“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN BOYS AND GIRLS, THIS IS ITTTTT MAKE SOME NOISE!”

The whole stadium roared their usual welcome and stamped their feet so hard that the whole earth seemed to shake. It was my favourite part of participating in Carnival Wars. The crowd. They made it so much fun for us and all the top teams even had to sign autographs after the match like tennis or soccer players should they show up around town.

“On the left side of the stadium, in the blue castle, we have our defending champions, the BOTS!!!!”

The crowd roared their usual welcome for their favourites which were us and we stepped out of the castle to greet the crowd. Flames shot out from both sides of the entrance and fireworks appeared above the roof of our castle. All of us looked around at the full house of 8000 fans and waved to everyone with the exception of Breadtalk. He was busy running around the perimeter of the arena and trying to make a wave before he tripped and fell over himself. I would give him a hand but I wanted to save my mana before the big fight. Honestly though none of the teams we met in the round robin proved too much of a threat.

“And on the right side of the stadium, in the red castle, we have the challengers, the BALLS!”

7 of them stepped out from the other castle and the same thing happened. Flames shot up from the ground and fireworks ensued. Honestly they had a very catchy name for a team and I loved it. We met in the middle of the round robin and they were a balanced team. However, out of all the teams we fought they weren't very... Strong. We were insanely strong because of our jobs and underleveledness but they were 7 people all in the level 200s and they were abit weak despite of a few catchy job classes. Carnival Wars reveal the job class of the participants so it wasn't a secret.

In team BALLS, there was one Winter Huntress, one Elementalist, one Blade Master, one Undying, one Lancer, one Hammer Chieftan and one Harbringer of Death. If we divided them into their branches, the winter huntress and blade master were of the dexterity classes, the elementalist and undying were of intelligence classes and the lancer, hammer chiefan and harbringer of death was of the strength classes. They were very very synergised and well balanced. The last time we fought against them though, Soup just went through all 7 of them by himself while the 6 of us made some coffee using a fire I made, Breadtalk's porcupine hammer and and some coffee beans that Xantos managed to find before coming to the match.

However, this time, when team BALLS stepped out of the castle, my mana intuition kicked in. I sensed an unexplainable force coming out not from one of them but all 7 of them. It was a quiet, strong radiation of energy. It was not as bad as when I first encountered Death and was too terrified to even move but there was no doubt about it. If they could subconsciously release this amount of aura and of such purity because I can see the intensity of the colours, they were definitely strong. Stronger than any team we've met before. I knew immediately that they hid their strength from us because they wanted to show us their full strength only in the finals. This was the reason why they were 6-1 in the round robin despite appearing so weak.

The introduction ceremony ended and both teams went back into their castle for a 10 minute discussion that was always given to the teams before the match started. I was the only astute one among the 7 of us so I needed to catch them up to speed of what was happening.

“Bad news guys. The other team, I could feel their mana auras using my mana intuition and I tell you its going to be bad. The other time we fought against them, they hid their strength and the experience cannot be used in this before action review at all. It's going to be against a completely different team. I think it's looking bad.” I said solemnly.

“THOSE SNEAKY ASSHOLES.” Breadtalk said before he bolted out of the room. In all the past times in Carnival wars, no one tried to leave the castle before the 10 minutes of pre match time was up but apparently you were able to do so. He slammed the door down and ran over the the red castle to find team BALLS. Alas, it looks like you could only leave your castle, not enter your opponent's castle. The moment he touched the door of the other castle, he was flung 10 meters backwards with an electric shock.

“OWWWWWWWWWWW!” Breadtalk squealed as he squirmed on the floor clutching his hand. He tried many ways to get in. He kicked, he tried the window, he used a rock on one of the lanes to smash the door and each and every time he got the same effect. Finally, he took out his weapon of the day which was the clown gun which was now an absurd size for dual pistols. He let loose a barrage of shots at the door. And... The clown faces that erupted from the barrel bounced off the door and headed straight back towards Breadtalk.

“BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!” In my party window I saw Breadtalk's health go down to about 20%.

The crowd roared in laughter and team BALLS even peeked outside the upper level window to see what was the commotion and laughed at Breadtalk. I cast a heal on him to bring him back to 100% and asked Horse to bring him back to the castle. The moment Horse stepped out of the castle to bring Breadtalk back, he ran towards our castle and started apologising to her immediately. No one was more scared of Horse than Breadtalk and it was really funny to watch.

Upon reaching back, Breadtalk said: “I tried to go in their castle to let loose my fart I've been storing for 3 days but for some reason their door just won't open. Oh by the way I overexerted myself already so I let it loose like 5 seconds ago.”

