After the City Lord announced the end of the duels along with the results, everyone left the arena to prepare for the next day.
The night passed quickly and it was now time for the group battles.
After all of the Sects gathered in the arena did the City Lord finally announce the beginning of the Group Battles.
"Welcome back everyone to the second stage of the Inter-Sect Tournament! We have now moved on from the Duels to the Group Battles! First, let me announce the rules of the Group Battles. Just like the duels, anything goes as long as you don't kill your opponent, but we have some extra rules this time around. First, each Sect will only be able to form one group containing 5 people. I know that each Sect has 15 people participating, but this is non-negotiable. Each group will have to appoint someone as Captain and the Captain will be in charge of directing the battle."
"The way to win is simple; Either defeat all of the members of the opposing group or defeat the Captain. Of course, you're free to surrender as well, but only the Captain has the authority to decide that. Next, onto the points! Each win will grant that Sect 20 points. Oh! One more thing, seeing how there is an odd number of Sects participating, the first place Sect in the Duels will face off against the last place Sect in order to even things out! Alright, now that everyone understands the rules, let's begin!"
"Battle Maiden Sect and Quintessential Ice Sect, you have 30 minutes to prepare before you fight! That also goes for the rest of you as well." The City Lord announced and the Quintessential Ice Sect disciples paled. This was the last thing they wanted to hear! However, they could only grind their teeth and accept it as they were just too weak this year to do anything.
Meanwhile, the Battle Maiden Sect disciples were ecstatic! This was essentially a free 20 points. Mira also couldn't help, but look towards the Quintessential Ice Sect with a hint of pity. These cultivators mainly had an Ice Affinity, but too bad for them that Mira's Absolute Ice Dao was a counter against other Ice Elemental users.
The disciples of the Battle Maiden Sect all looked towards Mira as it seemed like they unanimously decided to make her captain. Mira just looked at these people helplessly.
"I suppose I'll take up the role as captain. Hmm… Now for the 4 other people, I'll go with Alexa, Cleo, Maria, and Jade. Alexa and Cleo will be the vanguard, Jade will be the mid-guard, while Maria will be the rear-guard. Since I'll be acting as the captain then I'll also be part of the rear-guard. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Yes, I could deal with them by myself and honestly it'd probably be decided quicker if I did that, but we'll be up against better groups during the later rounds, so I'll be using this as a training ground for you 4 and won't intervene in this myself unless absolutely necessary. But honestly, if I have to intervene then I might as well just concede." Mira said indifferently and everyone just nodded. They weren't offended by Mira's words as they witnessed her frightening power just a few weeks ago. Also, if they truly did need Mira's help to defeat their opponent, then they'd also just want to go ahead and surrender.
Soon 30 minutes passed and it was time to start off the first battle.
The 2 groups made their way up to the stage and the Quintessential Ice Sect had fierce expressions as they were determined to win, but everyone noticed that the Battle Maiden Sect Disciples also had fierce expressions as well. This was due to Mira's 'motivating'.
Mira just stood at the back and watched the other 4 with a cold expression. She wasn't going to hold back against her own teammates if they fucked up.
"Alright, let's begin the first round of the Group Battles! Fight!"
The two sides immediately rushed towards each other. The Quintessential Ice Sect wanted to try and end things as quickly as possible since they knew a drawn-out battle would spell their inevitable defeat. As they were about to begin fighting, they heard someone yelling on the Battle Maiden Sect side.
"Jade, what the fuck are you doing?! You're the mid-guard, so open your eyes! 3 people are charging towards Alexa, go give her a hand!"
"Maria! Someone is trying to rush is trying to flank Cleo from behind! Get your head out of your ass!"
"Cleo! How can you not see someone trying to attack you from behind?! Are you so troubled with your opponent that you can't spare another thought?! Have some fucking spatial awareness! To think you are the second strongest in the Battle Maiden Sect! What a disappointment!"
Mira's harsh words were ringing out in everyone's ears which left the audience speechless.
'Fuck! These are your own teammates! Not to mention you, even one of them could defeat all of them at the same time! Why be so hard on them?'
This is what the people thought as they listened to Mira send one insult after another while trying to correct their coordination.
She was truly treating the other Sect as training dummies to increase their group's synergy, but what's amazing is that it held visible results.
After Mira ruthlessly pointed out their mistakes and sometimes even shooting ice needles at them when they messed up, they started learning extremely quickly.
Nobody here could say that Mira was a bad Captain. In fact, she was probably the best Captain they could find within Lunar Fox City and the surrounding cities. This coupled with her vast amount of knowledge and experience caused the disciples in her group to advance by leaps and bounds in terms of team synergy.
Once her group started to get the hang of fighting together, Mira actually walked over to the other team and began giving out commands to them as well. When their Captain tried to surrender, Mira just took out a piece of beast skin and wrapped it around her mouth, and every time she tried to remove it, Mira would shoot an ice needle at her.
The other group members didn't really know how to handle this, but they just went along with Mira. They knew they had no chance of winning, but Mira said that she'd surrender if they could take down 2 of the people on her side.
After almost an hour of fighting, Mira told her team to end it as they learned as much as they could out of this one battle.
After the battle ended, one couldn't help but pity the Quintessential Ice Sect. They were extremely exhausted and helpless in front of the enemy. It was also mentally taxing as they had to listen to Mira's endless insults!
Even her own teammates seemed mentally drained from this fight. Mira really was too much!
"Battle Maiden Sect wins!"
They immediately went back to their section to recover their mental states as well as pay attention to the other teams.
The next battle was against the Divine Beast Sect and the Storm Sect from Gale City. The Storm Sect held the advantage in terms of personal ability, but surprisingly the Divine Beast Sect was much more coordinated. This is probably because they train and fight with beasts. They have to be at least somewhat used to fighting with someone else.
But after seeing Mira's domineering display, both sides wanted to do this as well as Mira made it look easy, but this was far from the truth.
The Captains from both sides were leagues away from being on Mira's level to read the battlefield. Mira was also extremely decisive in her decisions and very rarely were her decisions wrong. In fact, she was right so much that it was scary. The opponent felt like an open book in the face of Mira.
With that being the case, both sides struggled for a while before the fight just turned into a brawl and the Divine Beast Sect pulled through with a win by taking out their opponent's Captain.
The next 6 battles passed by in a similar fashion as each sect tried their best to do what Mira did only for it to backfire. This also caused the battles to go on endlessly which became extremely boring to watch.
But this all changed during the final battle of the round, which happened to be the Battle Maiden Sect again. But this time they dominated their opponent in just under a minute. They didn't even overpower the other team with powerful skills or brute force, it was purely based on strategy and coordination. They were able to take out the Captain in under a minute like it was nothing.
This shocked not only the audience but the other teams as well. This just showed how overwhelming Mira's commanding abilities are.
At the end of the day, the Battle Maiden Sect had gotten another 40 points and it was currently impossible for them to drop to second place even if they lose the next Group Battle.
The other teams could only sigh and fight over second place now as the Battle Maiden Sect was already guaranteed to get first.
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