In the huge dome, the gallery was now jammed packed with hundreds of thousands of viewers. There were people of all colours and type in this crowd. Some were wearing traditional Indian attires like ladies in sarees or salwar suits or men’s in Indian Nehru suit or in dhoti and Punjabi. Some were wearing western jeans and tees. Some were wearing formals or semi formals. Some were people of faith some were not. Some were flamboyant, some were shabby. But all were gleaming with excitement for this once in a year held tournament that was going to be held for 7 days. The Gallery was filled with peoples chattering about the upcoming fights. A variety of humanoid robots were moving around the stadium with food and beverages of all kinds. There were sweets snacks and drinks from all around the federations. The aroma of the Rasogulas (A sweet dish), or the spicy fragrances of paneer tikka (A Indian dish made of cottage cheese) all were mixed together to entice the audiences into buying more and more. This tournament was not only a tournament, it was more like a grand fair. The entire stadium was roaring in different voices. It felt like there was chaos everywhere. But still everything was working smoothly and in order in the gallery. This scene had become a trademark of the tournaments in the Indian Union of Asian federation. The population of India was a big reason for this. Even after the apocalyptic events, after humanity stabilized its position, the population of India grew rapidly at its previous rate.

The VIP chambers were also filled with at most 8 to 10 people. There were butlers and stadium staff also in these chambers standing at the back with a dignified look in their face, ready to serve the VIPs at a single order. But at one of these chambers there were only 3 people sitting on three grand middle eastern style sofas. There was nobody else except these three. The people there, were quite contrasting to each other.

First there was a young youth of around the age of 24. He was dressed in black jeans and a white t-shirt. He had black hair and eyes with a fair and supple skin. His nose was perfectly shaped, thin, and sharp. He had a stubble on his face as a beard style. He was clearly drunk and had drowsy eyes. He was looking at the arena without a care in the world. Beside him was a man of around 47 with a scar running across his left cheek, with his left eye clearly lost its glow. His forearms were filled with scar from many battles. He was wearing a dark green military uniform with various badges and medals hanging on his chest and upper sleeves. He was bald guy with a military general cap on his head. His skin tone was dark brown tanned from the days he spent in the sun waging wars and fighting both human and monsters alike. His dress was neatly washed and pressed with perfection and his shoes shined with the appearance of a glass. He wore some kind of semi-transparent, milky armour on his vitals over his dress. His Beard and moustache were trimmed short. He had a Next Generation quantum gun on his holster at the waist. He was sitting upright sipping coffee with a military discipline that was formed over the year. The last man was the old man from before, the one standing before the gate and staring at the participants. He was dressed in his charcoal grey three-piece suit. He had white hair combed with perfection and parted to the side. His short trimmed French beard added a mature charm to his face. He was resting his hands on a cane with gold upper resting. His wrinkled skin and aged and tired eyes were talking about his experience over the years. His light brown skin had lost its glow a long time ago. But this 70-year-old man was gazing at the arena with an excitement of a 5-year-old child.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

1ST DAY OF REGIONAL YODHA TOURNAMENT:

A loud bang calmed the huge crowd and drew their attention to the centre of the field. With this the Vision AI of the Stadium started working with absolute accuracy. With a Loud and colourful show of holographic lights appeared a 100-metre-tall holographic model of a man in complete black butler attire and a golden squint eyed, smiling mask that covered his face completely. The man had a tied up messy man bun and had a good physic. Below the large holographic model was the real man who was surrounded with a dozen of flying image capturing drones hovering around him. Behind the man was a complete white lioness with a third eye. It was sleeping soundly even in this chaos but as soon as he heard the man voice she jolted woke up. And like a proud lion sat beside the man looking at the people with an arrogant attitude. It was not much large from a normal lion except its third eye and golden rune around its neck.

The man was standing over a flying platform. The man bowed with a namaste posture and the platform turned 360 degree. Then the man slowly rose up.

The man: Good day to all my fellow citizens of the Mumbai province. It is an honour for me, Felix, to be your host for this year’s tournament. I hope you have your drinks and snacks ready with you because we have got a full packed show up ahead for you.

As the man said these words the platform moved about the arena making the platform sometime complete a 360-degree turn.

Felix: My dear citizens, before starting the Tournament let us give a big round of applause to our Patrons, Mr. Akash Roy the Mumbai’s vice leader of the adventurer guild. Next, we have Major General Mr. Bashir, the one in charge of the military station at Mumbai region. Last but not the least we have our most beloved governor Dr Nakul Verma.

