Chapter 41: The Martial Arts Tournament

"What are you thinking? If there's such a good place, I wouldn't be staying here!" 

Cyra rolled her eyes when she saw my expression.

"Edenmere is currently hosting a martial arts tournament these days, and quite a few angels have gone out to watch it."

"Martial arts tournament?" 

I was confused. Martial arts tournaments seem to only exist in wuxia novels. How come the angels are also doing this kind of thing?

"Of course, it's because they are bored! I told you before, that many angels have the habit of sleeping. With the 'no sleep order', there is a large number of angels having nothing to do. So activities are organized for them to kill the time!" 

Cyra sorted her cards while explaining to me and prompted me to play first,

"A 3..."

I randomly threw out the lowest points and lowered my head to take a closer look at my cards. I couldn't help but frown. 

"Where are the competitions held? How come I don't know about such things?" 

I took the opportunity to ask while waiting for her move.

"4 Aces!" 

Without saying anything, Cyra threw out a quad and stared at the cards in her hand while casually answering.

"Of course, it's at the North Triumph Plaza. The place is spacious. You don't usually go to places like that, so of course you don't know."

"I pass."

I shook my head to signal her to continue playing. Still puzzled, I asked again.

"How come Norma and the others never mentioned it to me? Did they sign up at that plaza too?" 

"I think so... Do you want to participate?"

Cyra glanced at the ceiling as she tried to remember. 

"The angels participating in the martial arts tournament are at least six-winged or eight-winged high-ranking angels. For new angels like us, it would be a waste to go up and compete, so of course they didn't tell us."

"4455667788!" 

After speaking, she threw out a long string of pairs. 

"I pass." 

I didn't even bother to look at my cards and directly indicate that I passed. 

"Never mind that they didn't tell us. I and Nicola are six-winged too! We can still go and watch even if we don't participate."

"You're thinking too much. After all, Norma is just the chief steward of the Tivi Palace. She doesn't have the obligation to inform us about these entertainments. I only found out when I was out wandering at noon today and happened to see many angels and light elves gathered in the plaza. I asked about it when I came back." 

Cyra glanced at me. Prepared, she immediately threw out four more cards. 

"3 twos with a 3!" 

"Uh...I pass." 

How is she so lucky to get all good cards! I took a look and there were only 4 poker cards left in her hand, while on my side... 

"Two King Quards!" 

Following that, she mercilessly revealed two small and big ghost cards painted in a doodled style. 

"..." 

Looking at the smug, arrogant little face in front of me, I suddenly threw the poker cards in my hand out the window. 

"What's the point of continuing to play, let's go watch the tournament! Playing cards is so boring!" 

"Huh?" 

Caught off guard, Cyra was stunned for a while, then hurried to chase after me. I could vaguely hear curses coming from her mouth, 

"Feliciana, you're just a sore loser! I finally got such good cards and you fled away!"

"No way! I just suddenly felt that watching the angels compete in martial arts would be more interesting." 

Still flying in the sky, I turned my head and argued. 

"Don't you think it's boring with just the two of us playing cards?"

"That's purely an excuse! Why say that only when I'm about to win? I see you just can't stand to lose!" 

Cyra was so angry she desperately chased after me, but how could she catch up to me with six wings? Plus, I learned high-speed flying, so I threw her far behind in no time. 

But I didn't have to fly for long before I noticed that the number of people in the air and streets below gradually increased, eventually all converging to the nearby Triumph Plaza. 

"It's so lively!" 

I hovered in the air and looked down. It was still my first time seeing so many gathered angels in Edenmere. Although there were some light elves mixed in, roughly counting there were at least over a thousand. 

In fact, not only were there many angels lingering in the low altitude, but as far as the eye could see, the place could be described as extremely crowded. 

The Triumph Plaza occupies a very large area. Although I passed by it from above several times before, I never went down. Because there is nothing special below seen from the air. 

However, in the center of the plaza now, there is an extra circular arena. There seems to be a match going on, with two eight-winged angels fighting fiercely against each other.

"It's purely hand combat?" 

I saw one of the angels holding an extremely long battle axe, while the other, although using a sword, did not get disadvantaged at all. It's just that I haven't seen anyone use magic. 

"You're too shameless, flying so fast just because you have six wings!" 

It was only then that Cyra caught up to me and grumbled with dissatisfaction. 

