In a secluded room on the Colosseum, three women stared down at the arena with a concerned look on their faces.
Eldea took a deep breath before nodding her head, confirming the abhorrent suspicions everyone in the room had.
"He’s one of them," the blind woman said.
"How dare they have the gall?!" Rivet snarked, her oil-ridden nose scrunching. "They must know that a Heavenly Knight and a Mystic Master is always watching something of this much importance!"
For normal people and Maugnetics, an Artifice was almost impossible to detect. But for these women here, their intuitions easily alerted them of a dirty presence in the arena.
Their dealings with the Ersatz trained them to be perceptive when seeing an aberration.
And this human certainly couldn’t have won against a Conglomerate without that cold fake metal in his heart.
"I’ll go over there and stop the fight right now!" Rivet said, folding her sleeve.
But the blind swordsman stopped her. "Don’t. It would only work in their favor."
"What?"
Duchess Regina crossed her arms on her chest. "They know we’re here. They just don’t care. They know we’ll lose more if knowledge about the Artifice and Ersatz becomes public knowledge."
Eldea fixed the stained blindfold on her head. "What about Xere?"
The Duchess shook her head. "I don’t think she can help with this. At least, not yet."
"Then we’ll just have to watch this farce with our hands tied behind our backs?!"
Silence filled the room.
Glancing at the arena down below, Duchess Regina leaned her head on her hands as she sat back casually on her seats.
"That’s right. All we have to do now is trust."
Rebornians have always proven themselves to be a group full of surprises.
...
...
...
Sheina stepped into the Sanctum, plummeting down into a desert area and sending chunks of sand cascading into the air.
She looked at her opponent.
An arrogant man who looked more than eager to fire the first shot on his bow. She saw him looking up at the clear blue sky, as if he was making sure that the audience was looking at him, and only him.
Then, he turned to look at her.
Immediately, a boom of power caused his surrounding sand particles to scatter.
The image of a monstrous abomination of a Diva appeared above his head. Born in the style of a carbon pencil-type sketch, a gigantic Fly Diva appeared in the battlefield.
Its hands rubbed against each other as a normal housefly would, but somehow, this only made the Diva look like it was planning something sinister.
The most recognizable aspect of this Artifice Diva was its compound eyes. Bulging out of its sockets, it wasn’t hard to guess that its Aubility Power was somehow related to the all-seeing ability of the Fly.
Sheina released hers. The adorable white Dragon manifested out of golden lights, before settling above her head in a perch.
The comparison for both Divas was like night and day. One was monstrous, and the other... a mere fly.
The Ersatz Archer immediately ducked down, making his preparations for the battle to come.
Sheina, on the other hand, looked a bit... unsettled.
"... it’s okay... I’m not getting left behind. It’s fine," she convinced herself.
However, she couldn’t help but let her thoughts get distracted by the fact that everyone in the Reborn Company was currently besieging a Stronghold, while she was here doing nothing but shooting her arrows.
It didn’t help the fact that she just received word that they had just finished the job in record time.
The Shadow Orcs triumphed. Some of them finally found the chance to awaken their Divas. Good. They need more Maugnetics in the Nation of Reborn.
But some also found out that they could advance even further than the 1st stage of the Body Formation realm! That was just one or two stages away from her own cultivation, when she was supposed to be Lord Michael’s right hand woman—
—and that’s... fine.
However, what she couldn’t accept was the fact that her siblings fought against cultivators in the 7th stage of Body Formation.
They found the catalyst to finally propel them from the 3rd stage upwards!
Meanwhile, she was still here, stuck and stagnant!
Could she be jealous? Of course not. A dignified secretary of the great Lord Michael was not as superficial as that. She was not. Definitely.
"...i am not jealous," she muttered.
Just then, the Ersatz archer finally finished his preparations.
He suddenly jumped out of the sand a few meters away from Sheina, his bow already drawn.
"What are you mumbling there about?!" he shouted, shooting his arrow.
The shot turned into a thin line, the arrow itself becoming smaller and smaller until it essentially disappeared.
And in the last vestiges of its visibility, the arrow curved, much like how a fly would move.
This was the Ersatz Archer’s Aubility. An annoying fly shot. Invisible and insidiously silent. His opponent in the semi-finals didn’t even know he was hit only after it was already too late.
The Conglomerate wasn’t able to see it. There was a very high chance this ’demi-human’ wouldn’t be able to see it too.
Just then, Sheina clicked her tongue.
"You’re not even worthy as a sparring partner," she muttered.
She drew her Compound Bow and drew shot after shot.
Light arrows zoomed, seemingly hitting nothing but air.
However, each arrow caused the Ersatz archer to gasp in shock. His arrows were split in half, bifurcated perfectly at the center with barely any errors!
She could see his arrows!
It was then that he noticed that the white Dragon above her head had its eyes half-open, staring at him with absolute coldness.
Unnerved, the Ersatz archer discharged more fly arrows.
But Sheina treated them with disdain.
"Stop with all that buzzing!" she shouted, drawing her bow to the fullest, making her Darkwood glow with a mystical light.
"I’M NOT JEALOUS!" she shouted.
And suddenly, the Ersatz Archer found his vision turning into nothing but darkness.