Six months - this was the time Emperor Lislechis had asked for making necessary arrangements. After all, it seemed like they would have to prepare for a battle between immortals. Not a trivial task. The human race presently was not even capable of constructing an arena like that.

Several dwarven grandmasters were called in to clear a part of the forest and build a great arena. What was incredible that the arena was expandable in size! It was possible to shift all the seats to increase the size of the fighting ring corresponding to different cultivation levels. Another important feature was that several inscriptions and arrays were used to make the entire platform safe for conducting a tournament of such a scale. This was a huge undertaking but the speed at which it was being finished showed the reserve power of a leading race.

Meanwhile, Michael too needed to consolidate his gains. His realm had increased and there were no further problems with his foundation. But any further from here was going to be extremely difficult. Cleansing pills were a luxury that he could not afford at the moment. Also, as Michael's life force was extremely rich, his body was much more condensed. Adding the divine strength blessing, his body was comparable to late-saint realm experts even without any special tricks. Cleansing such a powerful body was even more difficult and so, the number of cleansing pills needed for him to reach peak-saint-realm was probably five times the amount for a regular human.

The alternative was to slowly excrete out the impurities via normal techniques. While Michael was very fast compared to normal humans, it would still take him years to reach the next stage. The same problem was with his soul cultivation as well. Removing impurities from the soul was even more difficult and so, Michael had reached a huge plateau of power. Daily cultivation was not as beneficial anymore. Michael separated his schedule for cultivation and did not cultivate like crazy as he usually did. After all, he had obtained the strength required for most of his plans to be executed.

He started working on death laws' second chapter, his martial arts that he forcefully advanced and other aspects of his power. But most of the time, he focussed on planning the city that was developing. Michael knew that in the future, this place would be the main base of humans against the devils and thus, he did not want any weaknesses in the city planning. Under his leadership, the entire system of entry and exit in the city was controlled.

Michael gathered the remaining people from the moonflower race and made them the law-enforcers around the area. This move initially created some dissonance among the crowd but Michael's methods swiftly dealt with them. The patrolling of the entire forbidden forest was started and a thorough conquering operation was done.

All the powerful beasts around the forest were captured and Michael himself embedded seals in their soul so that they would not resist. This made the forest safer for humans and moonflowers but not for the other races. Several surveillance stations and relay points were set up around the forests and many loyal saints were posted all over the place. The entire forest was turned into a deadly network that would be optimal for trapping and killing any invading force. Michael's ingenious ideas and Karslon's great knowledge base became the foundation on which the entire system was built. The military base became the city defender division and was separated from the human army.

The different nobles of the Rageberg Kingdom were quite stunned at the efficiency and standards of the city. This was a super-secure base where even perfect-realm experts would die if they tried to invade. Even immortals would be trapped and the chances of this place falling were very low even in case a middle-tier race waged war against the city. The construction of transport networks around the forest was another issue that was taken care of.

All in all, in just three months, Michael had converted this secure military base into a powerful ruling centre of the Rageberg family. He also trained more and more shadow-eye agents and expanded his spy network crazily. The Millers and Zenids were given important political positions and the regime was stabilized. The Atrexia rule quickly became a relic of past. The supporters of the Atrexia family were weeded out and suppressed. Both Desborn and Alice could not do anything for the matter except facing the consequences.

The entire system changed and the lives of the people were once again stabilized. Michael's move made the ruling structure of the Rageberg kingdom firm and even though the cultivation realm of his parents was low, the stability of the kingdom was higher than the previous regime.

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While Michael was busy consolidating his territory, others were looking forward to the upcoming martial competition. The appearance of gargoyle prince caused more and more people from the dark empire to participate including the dark-elf prince, the vampire prince, the ghoul prince and others. In response, the dwarven princes, several beast princes, several elven princes and several barbarian princes also took part. This cause several neutral empire's princes to emerge as well. Finally, even the god-beasts wanted to compare themselves. The entire thing took on a new dimension.

Thus, after three months, Emperor Nicholas had to announce the method they would be using to find the victor. As people from different backgrounds, cultivation and races were fighting in the tournament, a direct confrontation between the participants would not be appreciated. Thus, it was decided that the entire tournament would be conducted in five rounds:

The Battle of Commoners

The Battle of Nobles

The Battle of Princes

The Battle of Experts

The Battle of Immortals

The commoners round was for most of the crowd. More than 95 per cent of the participants that did not have decent cultivation or background could use it. One might think that commoners would not dare to apply in an event for competition for the elven princess but one would be wrong.