The room began to stink up. And Breadtalk was flung out of the room out of our discussion. Best friends don't need to include everyone in a meeting. Best friends just do what the other party deserves. The crowd laughed their asses off as the two teams could be seen on the screen discussing tactics while Breadtalk was just rolling around in the sand making sandangels on one of the lanes. And he triggered a landmine in the process.

Soon, the 10 minutes were up and we decided on a game plan. Breadtalk as usual would just be an unpredictable wild card that could tip the fight in either team's favour.

“AND NOW, WE BEGIN THE SECOND ANNUAL CARNIVAL WARS CHAMPIONSHIPS! WHO WILL BE CROWNED FOR THE SECOND TIME IN CARNIVAL WAR HISTORY?”

Horse immediately went into stealth and as a murderer, she could take someone into stealth with her so we decided immediately that she would take Xantos and stealth both of them for extremely high mobility and she could be able to do whatever she liked. However, the moment she stealthed Xantos and flew off with her, the winter huntress on the other side immediately flung a spear seemingly at random into an empty space but it was without a doubt where Xantos was flying to. She had true sight and could see invisible units.

I immediately conjured up a wall of earth to stop the spear and decided to prioritise my attacks on her to make sure she would be unable to interrupt Horse and Xantos' plan.

Soup went charging down the middle lane as per usual and the representative on the other side was the harbringer of death. Soup went into lycan mode and the other guy immediately took out his halberd which looked even more incredulous than Breadtalk's spear. It was gleaming golden with silver outlines and emitting a holy light so pure I estimated it to be about 80% light affinity which I did not even have. They clashed claw against halberd in the middle of the arena and a melee so ferocious no one could even interrupt occured.

Beathoven immediately went into the castle and summoned Surtr into the fight after blessing us with chaotic melody. Apparently, the other side had their undying do the same thing. She went into the castle and raised an army of trolls from no where. She raised like 30 level 100+ trolls from nowhere and they just could not be ignored.

Breadtalk cast Loki's armoury and when I saw which weapon he had gotten from all the fanatical acts he did just now, I could not be happier. I could barely recognise how it had changed since we last had it for an epic fight but it was without a question the weapon why we got here in the first place. Breadtalk was suddenly inside a vehicle that looked like a batmobile with one clear difference. There was a hugeass cannon 3 times the size of the missle launcher he previously had and it looks like masterclass mastery really was worth all the trouble. He let loose a gigantic missle towards the harbringer and Soup and I casted divine shield on Soup immediately as he leapt backwards to avoid the missle. The impact was so huge that the whole ground shook and everyone was vaguely distracted from their fights. Soup then immediately went to clear the trolls which were streaming to our side because 1vmany fights were his specialty. Especially if they were weaker than him. Breadtalk then rushed over in his tank to shoot missles continuously at Harbringer. However, he was a fast mover and he moved too fast to get a clean hit or anywhere near him. However, the look on his face showed that even he could not take a direct hit out of any of the projectiles Breadtalk was hurtling at him, keeping him at bay.

Suddenly, I saw a huge blue glow so pure from the bottom of my feet I immediately knew what was coming. I used teleport immediately out of the glowing blue circle on the ground and I was surprised. Usually I had about 1 second to react to incoming spells with my mana intuition but this spell was almost immediate. The blue circle lasted for about only 0.3 seconds and if not for electrical impulse with my improved reaction time, I would have been caught in the huge geyser that erupted from the floor. That elementalist was good. Looks like his job was to fight with me but I had to keep the winter huntress busy as well....

I decided to use some cheat move I learnt from my mana sculpting. I made a sculpture of myself immediately and froze the mana to make it look like I suddenly did a shadow clone no jutsu. (Yes now it's a ripoff naruto I'm going to have so many copyright issues.) I then used one part of my mind to control the “Clone”. It was just a fake body, incapable of anything but since I could split my mind into so many parts, I could potentially make that many clones and make it seem that they are independent of me and could use spells at will. The good part about this spell was that the opponent would legitly think that I split my mana into two between me and the clone so both of us could fight but the answer couldn't be more different. I was just using more spells using different parts of my mind but the clone itself took me virtually no mana. It took just 2000 mana to make an exact replica of myself. Short change if you take into account that both chaotic melody and my ouroboros seal had mana regeneration now.

