Duchess Medea goes into hunting spree mode again, as many teams targetted the Angelos and are unaware of what happened to the Luicasha and Ilemia. She waits for the squads to come after them, like a lioness waiting for its prey to come leisurely without knowing their fate. She started with two badges and now has four proudly displayed on her coat, making Apollo and the others beam with pride.
"Your Grace, would you hunt them down now?" Lord Julian asks, sneaking into the small area around the waterfall, where the flag is located.
Since the waterfalls would prevent anyone from seeing the flag clearly unless they invaded, Medea decided to plant it there. Due to Medea's preference for knocking them out rather than drawing blood, the other sword has not yet been stained.
"Shall I hunt them down?"
"How long has it been now?" Duchess Valimos asks another question.
"It's almost two hours already," Lord Apollo looks up when Duchess Valimos is about to descend from the trees again.
She ties her silky hair, tucking it entirely behind the ears. It sometimes bothers her, and she doesn't like it to be a nuisance, especially when fighting. Then, however, the amethyst eyes catch on something again. Another team from Septimus galloped their horses there. She also spots one of the men, who she assumes is the leader has one badge.
He must be overconfident with his achievement and decided to charge here blindly. Yet, something smells rat about that. He marches alone with one man by his side. As if to turn himself in with the man.
"Either he is foolishly brave, or he had something on his sleeve."
Another idea comes to her mind. However, she also relies on luck in this strategy. This time, she is going to conserve her energy for it.
"There's no one here, my lord," the man asks Lord Aulus in Septimus' language.
"Impossible," Lord Aulus replies, as it is indeed no one here, there's no trace of them here as well. Except for multiple horses and blood pooling at one place.
"Leave," he finally concludes, hitting the horse and taking his leave from there, feeling it is an obvious trap for them.
Something shifts, shaking around the bushes as it continues to move wildly. The sounds of the leaves crackle and crunches behind it pique Lord Aulus' curiosity about who is about to depart. But, the other side did the same, with the bushes starting to dance around, approaching their side. It slowly increases its pace, causing Lord Aulus to determine one thing, and smiles internally.
The sounds of the horses neigh not too far, galloping towards them without hesitation, makes Lord Aulus and his aide depart immediately, trying to lure Medea's team where the other will wait and ambush them. He turns around, finding Lord Apollo and Julian caught over them, with horses behind. He can't get to see it clearly and focus on riding the horse correctly.
"They are slowly coming out from the North's area," Lord Aulus thought when still hearing about horses kicking on the ground behind them.
They almost reach the place they lay on the trap, where the other decided to make them fall out of the horse by spooking it.
"Now!" Aulus shouts quickly as the men try to spook on it.
The men are about to throw off soft yet firm roots under the horses, wriggling them like snakes to spook them. However, something throws them off since the horses galloped without anyone riding them. Where did the two men go? Lord Aulus cannot grasp what happened. The men were there but went missing out of the blue, like a ghost.
"Indeed, he has something on his sleeves," Medea thought after releasing Maximus and Philo's horses.
Duchess Medea nods over Julian and Apollo, who are gaining their breath again after turning their horses from the Septimus. She sees the Septimus team's minds are all over the place.
After this, she hits them with another trick when they are in their lowest mind to strike anything else.
"They should be nearer, now," Medea started to estimate something.
The Septimus is where they should be now, and she wants the other to reach in time. Medea relies on her luck as she watches them meet and lets them do the work. As she observes the other team drift away from the Septimus, Lord Apollo showers the Septimus, who begin to march with their horses again with pine cones.
The horse trotted over it and became startled as the roots in the men's hands swayed back and forth. The shock caused him to drop the roots in his hand. Unfortunately, it hits another horse's legs, spooking another one because horses are sensitive when something slithers on their legs.
The commotion attracts the other team as they slowly go there while the Septimus is in chaos. Their Lord sees a badge on the coat, waiting for the right moment to strike. Half of the Septimus falls off, causing the other team, Dzenerian ambushes them. The Septimus, just about to recover from the horses, is numb to think about the attack.
"Attack!" Lord Dzenarian yells as his team carries out the orders.
The Septimus hanging over a thread, fighting for their life against the Dzenarians. Their minds are all over the place, but Septimus puts up a good fight against Dzenarian. However, Dzenarians gain the upper hand when their Lord twists the leader's sword out of his hand, causing him to be defenceless. As the words stuck from his throat to yield, another neighing sound came from their side.
"Another team?" Medea thought, watching them slightly far away up on the tree.
The Dzenarians are about to taste the sweet victory, but four men emerge from the Septimus' side wearing the same attires. It has been three hours already. Round 2 started not too long ago. Thus, the odds against the Dzenarians to fight a team twice as much as theirs. It is their turn to be immobilised. The Septimus' leader takes advantage, slipping away from his grasp.
As they are about to slowly retreat, the additional team who just comes react faster to surround them in a circle.
