Chapter 719: Volume Twenty-One: The Dark Road, - Five: Tremor
No one expected the Gladiator Competition, amid its tumultuous uproar, to enter the finals without a single Spartan competitor. Two disciples of Aristotle, Saint of Martial Arts, one was disqualified, and the other voluntarily withdrew—the reasons for withdrawal were ominous, yet rumors had already spread wildly throughout Athens City. Although Prince Slupig defeated the competitor from Piraeus, he himself was critically injured by the last-ditch counterattack from his opponent. This version of events was closest to reality and also the most believable. Nevertheless, the Spartans were still disheartened by their loss of the chance to compete in the finals.
Another Spartan competitor was unsurprisingly defeated by an Iberian. The finals, therefore, took place prematurely between a competitor from Piraeus and an Iberian. The odd performance of the Spartans led many nations to suspect that Sparta had some ulterior motive for acting this way. Only the Spartans themselves knew the bitter truth—that they would never sacrifice the supreme honor of their origin in Olympia for any scheme.
The impact of the Gladiator Competition on the Kingdom of Sparta was unprecedented. It was one thing for Kaiserlon and his opponent to be disqualified for rule violations, but for Prince Slupig to be forced to bow out was altogether different. Outsiders might not understand the details, but it was clear that there must have been an irresistible reason for such a decision.
The Spartan king, Cyrus, stormed through the palace like a raging lion, unable to tolerate what had happened. It was a brazen challenge to Sparta’s ongoing effort to become the preeminent power in the Southern Mediterranean, and yet he could not think of a proper way to respond.
Prince Slupig’s face was somewhat pale. The Diamond Arrow that had wounded him had been removed, but the effects of the arrow were far from resolved. The intense paralytic and mental magic powers made him realize that the Piraeus people had deliberately targeted him, obviously anticipating a battle with him. Victory always favors the prepared, and in this case, he had been too complacent and arrogant.
The anesthetic on the Diamond Arrow had been identified as originating from a special herb in the Northern Greenland Forest that could render a person completely limp and powerless. Although not very potent—it only caused a normal person to feel weak and listless—the herb was deadly for a competitor about to enter the Battlefield. The herb had almost been purged by the stimulation of Slupig’s Fighting Qi, but the roots persisted. Even more alarming for Slupig was that the herb seemed to have a special connection with the mental magic attached to the arrow. Unless the drug was completely removed, the power of the mental magic would persist in his body, releasing at intervals and leaving him in a constant state of semi-consciousness.
Distraught over how to cope with this bizarre sensation, Prince Slupig had magicians called by his father for consultation, but they professed their helplessness. Psychic Magic was one of the most mysterious and obscure types of magic. Even in the magic-rich North, there were very few magicians who practiced this art. The few magicians invited by his father were either practitioners of Dark Lineage or Elemental Magic, and they knew very little about Psychic Magic, let alone this peculiar mixture of magic with an herb.
Seeing his father both furious and worried did not concern Slupig as much. The magicians had informed him that, regardless of the spell, all magic had a duration limit, from a few minutes to a few hours, and at most only a few days. Generally, it would not last more than a week. This meant that the opponent deliberately intended to sabotage his participation in the next race, which they certainly managed to do.