I sent my clone after the elementalist because usually they suck at close combat and I tried to concentrate my offensive spells on both of them. Longbean was busy assisting Breadtalk defensively because all he was doing is driving around in his minitank with a hugeass cannon firing missles everywhere. Horse and Xantos finally revealed themselves after they grabbed the flag from inside the opponents castle because whenever someone grabs te flag, any form of invisibility is broken and what I saw made me speechless. Horse was sprinting at full speed from the inside of the castle because a huge frost giant was on her tail. The frost giant read “Ymir” which was clearly a boss level beast. Surtr then charged straight at Ymir and a fight between two god level beasts occured. During this time, the lancer was riding on a golden-maned horse chasing after Soup but ever since Ymir was summoned presumably by the undying, all the trolls were gone and Soup just engaged with the lancer. He was holding a lance so huge it was about as long as Breadtalk's spear but about 30 times the thickness at the very end. Looks like a hugeass barbecue stick that could easily hold 1000 sausages.

The harbringer and Chieftan then came towards our castle when Xantos flew back and tried to engage them. The flag cannot be held by any flying units so Xantos was unable to hold the flag. The blademaster was engaging Horse but in a very weird way. His blade was seemingly enchanted because the blade flew over to Horse and begun attacking her on its own. The blade master ran into our castle and also took our flag, trying to bring it back to his castle as well. My hands were full with two high level opponents on my tail. I had to avoid the huge spells the elementalist was throwing at me as well as the high speed spears which were thrown by the winter huntress who moved at an amazingly fast speed. The battle was developing in a weird way. It seemed that both teams were prioritizing the capture of the flag over the beating down of the opponents and now both teams were trying to bring the flag back to their own base.

Suddenly, the first major development happened. Soup was now powered up by the few trolls he killed and since a good amount of time passed since the start of the battle, his gladiator's rage was beginning to kick in. He managed to fling the lancer off his horse by destroying the horse first. Stupid Soup was clever sometimes. He then engaged the lancer from the ground where the lancer was considerably weaker instead of horseback and he managed to kill the lancer after a short burst of unholy rage and howl. It was crazy. His attack power just shot up 300% in that 10 seconds and the health bar of the lancer went down so fast it was like watching you download a 4mb song. He then ran over to the hammer chieftan and begun giving him the same hell which also reduced his health like he was some level 1000 boss. However, shortly after that, he was impaled from the back by the halberd of the harbringer of death. The result was instantaneous. Soup, even with his extremely high defence and HP, was instantly killed by the Halberd because the harbringer used a spell which made the Halberd grow so bright that my eyes could not even see that size of the aura clearly. The purity of it alone showed how potent it was.

How did he even get behind Soup so fast?

I looked around and found Xantos also dead on the floor. What a terrifying being. However, Surtr managed to subdue Ymir because of the advantage he had in type. Fire would clearly have an advantage over ice so now, Surtr was storming the castle looking for the undying while she was trying to flee from the flaming giant. She was quite fast and had a spell that could help her teleport.

OMG a summoner with teleport? How to kill fucking OP omg everyone here is OP.

I calmed myself down. I cast a small fireball out of thin air behind the undying while I was fighting with the other 2 and it did the trick. Surtr could teleport to any fire source so a huge flamist fist erupted from the fireball and caught the undying dead in her tracks. Needless to say that was 2 down for each team now. We had no more front line tank and flying bird and they lost their back row summoner along with their front line tank. However, they still had three front liners left while we had... None.

Horse was still busy fighting the sword of the blade master while he was almost reaching his own base. This was the fun part. When the battle started, I secretly casted 10 aeroglyphs on the floor near the entrance of the castle of high purity so in the event where the person did try to enter the castle with our flag, he would be flung about 100 meters backwards which was near our base. I watched the blade master run to his castle in pure joy and delight andddddd

“WHAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!” He screamed as he triggered all 10 aeroglyphs and was flung back towards our castle within 10 meters of me. I quickly disengaged from the elementalist and used poison torrent on him. However, he was of a high level so the poison torrent had to be of considerable mana, about 100000 before he was put down and out. He also dropped our flag. But the sword was still fighting Horse. It seemed like he wasn't controlling the sword. The sword was a rare item which could fight by itself no matter what. Suddenly I realised what to do with the sword. It was such a simple solution but because I was so preoccupied it slipped my mind.

I used earth magic to encase the sword in stone and made it so dense that the sword could not move and that was all she wrote. Horse sprinted away to our castle full speed ahead. However, the next casualty also happened. Breadtalk managed to fire missles at the elementalist and huntress after I disengaged from them while they killed my clone but that also left him open to the Harbringer of death. He piereced the vehicle with his halberd and swung it such that he sliced the vehicle wide open and killed Longbean in the process. What a play killing two with one swing of his halberd. JUST WHAT WAS WITH THAT HALBERD.

