Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
chapter-387-2

Following the instructions of the Minister the captains of the teams left the platforms, the same applied to the regular members of the teams, so that only the three officials stayed behind.

Only then Raymond started with the explanation of the dynamic for this year's third round.

"There is an old saying, that states, that a soldier must fight a soldier, a general should fight a general and a king should fight a king, but personally I disagree, in a real war one doesn't get to choose who to fight, generals have been slain by civilians and kings have been assassinated by servants as an example of that".

"That's why unlike previous years, where the officials had to outperform their competitors, this time there will be a change in the dynamic, vice-captains from the team with the highest position in their respective platform, step in", said the Minister as he waved his hand, at the same time staff members from the Arcarius family brought a box to each pair of platforms.

"Who will fight who will be decided randomly, just like in a real situation, however we can't ignore the prior achievements of the teams, so the one to take the chance will be the vice-captain of the team in the best position out of the two facing each other".

The nobles and even the neo nobles admitted this was fair, it's normal for the stronger side in a war to have the upper hand, so this was a good representation of that.

The vice-captains of the team with the highest rank in their respective platform walked towards the boxes and then put their hands in, a second later they took them out and showed their result of the sort.

The Minister snapped his fingers and one of the mirror plates changed the information it was showing, to the result of the sort.

"Those who participated on the sort will face the official that their paper states, their counterpart will face the official which didn't appear in the sort of the ones who participated, so that there won't be matches between "equals", for a total of three rounds".

The method used by the Minister was quite simple, let's say that the vice-captain "A" drew the paper and had to fight the scholar of the team "B", then the vice-captain "B" had to the fight the strategist "A".

That left the scholar "A" and the strategist "B" to be the third par thus completing the cycle, naturally a commotion was raised when the "weaker" officials saw they were up against the vice-captains of the opponent.

Normally a vice-captain is someone who has the ability to make the team keep going in case the captains is not in the picture, contrary to one believes, while the captain can focus in bringing the team to victory by giving orders to the other officials, the vice-captain must know how to fulfill any of the officials in case it is needed, so they are the most balanced officials, possessing strength, wit and knowledge, maybe not at the level of the captain, scholar or strategist, but still being able to balance all that and also focus in their own strong point, is what earns them the title of vice-captain.

At Daimon's skybox, the girls looked at the mirror plate with the pairs formed for the first matches, which involved the vice-captains of both teams, naturally they just paid attention to the four favorites, since Daimon told them they didn't need to worry about the others, as they won't be participating in the fourth round anyway.

The pairs ended up being, the crowned prince's team vice-captain, versus the opponent's scholar, Lance's team vice-captain versus the opponent's strategist, Ezequiel's team vice-captain versus the opponent's scholar and lastly Walford's team vice-captain versus the opponent's scholar.

At the spectator's area, the four captains were observing the platforms, and Ezequiel suddenly looked at Lance with mockery.

"Wow, you must have angered someone Lance, so that your scholar is the only one who has to fight a vice-captain", he said.

Unfortunately for Ezequiel, Lance completely ignored him, making Ezequiel snort in response.

'I want to see how will you react when that glassed weakling ends up all beaten up, it's better if you rage and get disqualified you bastard', he cursed in his mind.

Now that the pairs were formed, the Minister nodded and then continued with his explanation, he snapped hos fingers and the arrays which were engraved on the platforms of the third lake lit up, but didn't activate yet.

"As you already know, the third lake is called the "Body Tempering Lake", and it's effect is actually the easiest to understand among the three, everything which had contact with its waters... sink to the bottom to never be seen again, in case those who had the ability to breath underwater think it's not a big deal, think it again".

"There is a record in my family stating that a death-sentenced prisoner of the Arcarius, whose crimes were atrocious, was once used to measure the effect of the Body Tempering Lake, it was thrown into the lake, and not even a second later it was no longer visible from above, not only that but the array who was linked to its life exploded, so in less than three seconds an early stage Stellar ranked was killed, and that was in the day of the yearly harvest, when the lakes are at their weakest point".

The spectators felt a chill running down their spines upon hearing the words of the Minister, killing an early stage Stellar ranked in less than three seconds, that was a territory for those with battle prowess in the high ranked Stellar realm at least, and that was the weakest point of the third lake, it was outrageous.

Having achieved what he wanted, the Minister then continued.

"Naturally we can't have the heroes of the young generation, crushed to death, so the array limits it to a maximum of 5% of its output, based on the data we have gathered through the years, each 1% of the output doubles the weight of the one in the platform, meaning that if you originally weighted 50 kilograms, at 1% you'll weight 100, at 2% it will be 200 and so on".

Seeing that the spectators were relaxing after hearing that, the Minister smirked.

"That is for normal humans, mana and battle aura have their own "weights" which depend on the person, attribute and the amount used, that is the first surprise I have prepared for the third round, as a compensation the weapons that you'll be given to use are immune to the effect of the array".

Many people had the urge to curse at the Minister, an average person weighted around 70 kilograms, the maximum output of the array was of 5%, meaning that without using any spells or battle aura actively, an average person will weight around 2,240 kilograms in the platform when the output is at its max, it was insane.

The Minister saw one of the participates raising his hand, and he gave the word to him, it was the glassed slim guy from Lance's team.

"How will the output be controlled?", he asked in a low voice.

The Minister nodded and then shook his head.

