Two extremely powerful beasts versus the remaining fifteen foot-soldiers with blunt sticks.

It was a laughable situation at this point. In a blink of an eye, the first five people in front were now crawling on the sides of the stage. The arena felt cold, literally, as the two Snow Tigers pounced their way towards the Chaneian soldiers.

Instinctively, The group of Chaneian soldiers split into two groups as to avoid the charging beasts. 

But this made things a lot easier for Frostbite and Glacier; zipping and disappearing within thick mists, the two Snow Tigers reappeared behind the groups. Frostbite against 8 soldiers and Glacier against 7. 

The paddle-like spears pummeled towards the direction of the two snow tigers as the soldiers panicked, it's not every day that they have to fend off against magical beasts, especially two of them.

Unlike the previous five soldiers, the weapons of the remaining soldiers did not manage to dent the floorings of the stage upon the impact, instead, the blunt tip of the spears immediately shattered from the coldness of the aura that Glacier and Frostbite were emitting.

Frozen pieces of metallic alloy scattered all over the stage, as they turned into heaps of dust when the two snow tigers stepped on them. It was the final straw for that "battle" and the Chaneian soldiers immediately surrendered afterward; It was a pathetic fight that barely lasted a few minutes...

A few booing resounded on the spectator's side as the Chaneian soldiers stepped down the stage after conceding the fight. The remaining Chaneian people remained silent as those from the Ghiharki Kingdom were all fired up, they were looking forward to facing the Wolfenstein kingdom in the 'winners' bracket.

They were the most enthusiastic group, especially when it comes to powerful beasts. 

The upcoming matchups were a bit imbalanced, as two of the weaker kingdoms juked it out themselves, leaving a strained group of mediocre fighters facing against the winners of the stronger kingdoms.

The two remaining sides on the stronger teams were the Ghiharki Kingdom and the Freya Kingdom; The Sestril Kingdom wasn't able to participate during the first draft and were reserved to have an extra deciding battle against the winner of the final four. 

It was then drafted that the Sestril Kingdom would fight against the Wolfenstein.

And the Ghiharki Kingdom against the Freya Kingdom.

This time, the two Snow Tigers did not participate. It would just turn out to be some battle of the beasts; as the Sestril soldiers did not hesitate in using their Cockatrices; Although the Snow Tigers were indeed formidable, they could never deny the fact that cats cant fly.

But fighting against aerial opponents isn't something new to the elite soldiers of the Wolfenstein Kingdom, in fact, it had been one of their training regimens back when they visited the Garudia Kingdon with Lucy, they were taught to deal with surprise attacks from above; and were then later on provided by the dwarven chief Mendi necessary equipments to fend off against them.

Therefore, even without the assistance of Frostbite and Glacier, the chickens were easily taken down by the mana-powered muskets. Although one could say that flight was an advantage to this battle, it was pretty pointless against enemies who could easily shoot you down, even more, so that they did not know they could be shot down that easily.

Another fight ended anti-climatically as the charging Cockatrices had their feathers burnt from the firepower of the weapons. It was indeed far from lethal, but it would take quite a while for these beasts to recover their former 'beauty'.

The fight was quite short, but the next battle riled up the audience as this one would seemingly be more exciting than these one-sided or mediocre battles that were currently happening.

The Ghiharki Kingdom versus the Freya Kingdom.

Mounted on their rabid looking beasts, the imposing aura that the Ghiharki Kingdom emitted were indeed terrifying, although it seems that the lady warriors on the side of the Freya Kingdom did not fall short of them being terrifying to look at; These lady knights were the epitome of what could be described as 'perfectly organized and discipline warriors' that were devoted to their duty.

Besides their neat entry, each of the 20 soldiers that were deployed radiated both beauty and strength that one could not easily ignore. It seemingly looked like a beauty contest for a moment, then turned into a competition of strength within the next few instances, where all of them uniformly drew their blunt swords to prepare for the upcoming fight.

