The villainous young master just wants to live a Buddhist-like life.

　In his duel with Pandora, Bruce unusually used a large number of magic cards related to "fate".

　Among them are items such as the "Dice of Fate," which determines the enhancement coefficient based on the number rolled; a ritual item that determines the star rating of a magical spirit based on its pendulum angle; the "Coin of Life and Death," which allows opponents to guess heads or tails to kill or revive a magical spirit; and the "Revolver of Fate," which has eight bullets, but only one of them has an instant-kill effect…

　In short, they are all magic cards of this type.

　Furthermore, they can anticipate their opponent's moves during duels by using divination and prophecy to predict their next move.

　Even Pandora, the senior student, suffered repeated setbacks and appeared extremely distressed when dueling with such an opponent.

　During this process, there were even situations where a coin toss was needed to determine whether the fusion summon would succeed, which greatly angered her.

　So much so that several times Dak thought his senior would turn into a dragon on the spot and bite him to pieces and eat him.

　All I can say is that Bruce's tactics are truly disgusting.

　Pandora finally lost her temper and used a secret technique to transform the dragon's magical spirit into her own weapon. She then personally went into battle and beat up her opponent, which finally relieved her anger.

　But at this point, the duel has become less like a magic duel.

　Bruce Wheeler's defeat can only be attributed to a lack of overall strength.

　He ultimately failed to produce the "God Card" from the Destiny system, thus losing the ability to confront Pandora head-on.

　But the fact that he was forced to personally intervene and beat Pandora up shows that his magical skills were excellent enough; he just lacked a powerful finishing move.

　I just don't know if he actually doesn't have it, or if he has it but doesn't use it, like Louis Kennan.

　In conclusion, Pandora successfully advanced to the winners' bracket, while Bruce fell to the losers' bracket.

　The first round of the competition has now concluded.

　After this round of competition, the sixteen contestants were successfully divided into winners' bracket and losers' bracket.

　Afterwards, during the intermission, host Marilyn took to the stage to announce the results of the first round of matches and edited together highlights from the first round of duels, which were then projected onto the sky.

　Dark looked up. Winners' bracket players:

　①Haley Saint Meredith ②Pava Jones

　③ Quintina Nos ④ Darkdemon ⑤ Steven Harvey ⑥ Mephis Graham ⑦ Cazell

　⑧ Pandora Drogon Losers' Bracket Players: ① Sloan

　② Lily Laplace ③ Polka Boseton ④ Harpagon Mauriat ⑤ Frank Howells ⑥ Cortoine Bey ⑦ Leos Pencer ⑧ Bruce Wheeler

　Naturally, Dark's gaze eventually fell on the loser's bracket list. Then, seeing Professor Lily's name, he couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle. Although Professor Lily had fallen into the loser's bracket, she had a high probability of receiving a bye in the first round, thus advancing to the second round without any effort.

　But after a moment's thought, Dak guessed that she herself might not be satisfied.

　She probably prefers to enjoy the thrill of "sharks entering the arena." Winning without a bye isn't in her style.

　Besides Professor Lily, the biggest shark in the loser's bracket is Cortoine.

　This "Court Mage," who did not actually possess the "God Card," was still able to fight Mavis to a standstill even after Mavis summoned the "God Card," truly a master mage.

　After reviewing the list, Dark turned his attention back to figuring out how to deal with his opponent, Quintina.

　When Dark first met Quintina, he never imagined that he would one day be competing against her in a duel of this scale.

　But if you put yourself in her shoes and think about it carefully, it's clear that Quintina's journey to where she is today has been incredibly difficult.

　As the vessel through which the demon god was transformed, he was still able to empathize with the presence of a god parasitizing his body.

　However, he was also very clear that this duel with Quintina was best fought with Zeus as the intended opponent.

　There is a precedent of fragments of Zeus's consciousness possessing her body.

　Although Pao may not actually possess her body, the possibility of him taking over her body and personally intervening always exists.

　Through emotional perception, Dark could sense that the fragment of Zeus's consciousness parasitizing Quintina's body was of a more volatile type.

　This volatile temper is also reflected in Quintina's deck system.

