Following the resonant boom of the opening horn, the remaining combatants from both factions collided heavily in the center of the stadium. Amidst a dense forest of raised lances, the two teams alternated rapidly between aggressive flanking maneuvers, tight defensive formations, and synchronized tactical support, creating a beautifully chaotic spectacle that kept the entire stadium on the absolute edge of their seats.
"Who among them do you honestly think will secure the final victory?"
As the mid-ga skirmishes grew increasingly chaotic, Patchouli Knowledge adjusted her spectacles, looking over at the rest of the group to ask for their analytical input.
"It is honestly quite hard to say with absolute certainty," Remilia murmured, her chin resting casually on her hand. "If we are strictly asuring raw physical strength and kinetic output, that Bloodboil group is undeniably a noticeable notch above the Pinus Sylvestris order."
"However, their primary field commander seems profoundly distracted," Sakuya Izayoi added softly, her sharp eyes scanning the shifting lines. "The front-line knights down on the sand don't seem to be performing anywhere near their full competitive potential..."
"They aren't blatantly match-fixing for the corporate syndicates, are they?"
Although Remilia hadn't seen a single previous tournant match from either of these two teams, her supernatural perception was incredibly sharp; she could accurately identify the massive gap in their actual baseline capabilities at a single glance. But during the heat of the actual combat, the favored Bloodboil knights made blunder after blunder, missing simple blocks and failing to hold basic lines. It could be said with absolute certainty that if they hadn't made those glaring errors themselves, the battle clearly should have concluded in their favor long ago.
Naturally, Remilia assud they were intentionally throwing the match for a massive under-the-table payout.
"Hmm... I actually happen to possess a slightly different view on the matter," Hong iling suddenly interjected, her eyes narrowed as she watched the heavy armor plates clashing below.
"Oh?"
The entire group turned their heads, their curiosity instantly piqued. After all, iling was the Scarlet Devil Mansion's undisputed master of close-quarters martial arts and kinetic flow; when it ca to reading physical movent, her analytical words carried imnse weight.
"I think I recognize a few of the specific combatants fighting within that Bloodboil order..." iling explained, pointing a finger toward three heavy vanguard units. "Just yesterday morning, those exact individuals were standing in the street crowd alongside the rude man I crushed."
Even though these competitive knights were currently clad in dense, standard-issue tournant armor and thick steel faceplates—rendering their facial features entirely unrecognizable to ordinary eyes—Hong iling could still flawlessly identify their muscle mory, weight distribution, and specific martial habits through their physical movents.
Hearing iling's precise observation, Remilia focused her crimson gaze onto the field; indeed, the subtle behavioral ticks of several front-line fighters perfectly matched the fearful bodyguards who had been present during yesterday's street incident.
"So, I have a logical guess," iling continued, a faint smirk playing on her lips. "Could yesterday's violent events and last night's subsequent... developnts... have thrown the active mbers of this entire knightly order into absolute, internal disarray?"
Hong iling's words instantly set the rest of the group to thinking; it was indeed an incredibly likely psychological explanation. If this specific knightly order was financially or politically tied to the noble family they had completely wiped out of existence last night, hearing rumors of the Ingra Family's sudden, total annihilation right before having to participate in a high-stakes match this afternoon would naturally leave their minds entirely unsettled.
And the reality of the situation down on the field was exactly as they suspected.
Early this morning, upon receiving the classified ergency report that the entire Ingra Family had been systematically slaughtered in their sleep, the Grand Master acting as the administrative head of the Bloodboil Knight Order had fainted dead away on his office floor from sheer, unadulterated terror. By the ti his panicked assistants finally managed to wake him up with slling salts, he had already been physically bundled into a transport carriage and carried straight to the arena's prep rooms.
The reasoning behind this frantic push was simple: to the cold-blooded executives of the Comrcial Federation, individual lives and noble deaths were entirely trivial matters, but the scheduled, televised tournant match simply had to go on.
After all, the legal rosters for both sides had already been submitted to the betting syndicates days in advance, and countless thousands of high-paying spectators filling the stands were dedicated fans of both factions. As long as the active combat roster of the knightly order hadn't been accidentally wiped out to the last man, they were legally required to participate in the public competition; otherwise, it would constitute a catastrophic, ruinous breach of corporate contract.
In a hyper-capitalist playground like Kazimierz, an ambitious person could get away with provoking the local police, provoking the traditional nobles, or even provoking wealthy foreign tourists—but you absolutely, under any circumstances, could not provoke the bottom line of the Corporate Conglorates.
Just like the current, terrified mbers of the Bloodboil, even though every single knight on the squad was in a state of absolute, paralyzed panic regarding who might be targeted next, they had no choice but to bite the bullet, strap on their armor, and walk out onto the sand.
Although their previously heavily advertised star athlete, the Brassrust, was conspicuously missing from the starting lineup, the sudden absence of a single knight had no real chanical impact on a large-scale Capture the Flag match. Furthermore, standard knightly training was inherently dangerous; the team's public relations firm could simply release a generic statent claiming the Brassrust had suddenly fallen ill or sustained an unfortunate training injury, rendering him absent for the afternoon slot.
Titled Competitive Knights in Kazimierz ca and went in massive, fleeting waves. In a couple of days, a minor, mid-tier circuit knight like the Brassrust, who had never actually won a prestigious top-tier championship, would completely fade from the public's fickle attention anyway. This was the true, cold-blooded cruelty of the Comrcial Federation's entertainnt machine.
