Dimensional Descent

No one bothered to try and get the key back from Aina.

They were all aware that Leonel was still here in some capacity, and whatever method he was using to avoid being banished would definitely work again on the key. As for those that felt they were powerful enough to face Leonel, they didn't care about whose hands the tenth key was in. As far as they were concerned, the Council was just a glorified paper tiger and they had already accomplished the wishes of their various families, empires and powers. The rest would sort itself out very shortly as the Preliminaries were already soon to be underway.

When the day came, the teleportations began in batches.

The tournament would be projected in the skies of the city, as well as from the large Stele that teleported them all here in the first place. The participants wouldn't have to go anywhere and they would be plucked out of the city on a whim. When it was their turn to go, they would be alerted and a few seconds would pass before they were forcefully teleported to the arena.

As it was the preliminaries and there were quite literally trillions of participants, there would be many battles going on at once.

As much as these powers would like it to be different, the Gathering of Kingdoms remained as objective as possible. Rather than matches with convoluted rules and things of the like, there would instead be simple battles.

In the preliminaries, one would have three battles. It was only necessary to win one to make it through to the next round.

Those that won on their first or second battle would have no need for a second or third battle and would be considered to have successfully passed.

Even by this point, Yuri had yet to calm down. To her, Aina's words about how she had only died because she didn't listen to Leonel sounded borderline psychotic. However, when Aina told her she was going to lose her first two matches on purpose, she almost fainted.

"Why would you do that?!"

"Because it decides seeding," Aina said as though it was only a matter of course.

"That's why you should try to win as soon as possible!"

face opponents that are too weak. What

her hair out. This was a tournament that would decide which worlds were effectively genocided, this wasn't a time for

like she

"Aina, you..." Savahn started.

causing

already," Aina shrugged eventually. "Since you

"Aina!"

pulled her back, shaking her head, "haven't you noticed

even understand what Savahn was saying. She

"Notice what?"

no other humans

eyes widened, then

to have 10% of your genius population pass the preliminaries, and

want to reach the Finals?" Yuri said. "But...

was rushing to her head. The problem wasn't just reaching the Finals, but if Aina wanted the best shot at it, why was

moment, a ticker

it's our

Then, they vanished.

she said, Aina directly forfeited both the first and second rounds, not even lifting

paying special attention to what was happening were

to be a friendly gathering, so it was, of course, the case that there were many rules for mercy and things of

one was pushed out of the arena, the match would also

made what Aina was doing make any more sense. The higher ups were even more confused. Why do all of this just