Chapter 720: The Competition Results and Admission Ceremony
By midafternoon, Maggie’s roar had gone quiet.
Agatha had predicted it. The Devilbeast form was spectacular and decisive in the short term — lower demonic beasts simply stopped moving in its presence, prey immobilized by something older than thought — but the transformation burned through magic at a rate that couldn’t be sustained. When the roar faded, Maggie had apparently become a pigeon again, and the combined team of Lightning and Maggie reverted to fast and cooperative rather than overwhelming.
The Taquila team rested at intervals, eating dry rations with water from snow. When Agatha had frozen three or four beasts in position, she shaped the snow beneath them into smooth ice channels that allowed the carcasses to slide toward the city wall without being dragged. It was methodical and unglamorous and more efficient than anything that relied on a single decisive moment.
When Leaf’s voice came through the trees to announce the end of competition, the sky was already gray at the edges.
The collection at the base of the wall was larger than Phyllis had expected to find from three teams of two. Demonic beasts in wooden cages, stacked and staggered — smaller ones toward the front, the largest ones visible even from a distance. One of them stopped her completely.
A wolf-bear hybrid, nearly as tall as the wall itself, limbs like stone pillars, the kind of creature that a God’s Punishment Warrior in full capacity would approach carefully. Which team had taken that?
Wendy was already there, notebook open, expression indicating that she had been worried about everyone and was visibly relieved by everyone’s return.
“You’ve all worked hard. Let me give you the results.”
She consulted the notebook. “Neverwinter — seven points.”
Phyllis looked at the cages. Seven?
Lightning touched her forehead. “Maggie found a winter hawk nest and decided to spend two hours roasting the eggs.” She said it with the particular precision of someone reporting a military incident. “We would have scored higher.”
“You told me to go, coo,” said the pigeon on her head, with what seemed like genuine grievance. “And you ate more of the eggs than I did. You said eggs taste better with Bird Beak Mushrooms and asked me to look for some.”
Lightning appeared to be studying a point in the middle distance.
“Sleeping Island — fifteen points.” Wendy marked it off. “Ashes, you’re remarkable.”
“She’s the one who knocked them down,” Ashes said flatly, indicating Andrea. “I carried them. Fifteen times through the snow.”
“The strong are better suited for carrying,” Andrea said. There was no cruelty in it — she said it with the practiced ease of someone who considers this a reasonable division of labor. “The fast are better suited for locating. We each did what we were good at.”
“Some of us were apparently better suited for abuse.”
“You—”
“Taquila’s team,” Wendy continued, with the tone of someone who has learned not to let these exchanges gather momentum. “Twenty-two points.” She looked up. “Congratulations. The month’s Chaos Drinks are yours.”
Andrea’s expression consolidated into acute personal offense.
“Twenty-two. That’s so many,” Maggie said longingly, looking at Agatha.
Phyllis accepted the result and tried to feel appropriate satisfaction, but her attention had gone to the cages. There were far more than forty-four animals there. Far more.
“The rest…” She began to count.
“Leaf caught those,” Wendy said, with a small wave of her hand, “along the way.”
Every face turned toward the green-haired witch standing quietly at the edge of the group.
Leaf touched the back of her head. “The hunting area had too many demonic beasts approaching, so I set up vine traps in a three-thousand-foot perimeter to prevent the larger ones from getting through. Only the smaller ones were allowed to pass through specific gaps.” She paused. “The ones that were already trapped — I thought since they were there anyway, I should bring them to the wall. For His Majesty’s targets.”
The silence had a particular quality to it.
Leaf, managing the perimeter and conducting the competition’s oversight simultaneously, had collected more demonic beasts by herself than all three competing teams combined. Without apparently considering it worth mentioning.
Even a Transcendent, at full capacity, would have struggled with that count.
I won, Phyllis thought, and somehow I feel as though I’ve lost.
The sensation was strange and she couldn’t quite resolve it into something nameable. It wasn’t humiliation — more like the recalibration that happened when a reference point turned out to be in the wrong place. She had measured herself against the Witch Union’s most visible combat witches and come out ahead. She had not measured herself against the ones who were managing the exercise itself, quietly, without announcement.
The Witch Union had been doing this for two years. It was possible they had more depth than she had assumed.
The preparation was finished by morning.
Roland arrived at the western wall to find two thousand Neverwinter citizens already in position — every sold-out seat filled, most of them former residents of Border Town, people who had spent enough time under this city’s particular kind of protection that two silver royals was now a comfortable entrance fee rather than a meaningful sacrifice. Edith’s framework had worked precisely as intended.