What the Bloodboil squad needed to do was simply finish this Capture the Flag match in its entirety to satisfy the broadcast requirents. However, their carefully nurtured star was dead, and their primary financial backer had been thoroughly erased overnight. At this exact mont, the sweating mbers of the Bloodboil were terrified that the mysterious enemy's wrath might spread to their own households next, so their competitive desire and psychological determination to fight were naturally diminished to near-nothingness. They were operating at less than seventy percent of their true physical capability.
On the complete other side of the coin, the Pinus Sylvestris—as a proudly self-organized, underground order of Infected knights—rarely ever received a legal, corporate opportunity to participate in such a massive, mainstream stadium competition. They were naturally pouring every single ounce of their heart, soul, and remaining life force into giving it their absolute all.
To this end, they had not only deployed every single elite fighter in their underground network, but their brilliant Grand Master, Sona, was also standing directly on the dangerous front lines as their active tactical commander.
During the very first exchange of lances, Sona and her close companions had imdiately realized that the opponent's raw, heavy physical strength far exceeded their own, so they had initially moved with extre, defensive caution across the simulated terrain. But after a few consecutive rounds of engagent, the nimble squirrel girl noticed sothing incredibly strange: every single vanguard on the opposing side seed profoundly distracted, constantly glancing toward the stadium exits and missing obvious openings.
Though she didn't possess the slightest clue as to what political terror was actively paralyzing her opponents, Sona was far too sharp of a commander to let such a golden opportunity slide. She instantly seized the initiative, shouting out rapid tactical coordinates to command her nimble teammates to launch a coordinated, high-speed surprise assault.
If it weren't for the basic, instinctual combat skills drilled into their bodies by years of rigorous knightly training, the scattered Bloodboil lines would likely have been completely broken apart by the Pinus Sylvestris vanguards within the first ten minutes. By the ti the panicked Bloodboil commander finally realized his entire formation was in dire straits, it was already far too late to salvage the macro-positioning.
The heavy Bloodboil knights had already been effectively divided, isolated, and systematically surrounded by the high-speed Infected skirmishers. At this advanced stage of the match, even if the commander suddenly found the courage to try and turn the tide, he was entirely powerless to alter the kinetic outco.
Amidst the stadium host's increasingly incredulous, screaming comntary over the loudspeakers, the favored mbers of the Bloodboil were violently knocked down onto the sand one by one. Ultimately, in a high-stakes Capture the Flag match that the entire betting public thought the Bloodboil couldn't possibly lose—and which even the Pinus Sylvestris themselves had originally intended only as a safe way to gain high-level experience from superior opponents—the underdog Infected order secured the final, absolute victory to the completely shocked, silent expressions of the massive crowd.
The mont the stadium host officially announced the final result over the speakers, a massive wave of furious shouting erupted across the stands. Thousands of angry spectators violently waved their losing tickets in the air, cursing at the top of their lungs, accusing the Comrcial Federation of blatantly rigging the match for a corporate payout.
After all, anyone with basic eyes could see that the fundantal difference in raw strength between the two knightly orders was absolutely massive. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a difficult struggle for the Pinus Sylvestris to even defeat half of the Bloodboil's starting mbers, yet they had sohow swept the entire match without a single casualty. This unexpected upset caused everyone who had spent their hard-earned money betting on a guaranteed Bloodboil victory to lose absolutely everything in a single afternoon.
Conversely, only a few scattered people across the stadium were waving their tickets with ecstatic, screaming joy; they were the few reckless risk-takers who hadn't expected to actually win a fortune on what had seed like a guaranteed losing bet.
Flandre Scarlet proudly reached into her small dress pocket and fished out a crumpled slip of paper; it was an official betting voucher from the licensed stall near the stadium entrance, where they had curiously purchased a ticket upon entering the venue just to participate in the local culture. At the ti, they had simply chosen a na entirely at random, acting in the classic spirit of 'when in Ro'.
Now, she smoothed out the paper to read the text: a basic ten gold coin wager placed on the Pinus Sylvestris to win. Because their calculated probability of victory had been deed practically non-existent by the bookmakers, the odds were listed at an extrely exaggerated 1 to 100. In other words, when redeed at the counter, that single casual wager would transform directly into a massive payout of one thousand shining gold coins.
Flandre happily held the winning ticket high in the air, handing it over to Remilia with a face full of glee.
"Sister, sister, look! We are rich!"
Remilia wasn't surprised in the slightest as she smoothly took the paper voucher into her fingers; the exact mont Flandre had curiously purchased the ticket at the gate, her innate manipulation of fate had already whispering to her soul that sothing highly beneficial would manifest today. Now it seed that the good fortune had taken the physical shape of a massive betting payout.
"Not bad at all, Little Flan," Remilia praised, a warm smile breaking across her face as she gently reached out to ruffle her sister's hair. "You really are our household's little lucky star."
Remilia casually handed the winning voucher over to Sakuya Izayoi so the head maid could easily redeem it for hard cash later, then suddenly pulled Flandre's small face directly toward her chest and began to playfully rub her cheeks with her hands.
"Uuu~~~ Sister, stop it, stop rubbing my face!"
Flandre's head was spinning around from the enthusiastic cheek-rubbing, so she playfully leaned her entire weight against Remilia's torso and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, acting as if her legs had completely turned to jelly and she absolutely needed her older sister to carry her out of the stadium.
"iling, please co over here and peel Flan off of my clothes," Remilia said, pushing against the giggling girl's shoulders for a few seconds without any real success.
She glanced over to the side and saw Patchouli Knowledge happily sipping her drink, thoroughly enjoying the rare sight of the two powerful Scarlet sisters playing around like normal children. Remilia felt that this simply wouldn't do—if she allowed this display to continue in a public arena, her regal, terrifying majesty as the Mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion was going to completely disappear into thin air. She quickly signaled her martial enforcer to intervene and restore order.
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