His actions made Slav sigh and say, "I expected this. But it is still quite unfortunate."
He shook his head and spoke as if he was looking at and idiot, saying, "So disappointing. You’ve let your emotions control your judgement."
Then he smoothed out the wrinkle in his jacket that had appeared when he jumped earlier and said, "Since you want to fight to the bitter end, so be it."
Then he used the Contract Stasis Metac. This Metac makes the target freeze for a period of time that is proportional to how much leverage the contract wielder has over the target.
In this case, Slav was able to make Craig freeze for five seconds. In these five seconds, Craig will be defenseless and unable to do anything.
Slav did this because he didn’t want Craig to surrender. He wanted to kill or at least maim Craig for disrespecting him after he offered the contract benevolently many times.
So when he attacked next, he went for Craig’s throat. The small knife in his hands stabbed for Craig’s throat with the intention to kill.
Craig was kneeling in front of him frozen in shock, so killing him was not difficult. Unfortunately for him, someone interfered with his actions.
A blood red sword swooped him from the audience and kicked his knife away. Then the bloody sword hovered above Craig, protecting him from Slav. This saved Craig from the fate of being killed.
Slav was angry as he didn’t like the interruption at all. But he didn’t utter one word of complaint about the matter. He didn’t even look towards the source of the sword at all and simply gave up any resistance.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to speak. His father spoke up for him.
Skarg frowned and looked at the source of the interference as he asked in disdain, "Isn’t interfering in the battle of children beneath you, bloodhound?"
Bloodhound, a man wearing a red cloak with red hair and red eyes, didn’t look as he said, "Since it isn’t beneath you to interfere in their match by giving your son your money to win the fights, it shouldn’t be beneath me to interfere. At least I interfered openly without shame, unlike you."
His voice was calm and without fear, even though he was insulting Skarg. This was because the two of them were equal in cultivation.
Skarg is the leader of a society, and so is he. So he can say whatever he wants to the other.
His reply made Skarg chuckle and say, "You call my actions shameless, but I call your actions brainless. Now that you’ve interfered openly, you have broken the rules and will have to pay a fine."
"So at the end of the day, we both spent money to interfere in their fight. I just spent mine smarter than you did. After all, I was able to make someone win, while the best you could do was to ensure that someone could surrender."
These harsh words made Bloodhound chuckle and say, "That’s one thing I admire about you. You make shamelessness profitable."
"And your son seems to have acquired this trait, too. He was able to turn some cultivators into his slaves by offering to pay them to give up on the fight while shamelessly tampering with the conditions of the contract that they signed."
He knew that the contract that those people were signing was bad, but he didn’t do anything to save them because if they were going to fall for such an easy trick, they were not worth saving.
Craig was the only one who refused the contract, refused the money, and refused to give up. This is why he decided to save Craig at the cost of some fines.
Now he appeared to be praising Skarg and Slav, but in essence, he was just exposing their trick and calling them untrustworthy in front of everyone. This way, no one else will want to join their society.
This is another reason he allowed Slav to trick people into slavery. He wanted dirt that he could use to discredit Skarg and his society in front of everyone.
This time, his move was very successful. The face of every one of the cultivators who signed a contract paled in fright when they heard that they had been tricked. As for the ones who hadn’t signed any contract, they stepped away from their unlucky peers as if they were carrying a plague.
Skarg saw this reaction and knew that even though he had won the battle of words, he had lost the war for the recruitment of more manpower for his society. This made the frown lines on his face deeper.
However, despite being angry at the turn of events, he didn’t say anything anymore. He decided to give up now since there was nothing to be gained.
Unfortunately for him, someone else wasn’t going to let things go so easily. Another leader had something else to say.
This leader was a zombie. So his face was stiff as he said, "Year after year, your Viking Blade Society cheats, and every year we have to bear with it. But this year you’ve gone too far."
"Not only did you pay people to surrender and use that to trick them into becoming your slaves, but you intimidated some of them into giving up without a fight and without any money."
"Like that young man over there who forfeited all of his matches in the first round. I heard that you threatened to kill him if he didn’t give up, and even tried to kill him earlier this week. No wonder he didn’t have the guts to fight, even though he could beat your son."
"You’ve always played your tricks, but you’ve gone too far this time. With you behaving like this, what’s next? Will you browbeat everyone into giving up without paying them next time?"
"If you can do it to one person now, then you can do it to others later. So I think you have disrespected everyone here and turned this competition into a farce."