Chapter 180: The Final Contenders

After his match with Devin Joshua was once again taken to the waiting room, but this time around he wasn't waiting around for his next match. His fight against Devin was his last match of the day and he had made it into the final day of the tournament where the last thirty-two participants would go at each other for the title of best explorer in the hub city. Seeing as how Joshua hadn't been sent out of the battle arena at this point he still had something to do there and was waiting for the rest of the matches to end. The screen was showing some of the matches that were going on, but there were only a couple left that were still happening and neither one of them had a member of the alliance involved.

Joshua noticed that one of the remaining matches was between the Iron Claw and someone that was unlucky enough to be in the same bracket as him. The opponent was the third seed of the bracket and was lucky enough to get an upset over the second seed, but in the match against Iron Claw the rather gifted martial artist was no match. The only reason the match ended up taking so long in the first place was that Joshua's father's rival was taking his time enjoying toying with the martial artist for a time before he chocked them out like all of the other matches.

The last match that was still going on was a close one between a number one seed of another large guild that was a knight against a mage that went for the long drawn out battle. The mage was the second seed in the bracket and was able to come away from the battle with a victory thanks to her powerful earth magic that used the arena to her benefit. After the match came to an end Joshua was once again brought to the arena with several other people appearing alongside him. When he looked around to see who else was in the arena with him he saw several familiar faces and knew right away that these were the other thirty one participants that would be joining him in the last bracket.

While looking around Joshua took notice of all of the alliance members that were able to make it into the last portion of the tournament. The first thing Joshua noticed was that all of the members of the alliance that had gotten number one seeds were still in the tournament after avoiding getting upset along the way. Outside of those ten including himself there were still other alliance members that had made it to this portion of the tournament. Ivan seemed to have been able to make it to the final day after upsetting the number one seed in his bracket and it seemed to be the same for Robin. Outside of those two no other lower seeded members of the Fenrir Guild had made it in to the top thirty-two.

When it came to the alliance as a whole Adam was also able to gain a spot in the final portion of the tournament along with Dillon who seemed to be the only Carsen brother to make it through. Joshua wasn't too surprised that Adam was able to make his way through to the final day with his experience and skill, but Dillon was a bit of a surprise. Joshua imagined the number one seed that he had to go up against had to have been someone that was at a disadvantage against a good tank. Of the three brothers Dillon seemed to be the luckiest since Devin ended up having to go against Joshua while Dave had the horrible task of fighting against Madalyn. That was a rather one sided fight with all of the advantages she had in the match up.

Outside of the now fourteen members of the alliance that had made it into the last portion of the tournament there were still eighteen other people that would be participating in the next day's events. The disparity in the amount of people in the alliance that had made it into the final portion of the tournament with the rest of the guilds of the hub city was extremely glaring. The next guild that had a large number of members involved in the final bracket was the World Government Guild that had four members that had made it to the final day. That meant two of their number one seeded contestants had been upset, but four members was twice as much as any other guild.

The only other two guilds that had multiple members going into the final day of the tournament were the Stranger's Guild with two and surprisingly the Raider's Guild with two as well. Joshua remembered the two members from the Raider's Guild that had made it into the tournament after seeing them get registered for the tournament. The guild leader that had gotten a number one seed wasn't too much of a surprise but the other member that went by the name of Seven making it so far was unexpected. Joshua didn't think the Raider's Guild that had just recently become a large scale guild would have multiple people that were strong enough to make it this far into the tournament. He'd have to keep an eye out for them just based off of the way they both carried themselves. The amount of killing intent pouring off the boss of that guild even in a situation where there was no conflict to be had was startling.

Outside of the larger guilds there were a few mercenaries that had made it to the final portion of the tournament. Vince and Dmitry were the two obvious mercenaries that made it to the last portion of the tournament considering they were both number one seeds. Vince easily got through the rest of the bracketed portion of the tournament thanks to his abilities to use illusions when necessary. From what Joshua could tell from some of the fights he had seen with Vince involved it was clear that he was only using small illusions to throw his opponents off while taking them out with his skill with a blade. He didn't use any large scale illusions otherwise the opponents would be looking around the arena in confusion from not seeing what was truly happening around them. Instead they'd react to an attack that wasn't there occasionally or completely miss on attacks by a wide margin after clearly going after an illusion.

Dmitry on the other hand wasn't even someone that Joshua had to think about in question of whether or not he would make it to the last portion of the tournament. He had seen several of his matches in hopes of figuring out exactly how he fought and there wasn't a single time where Joshua thought Dmitry would lose one of the fights. That alone said just how far ahead Dmitry was in strength and battle experience. Outside of those two there were two other mercenaries that made it into the final portion of the tournament. Neither were people that Joshua had an eye on before the tournament which meant they most likely were the types to stay well hidden from the public eye for the most part.

One of these two mercenaries was a woman based off of her figure, but that was all Joshua could go off of since her face was mostly covered outside of her eyes thanks to her gear that covered most of her body. Since she had the usual sword and shield of a knight Joshua new that she was a tank, but since she had made it so far in the tournament she had to have some sort of special skill or ability that made her stand out. She was level eighty so she wouldn't be getting pressured by any of the other contenders just from level suppression.

The other mercenary that Joshua didn't know of was a man that had robes on that immediately told Joshua he was a mage of some sort, but his robes also had pieces of armor mixed in which was a bit of an oddity. Instead of having the usual staff of a mage Joshua saw a bow on his back that was far larger than most bows you would see archers use. From the odd set up Joshua was certain that the man had a unique job of some sort, but he hadn't watched any of the man's matches so he wasn't sure what exactly he was capable of.

Outside of all of the alliance members and number one seeds that had made it into the final portion of the tournament there were a few upsets in the tournament that allowed some two and three seeds to make their way through. Of the thirty two spots in the final bracket only twenty of them were filled with number one seeds. That meant along the way twelve number one seeds had been upset making way for several other seeds to find their way into the final day of the tournament. There were all sorts of interesting opponents with different equipment that stood out, but Joshua wasn't given too much time to look at everyone in the arena as a system message popped up for them all to see. It was interesting to see that the participants weren't the only ones that saw the message as a screen with the news crew that was working with the battle arena started reading out the message to everyone.

[Congratulations on making it to the final day of the tournament. Everyone who stands in this arena are amongst the top explorers of this hub city and will be given the privilege to fight for the title of the best explorer in the hub city. The brackets for the next round of matches will be randomly made overnight so that all things will be fair. Be ready for a tough competition contenders and be prepared for a great show at the battle arena!]

Joshua shook his head a little bit at the slight amount of advertising that the battle arena was throwing into the message, but it got a lot of cheer from the crowd with some of the people in the arena waving towards them to build up the excitement even more. Amy was the one rallying up the crowd the most as she ran around the arena waving at everyone. After a few minutes of time where the arena gave the participants a chance to look at who they were going to be contending with for the number one spot they were all teleported out of the battle arena and back to wherever they were before being transported to the arena in the morning. It was late in the evening at this point and Joshua decided to relax for the rest of the night in preparation for the last day of the tournament.