　Her system and tactics are quite straightforward, without much fancy stuff.

　But that doesn’t mean she’s all muscle and no brains.

　In fact, Quintina is very intelligent; she is also a weatherman with exceptional talent.

　However, the duel between them is still foreseeable; it will be a fierce and brutal confrontation.

　Dark pondered for a moment, then slightly adjusted the structure. He wasn't afraid of the lizards.

　Now that we've achieved our goal of making it to the winners' bracket, we might as well indulge ourselves a little.

　If you want to be strong, then I will be strong! The first round of the losers' bracket begins before the winners' bracket.

　Before lunch break, four contestants were to be eliminated.

　The four contestants who are eliminated first will face the risk that there are only twelve spots available for the "Gift of God".

　Fortunately, "Lich" Sloan has already taken one spot, so only three of the four eliminated contestants remain.

　The lucky one who won by default due to Sloan's renewed weakness did not arouse any jealousy.

　Because anyone could see that it was a great white shark that had fallen into the loser's bracket. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that everyone else was relieved that Professor Lily was facing Sloan.

　In short, everyone was accepting and happy, except for Professor Lily herself.

　In the first match of the first round of the losers' bracket, Professor Lily made a brief appearance on the dueling stage. After waiting for three minutes without seeing Sloan appear, she left the stage in frustration.

　Following closely behind were Polka Bosedon of the "Sea Kings" and Harpagon Mauriat of the "Holy Church".

　The strength comparison of this group of players is already very clear.

　Archbishop Molière's magical and dueling skills are superior to Polka's, but Polka has that—"Sea Bird"!

　Although Quintina had already demonstrated to the audience and competitors how to avoid the "Sea Bird's" arrival tsunami in the first round of the competition.

　But the power of this "God Card" is still terrifying.

　Quintina's "Thunderhawk of Zeus" was equally powerful. Meanwhile, Archbishop Molière's own weaknesses were exposed during his duel with Darkdemon.

　His weakness is precisely Polka's strength.

　Therefore, at the beginning of this duel, Archbishop Molière was not favored by others.

　Almost everyone can imagine how devastating it would be once Polka summons the "Sea Bird".

　However, once the duel began, everyone's expectations were quickly overturned. After losing to Dark, Archbishop Molière, deeply saddened, replaced most of his entire deck.

　Although he is still an angel, the tactical system that he is compatible with in the deck has been completely transformed.

　Polka was still viewing Archbishop Molière with preconceived notions, and as a result, he saw an angel species he had never seen before as soon as he entered the arena.

　Archbishop Molière did possess magical spirit cards that he had never used.

　However, the overall strength of those magical spirit cards is slightly inferior, and almost every one of them has a superior alternative.

　But after his duel with Dark, he suddenly realized that sometimes not being seen through by the opponent is also part of the strength of a magic card.

　If everything is seen through, you will only fall into the opponent's rhythm and not even realize that you have already stepped into a trap.

　After reflecting on his actions, Archbishop Molière adjusted his deck's focus to the "Seal and Persuasion" system, which might be ineffective against Darkdemon's Spellcaster cards. However, it might not be able to counter Polka.

　And so it turned out, just as Archbishop Molière had predicted. The duel began.

　Archbishop Molière summoned "Sealed Angel" at the start of the game and immediately activated his ultimate skill, sealing Polka's ultimate skill used to search the deck and summon the key Magical Spirit.

　He then summoned the "Angel of Persuasion," which persuaded one of Polka's nine-star magical spirits, taking away his control and interrupting his rhythm of using the Sacrifice Summoning Technique to summon a twelve-star magical spirit.

　Archbishop Molière, on the other hand, used the nine-star magical spirit as one of the sacrifices to preemptively summon a twelve-star magical spirit in this duel, and never gave Polka another chance to summon a stronger magical spirit.

　After Polka struggled for a turn and a half with his magic and arcane cards, he was finally defeated!

　When his life points reached zero, Polka already had "Sea Bird" in his hand, but he was unable to summon it because his opponent had completely figured out the summoning conditions. He died before he could summon it.

　Archbishop Molière calmly accepted the victory and successfully advanced to the round of 12!

　then.

