GUARDIAN OF THE END

"Andrew and Nora both cleared the first round too," Jason muttered as all of the fights of the first round were over and thirty two children remained.

Some houses had been knocked out completely whereas some had both of their children still standing in the center of the arena.

"The second round will start in a minute." Zilan suddenly informed as he snapped his fingers and the children once again got divided into pairs.

"Hey brother."

"Hello Nora."

Jason and Nora now stood in front of each other, making them opponents for the second round. Both of them were looking into each others eyes and were ready to fight at a moment's notice.

A minute flew by quickly as Zilan once again announced the start of battle.

Jason and Nora didn't move immediately, both measuring the others movements while trying to come up with a plan.

"Fire bomb!" Nora decided to test Jason a bit as he summoned a fireball the size of a baseball in both his hands.

He jumped back using his wind element to boost him a bit and threw both the bombs at the same time.

Jason had already fought the same move in his previous match. He wasted no time in summoning a lightning bolt and throwing it towards the incoming bombs.

It cut through both the bombs easily, except neither of them exploded. The lightning bolt continued to move towards Nora who looked at it with a smile.

"Jason, remember the time when Felix summoned that gigantic fireball?" Nora smiled as he called Jason by his name.

The latter immediately understood that Nora was serious about the fight and that something big was about to happen.

"Yes, I remember that. I had saved you back then so the match could continue." Jason replied regardless as he activated his 'Lightning Steps' skill silently.

"Since then, I wanted to create something like that too despite knowing that Felix had cheated." Nora spoke before joining his palms together. He then touched his index finger together and formed a fist with the remaining portion of his hand.

Jason narrowed his eyes as he looked at the glass box instinctively. He couldn't see through the glass box yet he had a feeling that someone was looking down at them.

Jason's instincts were correct as all eyes inside the box were currently focused on the screen which showed the duo's battle.

"Zara, you taught him a tier 2 spell?" Risa slowly asked as Zara smiled proudly.

"I decided to teach him something that he could use as his trump card. Though I would have liked Nora to use that in the semi-finals or finals, its his choice to use it against Jason." Zara explained, her eyes following Nora's moments.

"Jason's moments would be restricted in such a small area and if Nora is using the spell I am thinking he is, things can go wrong for Jason." Issac was also having a conversation on this with his friends.

"Both of your grandsons are showing off I guess." Gus observed, his eyes moving from one screen to another.

"As if Issac didn't do that in the past." Another old man snorted and soon enough, all of them were chuckling.

"At least they got the right genes." Issac pointed out as things calmed down and everyone focused on the battle again.

Both of these things had been going of simultaneously so Nora had prepared his spell the moment Issac had stopped speaking.

"Flame Vortex!" Nora then pointed his hands towards Jason as a red wave of energy launched out from the palms of his hands.

A ten meter swirling tornado made out of flames was summoned right in the middle of there small battling area.

Jason stared at it with narrowed eyes as he judged the area he could move around in. The possibilities were rather small since most of the space was taken by the tornado.

"Oh, I forgot to tell this but the fighting area is much longer now. Also, there is no penalty for touching the fore field now." Zilan's voice echoed around the arena as Nora's expression distorted.

Jason on the other hand smiled at his brother as his form flickered. Nora couldn't even follow Jason's movement as he was too quick for the eye to see.

Most of the audience was also focusing their eyes on the duo's battle. Nora and Jason had stolen the spotlight and even those from well known noble families were ignored.

'He is not even using thunder element and is still fighting like that.' Amber noticed as she watched Jason's battle directly instead of looking up at the screen. 'But then, his battle isn't over yet.'

Amber was the first one to finish her battle and had been looking at her twin's battle. However, she too had been attracted towards Jason and Nora's battle due to the tier two spell Nora had used.

Amber herself had a very high affinity with fire element due to her magma affinity and she could tell that Nora's flames were inches away from touching the power of her own flames.

She wondered whether the entire Syrward family was full of such people because even though they were less in number, they were more famous than most of the noble families gathered there.

"Nora, your attack was quite surprising you could have defeated me. As for how? We will talk about that later on." Jason suddenly spoke as he appeared behind Nora, a lightingm bolt buzzing with power in his hand.

He held the bolt of lightning right around Nora's throat as he was teleported out of the arena's floor in the next second.

Jason then sat down on the ground and stared at the screen, waiting for all the fights to be over. The audience looked disappointed at his actions as they had expected Jason to do a flashy move.

The nobles on the other hand were thinking something completely opposite.

'If this was a real fight, he could cut his throat with the lightning bolt as well as use his free hand to capture the person. He was in a minimum risk zone unless the other person had a trap.' Zilan was also thinking about Jason's move while looking over the other fights.

He didn't believe that flashy moves were the best since the most deadliest moves were those who were either silent or were too large to avoid.

Zilan felt that if Jason and Nora had been fighting for real, the former could have easily killed his opponents numerous times.

Zilan silently noted Jason's name inside his mind as potential prodigy to bring under his banner.

'That is if his grandparents let him do that.' The prime minister sighed knowing that Issac and Risa would never let anyone from their family fall under their wing.

Zilan couldn't blame them either especially after what had happened to Risa and Issac's daughter. If he was in their place, he wasn't sure whether he would've even appeared for the event.

'Only sixteen children remain now. Two of them are the Feuer twins. Three from the Bloodthorn family, two of Brian's children. Two children from the Anvilone family also made it here. If I add Jason here, that's half of the participants from those four families.'

Zilan counted the remainder of the children with a surprised expression. He hadn't expected to see half of them being from the four families.

The remainder of the participants weren't from well known families either. Zilan knew that many of the noble families didn't have ten years old this time around yet the low number surprised him.

'I can't add anyone under my banner this time. None of those eight families would allow their children to do that and choosing the other eight is only worthless.' Zilan sighed as he snapped his fingers and got everything ready for the third round.

This time, Jason was matched with one of the children he had seen earlier.

"What's your name?" Jason asked casually as he looked at his opponent, someone wearing the purple clothes of the Bloodthorn family. He was one of the two children who Risa had said were Brian's children.

"Orion Bloodthorn."

"I see. Good luck for the fight, Orion." Jason smiled as he saw that his 'lightning steps' skill still had two minutes remaining.

"Same to you." Orion replied politely as Jason could finally see the resemblance between him and Brian.

Both of them had the same black eyes that were mostly set in a cold expression with the occasion showcase of emotion.

Jason upped his guard a bit for this round as he wondered what moves the boy would. But the moment the fight started, he was left surprised.

"I abstain." Orion raised his right hand in the air as a halo appeared above his head and teleported him away.

p Jason blinked in confusion as he looked at the screen to see 'winner' appearing below his name again. Suddenly, Amber was also declared the winner as Jason saw Brian's other child getting teleported back to the box.

[ I smell a plot in the making. ] The system commented as Jason shrugged.

'Our lives roam around plots. I wonder what a normal person's life would feel like.' Jason replied as he saw the fights pass by.

In the end, eight children remained. The Feuer twins, one from Anvilone family, one from Bloodthorn family, three others and Jason himself.

Jason then fought his quarter finals match which ended rather quickly. He just had to activate his movement skill and travel behind his opponent to end the fight.

The last two fights had left Jason bored but when it was time for the semi-finals, he knew that things would get interesting.

"So its you and me, Andrew." Jason grinned as his opponent for the semi-finals was Andrew.