"With such a lively scene, you were playing poker in the room?" 

I really couldn't understand why she was unwilling to come here to watch the competition. Isn't she always clamoring that she's bored? This is a good way to kill time!

"I already came to watch at noon. At first, I was a little interested, but later..." 

Cyra looked at the scene below, hesitant to continue. 

"In short, you'll know after watching for a while. Anyway, I feel it's boring. Maybe with your extra wings, you can see some skills."

"Why is it boring?" 

I didn't quite understand. What does it have to do with the number of wings? But still, I lowered to an appropriate altitude to watch the battles between the angels in the arena more clearly. 

The two angels from before still hadn't determined the winner. Their strength can be said to be evenly matched. But bizarrely, after fighting for so long, they didn't seem to be tired at all. Apart from some superficial injuries, it was as if they had endless energy. 

"Just hitting each other like this endlessly, there is no appeal at all. Unless you can appreciate their swordsmanship like appreciating a flower!" 

Cyra snorted softly. Afraid that I still didn't understand, she specifically explained to me again. 

"Due to Edenmere's special environment, as long as they are four-winged angels or above, they won't feel tired without using large-scale magic. Most of such battles are just a waste of time."

"Maybe it's because they just happen to be evenly matched, so it's taking so long to determine a winner..." 

I thought about it and argued. Looking at the two angels ding-dong fighting swords, although their level was so high that even I could hardly keep up with their speed and variations, it did cause some visual fatigue after a long time. My mind was only left with the thought of "Look forward to when they make a mistake to end this quicker".

"If the opponents were slightly more unevenly matched, it might not be so boring."

"Then keep watching! You'll understand after a while." 

Cyra didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. She casually looked around the crowd, obviously for beauties. 

After a while, the situation on stage finally changed. The axe-wielding angel caught an opening in her opponent and swung down hard and accurately rested her axe on the neck of the sword-wielding angel. 

"Melisa wins!" 

An angel who looked like a referee sitting at the edge of the arena immediately stood up to announce the result, then signalled for the next competitors to enter.

"Look! Isn't this what you meant? With a different batch of angels, they shouldn't fight for so long right!?" 

I immediately pulled Cyra's clothes to make her pay attention. 

"So what? Does it make a difference?" 

Unexpectedly, she wasn't interested at all. She glanced at the arena and continued to turn her head to look at the beauties.

"Uh..." 

I didn't know why she was so against this. If she didn't like fighting, didn't she also watch those flashy battle scenes in anime back then? Could it be just because it's not 2D this time, so she lost interest? 

This group of two angels were still eight-winged. Their gap in strength was indeed bigger than the previous group. It didn't take long for them to determine the winner either. But after watching the next group fight for a while, I suddenly understood Cyra's feelings. 

In fact, this had nothing to do with how long they fought for. It was also not about the level of combat skills, and definitely had no connection with 2D or 3D — simply put, it was monotonous without variety. 

Unlike the battle scenes in movies, TV and anime, which are carefully designed with actions, scenes plots, and even special effects. Generally, it would not give the audience a feeling of repetition. 

Actual combat scenes were almost completely different. The basic principle is to find out which moves work well, and which parts are effective to attack, and then specialize in using that move to specifically target that body part until the opponent defends against it. 

Moreover, even if it was different pairs of opponents, their combat methods were basically the same. After all, they all learned from the same school. Although occasionally a few used different weapons which could bring some refreshing feeling, after some time you'd realize it's still just those few moves, and most of them still used swords. 

So, with the same moves, same endurance, and no stamina limit, it was hard to watch them ding-dong their way to finish one match, finally having one side admit defeat. Then onto the next batch, repeating the same story. Watching it for too long makes one feel jaded. 

"Alright, what you said makes sense..." 

I turned back to Cyra and said unenthusiastically. But still found it puzzling. 

"Why don't those angels watching feel bored?"

"Who knows?" 

She just shrugged at my words and could only casually guess. 

"Maybe they are used to being bored in daily life. Even such repetitive martial arts drama is interesting to them. Or maybe they are watching to learn, hoping to gain experience from it to improve their swordsmanship?"

"Could be both..." 

I murmured as I looked at those angels not far away staring intently at the arena. After all, unlike Cyra and me who transmigrated here, they hadn't seen those flashy battle scenes from shows before. In this way, it seemed completely understandable.