"The wise warrior avoids the battle," Medea grins, looking at her strategy works. It doesn't need to be herself to hunt people down. Instead, she can use the other to hunt each other and snatch it, rather than wasting her energy.
Fortunately for the Dzenarians, their additional members come rush and ambush again. The Septimus scatters around, soon bouncing back to counterattack. All of them are fighting against each other; however, Medea could see that Dzenarians are far more experience than Septimus.
Her prediction is right when Lord Dzenarians gain the upper hand and Lord Septimus is defeated again.
"I forfeit," he mumbles underneath his breath, giving up the badges.
In the end, Lord Dzenarians gains two badges in total. However, there will be another team soon, and they need to regroup back. As they are still about to recover, Medea descends from the trees, ambushing the Dzenarians without waiting for the additional team.
This causes the Dzenarians to stumble back, their hearts still thumping against their ribcage from the even fights. But, like Medea said, they are more experienced in recovering fast from the ambush. Regardless, the Duchess takes no chance to fight against them, riding her horse along with the other Lords.
"Angelos!" Lord Dzenarians yells as the Dzenarians regroup back in a formation.
"Is this?"
The Duchess's quick wit foils their formation since handling horses to regroup back is slower than they intend. She leaps from her horse to land on another one, kicking its rider and then proceeds to ride it instead. She uses her sword to prick on the other horses, causing them to be in wild mode as she did with the Septimus earlier.
Lord Dzenarian is taken aback by the Duchess' skills and her forces. Indeed, the Angelos were built differently. In less than five minutes, she has taken down all the troops along with Apollo and the other two. Her sword waiting to taste the Dzenarian's blood, but he soon loses it.
"I surrender!" he said the same thing as Lord Septimus earlier.
He lets go of the three badges to Medea, watching in awe as his teammates lay unconsciously on the ground. The man smiles in honour of having a good fight against the Duchess. Only one person can fight like that against him in real life, and that's Marquess Alwyn. Now, he understands why Alwyn lets the Valimos lead this time. Her skills are beyond imagination.
Meanwhile, Duchess Valimos had an epiphany, "Isn't this a man who practically eyeing on Aurora before?"
"Nice to meet you, Duchess Valimos. I am Lord Hyacinth Regustus from the Dzenarians. It's an honour to meet you," the golden eyes sparkling in excitement.
At Eirene's ceremony place
Since the first bells from the North started, the ringing bells began to fill in the occasion from time to time. Duchess Medea has already gained four badges on this one, still leading the Angelos solely on the top, followed by Septimus two and the Vazoels one.
"No, it can't be. It is four badges now. She can't get it to pure luck, defeating four teams in less than three hours," Ares presses his fingers on his head hard, trying to make any sense out of it.
"Now the three hours have been up. It's time for the second round to begin. So let the next player enter the arena!" the commentator said.
The next four from the remaining team get up, walking to the arena right away. The crowd are bewildered to expect Marquess Alwyn to stand up for the second round; instead, he is waiting patiently next to Duchess Smith.
"Why are they not letting the Marquess finish it off?"
The other team could not understand Angelos' strategy this time and started to make their own theory about it. Rumours about the Marquess and Duchess Valimos being lovers in the past also spread wildly. However, the primary attention never bothers about it, as long as Medea is safe and sound.
Moreover, Hector's earrings and Natalie's necklace never twinkle, so they are in chilling mode. Natalie lets Hector choose which accessories he would let Medea wear and put magic spells on them, matching them with theirs, in case something dangerous happens again, like Hera's incident. In that way, their jewellery will twinkle a bit if Medea faces a perilous situation.
Regardless, the chime sounds started to ring twice, coming from the northeast.
"The arena began to swing the tide as the Dzenarians seized the second lead by gaining three badges from the Septimus. This means that the Dzenarians trailed the Angelos closely, and the Septimus will not participate in the third round," before he could even finish his announcement, the bell rang once again from the northeast.
"Isn't it just rang now?"
"How did it happen so fast?"
"It looks like the Angelos, lead by Duchess Valimos, doesn't even want to yield their lead yet, by disqualifying the Dzenarians right after and gaining seven badges in total," Ares' nose flamed in anger, as he couldn't believe what happened.
He cannot pinpoint what he is thinking, but it is impossible to gain it at a frightening pace. His mind wandered back when he heard some people ask something to Queen Cecilia about her thoughts on Angelos.
"We need to use another strategy on that. We can't face Angelos with Duchess Medea upfront," she discusses with her team when Ares gives his blessings to the Dzenarians.
At that time, Ares could only smile at the thought, thinking Cecilia was intimidated by Medea. However, why does it seems Cecilia knows something about her? His grip on the armrest tightens as his nails try to dig into the woods. He turns his head over, watching some people sit in a pair except him. The Emperor doesn't have an Empress yet.
His mind scatters around as he suddenly remembers Hera. No one ever found her yet, even with the Imperial forces. As if someone helps her, someone deceitful and cunning. He knows the Countess too well. She can't do that alone without any help from others.
"Perhaps she got help from other people? But who?"