When Ryo said those words, I didn't know what to make of it. Was this the work of that shadow that we saw earlier? The missing people in the audience that Alphonzo and Henza were investigating?
Everyone here had been invested in Jo and Polaris' match-up until the finality. Around that time, the disappearances of the other nine contenders, and even some of the healer mages in the Keep, had occurred. When Jo's match concluded, that had been the time everyone else noticed.
"Isn't there someone who can read minds here?" Viper asked, exhibiting that same forward attitude I had come to know from the first time I met her.
"Yeah, it was my 1st Exec, Marley. She went missing before the match," Snow answered.
"Of course, she was one of the first ones taken, that's not suspicious at all," she passively accused.
"V—Viper, you don't have to say it like that…" Love said to her.
"Hey…" Snow fixed her with a sharp look. "You're not assuming Marley did it, are you?" He strode up to her, hands in his pockets, but demeanor coming off gently ill-disposed. I knew it was mainly because Viper was a chick that he didn't go full on belligerent. That didn't change the fact that Snow had always been extra protective regarding his team. A favorable trait we shared.
"I don't know. This is all kinda sketch. Just brainstorming," Viper replied, still with that passive tone, glowering at him all the while.
"Some way to brainstorm… and what about you? I've heard you have heightened senses. How come you weren't able to track who was vanishing? You three Golden Rose Knights are still here. How's that for suspicious?"
"You dare pick a fight with the Golden Roses? If you want to talk about a Guild that's all still here, why don't you look at the Black Wolves? All three of their members are still here. Or will you not suspect them because you're friends? Maybe you're all in it together?"
"Greed and Jo were just upstairs in the middle of a match!"
"Jo was, but what about Greed? I had a feeling he was dangerous from the first time I met him…"
Viper faced me. Her colorful eyes were cold when they studied me; she was still a bit wary—that much I could sense…
Snow clicked his tongue at her, and I didn't say anything. That's when Ryo stepped in. "Now, now. We should not be arguing amongst ourselves. We should be figuring out where the others are. Isn't their safety the top priority right now?" the heart of the Valley said.
Nash snickered in the background at the fact that I was somehow thrown under the bus after all that.
"Greed and I saw a shadow in the hallway earlier; that's why we left," Rex spoke up. He was not in his usual joking mood. Two of his subordinates, Rowen and Maine, had also gone missing. "My team outside has been sending me updates and telling me there have been some disappearances throughout the colosseum as well. All happening while we are conducting this Tournament. And the reason we came back was because we ran into Alphonzo and his subordinate, who are also looking into this mystery. During the time Greed and I were away, we had gotten trapped in a Dimensional Territory someone had set up. By the time we escaped, some time had already passed—hence why we had missed a total of three matches by the time we came back—even though when we were in that sub-space it only felt like mere minutes…"
After Rex had concluded his thought, another voice separate from all of ours entered in. That stoic sternness was something I was starting to get familiar with… Unfortunately.
"What he says is truth," Alphonzo announced as he came in the room from one of the many entrances.
Following him was that baggy-eyed traitor from close behind. Henza.
When everyone saw him, they all reacted; some even drew weapons and readied their magics. It appeared that I wasn't the only one who felt that way about him. The only one who didn't react, surprisingly, was Nash…
"You may all relax. Henza here is my subordinate. He is no longer a Blue Phoenix Knight. You may simply ignore his presence if that makes you all feel better," Alphonzo reassured.
Though everyone was hesitant, they eventually complied. Ryo was another one who didn't react; he must have already known about Henza's situation.
"Now, to get to the matter at hand, I want to update you with our findings so far." Alphonzo then took out a pendant and pressed its center. When he did, he chanted a spell that was a different type of magic than his own,
"Projection Magic: Divine Map"
A hologram of sorts emitted in front of him, showing a three-dimensional map of the underground hallways of the colosseum. The big space in the middle was the Warriors' Keep.
"This is the map of the entire underground hallway system underneath the colosseum." He pointed to three different sections of the halls. "Here, here, and here we found evidence of Dimensional Territory rifts."
