Chapter 1257: First

"I see. Know that you can consider me as someone you can depend on," Master Deivon informed Rui. "I don't know what your circumstances are, but I'm willing to wager I have the power to offer some assistance if the need ever came."

Rui smiled. "I appreciate that. I will be sure to keep it in mind."

He didn't intend to enlist his aid, however. Assassinating an important political figure of the Shionel Confederation was not something Rui could expect him to help with since the Shionel Confederation was a political partner and ally of the Virodha Theocracy.

And that was fine, he had always intended to do the deed himself.

He was actually quite eager to do the deed himself.

Chairman Deacon was one of the few people who could evoke genuine bloodlust from Rui.

Eventually, their conversation came to an end as Rui headed to his assigned training chamber.

Many tens of thousands of people were dying to witness the final tournament with their own two eyes.

The first three rounds were exciting, but ultimately, they were merely a setup for the finale. The eight finalists were eight of the truly most powerful Martial Artists that Squire Realm could possibly offer. They were the cherry on top of the cream of the crop. The best of the best.

The winner had the capital to claim to be the strongest of them all.

"Who do you think will win?"

"It's gotta be Champion Meera."

"I put my money on the dark horse."

"He's going to lose."

"He already beat her twice, you know."

"Hah, those little competitions are not comparable to actual combat," One man snorted. "Just you see, my Meera will prevail!"

Regardless, many people had a strong vested interest in witnessing the conclusion of the finale of the contest.

Rui found seven Martial Squires waiting for him in the contestant stand-by room. Once again, he would be forced to wait for the contest to unfold with his competitors just around the corner.

There was no reason to make things so tense, yet he was convinced that the organizers simply wanted to milk the drama to get as much out of it as possible.

Most of the contestants were stoic and composed, though none of them could miss the tension in the room.

The only one who seemed immune was Squire Meera, who actually had the audacity to apply some final touches to her makeup in front of everyone.

Rui found her to be quite incomprehensible. She was quite the deviant as a Martial Artist, it took one to recognize another, after all.

He had long noted her incessant obsession with aesthetics, he had long speculated that it was tied to her Martial Path.

A Martial Path centered around her own subjective sense of aestheticism. It pushed the boundaries of the kind of things that could become a Martial Path. Before this day, he had thought that Martial Paths were limited to fields of combat, they could not be centered around fields that had nothing to do with combat.

Not even Tokugawa Ieyasu or Rui himself broke these rules. Imitative evolution and adaptive evolution would be considered fields of combat even if Martial Artists did not exist.

She, however, broke this rule. The fact that one's subjective sense of beauty could become a Martial Path showed that there were no strict limitations. She was so deviant from the norm that she fell outside of known paradigms.

It was probably the reason that she was made a Virodhabhasa Seed.

Even at this very moment, while his mind was at its absolute peak, he was unable to gauge her true strength.

Shockingly, she felt like she was a low-grade Martial Squire at the moment, but he would be an incompetent fool to even consider that she would perform at that level in the tournament.

From what he could tell, it wasn't that she was trying to actively hide her power like a more stealth-oriented Martial Squire like Kane. It was more likely that her performance was greatly affected by her sense of beauty.

He had no idea how it worked. He had a feeling he would never be able to peer into the depth of her Martial Art.

Her weak facade actually made him more wary.

He glanced around at the rest of them.

He couldn't help but smile when he saw the grandma from day one standing among them. He was accurate when he felt like she was one of the strongest. She was also probably the only Martial Artist there who was truly older than him even mentally.

Her eyes reflected depth.

One could very well lose themselves in the depth of experience that she had gone through as a warrior. The amount of time she had traversed her Martial Path was many times greater than the eleven years that Rui had been a Martial Artist.

She was the next most significant contestant in Rui's eyes. He did not underestimate the power of experience. The insights and prowess that her mind would have internalized likely surpassed his imagination.

That did not mean the rest of them were not eye-drawing.

They each possessed depth that could only come with the perseverance to self-actualize the potential that lay buried deep within the Squire Realm.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" An announcer cried. "We have arrived! This is the day that you have all been waiting for. The final tournament to decide the strongest of the strongest! The contest to decide the next champion of the Virodhabhasa Contest!"

The crowd cheered loudly. One could almost taste the excitement that seemed to manifest radiating from the crowd.

Multiple large boards were pulled into the colosseum around the announcer's podium, facing every segment of the audience.

"Without further ado, I present to you the tournament matchups and brackets!"

The boards were unveiled, revealing a pictorial representation of the matchups and rounds.

The contestants paid attention to the live feed that they existed within the room.

Rui narrowed his eyes as beheld his match.

His match was the very first.