The whole surrounding erupted with screams and curses. The soldiers were being pushed back, struggling to keep the delegation heads from rushing inside.

Surprise flashed through Cahill's face. His brows furrowed. He instinctively turned towards Vorthane beside him. But what he got from his expression was surprise and confusion.

"Calm down everyone!!" Cahill's mana infused voice fell on everyone's ears, shaking their ear drums.

When silence spread again, he turned towards Luke and the others.

"You can't blame others just on suspicions. You need to have proof child." Cahill said.

"They pulled out their swords and attacked immediately. This definitely arouses suspicions commander." Vorthane interjected.

Cahill was surprised seeing Vorthane speaking in favor of Luke, in place of the heretics. The person who he had the most suspicions on was Vorthane himself. But now, he was confused, not confident in his belief, whether Vorthane really was involved in all this.

"We have proof commander." Luke said, surprising everyone.

He then pulled out a spherical metal ball out of his ring. When he passed prana into it. The ball split in between and the metal plates slid down, revealing a mana stone inside, glowing bright.

All of the people present, their eyes opened wide in shock. The device Luke had pulled out was a recording device. A magic engineered tool that was quite difficult to obtain if someone was not from the wizard tower or the magic engineering academy.

But what they didn't know was that Luke's team had a genius magic engineer among them, Shane.

Luke channeled prana into the mana stone, which then projected a screen above, playing the scene where Luke and Noah had intercepted the two heretics near the pond.

["Who are you two?"

Why are you hiding like this, observing us from here?"

"W-We came here looking for the lilies. B-But then saw you all fighting with the serpent and didn't move close…thinking it might c-cause a misunderstanding."

"Why is he holding a dagger laced with dark mana then?"

"Tch! This moron."

"Do it!"

"Hail the endless night!" ]

The recording ended with their bodies swelling and blasting into smithereens, blood and skin flying everywhere.

A num silence spread like a wake. People could see that the two of them were wearing the same clothes that these two on the plaza were in.

The representatives of the delegations fumed in anger, their chests heaving and eyes bloodshot. They were ready to pounce at the two of them any moment.

"These heretics deserve to die." Vorthane said through gritted teeth, genuine anger flashing through his face.

Just then, realizing that there was no way for them to save themselves, a dark black runic circle appeared on their foreheads as they screamed out.

"HAIL THE ENDLESS NIGHTS!!"

Noah and Shane immediately jumped back as Luke pulled up a hemispherical prana shield, encasing the two of them inside.

"No! Stop them!" Cahill bellowed, trying to stop them from killing themselves. But it was too late.

Just like the earlier two, their bodies swelled and burst. The inside became opaque as blood and flesh painted the prana shield.

Luke removed the shield when the blood and flesh fell on the floor. There was nothing left except the flesh and blood on the spot.

Cahill sighed in helplessness. He could have found the culprit if they could have been interrogated. But there was no use regretting now.

The representatives slumped down on the floor, wailing in agony as tears refused to stop. Though a majority of the participants were selected young warriors of their cities with great future prospects, some of them had sent their daughters and sons inside. No matter how much they cried or regretted, their children would never come back now.

Luke and the others clenched their fists. The tragedy of Frostbane was still fresh in their minds, now even the tournament played out a similar scene of loss and agony.

"It's all the kingdoms fault. How can you not check before letting such evil bastards participate. Bring the one responsible for this. I'll fucking kill him!"

"He's right. bring the one responsible out."

"We want justice! Bring him out."

The bereaved family members started yelling, asking to bring the ones responsible for not checking them out. They couldn't blame the king, the prime minister or any other higher official or nobles, so they shifted the blame on the lower officials involved in the tournament proceedings.

Seeing the situation getting dire, Cahill nodded at the captain of the soldiers as he ordered the soldiers to bring the representatives back to their lodgings.

"This will be investigated properly and justice will be served to the culprits. Please have some patients, we'll give you an answer very soon. Please cooperate and calm yourself down for now everyone." Vorthane said in a loud voice, trying to calm the situation down.

The participants stood frozen in their spots. The events were happing so fast that they couldn't even gather their minds around it. They just kept observing, standing motionless.

The soldiers quicky took the representatives away, making the plaza quite down. Silence was hanging heavy in the plaza when after almost half an hour of discussions among officials, Vorthane started speaking again.

"A very unfortunate incident has happened. We know that the lives lost, cannot be brought back again. But still, the kingdom has decided to compensate the bereaved families. The amount of compensation will be declared later after his majesty's approval."

"Since all of you have worked hard and tirelessly during this whole month of the tournament, it will be unfair to not award you with the promised reward." Vorthane said solemnly.

"Hoping for the safe departure of the souls of great young warriors, and with a heavy heart, I'm asking all of the teams to submit their collections in the points evaluator tool here." Vorthane said pointing at a huge cylindrical drum shaped tool with a crystal screen at the front.

"The leader of each team will come one by one according to the token numbers they received at the start and evaluate their scores."

Just when one of the team leaders was about to move forward, he stopped abruptly hearing Luke's voice.

"I have a question prime minister."

"Yes? Please ask."

"At the start it was said that the nightmare class beasts were 100 points each, but what about a disaster class? How many points is it?" Luke asked.

Vorthane realized why Luke was asking this question. Seeing the recording he was sure that Luke and his team would have probably defeated the Azure serpent. He wanted to rush at him and crush his neck, but controlling himself, he acted confused and asked Luke a question in return.

"Why would you want to know? There are no beast above the nightmare class in the realm, did you find one then?"

"We didn't find a disaster class, but we did defeat a half-disaster class." Luke then pulled the mana stone of the Azure serpent out and showed it.

All of the people present were shocked. Even Cahill was stupefied. The shock of Luke and his team being able to kill the beast was far greater than finding the half-disaster class in the realm. He waved his hand as the mana stone flew towards him, falling on his palm.

Cahill inspected the stone carefully and after checking a few times, showing it to Vorthane and getting a nod from him, he then looked towards Luke again.

"It really is a half-disaster class. Did you all kill it?" Cahill asked.

"Yes commander. It was the very Azure serpent that devoured the other participants." Luke said confidently.

Cahill, Vorthane and the other officials started discussing among themselves. After a few minutes, Vorthane spoke again.

"After discussing amongst ourselves, it's been decided that the points for a disaster class should have been 500. But since this is a half-disaster class, you'll be awarded 250 points."

Gasps of shock followed among the participants. They couldn't believe that Luke and his team, who were of the same age as them, were strong enough to hunt a half-disaster class beast.

"Thank you, prime minister."

"Also we found this black stone inside the serpent's body, we didn't know what this was, so we kept it to hand it over to the commander." Luke said looking at Cahill as he pulled the black stone out.

The stone floated out of his hand and fell on Cahill's palm again. A trace of shock and irritation flashed past Vorthane's face. But he immediately calmed himself down and feigned ignorance and looked at it in confusion.

Cahill inspected it carefully, he even channeled mana into it, but there was no reaction. Unable to find anything, he helplessly sighed.

"We'll have to check it with the wizards. Hope, they would be able to find something. Great work Luke. It was wise of you to bring it to me." Cahill said with a warm smile towards Luke.

"Thank you, commander." Luke said.

"Alright. Let's find out the winner now. First team come forward." Vorthane bellowed.

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