The first person who reached the top eight was of a huge built and wielded a large club. Normally he had an axe, but any wooden axe like weapons that were available seemed too small for him and thus he used something that resembled a large log. His name was Rifat and he would be the first and only Nick’s opponent in the top eight. In fact he managed to advance through the last three fights much easier compared to the rounds when contestants were fighting with real weapons, because now he only had to land one hit while his opponents constantly hammered him with their wooden sticks without any result.

Nick, of course, noticed that guy, but before loosing to him, he still had to fight the opponent who was currently standing in the arena. Faiz was swinging his almost two and a half meter long wooden pole leisurely and grinned towards Nick. He wasn’t a fool and also knew he had a huge advantage in this fight. May be the only one who was a real threat to him was the huge Rifat.

When the fight started, Faiz immediately attacked and Nick couldn’t do anything else, but evade his pokes and swings. Even without his previous resolve to not care about the dirty ground, Nick still would’ve been covered in filth already during the minute of the match.

In the spectator seats there were big crowds around the gambling booth’s since the result was already decided. There was no way the kid who was jumping and rolling around like a monkey could win and it was only matter of time for Faiz to hit him on the head with the long stick. In addition, they still had a grudge against Nick for killing the young duke yesterday and wished for him to fall even more.

Of course, there was a person who made a huge bet in favor of Nick despite the incredibly poor odds and currently even he started to become nervous. Nazir watched this fight attentively and understood Nick’s predicament – even if he had good Qi manipulation skills, what’s the use if he couldn’t get close to his opponent? And this Faiz guy was skilled and experienced as well and fully realized that Nick couldn’t be allowed to come near him.

After two minutes of dodging and rolling around, Nick was deeply flustered, but after two more his eyes started to burn with passion – this was a unique training! So what if his opponent was trying to play the whack-a-mole with him? All he had to do was dodge until he’ll find an opportunity. Faiz should get tired at one point, but Nick, while performing his Qi technique during jumps and rolls, could last for half a day!

After fifteen minutes the excited crowd was already bored and most of the other competitors as well. They missed the time when the fight would be decided in a minute or even few seconds.

‘That little bastard!’ Suddenly Nazir understood, ‘He is practicing! That son of the b*tch is clearly practicing! If emperor realizes this, the kid might be in deep trouble!’

And some other experts in the spectator seats started to notice that as well, at least they were suspicious of it.

It continued until suddenly Nick almost tripped backwards while dodging a horizontal pole swing and the next swing came right from above at the center of his forehead. Same simple but heavy slash with two hands won Faiz the previous round and, even if the move was sudden, spectators instantly woke up and gasped in expectation.

Nick clumsily staggered back and somehow the pole missed him by few millimeters hitting the ground and raising big could of dust.

But what happened next left everyone flabbergasted. Nick, who was staggering back suddenly accelerated forward and stepped on the pole that was still vibrating a little and, after taking two more lightning quick steps on it, kicked Faiz in his jaw with full strength while performing a back flip. In the silent arena loud crack of jaw breaking was heard and Nick landed on his feet while Faiz flew six or seven meters backwards and landed lifelessly on the bloodied sand that was the arena floor.

‘Did I kill him? Probably not.’ Nick pondered, ‘Most importantly – I’m almost in the castle!’

After bowing to the emperor, he returned to his spot while patting his dirty clothes without any particular expression. Arena was still silent as the spectators couldn’t believe their eyes and the emperor missed the kick or didn’t care about fights without bloodshed and didn’t react as well. Nazir, who was worried a moment ago, barely managed to keep his calm. Next bet would definitely multiply his winnings as well, the only problem was he couldn’t win too much to not raise suspicions or emperor’s wrath. Good thing was his own people were making bets along with him, just in different parts of the arena.

While the next fight started, Nick already sat there with closed eyes and visualized the plan of the castle grounds trying to map out his potential sneaking routes.

‘The horses and boats should be ready till the evening. I refined the ‘stealth powder’ and Clayton already bought the clothes as well. All that’s left is to find the girls and sneak them out.’ Nick thought while other youths in arena were battling for their future.

The next six fights took a bit less than an hour and the lucky, or rather, the powerful and skillful top eight was decided. Other contestants watched them with dejection and envy, but they had their chance and none of the top eight got there with pure luck or the power of money – each was more impressive than the other. Few who didn’t make it, Faiz for example, could also easily be between them, but unfortunately had bad luck and met extremely strong opponents.