After he had pointed to the three areas, they traced a line to each point, and it was in the shape of a triangle.
"And here, here, and here there was evidence of closed rifts…" As he pointed to those three areas, they formed an upside-down triangle. He traced each, his three-dimensional map marking the areas of each point.
Once he finished, the right-side-up triangle and the upside-down one overlapped, forming a type of star…
"And when you align it with the shape of the colosseum above,"—he brushed his hand down, and the three-dimensional colosseum hovered over the map of the underground hallways—"you get this…"
The circle lined up with the points on each of his findings, forming—
"A pentagram," Zeno said.
"Precisely," Alphonzo confirmed. "Long story short, whoever is behind the vanishings is using these markers as their entry and exit ways. Now here's the interesting part…"
He then took a notebook out from his robe and flipped the page to the map he had gathered from his sources in the Ocean Kingdom. Tracing it with his fingers, then pulling his finger away, the map from the notebook was now a small three-dimensional copy in view to us all. With his other hand, he expanded his fingers and then layered it over his current map of the colosseum.
"What is this now?" Viper questioned impatiently.
"This," Alphonzo replied, "is a map that does not exist, because it is the map of the Dimensional Territory."
As we looked at it, the hallways were so intricate that it was hard to follow how one path led to another. "I didn't understand the conceptualization of this map until I did this."
Alphonzo then snapped his fingers, and the hallways on that map began shifting into different places constantly. The halls bent and created stairways, curving and leading from one end of the colosseum to the other, and they constantly shifted, never remaining the same.
"To conclude, whoever is behind these disappearances is using these pathways to make it happen. And they can do it in the blink of an eye because there is no concept of time in this Dimensional Territory. They can also control the time in the space, whether for themselves or for others—explaining why Greed and Rex were gone for three full matches." He looked at us for an awkward length of time before continuing, "Whoever is behind it is indeed skilled. And because the entry and exit points are underground in these halls." Alphonzo glared at each and every one of us. That expressionless face that radiated I'm on to you said it all. "Means that the perpetrator is here in this very Keep."
If there was a moment when Ryo wanted unity, this was not it.
Jumping back to where we had started when we were suspecting each other, Viper once again accused, "I can only think of two mages that participated in today's Tournament who have an ability even remotely close to this… and that is Marley of the Silver Sharks, and Cecillia of the Forest Kingdom."
Snow retaliated, "There you go again, blaming my subordinate."
"You awfully have a lot of faith in someone who was sneaking around when you were trying to find them," Viper stung.
"What?" Snow asked, confused.
"I sensed her in the hall when you were looking for her. She snuck off somewhere and has since disappeared. She lost her match, then, once a few other matches passed, she up and leaves. And since then, more and more of us have been vanishing. I find that curious, now that I'm saying all of this out loud…"
Alphonzo's intrigued eyes met Snow at this time, and so did others as Viper had stated her case.
"This is ridiculous! Do any of you know Marley's ability at all?" Snow defended. "Her ability is Mindwave magic; she can control electric waves from her brain and link it to other people's brains, which lets her read minds one at a time. It even lets her manifest as a mental body through thoughts. But she can't create an elaborate subspace out of nowhere. Your point lacks concrete facts. Sorry you had to see this side of me, Love." Snow winked as he somehow managed to flirt toward the end.
Love shyly gave him a pity laugh in response.
Viper scoffed and then shifted her accusations, finally, over to Cecillia.
"Well then, how about her?" Nash spoke up from behind the crowd, pointing over to Cecillia now. "You said she was your other culprit, right? If anything, I'm leaning more toward her as the prime suspect. Did you see how she fought in her last match?"
The quiet Cecillia from the corner of the Keep raised her head slightly.
It was hard to tell her expression, especially with those bandages wrapped over her eyes like a blindfold.
As they recalled how she had fought in her match, it seemed like Cecillia was teleporting against Marley.
"What's her ability again?" Rex asked, "Greed and I weren't there after all."
