"All students are expected to be in the stadium by eight PM, you are all expected to conclude whatever you are doing, have your breakfast, and be there before the time." A female voice resounded in the speakers placed on the walls of all the dorm rooms in the academy.

"Do they always have to remind us this early?" Ace grumbled as he slowly sat up on his bed.

He thought he was finally going to get a break from loudspeakers waking him up but it turns out Phoenix academy wasn't any different from Crockel academy in this aspect of reminders.

"The tournament is finally starting today," Luis said with a smile on his face after sitting up on his bed.

"It's awesome right." Ace said smiling at him but that smile disappeared as soon as it appeared. "But that speaker just spoilt my mood." He added looking up at the speaker.

"You should be blaming the person who spoke through it, not the speaker," Luis said.

"I know but I don't know the person so I'm going to blame it."

The Angel smiled at him and shook his head.

"So are you going to get ready first or should I go?" He asked.

"I don't think any of the two of us should go first." Ace said as he quickly got up from his bed and started tapping Dylan on his arms. "Hey, Dylan."

"Umm..yeah," Dylan muttered slowly, opening his eyes.

"You should go get ready, we are expected to be at the stadium by eight PM." Ace said. He was beginning to wonder how that loud voice from the speaker didn't wake up.

"Uh, okay," Dylan said before slowly climbing down from his bed.

His gaze turned toward Luis and lingered there for a while before he slowly made his way to the bathroom.

Ace watched him until he walked into the bathroom and closed the door before he slowly turned his gaze back to Luis.

"I know he told you about what George is planning to do to you but you shouldn't trust him completely." Ace said.

"I can read minds, Ace, he wouldn't be able to trick me in any way," Luis said.

"You could read minds, the last time he tricked you." Ace said.

"I wasn't trying to read his mind then, this time around, I read his mind constantly." The Angel said.

"Okay, but all I'm just saying is that you should be careful, you are not indestructible you know."

"I know."

'Indestructible.' Lena muttered.

____ ____

Students were trooping in and out of the stadium as the three roommates slowly made their way there.

They were just about to step into the stadium when they met Tania and Chloe who were both walking out of the stadium.

"Hey." Ace said, smiling at Chloe.

"You know you shouldn't be moving around like this," Luis said after turning her gaze to Tania.

"We know but since we won't be participating in any of the competitions so we decided to grab some snacks," Chloe said.

"Without considering that she could get attacked by about five students with very strong abilities," Luis said.

"I know you can deal with a couple of students but what about her?"

Chloe had a shocked expression on her face as those were the exact words that she wanted to say.

"I think what Luis is trying to say is that you two should head back into the arena and we'll go get the snacks." Ace said, trying to calm things down. "You should go with them, Dylan."

"Who's he?" Chloe asked.

"Umm...this is Dylan, their third roommate, right?" Tania said before turning her gaze to Dylan.

"Yeah," Dylan replied with a nod.

"You guys have a third roommate?" Chloe said with a surprised expression on her face.

"Yeah, you guys should go inside now, Luis and I will take care of the snacks." Ace said. He wanted them to start heading inside as fast as possible.

"What about you? You know you can also get attacked by five students with strong abilities." Chloe said, turning her gaze to Luis.

"I can handle myself," Luis said with a straight face.

"And Ace?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah." The Angel said before turning to leave.

"See you in a few minutes." Ace with an awkward expression on his face before turning to follow Luis.

"I am beginning to not like his attitude," Chloe said as she watched the two walk away with an annoyed look on her face.

____ ____

The two Lieutenants along with Jude and the two elves were in a military private jet now heading toward Phoenix.historical

The Were supposed to come with three sergeants, three of the sergeants but they had come up with an excuse to cover up the question of why they couldn't come with them as they took Jude and the two elves with them but they had brought along one of the sergeants to pilot the

The jet had six seats very well spaced from each other and right now, five of those seats were being occupied by them now.

Layla had a large black tablet in her hands which she was using to view Asaka and the people going about their daily activities.

She had the drone on autopilot so it was just hovering around the area without going off the particular range she set it to or going further down.