While gambling booths started to get busy again, emperor impatiently waved for the next round to start and Nick with his huge opponent Rifat entered the center of arena.

‘He is even bigger than king White! Did he eat some special vitamins during his childhood?’ Nick was astonished at the young giant in front of him.

If he had to win this fight, it wouldn’t be easy at all and suddenly he understood another serious problem – he had to take a head-on hit from the log in Rifat’s hand and then fake-pass out without getting heavily injured.

Three minutes after the fight started, Rifat was still energetically waving his weapon around. He already learned from Faiz’s experience that Nick was a terrifying and cheeky opponent. It was fine to take few hits from him on torso, but his jaw could break from kick similar to Faiz’s, therefore even if he had to wave his log till the late evening, there was no way for Rifat to allow Nick to come close.

Nick also continued to nimbly dodge all hits and from time to time even managed to hit Rifat on his thigh and back, but those hits produced no reaction. On contrary, it looked like he was running out of breath himself. Nick’s breathing slowly became irregular and shallow until, after barely dodging few swings in an ugly manner, he finally got hit and passed out after landing on the ground face down.

Rifat was as surprised as the spectators, but soon everyone understood – the kid was only a kid after all and could not have the tenacity of a twenty or twenty five year old young man.

Nick ‘woke up’ few minutes later and murmuring something about being exhausted under his nose, went back to the others to wait for the finals. While carelessly watching the rest of the fights, he went over the information he had and checked his equipment in the wristband. After half an hour the semi finals started and after two more fights, the finals.

The winner surprisingly became Rifat, who got his right arm broken in semis, but insisted on continuing and after taking a serious beating from his opponent, still managed to knock him out with the log in his left hand.

Although this was quite a feat, audience was disappointed with this win since they all made obvious bets against him. Still, Rifat got his fairly earned applause and cheers and the emperor himself jumped down in arena to present a dark belt with golden embroilments that symbolized Rifat’s newly earned status. The youth was ecstatic, others envious and audience still clapped quite reluctantly since this event brought big losses to many of them.

This was the first time Nick could observe emperor so close. While it was not allowed to directly look at him, with few side glances Nick confirmed that this old zombie looked exactly like his brother, only was dressed in black clothes and not a robe, without any fancy jewelry or extravagant pieces. He had no weapon as well, but Nick knew where all the treasures, including weaponry, were.

After the crowd calmed down, emperor held a short speech congratulating the winner and all the ‘future pillars of the nation’ and ordered every alive participant except for top eight to report to general Qubaisi for their future assignments and training.

This was different from the previous rule of top sixty four becoming officers and Nick believed it was a political move that could gladden aristocrats who suffered monetary and even human losses during the tournament. In addition, the youths who managed to survive four rounds of bloodshed could be considered experienced and with future prospects.

‘Hmm, turns out initial registering was not for naught after all.’ Nick thought while emperor continued his speech.

“The top eight will follow me to the castle and each one of them will have a special assignment according to their talents!” Emperor shouted in a proud voice. This was also a norm during previous tournaments, so the audience continued to politely clap while the eight ‘lucky’ participants dropped in one knee symbolizing their status as direct underlings of His Imperial Majesty.

Thus the event ended and the emperor’s entourage returned back to the castle accompanied by eight new employees. At this point Nick was already paying maximum attention to his surroundings, watching the guards on the bridge as well as the entrance to the castle. There were some people on the streets who were cheering at them from sides and Rifat excitedly showed off his prize waving it over the head. Others didn’t seem to care too much and were more looking forward to their new carrier.

‘Steven and Clayton must be somewhere in the crowd to make sure I got in. Later I have to find a way to get out and debrief them on the situation. But first, let’s investigate.’ Nick thought to himself.

After crossing the bridge, castle guards greeted the emperor and the procession entered a large plaza that was surrounded by several buildings. Nick was already familiar with the layout from the map Nazir provided, but still needed to learn the purpose of each structure and the positions of the sentries guarding those.

The emperor’s carriage stopped at the far end of the plaza close to the largest building which had a high tower with one side attached directly to the castle wall. The other tower was of similar height to the first and just like its twin it could be seen almost from the city borders. It was built on the opposite side of the plaza, also with a building at it’s base and directly at the wall as well. The second building was smaller than the first which probably was the emperor’s residence.

Every structure, including castle walls, buildings and towers, was built in the same dark stone and thus the whole castle gave off intimidating, oppressing and gloomy feeling. Nobody knew if the emperor had designed it himself or it was here already before his time, because officially emperor was immortal and had already lived for eternity.