"Were we really doing the right thing?"
"If this went on, we'd lose an entire generation of young talent."
"Were we just going to watch those little brats with limitless potential die in battle, one after another?"
"Were we just going to watch those little brats with limitless potential die right before our eyes, one after another?"
Deep within the endless Void.
A supreme powerhouse spoke.
His voice carried a trace of doubt, and a trace of accusation.
He felt they had strayed from the right path. The choice they had made back then had been wrong.
Watching those little brats with limitless potential die one by one left him with complicated feelings.
After all, pick any one of those little brats and you would find a talent of extraordinary rarity, someone they had spent an enormous amount to nurture.
And now?
The prodigies they had spent so long nurturing were gone after a few hours on this Arena, or a dozen-odd hours at most.
Top prodigies nurtured for over a hundred thousand years were gone in a matter of hours here.
"The moment you said that, you showed you'd lost faith in them. You don't believe they can win in the end."
"They have limitless potential. That's true."
"They're powerful. That's true too."
"But true powerhouses crush everything in their path. Those who die here have proved they aren't strong enough yet."
"Losing and dying are no disgrace. Shrinking back is."
"What we need now are people with real potential, people truly worth nurturing."
"We can't afford to wait. How long would it take for them to show what they're capable of?"
"Better to put them here, under this crushing pressure. If they survive, they're worth nurturing. Then we can nurture them."
As another voice rang out, silence fell