This process repeated itself several times.
Seiji knew from Hana"s information that Keimi Umetani was s.h.i.+gure Tendo"s partner in the tournament.
"He must be trying to struggle and control himself from not killing his partner in the tournament!" That was what Seiji thought of this situation.
Seiji imagined as if he could even see the current situation—s.h.i.+gure Tendo, who was currently in a unique condition (similar to being possessed by ghosts), was currently facing the girl who was his partner, and trying his best to stop himself from going berserk.
However… he failed.
Keimi Umetani was judged to be defeated from the tournament and her dot disappeared from the minimap.
s.h.i.+gure Tendo"s existence then became even hazier on the minimap. He stopped where he was for a while before swiftly starting to move again.
He was heading in… Seiji"s direction!!