Goro answered, "Timeskip magic. Let's her pause time temporarily, which allows her to appear as if she's teleporting when she fights. This is why she is labeled the fastest mage in all the Valley." He had been listening and waiting to gather all his thoughts. He usually solved these things with Rin, who was an expert at these sort of things, but she was ironically one of the ones who vanished as well.
It was as if the one who did this knew to take out some of the key players: Marley and her Clairvoyant abilities, Rin and her sharp debunking skills. Leaving the rest who were a bit harder to vanish here in this room.
"When you mentioned the Sub-Space ability, a.k.a. the Dimensional Territory, it all made sense. I had wondered how, even with my heightened senses, I was not able to track who had gone missing… and well… it's because they're not in the same realm as us anymore," Viper said, looking over to Cecillia observantly. All eyes were on her now. "Tell us… is your ability really 'Timeskip' magic? Or is it something more?"
Cecillia clicked her tongue, choosing to remain silent thereafter.
"Nothing to say, Head Guard?"
This whole time, Alphonzo had also said nothing. He was like a serpent waiting to strike. Like he wanted us to figure out who it was. And then once he was sure—
"All right, folks! The ring has been repaired to its original state! Thank you for your patience while we reinforce our arena for the next match!" the announcer stated. "Now, let's bring in our next set off— Huh? Hold on just a second, Valley citizens, I'm getting a call in."
The announcer's speech was interrupted suddenly, and right then, I heard Alphonzo speak into his comm, "Is Daz listening? … Good. There have been vanishings in the Warriors' Keep. Here is the list of contenders still here…" He mentioned all the names of the ones present.
Inaudible chatter sounded on the other end. And while the projections cut out the announcer, they went on to show random recaps from previous fights.
Alphonzo went on, "If I may make a suggestion on the next round…"
After that, Alphonzo's words were impossible to hear. It was as if he had silenced himself with magic somehow so that none of us could get in on it; we couldn't even read his lips, as it had distorted the moment he started speaking.
"Uh, okay! Sorry about that, folks," the announcer came back on screen. "I just got word that we are going to be doing something a bit different. Rather than continue into our first round, we will be moving on to stage 2 of the 1st bracket!"
I could hear the crowd's boos and confusion from here.
"This was a change-up by Arcane King Daz himself, as an interesting turn of events has given us the opportunity to present the Valley Tournament winner sooner rather than later!"
At this time, the projection screens for the audience changed. And all of us in the Warriors' Keep were there for all to see…
"The fuck?" I said. And when I looked over to where Alphonzo and Henza were, they had quietly moved to the other end of the Keep. Avoiding the screen's view of them.
"While we were holding the main Tournament up here, we were also holding a secret tournament below to speed up the process! By doing this, we have expedited stage 2! And these, folks, are all your second round contenders!"
Interesting turn of events… secret tournament… speed up the process… the irony in those words… Talk about a cheap bluff. There's no way the citizens would buy—
"Not to worry though! After today, the fights of the secret tournament will be available on your comms for all to witness, just in case you didn't get to see your favorite mage battle on stage!" the announcer went on.
They started showing fights on the screens that I had never seen, with the background being the Warriors' Keep itself.
How the fuck…
I glanced over to Alphonzo who held yet another item, hands interwoven over it to create a hand sign, casting some kind of Illusionary magic.
"At this point, I'm suspecting Alphonzo," I said, squinting my eyes.
"You're just mad he one-upped you in your Trial," Nash jabbed.
"Shut up."
"Now please help me welcome the next set of contenders to the ring!" the announcer shouted, "Cecillia of the Forest Kingdom—"
But I now understood.
"—and Lance of the Golden Roses!"
When the announcer said his name—Golden Boy, or, I should call him Tantrum Boy with the scene he had apparently made in his first match—I glanced over to him. He had been silent that whole interaction.
I bore witness to his face; his hazel eyes were wide with bitter rage, glowering heavily in Cecillia's direction. And I knew why they had chosen this match first for the second round.
After this fight, I might have to change Lance's nickname to something more fitting and serious… like 'Executioner.'