"Asaka seems to be peaceful," Layla said.

"That's what you think because you're just hovering in the air, try getting closer to the ground."

Layla quickly turned back to see Tuchel there with his head placed on the back of his seat.

"Yeah, that's a nice suggestion," Layla said.

She fixed the tablet behind Bryan's seat and picked up the controller which was lying on her seat.

She turned off the autopilot before slowly flying the drone further down.

Through the tablet, she could see two women heading somewhere and she had immediately flown the drone toward them.

"This is really strange, I thought it was just a weather condition at first but it's been like this since last night." One of the women said.

"The fact that it is only like this in Asaka makes it even more strange." The other woman replied.

"What do you mean?"

"My husband returned this morning and he said the sky was normal until he entered Asaka."

"So, it's only happening in Asaka."

"Yeah."

"That's very strange." The woman said, looking up at the sky which was still dark red.

The sun was getting brighter as the day advanced but it didn't seem to be affecting the color of the sky in any way.

"Do you hear that?" One of the women asked quickly, turning to where the stealth drone was hovering beside them.

"Yeah, a bee." The other woman said, turning around to see if she could find the bee.

Layla quickly flew the drove away from them to prevent any of them from mistakenly touching it and disrupting the stealth mode.

"So the dark red sky is only happening in Asaka," Bryan said. He wasn't watching the footage but he had heard everything the women had said.

"Yeah," Layla said.

"I knew there was something strange going on," Tuchel said.

"Where's everyone going?" Layla said as a lot of people were beginning to move toward a certain direction together.

She followed the people with the drone to see that they were heading toward the king's castle. There were a lot of people standing in front of the castle and they were generating quite a noise.

"Why are they all gathered there?" Layla asked.

"That's the king's castle, I think he wants to announce something to them," Tuchel said.

It didn't take long before Roy walked onto the platform where he usually addressed the people and his presence alone was enough to silence the people.

"Is that the king?" Layla asked.

"Yeah," Tuchel said with a nod.

Roy stood there without saying anything as the castle gates opened for four guards to stagger out carrying a very large rectangular container filled with a strange dark liquid.

They created space in the middle of the people and then dropped the container there.

The murmurs among the people were beginning to rise again as they were beginning to wonder what that was for.

"Now, I am not here to say much," Roy said.

The people had stopped talking as soon as he said that and now he had gone straight to tell them the reason why they were there.

"All I need you to do is to make a cut on any of your fingers and let the blood drop into that container." He said. "We have blades if you are not with any."

One of the guards had quickly dipped his hands into his pocket and bringing it out, numerous blades of different sizes and shapes had fallen to the ground.

None of the people wanted to do it as they were all skeptical about it. Why would the king want them to make a cut on their fingers and let it drop into a container filled with a strange dark liquid?

"Jude, Tauriel, I think you need to see this," Layla called to the two who were sitting on the other side.

The people had questions to ask about what the king had told them to do but none of them dared to ask the question except someone.

"Do you mind telling us why we need to do this, your majesty?" A man asked.

"Oh, you need an explanation," Roy said with a wry smile on his face.

"We all do, your majesty." The man said, sounding as polite as he could.

"I see," Roy said.

A purple aura immediately stretched toward the man from Roy, the aura grabbed the man and pulled him closer to him as the people watched with horrid expressions on their faces.

"Nobody questions my order," Roy said to him with a slow menacing voice as a sword appeared in his hand out of nowhere, and without hesitating, he drove it straight into the man's stomach.

Almost everyone in the crowd let out a gasp as blood spilled from the man's mouth.

Roy drove the sword deeper down his stomach before allowing him to fall from there and just before he could hit the ground, he used his shadow aura to push him into the container.

"Master," Matilda muttered with mixed expressions of terror and shock evident on her face.

"I asked for a drop and now you've got your whole blood in there," Roy said with an emotionless voice and the lack of expression on his face showed that he wasn't really feeling anything.

"You should hurry up if you don't want to end up like him." He said, turning his gaze to the people.