The weather had cooperated. The heavy snow of the night before had stopped at dawn; the wind had settled. The field to the west lay under a fresh white surface, undisturbed, the tracks and drag marks of yesterday’s preparation completely buried.
The demonic beasts were already visible from the wall — three rows arranged by distance, the nearest ones the largest. The wolf-bear hybrid drew immediate attention from the crowd, as it had from Phyllis. He could hear the murmuring rising.
Iron Axe climbed the last section of wall and stopped at attention. “Your Majesty. The artillery battalion is ready.”
Roland turned to Echo.
She didn’t need instructions. Her magic had already spread from her fingers, and the Parade March reached into the air over the wall — the melody he’d heard practiced so many times on the sports grounds of another world, but which still had the same effect here that it had had there: the spine straightening, the attention focusing, the sense that something is about to begin and that this beginning matters.
The crowd that had been talking fell quiet.
Down the long street below, the First Army’s artillery battalion appeared. In formation. In step. The sound of their boots on the packed snow reached the wall before they did.
Roland remembered a time, not very many years ago, when this city had been small enough to see across from any point on its perimeter, when the people defending it had had two months of training and weapons that were honest in their limitations, when a single mid-tier demonic hybrid could produce genuine chaos among the garrison. He remembered fighting on a rubble-and-cement wall with lances and spears.
The soldiers climbing the wall now were not those soldiers. The weapons waiting for them were not those weapons. The beasts in the cages below — the ones that had defined the limits of what Neverwinter could survive — had become the day’s entertainment.
The applause started before the first soldier reached the top of the wall. It came in waves, each one building before it had fully receded, the sound of a crowd that hadn’t been asked to perform enthusiasm and hadn’t needed to be.
There was nothing he needed to add to that.
“Let the exercise begin,” he said.
Chapter 720: The Competition Results and Admission Ceremony
Just as Agatha had anticipated, it was uncommon to hear Maggie’s carefree roar in the afternoon.
When a witch was engaged in fighting, their highly tense mind would consume not only their magic power but also their physical strength. So, the Union concentrated on the key points needed to make the best use of the fighter’s time. Allowing her to relax her mind and restore her physical strength during combat training. After all, when the demons came and swarmed them, only by relying on reasonable shifts and cooperation would they be able to survive on the battlefield.
This meant that while Phyllis was urging and luring the demonic beasts, Agatha would take the opportunity to rest some until several beasts had been gathered together… They took a quick break at noon, only eating dry food with snow for lunch. After Agatha managed to freeze three or four beasts, she would then shape the snow into a smooth ice track that would slide their captures to the Western Region’s city wall.
As the sky dimmed and became grey, Leaf informed them that the competition had ended.
When they returned to the starting line, they were surprised to find that there were dozens of demonic beasts trapped in wooden cages. The number of caged demonic hybrid beasts had increased to around 30. The biggest one among them was a wolf-bear demonic hybrid. It was almost as tall as the wall, with limbs as thick as stone pillars, and it was so strong that even a God’s Punishment soldier and Devilbeast were unlikely to defeat it.
[Which team caught that one?]
Phyllis’s face barely changed, even as feelings of loss flooded her. After all, they had done their best—22 small-sized and medium-sized demonic beasts,
a score that she had thought would be high enough to stand out, but now it seemed that their score might be at the bottom.
How were the other two teams able to catch so many demonic beasts?
Wendy walked in front of them, relieved to see everyone safe, “You’ve all worked hard.” Then she pulled out a notebook and began to announce the results.
“Neverwinter, seven points, well done.”
[Wait… seven points?] Phyllis thought in shock. [Neverwinter isn’t first? Could it be that the remaining 80 beasts were caught by the two members from the Sleeping Island?]
“It’s all Maggie’s fault,” Lightning said, touching her forehead, “If she didn’t leave halfway through, to steal eggs from the nest of a winter hawk and then spend two hours roasting them, we would have caught a few more.”
“It was you who let me go coo…” the Pigeon perched on Lighting’s head grumbled her grievance, “Not to mention, you ate more roasted eggs than me, what’s more, you even wanted some Bird Beak Mushrooms, saying that eggs would taste better with mushrooms coo…”
“Nevermind, it’s Okay as long as all of you come back safely… well, next is Sleeping Island, fifteen points. Ashes, you really are a fighter,” Wendy continued.
“She just ran the captures for us,” Andrea griped, “I was the one who knocked down the beasts. Too bad that we came across so few monsters on our way. Besides, she didn’t run fast enough.”
Ashes shot her a petulant look. “Why don’t you try carrying those demonic boars back and forth, 15 times, in the snow?”
