Demon Lord's Reincarnation

Nero took out his spell guns whispered something to them and filled them with his mana. When he heard Julia announce the start of the battle, he saw several of Xia's chakrams coming towards him. Nero used the spell guns for a precision wind spell to hit the chakrams coming his way.

The spell guns were weapons that has stored spells within them, and all you need to do to activate those spells was to first insert mana into them, then press a specific button on the handle, and finally pull the trigger to fire out the spell. Of course, once all the spells that were stored have been used up, you can also simply insert mana into them and it will shoot out balls of pure mana. Even though Shooting out the balls of pure mana was stronger it also drains one's mana supply faster.

Upon hitting the chakrams they changed trajectories. As Nero was busy dealing with the chakrams, Xia had easily got behind him. Xia was going to strike out at the unsuspecting Nero, but then Nero showed a playful smile. The moment Xia saw his smiling face she wanted to quickly back away.

She knew that anytime a person from Ren's family shows a smiling face means imminent danger. Though she reacted quickly enough she felt her body feeling a bit heavier.

"What did you do to me?"

"Like I said I'm not really that good of a mage like my mom. On the other hand, I find these little things a bit more interesting." Nero showed Xia an empty vial.

"My own creation, a biological weapon that attacks the person from the inside. Normally those that have breathed it in would be knocked unconscious for at least a full day. Only people like me who have drunk my antiserum would be perfectly fine. It is quite curious to see that you weren't knocked out. I have tested this against some young dragons and even those who are said to have the greatest resistance to any abnormal status were unable to resist its effects. I wonder what makes you different, is it your mana supply, is it because you are not of this world, or is it something else? How curious I really want to open you up and see how your body works. "

While Nero was giving his explanation and looking rather creepily at Xia as he slowly approached, Xia started controlling her chakrams to attack. Nero evaded the chakrams while shooting them down. On the other hand, Xia found it harder and harder to move as whatever Nero used on her was more potent than she thought.

"I thought you were somehow similar to your father, but it turns out you're completely different from him. He would never use such underhanded means to win."

"Of course, I'm different from my father, why do you people keep thinking that as his son I need to be like him? I'm me and only me. I don't go around wanting to attack the strongest person I see. It's not like I enjoy fighting, as I prefer doing research. Well anyway, I don't fight battles and wish I would lose like my respected father. I cannot allow myself to give handicaps to my opponent. I fight using everything available to me, and I fight to win. Against someone like you who has years and years of battle experience, as well as having a stronger body and greater mana supply than I, under normal circumstances I wouldn't win at all. So I needed to even the playing field."

"If you wanted to do something like this, then why did you allow them to remove the restrictions on me?"

"It's different if you were already restrained from the beginning or if it was I who was the one that restrained you."

"... Doesn't that make you feel like you cheated?"

"Is there such a thing in the battlefield, on the battlefield, there are only winners and losers, right? Well enough talk, I know that you've been stalling as you try to recover from your weakened state."

It was true that Xia tried purging whatever was within her while she was talking with Nero, but in the end, she could only purge a tiny bit of it. She felt her body become a little lighter but it was still hard to move the way she wanted to. Still, this was enough for her to be able to face Nero.

Now that she knew what kind of warrior Ren's son was, she was more cautious as she faced him. She couldn't allow the cunning young man to get close to her.

...

The people who were watching the fight had mixed feelings about it. The way Nero fought was so different from what they expected from the person nicknamed the young emperor of magic. Yet they couldn't fault him for using such tactics against a stronger opponent. Still, they couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment as they expected something different from him. Some of them even wanted to jeer at the young man but held themselves back since he is still the son of the Emperor.

Many might have forgotten it since the Emperor has done many great things that helped the lives of the people, but fifteen years ago, the Emperor was like a monster on the battlefield. No one in their right mind would want to provoke such a person.

...

Despite struggling for a few more moves and even managing to injure Nero, Xia was still unable to overcome Nero's biological weapon. She was kneeling while Nero had his spell gun pointed at her forehead.

"Do you yield?"

"Heh, you might have used such underhanded methods but a victory is a victory. Be proud young one, Amongst all I have fought even counting your father, I consider you the person who truly understands the battlefield more than anyone." Xia raised her hands signaling her defeat.

...

After Nero's battle, Xia was unable to continue with the tests and only four of the heroes remained. Once she was out of the picture it was Sora's descendant Hayate that was challenged by the children of the Emperor and Valdel's children.

Hayate found it really irritating to fight those children as it reminded him of fighting those mid-bosses in the video games he used to play. Difficult but not overly powerful to be too much of a problem, yet as they came one after another it became irritating.

In the end, not all of the mighty Emperor's children were able to pass the preliminaries. Only ten participants got through the preliminaries. Four of the Emperor's children, three of Valdel's children, and finally three that were part of the normal participants. Thus ended the preliminaries of the tournament.