The noble scions were the first to apply after the announcement of the challenge. To compare themselves to noble scions, several commoners too applied. It was just that there were too many commoners and so even though very few among them had the confidence to enter the challenge, the total number was mind-boggling. These would fight in the Battle of Commoners. The top 100 of this competition would be allowed to participate in the Battle of Nobles which was like the second round. The top 50 from these would get to participate in the third round - the Battle of Princes. The top 20 would proceed to The Battle of Experts. And the top 10 from them would get a chance to fight in the Battle of immortals.

Basically, every round, the highest rankers could enter the next round. Your starting round would be decided by your cultivation and background. But if you had sufficient strength, you could win through all five rounds and become the victor. This was a very reasonable way to give chance to all and also hold the matches quickly without disappointing anyone.

Naturally, the champions selected from the Lislechis family would join the different stages as well. As the format was quite friendly and fair, many eccentric masters too enrolled themselves and their disciples to truly understand the level of combat ability of the plane. The system was so well received that the number of challengers swelled by a huge amount.

Initially, Nicholas and other elves were worried about the money spent on organizing the event. But they soon found that it was possible to earn even more through it. After all, the experts would spend their money in the Elven Country to stay, eat and entertain themselves. Thus, the entire race got on with making the event a huge hit. And while they did not have many princesses to give as a prize every year, they were already thinking of a way to circumvent that. After all, elven women were very much preferred. Thus, several beautiful elven virgins were also asked to be prizes for many of the better performing participants to give further motivation to join.

This was also one of the reasons many nobles had joined this competition. Marrying an elven girl was too hard for the other races' nobles. Thus, the interest in the entire thing went to an all-time high.

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After a few more days, Ragnar already found the entire thing unbearable. He wanted to peel the flesh off Michael's bone. Had he known that the kid would create such a huge trouble, he would have killed him again. He tried to have the guy killed but The Deces simply refused by saying that they did not take the same targets twice. Grimjoy had almost vomited blood when Michael's name came up in the target list. Ragnar's other assassins were not even able to see the human royal castle and were taken down at the periphery of the forest itself.

Ragnar wanted to vent his frustrations but there was nowhere he could go. Nicholas had taken Ashley under his protection. And while Ragnar was a horny old man, he was not suicidal. Thus, he shamelessly had nominated himself as a champion and had even managed to bribe another of the immortals in the family to act as one. He was quite confident that with two immortals, winning the tournament would not be that hard.

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When only a few more days were left before the start of Ashley's wedding challenge, Grimjoy received a voice transmission.

Lord Grimjoy, how are you doing? I have been missing you.

Grimjoy's expression changed and bitterness gripped his heart.

Grimjoy : Lord Michael, what do you want from me?

Michael : Nothing important. It is just some business proposal. I wonder if your organization is still functioning after I killed your two best assassins.

Grimjoy : You jest! The death of a few assassins is not enough to uproot the entire organization. I will definitely take missions from you, Lord Michael.

Michael : Thats good to know. So you know that I will participate in the tournament for Ashley's wedding. There are some others who will be attending as well. I want to kill some of them. You can kill them on the stage - it will liven up the mood.

Grimjoy : It can be done. Who exactly are your targets?

Michael : Anyone from the Atrexia family, of course! Kill all of them. As for their allies, beat them till the verge of death. Their power and realms are not that high. I will send you the compensation after the job. Its just that I don't want there to be any mishappenings or I will have to step in myself in killing them off. I will not feel good bullying the weak.

Grimjoy : Fear not, Lord Michael. The Deces never fails!

As soon as Grimjoy said the last line, his face flushed red! He coughed once and said:

Grimjoy : Hmm, we rarely fail. It will definitely not happen this time.

Michael : It gives me assurance to have you by my side, My Lord. I hope that we will have a long business partnership.

After saying so, the voice transmission was cut off. Grimjoy got a better idea of the abnormality known as Michael Rageberg. This kid may seem to have forgotten things on the surface but the truth was, he rarely forgot. If the Atrexia family's children died by The Deces' hands, this would send a fitting message. As the populace still loved the previous ruling family, directly killing them was not a good move. But Grimjoy did it, it would avoid discontentment among the populace.

As several sides made their preparations, the curtains to the grandest wedding challenge in the history of Aterna rose.