( Leo's POV )
On the day of the quarter-finals almost as soon as Leo logged back into the game, he was called for by the royal maid, who escorted him to the contestants carriage.
A convoy of 8 carriages all guarded heavily by royal guards left the palace together, as it seemed like the Emperor did not wish for any more lapses in security detail.
Instead of sending out eight separate convoys, which was the usual norm, he concentrated them all into one single unit with eight times the security, as the march of the convoy towards the grand arena looked more like a legion marching rather than a security convoy moving.
The convoy safely reached its intended destination a couple hours before the start of the grand tournament, as it seemed like nobody was foolish enough to attack the convoy of contestants this time around.
Despite reaching the Grand Arena, a couple security officials stuck beside each contestant, as they were all seperated into individual warm-up rooms.
'Damn, even more waiting time….' Leo cursed as he did not enjoy the empty time where he was not allowed to do anything much at all.
When he had nothing to do, the nervousness and overthinking began to creep in, which threw him off his usual game of flashy overconfidence.
Deciding to have a bit of fun, Leo pointed towards the two guards assigned for his security detail that were silently standing in his waiting room as he said "I'm not in danger here gentlemen, I am the danger…."
The royal guards only blinked in confusion at his words however, as the joke seemed to have landed flat on them.
Leo, however, began laughing at his own joke as he tried to brush off the growing anxiety with a bit of humor, so that the nerves did not get to him.
"What if I win this whole thing with some dull dumb move? How utterly mundane would that be? Imagine the disappointment of my fans," he mused, striking a pose in front of the mirror as if he was rehearsing a dramatic finishing move.
"The Boss doesn't just win; he wins with style." He said, spreading his arms wide and nodding his head as he talked to himself aloud.
The two guards momentarily looked towards each other, wondering if Leo had finally lost his mind, however, they said nothing, as they let him psych himself up in peace.
Leo paced back and forth in the waiting room to kill time with each step being an effort to turn his restless energy into a spark of excitement. "No one's here for a snooze fest," he reminded himself, smiling at the absurdity of his own nerves, as he vowed to bamboozle the crowd in the upcoming matches and cement himself as the number one player.
As the time to enter the arena drew closer, the distant sounds of the crowd began to seep through the walls, reminding Leo of the hundreds of thousands waiting to see him fight today.
While he could not see it yet, the stands today were completely different to the cluttered mess of the previous rounds, as unlike the smaller arena's that could house only a few thousand spectators, the Grand Arena was a well planned collosus that could hold hundreds of thousands at once.
Here, the stands were distinctly divided into upper and lower pavillions, with the upper pavilions housing the nobles and the aristocrats, alongside the principals and teachers of various academies, Master Warriors, foreign dignitaries etc.
The Emperor and his family, alongside the Kings of different races had VIP boxes of their own, where they seemed to be enjoying refreshments and beverages before the tournament began.
The lower pavillions on the other hand were where the bulk of the spectators were seated, with there being a seperate section for fans of other races which had a seperate entrance of its own.
In an arena of about 200,000 people, a single section of roughly 20,000 fans was reserved for fans of other races, where elves, barbarians, dwarves, beastmen and other racial groups living within the Empire sat forming their own cliques.
The elves, beastmen and barbarians, who had a contestant from their race fighting in the quarter finals seemed to have turned out in large numbers to support them, as although their overall numbers were less when compared to the human crowd, they still chanted for their candidates loudly, to make sure that their voices were heard and their contestants knew that they had supporters in this hostile crowd too.
As for the human crowd, they were undoubtedly the most rowdy bunch as the cheers they produced were the loudest, with them feeding off one another's energy to make the excitement and the buzz of the arena grow even louder.
The sheer magnitude of the cheers and chants was so loud that the arena walls reverberated at times from the collective voices, and this was even before the tournament officially began.
Somewhere in the lower stands, Ben sat with his arms folded as he waited for Leo to show up.
Once again he was the first fighter for the day, as the Emperor seemed to have carefully picked him to be the first fight so that the crowd energy could be spiked from the very start.
For the Emperor, the grand tournament was like a giant washing machine which washed all of his incompetencies under the guise of kindness and magnamity.
Every year as the grand tournament rolled around, the commoners forgot about their daily life struggles and started to debate about upcoming fighters and who should win and who should not.
It was a circus, a distraction from things that really mattered, however, it was exactly what the Emperor wanted them to focus on.
The grand tournament was one of the principal reasons behind why there had been no uprising and rebellion in the Empire so far, as it served as a circus that binded all people and pacified general anger.