　The last contestant from the Sea Clan, the son of the Sea Clan prince on whom everyone placed their hopes, the Sea Clan member who possessed the God Card "Sea Bird," Polka Poseidon, was the first... no, the second to leave the arena.

　Polka's mood and expression were terribly suppressed.

　But he knew the consequences of displaying impotent rage in public and damaging the reputation of the Sea Kings. So, he forced himself to shake hands with Archbishop Molière before staggering off the dueling platform.

　Losing isn't scary; what's scary is losing face.

　Polka wouldn't be so frustrated if he were defeated after summoning the "Sea Bird".

　He and Will Smith were merely stepping stones for the Sea Clan.

　In the next World Cup, or the one after that, the sea creatures will surely make a comeback.

　Polka has actually achieved the sea creatures' goal for this trip.

　However, the manner of their eventual defeat is something that is hard to accept.

　……

　However, this World Cup was, after all, a human-led event. Polka's crushing defeat only caused a large-scale reaction among the sea creatures, inspiring more sea creature mages to participate in the next World Cup.

　Inside the Alliance Duel Arena, the atmosphere reached a new climax due to Archbishop Molière's victory.

　After a while, the arena calmed down a bit. The third match of the first round of the losers' bracket then began.

　The third duel was between Frank Howells and Cortoine.

　The duel was largely predictable; Frank was the one who had gone the furthest among the participating sages. But a sage's true calling is to use their brain, and not all sages are as valiant as the "Beast Sage."

　Cortoinby was not a wise man, but Sheng was a wise man. He completely overwhelmed Frank and won naturally.

　The third duel ended.

　"Court Archmage" Cortoinby successfully advanced.

　Frank Howells, the "Sage of the Owls," was unfortunately eliminated.

Chapter 1594 Top 12! Dark Dimon Enters the Winners' Bracket (4)

　The fourth duel unfolded in full swing.

　The match features Leo Spencer, the "Chief of the Thunder Elves," against Bruce Wheeler, the "Prophet of Fate."

　Bruce stepped onto the dueling ring with a grin on his face, showing no sign of the embarrassment he had just felt after being brutally beaten in the duel.

　It can only be said that those who can be called prophets have skin as thick as a city wall, and Bruce is clearly no less shameless in this regard.

　He felt he had a 90% chance of winning against Leo, leaving the remaining 10% to fate, so he appeared quite relaxed.

　After losing to Professor Cazell, Leo seemed to have lost some of his edge.

　After analyzing Bruce's tactics, he chose his best lightning attack this time, and like Quintina, he transformed into lightning at the start of the duel, crossing the field in three seconds to launch a preemptive attack on Bruce!

　But Bruce seemed to have anticipated this, and just before Leo started moving, he jumped to the side.

　He hopped a small step and perfectly dodged Leo's powerful attack.

　The summoned and activated magic card then froze Leo's body, thus gaining a huge early advantage.

　Having gained the upper hand, Bruce never backed down an inch, maintaining control of the situation from beginning to end, gradually pushing Leo to the brink of defeat, and ultimately securing victory in the duel.

　Unfortunately, the Elf race's last choice also failed to advance beyond the first round of the loser's bracket.

　This huge burden is too much for the Thunder Elf Chieftain, who has already given his all, to bear. So, it can only be passed on to the guest commentator – Alva Artemis!

　The duel has just ended, and it is said that in the elven territory, elven elders are already verbally attacking Alva.

　Alba's days will probably get harder and harder after the World Cup ends.

　Four people were eliminated, and four people advanced.

　Only twelve of the sixteen contestants remain.

　The probability that all twelve contestants will receive the "Gift of the Gods" is quite high.

　However, we still have to fight for it until the results are confirmed.

　Lunch break.

　It's unclear who came up with the idea, but the host of the midday session invited the three eliminated contestants onto the stage for a one-by-one interview, which unexpectedly sparked a huge controversy.

　The contestants who had made it to the final twelve were having their meals in the lounge. Staff provided menus, the contestants ordered their food, and then staff delivered it to the lounge.

　Unhappy players feel comfortable about this.