Horse then was sprung by a trap even I could not detect with my terrasense nor mana intuition because it was a trap made mechanically by the huntress. She was snared on the spot and was unable to move. Uh oh. Just then, Surtr managed to sneak behind the huntress and managed to kill her as well because she was also affiliated to ice and was susceptible to fire attacks. The elementalist however, managed to bring Surtr down using a wide array of high quality water spells aimed at the castle which disarmed Beathoven for awhile so he was unable to play and Surtr would be unsummoned.

Beathoven without Surtr, a Horse which cannot move and me against the harbringer of death, the elementalist, and the hammer chieftan. The hammer chieftan was now busy hammering Horse while she tried to take it the best she can while the harbringer of death and elementalist concentrated their attacks on me. I could not save Horse as I had my hands full. Beathoven however, was full of surprises as usual. Aside from summoning Surtr, it seemed he had many other things he could do.

He played a song that sounded so eerie I had goosebumps in the middle of my fight and the next thing I know, some demon took the place of Beathoven. He shapeshifted into this demon which had wings, a blackened body with red lines akin to blood vessels all over his body and he grew to be about 2.2m in height now. He then put his palms in the shape of a haduken (street fighter is a must too right) and shot our a black bolt so fast that he immediately caught out the elementalist. Direct hit and his health was definitely low now. I seized my opportunity. I teleported immediately beside him and put my palm on him. Jörmungandr's spell book really had peculiar spells which were useful in many situations. I put my palm on him and immediately casted five spells at once. Mana drain, A spell which could drain mana from someone and convert it into my own mana. Frostbite, which enclosed the target in ice so he would become completely immobile and take damage over time. Toxic, which had the highest posion damage over time in my arsenal. I also casted mana shield on myself since I recovered enough mana from sucking the elementalist dry. Mana shield takes the damage I receive and reduces it from my mana instead of my HP. I used 100000 mana so I could take about 100,000 damage before my mana shield wears off. The last spell I cast was a build up spell that took 200,000 mana from me. I used high concentrations of lightning, water and fire mana to conjour up a dense army of clouds within the arena. They are part of a cycle where the water will get evaporated by the fire before getting charged by the electricity to form a huge pack of storm clouds overhead and the cycle would repeat itself until saturation point where I get to decide on one target. It was a sort of cyclic attack which was specified in the book Jörmungandr gave me. An ouroboros type of skill since it relied on a cycle and the result was an extremely devastating single target spell.

I chose the hammer chieftan and immediately, the huge pack of storm clouds let loose their charged lightning all on him. However, the hammer chieftan raised his hammer and the electricity all went into the hammer and he redirected it towards all 3 of us. Beathoven and Horse instantly died while my mana shielf broke and I almost died. I looked at his hammer. It was unmistakably the legendary hammer, mjollnir that could even control the heavens. If i could kick myself then I would for such a stupid move but I would have probably died. I healed myself to full HP and checked my mana levels. I had about 100,000 mana left and staring at me were the harbringer of death and hammer chieftan.

The harbringer of death then summoned an eight legged horse which I recognised as Slepinir and took the flag, mounting the horse while the hammer chieftan came charging towards me. I decided on my options. I used the same aeroglyph spell and stacked them at the entrance again. I then used 80,000 mana in an instant, teleporting behind the hammer chieftan, touching him and using the same 5 spells I did from the elementalist but this chieftan did not have the same amount of mana the elementalist did. He became the frozen popsicle that took damage over time while i rechecked my mana. 50,000. Just then, the horse stepped on the aeroglyph I had set but as the horse flew back, the harbringer jumped off the horse and was about to step inside. I used aeroglyphs again to force him back but he planted his halberd into the ground and stood firm. I only had 30000 mana left now. I had no choice. I used a huge chunk of it to teleport that long distance and just as my palm touched him, he swung his halberd 360 degrees, slicing me into half.

“WHAT A FIGHT AND WHAT AN UPSET! TEAM BALLS SNAG A CONVINCING WIN AGAINST THE CHAMPIONS TO EARN THEMSELVES THE CROWN FOR THIS YEAR!” The annoying loud microphone screamed as the only thing I could hear aside from by body screaming in pain as i fade into my unconsiousness.

End of Chapter 33

Author's note : Sorry guys! I've been so busy everyday with only 5-6 hours of sleep per day for the past 2 weeks I really feel damn tired. I finally have a free day today so the first thing I do is give you all one new chapter to end your wait see so nice of me right MUAHAHA. But honestly though its been a crazy couple of weeks in real life and today is the finals of the WTA tennis finals! Gotta go catch it later as well so here's to the busy people out there, we should always remember to make time for the things we love to do (= Hope you all enjoy this chapter! All 7 of team BALLS have a god behind them too so let's see how well you know your Norse mythology!