***

"Hmph, I doubt that these grumpy old men would win against these ladies..." Out of nowhere, Lucy commented as she nodded with satisfaction on how the lady knights of the Freya Kingdom carried themselves.

"Oh? How sure are you that these Ghiharki soldiers weren't hiding anything under their sleeves?" Feihren replied cheekily as he observed that the people from Ghiharki's side were smirking as if this was some sort of guaranteed victory.

"It's just my instinct telling me so; And if they do have some sort of ace in the hole, I doubt that they'd be using it now, thinking that it would garner them the win against us after this fight." Lucy assessed the chances of these Ghiharki soldiers from actually winning this one, with their pride on the line.

***

The uniformity and discipline of the lady knights of the Freya Kingdom against the powerful and barbaric ways of the Ghiharki soldiers!

Covering almost the entire stage within a few steps were the beasts of the Ghiharki soldiers that immediately arrived at the side of the Freya soldiers after they charged; these lady knights weren't only equipped with blunt swords, they carried their standard knight shield as they defended themselves from the gripping mouths of these canine-like beasts.

About 5 Frey knights failed to raise their shields up in time and were bitten by the beasts, they were then easily thrown off of the stage as some of the barbarian riders immediately dismounted, charging against some of the knights personally, tackling them down and pushing them off the platform.

The barbaric attacked were too effective that only ten of the lady knights survived from that initial attack alone!

Although they were now heavily outnumbered, they did not lose the will to fight, they were still fighting against 10 pairs of riders and beasts, which would mean that they only have to consider this as some sort of a one versus one battle.

Using their shields, they bashed the heads of the canines that were trying to bite them off.

The riders that didn't dismount toppled over the beast as they lost balance in their seats.

Grabbing the opportunity, the lady knights hopped on the still bewildered beasts as she took advantage of the fazed soldier that was still trying to maintain his balance, pushing him off his ride as he fell off the stage; it would then be man versus a masterless beast that would be duking it out.

It evidently became easier as half of the riders were off the fight.

Although counting it out, there were still 15 fighters on the side of the Ghiharki Kingdom, but these beasts that were tamed and trained to fight alongside their rider were just as useful as a delivery hound, they could not easily decide for themselves and had lost that very basic instinct of fighting.

Five of them were easily pushed out of the fight or were temporarily taken down from the Freya knights bashing them unconscious. The situation then turned into 10 exhausted units of the Freya Kingdom against 5 pairs of the Ghiharki Kingdom that could now be considered 'outnumbered'.

***

The battle continued at an extensive stretch of time, longer than Feihren anticipated.

These fighters that remained on the stage were amazingly equal in their prowess of fighting and defending against the attacks. It had been a good thirty-minute battle already, and the intensive fights were just draining them out entirely...

"Eh... Could they still even fight after this? No matter who wins this battle would be automatically considered "winner" and would be receiving the price... It would be pointless for them to challenge us after this?" Feihren commented on the exhausted situation these soldiers were in. As he glances towards the resting faces of the Wolfenstein soldiers together with Frostbite and Glacier, that was looking disappointed after those mediocre battles.

It seems that they were anticipating to fight either of these groups, but were now in dismay as they could see that none of them were budging against each other. What would be the point of fighting an enemy that is already tired out from their previous fight?

***

... A sudden eerie blow of cold wind could be felt within the arena

The fight of Ghiharki and Freya were still ongoing as the spectators were still intensively watching the battle. Although exhaustion was a bit evident, their moves and attacks aren't failing in speed and power.

Only the people who were starting to get bored with all this noticed the sudden change in the atmosphere as the sky slowly darkened... 

An eerie yet familiar feeling could be felt that Feihren and Lucy easily pointed out upon its arrival...

...another Dragon Fortress.

"It seems that the Dragon Empress is paying you a surprise visit, your Majesty" Lucy commented as she could see the gigantic figure descending closer.