Preliminaries, Zone 24.
This should have been a zone without any suspense. Like the zones containing seeded contestants such as Chiliao, Lola, and Sarandi, the favorite to advance here was the fourth-place finisher of the first qualifying group, seeded contestant No. 1305—Radast, a reclusive powerhouse from the Shadow Empire.
When passing through Courage Land, Radast had taken only twenty-six minutes, even faster than Gustav, Bloodshade's First General. It was said that this man had always kept a low profile, and his strength should have reached the peak of the Devil Emperor level.
Radast calmly surveyed the other one hundred ninety-nine contestants and showed no hurry to act. He was a man skilled in calculation. Among these contestants, the early-stage Devil Emperor mage Gaye should have been his strongest opponent. Though mages were weak in close combat, they possessed countless methods that were impossible to guard against. Moreover, the next round after the preliminaries would be one-on-one elimination matches. He had to conserve every scrap of strength and strive to kill with a single blow.
Just as Radast had anticipated, the other contestants did not join forces to attack him. Instead, they began slaughtering one another. A few tried to ambush him amid the chaos, but Radast disposed of them with ease.
After taking care of the ambushers, Radast suddenly sensed Gaye vanish from his mental lock. He could not help but be startled, thinking his opponent had activated some special magic. But when he focused his gaze, he was even more shocked. Gaye, whom he had regarded as his greatest enemy, had been struck on the head by a translucent onion and was already unconscious.
Radast had some impression of this onion. It was the onion-faced contestant who had ranked third from last overall in the preliminaries, named Dodo. The