A holographic screen appeared around the arena. The image of the three men in the VIP chamber were portrayed. The crowd knew them quite well and cheered for them, however only the governor returned the welcome with a waving of his hand and a smile. The other two remained unchanged.

Felix: Now that, that is out of the way let’s get the rules and regulations for this Tournament laid out for our first-time viewers. First The tournament will consist of three level. The 1st level of the tournament will be a crowd slicing round. Meaning the main goal of this round will be to reduce the number of participating schools from 100 to 50. For this we will drop the teams in 100 different types of locations prepared in the arena. Each location contains a deadly monster and if you are unlucky you may fall into one containing a demon. The first 50 teams to defeat their opponent will be selected for the next round. In the second round, all the teams will be sent to fight each other in one location and there will also be some rouge monsters and a few demons in that location. The top 10 will be selected from that round to proceed to the final round where each team will face off against each other. One by one and the final three will proceed to the national level Yodha tournament.

The crowd was listening to the rules very intently. Even if more than 70% of them have heard these rules many times before, it still felt new to them every time. The participants were also listening to Felix with a very keen sense.

Felix: And finally, every bit of your moves is recorded by the parent AI of the stadium and this legion of semi-sentient robots will be the judges. The final verdict will be given by me yours truly, Felix. So, (With a comically threatening voice) do not dare to cheat. So, everyone let us begin the… tour…na…mentttttt.

The crowd erupted into a loud cheer of excitement. Rudra was watching this from the room they were assigned. Maya was also there watching it with excitement and a bit of disturbance in her heart. After all, this was going to be the first competition where she will not be fighting to survive but rather to enjoy the competition. A Humanoid robot with all its internal component hidden well inside the white opaque panels, eyes made of neon lights that hid its visionary sensors came to them. It said in a mechanical male voice, “Participants from YLTI you have been assigned the team number 99. You will proceed to the drawing room to draw your arena number. Please follow me.”

As the robot turned to leave Smita took the lead and followed it. She was followed by Vivek, Nisha, Rohit and finally Rudra and Maya. They followed the robots for quite a while as they entered a huge hall that contained 600 people and Felix at the centre of the hall with a bowl with a number of white balls in it. The balls were written with a number. It was apparent what is going to happen. But everyone was silent as they were not really here for the draw as more because of to gauge the strength of their opponents. As soon as YLTI entered the room every eye in the room was upon them. Rohit and Vivek felt a chill rung down their spine.

Rohit: Quite the crowd here, isn’t it captain.

Vivek: Yes, quite the crowd indeed.

Rohit: (With a smug smile on his face) What happened captain? Saw some of your ex-s here.

Vivek: Yeah…... (He saw how Nisha was looking at him) … ehh I mean no. What are you talking about buddy? Do you think I will see anyone else when I have her beside me? (He said this with a charming smile and looking straight into Nisha eyes.)

Nisha: (Looked away from Vivek, while seemingly pleased with his answer) Hmph…

Just as they were bickering among themselves, entered another team that also garnered the attention from everyone else that YLTI did. It was Sun Academy. As they came, they also saw YLTI students. They had a smug look on their faces. Seemingly containing a mystery about them. They stopped for a few moments in front of YLTI and were judging them. There were invisible sparks in the air. Everyone became tensed at this standoff. The captain of Sun academy was a girl with green eyes and blonde hair with a dusky complexion.

She could measure the strength of all the people present their but when she looked at Maya, she was surprised as this girl gave no vibe to her at all. As if she had no power. This surprised her quite a bit but when she led her eyes on Rudra it was as if she was getting devoured into an abyss. She tried to resist that mental pressure, but she could not stop until she was snapped out of it by her teammate. She was drenched in sweat when she got herself together. She quickly went away without saying anything. Her teammates were quite surprised and followed her immediately. This phenomenon did not go unnoticed by Maya, Rohit, Felix, and a hooded individual who had the logo of Vikranta school.

Felix: (in his thoughts) well this is exciting. All right everyone we will begin the drawing process now. We will start with the last year’s first place holder and gradually move down to the last place holder. New schools will come last in alphabetical order. Start……

One by one captain of each teams came and drew their lot and went back to their place.

Felix: Guys if you cannot handle the monster or demon that you are going to fight, then don’t worry you will be given a badge, keep it and press on it, with force, to instantly teleport yourself from the arena. But as you would have guessed if you did that then you will lose.

Felix: all right guys and girls we will meet next time in the arena… (with a dramatic happy voice he said) “May the force be with you.”