“Muscular barbarians are more suitable for this kind of job.”
“They are better than someone so delicate and fragile.”
“You—”
“Ahem,” Wendy quickly interrupted the growing dispute, “the last is Taquila’s team with a total of 22 points! Congratulations, the month’s share of Chaos Drinks reward is now yours!”
“Ah, so enviable!” Andrea said begrudgingly.
“I want to drink that too coo…” Maggie eagerly looked at Agatha.
However, Phyllis was very startled, “There are clearly hundreds of cages containing demonic beasts…”
“Oh, Leaf caught them along the way,” Wendy said waving her hand while smiling.
As the person in charge of the Witch Union said this, every participant automatically turned their eyes to the green-haired witch standing beside them.
Leaf touched the back of her head bashfully as she said, “I was afraid that there would be too many demonic beasts entering the hunting area, so I set a 3,000-foot radius trap on the outer-ring, only allowing some beasts to pass through specific passages. After that, I thought that since the beasts were already trapped in a vine trap, I could simply drag all of them to the edge of the forest and add more targets for His Majesty.”
Suddenly, everyone fell silent.
Alone she had caught more beasts than the three competing teams combined. Moreover, she had done it while keeping watch over the competition. No one had ever considered that there would be a combat witch that powerful hiding among the higher ascendants in the Witch Union.
Even a Transcendent wouldn’t be capable of catching so many demonic beasts within a day.
[Why do I feel unutterably depressed and overwhelmed…? ] Phyllis wondered to herself.
Suddenly, she felt that winning the competition wasn’t as important.
The following day, Neverwinter finally finished all of the preparation necessary for the artillery exercise.
When Roland arrived at the West Wall, the top of the wall was packed with 2,000 citizens, in their sold-out seats, eagerly waiting to watch the exercise. According to Edith, 80% of the seat holders were former residents of Border Town. This clearly showed that spending two silver royals to participate in an activity, where the king was present, no longer posed a financial burden for the locals.
The Western Region’s weather seemed to accommodate the exercise. After a long night of heavy snowfall, it had stopped at the break of dawn and the howling northern wind had eased as well. The vast field to the west of the city wall seemed to be covered with a layer of silver-white carpet. The rutted track marks and footprints left behind from carrying the demonic beasts had been covered by the snow, making the ground appear clean and untouched.
The Demonic beasts, being the targets, had undoubtedly caught the attention of the audience. The numerous captures had been divided into three rows, each aligned with one of the three firing distances; 1,000, 1,600, and 3,300 feet. The more brutal demonic hybrid beasts had been lined in the rows closest to the attendees. It was obvious that that being able to witness these mighty monsters being turned into a bloody pulp under the heavy artillery fire would bring them unparalleled enjoyment. A sweet revenge for the residents of Neverwinter who had suffered so much during the Months of Demons.
The smaller beasts were meant to be fodder for the embedded gunpowder. It was too far to see any details so it was just for embellishment. However, in Roland’s opinion, the number of beasts was more important. In the last row, the cages that trapped demonic beasts lined up with a length up to 330 feet, waiting for the most resplendent blaze.
Iron Axe climbed up the wall and reported loudly, “Your Majesty, the artillery battalion for the First Army is ready.”
Roland exhaled a white breath and turned around to look at Echo, who was standing beside him, “Play the Parade March Song.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
As the magic power spread from Echo’s fingers, the familiar resonance instantly rang out across the wall. Even though Roland had heard this song before, since it was practiced over and over on the school’s sports days, his heart still skipped a beat once the melody echoed in the air of Neverwinter. It was as if the song had the power to bolster him as he waited for the soldiers’ arrival.
The people who had been chatting were hushed and they all turned their eyes towards the end of the long street that was near the city wall. There they saw a team of soldiers, in uniform, marching up the street towards their positions in an orderly manner.
Roland remembered the first time he experienced the Months of Demons two years ago when the city had been like a palm-sized land. People with less than two months training had to fight against demonic beasts on the rubblebuilt cement wall with lances and spears. At that time, even a common demonic hybrid could put the Militia into a frenzy. However, now, they would remain calm and composed while faced with a higher level challenge. The seemingly powerful demonic beasts had now become the targets that will help to declare the strength of Neverwinter. The apparent contrast made Roland extremely excited.
As the soldiers slowly climbed up the wall through the gentle slopes, a euphoric applause broke out among the crowd, wave after wave, almost as if it would never stop. He knew that there was no need for him to make a speech at the moment, everyone was waiting expectantly for the melodious roar of artillery.
So, Roland just loudly announced, “Let the artillery exercise begin!”