"It's set at random, so at any given moment it might increase or decrease, as for the order of the duels, it will be vice-captains, then strategist and lastly scholars, the highest ranked official of the pair will be the taken into account".

"As for what will be taken into account for the winner, the factors will be, the time taken to defeat the opponent, how crushing is the victory of the winner and last but not least, adaptability to the battlefield, the arrays will immediately save the participants if their lives are endangered, so don't worry and give it your all, good luck".

Without giving the participants time to ask more questions the Minister returned to the skybox of the judges, not without saying.

"I'll leave you with our special guest of today, a battle specialist and the captain of the royal guard, Tideus Malleus".

The mirror plates showed a tall man in his fifties, wearing a white and blue armor, Daimon frowned upon seeing him, not only because it seemed to be a rare high stage Stellar rank, just like Black Beard, but because... it looked like a slightly younger version of Vincent.

And there was a reason to that, that guy was the crowned prince's maternal grandfather, being Irma's wife and at the same time, Vincent's cousin as well as the clan head of the Malleus family.

Contrary to what Daimon expected, there was no drama involving Vincent and his cousin, they both ignored each other even if they were sitting close to the other acting as judges.

And so, with the greenlight of the Minister the third round finally started, for the crowned prince, his vice-captain was a relative, since it was a member of the Malleus family, a tall bulky guy with water affinity which identified him as a member of the main family branch, the opponent who was the scholar of the opponent's team honestly felt the urge to run away, Terry's vice-captain was around forty centimeters taller than him, not to mention a fighter unlike him who is a scholar.

The same situation repeated for Ezequiel's and Walford's team, their vice-captains clearly outclassed the opponents by a lot since they were the scholars, it was an easy win for them.

The only exception being Lance whose case was the contrary, his vice-captain had to fight against the strategist which didn't seem to be that much of a pushover in battle terms, meaning his vice-captain was going to take more time to beat his opponent, giving an advantage to the other three favorites.

And that wasn't all, in case that wasn't enough of a disadvantage, Lance's opponent vice-captain got to fight his scholar, so right from the beginning, the neo nobles were facing a not immediate victory and a possible loss, it could be said they got the short end of the stick.

Ezequiel listened to the spectators having the same opinion as him, and he snorted at Lance.

"I remember you use to care about your subordinates quite a bit Lance, why don't you tell that little bookworm to give up before he gets hurt hahaha!".

But the only reaction Lance had was that the ends of his mouth slightly bent upwards.

At Daimon's skybox, the girls were also interested in the current matches, because they might be facing a similar situation, knowing the Minister was of course going to try to pull some underhanded tricks in the fourth round.

"What do you think Daimon, Lance's scholar or the opponent's vice-captain, who is going to win?", asked Leslie in her usual lively voice, Liliana took the initiative to talk with him in the morning, so this time she wanted to get his attention too.

Daimon saw those expecting eyes of hers and he inwardly smiled, she was too obvious so her intentions were as clear as day, but he had to admit that he found her cute.

"The scholar will win, and it's going to be one sided fight that won't last past the first ten seconds, it would be even shorter if not for the array being a variable", he said.

Thea who was floating on the air, since she managed to steal a bottle from who knows where, poked Daimon's head with her pretty index finger before saying.

"You did it again right, this Empress has been wondering, but what are those eyes of yours~", she asked with a slightly strange voice, her face was a bit red after just a small sip of the liqueur of the bottle, it wasn't a strong drink since she was in charge of watching them over just in case.

Daimon felt Thea poking his head repeatedly with her fingers trying to get his attention and he bitterly smiled.

"I'm a knight so I can of course recognize other knights, having a large musculature isn't the same as having a high physical strength, but miss Thea is right, with my eyes I managed to see the affinity of that glassed... scholar, that's why I can tell that battle isn't going to last even ten seconds".

Just as Daimon finished speaking, and before practically all the spectators of the young generation could react, as well as to the surprise of the ones from the old generation, with very few exceptions.

The glassed scholar from Lance's team, turned into a gust of wind, the ground before his cracked a bit due to the sudden explosion, and the next thing the vice-captain of the opponent's team knew is that a slim figure appeared in front of him.

"Hurricane Fist", with a low and almost unnoticeable voice, currents of wind gathered on the fist of the glassed scholar, who then punched the stomach of the opponent, as a water mage the defensive spell that the vice-captain learned when he became a Lord ranked, automatically activated and formed a water layer to mitigate the impact.

But it was futile, the wind attribute battle aura of the scholar, blew the water wall away and directly connected with the bare body of the vice-captain.

"Booom!", a loud thunder-like sound echoed through the whole area, followed by the roars of the neo nobles, as the opponent's vice-captain was sent flying outside of the platform around one hundred meters away, landing on the array that covered the lake, with his eyes rolled backwards.

"Ohhhhh!", the neo nobles cheered at unison making the whole place tremble.

Lance saw Ezequiel unsightly expression and this time he did speak.

"You see, in the spear of the sea, we have a scarce amount of scholars not because there isn't smart people among "commoners" like you believe Ezequiel, but because their physical training is twice harsher than the one of a regular soldier, as they are prompt to be targeted by the enemy, in battle prowess terms, my scholar is stronger than the vice-captain in my team, and only second to me".

The ones who were near Lance, listened his explanation and were in awe, like always the neo nobles pulled some barbarian-like surprise.

And with that crushing victory for Lance's team, which was also the fastest victory in the first match of the third round, the war for the supremacy among the four favorites continued.