Chapter 995: The Contestants

The two of them teleported back to the White Tiger Grand Hotel. Tang San didn't linger and immediately returned to his room at the hotel.

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Having been gone for three days, he needed to check whether the Ancestral Court had been looking for him.

Compared to the bustling atmosphere before the mega-auction, the Ancestral Court had clearly quieted down. Life here was expensive, and although the matchmaking tournament was about to begin, many powerful representatives from various clans had chosen to leave and stay in surrounding towns with lower living costs until the event started.

The venue for the tournament had mostly been completed. It was located right in front of Council Mountain. For such an unprecedented event, the Ancestral Court was taking matters extremely seriously.

Registration had already closed, and the Ancestral Court had begun releasing the list of contestants, even offering various statistics and rankings—like seeded fighters, for instance.

Of course, the Ancestral Court wasn't doing this out of pure goodwill or simply to entertain spectators. These lists were simply a prelude to get people ready for the real thing: betting pools.

After learning this from the clan elders, Tang San felt somewhat helpless. The Ancestral Court was clearly money-frenzied! After reaping a massive profit from the mega-auction, they were now planning to cash in again through the tournament. They truly wouldn't let a single coin slip past.

Still, he couldn't really blame them. Even for the Ancestral Court, this kind of opportunity didn't even come once in a century.

Even just accessing contestant data and rankings came with a price. It wasn't especially expensive, but certainly not cheap either. Fortunately, the Grand Elder had already purchased everything Tang San needed.

Mei Gongzi had previously explained the general tournament rules to Tang San. Now, the detailed regulations had been fully released.

The preliminary round would be a single-elimination format. One match to decide victory or defeat; win and advance, lose and get out. It was a brutal system. The semifinals, however, would be more lenient. Once the top eight male and top eight female contestants were determined, each group would switch to a round-robin system. Every contestant would fight seven matches, and the final rankings would be determined by points. The top three from each side would then move on to the final mixed group of six, which would also follow a round-robin format to determine the ultimate top three.

These top three would then be allowed to choose a spouse from among all sixteen semifinalists. Whether they were male or female, the top three would have full choosing rights. Moreover, these three would be considered the default candidates for Emperorhood—the winners of the Battle for the Throne.

In other words, to win in the Battle for the Throne, one first had to survive the brutal elimination rounds. And the preliminary round draws were based on luck.

The Ancestral Court also released lists of the top ten seeded male and female contestants. Seeded players wouldn't be matched against one another in the first round, but only for the first round. Starting from round two, draws would be fully randomized.

To access the list of top ten male and female seeds? That cost ten naturae coins. The Ancestral Court really knew how to bleed people dry.

Naturally, the Grand Elder had also bought that for Tang San. To nobody's surprise, he wasn't among the male seeds. It was to be expected; how could someone from the Blue Gold Tree clan qualify as a seed?

As for the female seeds, Mei Gongzi was on the list, but she was only ranked eighth. Indeed, despite being the Ancestral Court Elite Competition champion and the central figure of this entire matchmaking tournament, she was only eighth among the female participants. That said, she was the only contestant granted direct entry into the semifinals without having to participate in the preliminaries. Compared to Tang San's situation, hers was much more favorable.

In terms of overall numbers, there were a total of eighty-seven male contestants, all at the peak of the eleventh order or close to it. That number alone was staggering. And this wasn't even the entire pool of eleventh-order beings from the Daemon Continent. Those who had just broken through or those from weaker clans with no real hope of winning didn't bother signing up. No one wanted to die needlessly.

After all, much unlike the Elite Competition, the Battle for the Throne didn't restrict life-or-death combat; there were no rules apart from outside interference being completely prohibited. Defeating the opponent was all that mattered. Few would show mercy. If someone was killed before they had a chance to concede, especially by a rival clan, it would be seen as completely legitimate.

Naturally, the contestants were all confident in their strength. Eighty-seven Great Demon Kings and Great Nymph Kings!

Thankfully, there were no overall rankings for all eighty-seven. Only the top ten seeds were listed. Otherwise, Tang San might have been placed at the very bottom. Realistically, he figured he'd rank somewhere below 80. It wasn't his fault; the Blue Gold Tree clan had a terrible reputation.

On the female side, the number was lower, with only forty-six contestants. This made sense, since there were fewer eleventh-order females to begin with.

So in total, 133 contenders were set to clash. It could be said that aside from the Emperors, the very strongest beings on the Daemon Continent were all gathered here in the Ancestral Court for this Battle for the Throne.

Most of the names on the list were unfamiliar to Tang San. Only a few stood out.

Among the top ten male seeds, he recognized Jin Anguo and Xu An'yu. No specific rankings were given for the top ten male seeds, perhaps to avoid offending anyone. But he also spotted Ning Chen'en among them, a clear proof that someone with two first-tier bloodlines could be no slouch.

On the female side, apart from Mei Gongzi, the only other name he recognized was Lan Moxian. The rest were unfamiliar.

None of the opponents he and Mei Gongzi had faced during the Ancestral Court Elite Tournament were listed. After all, those opponents had only been at the ninth order at the time. Reaching the tenth order was really a matter of course for such people, but the eleventh was a completely different matter. Of course, Big Cat was an exception, but even he wasn't in the seeded group.

There were still a few days left until the drawing ceremony. Most contestants had already arrived in the Ancestral Court and were making their final preparations.

As he reviewed the list, Tang San could already feel a faint aura of killing intent rising in the air.

He didn't bother studying the contestant list in detail. With so many participants and random draws, who knew what kind of opponent he'd face next? Researching every name would be pointless, at least for him.

Each elimination round would be followed by a one-day break. The round-robin matches would follow the same structure. This ensured the contestants had sufficient recovery time. After all, this wasn't like the relatively friendly sparring of the Elite Competition. It was a brutal competition where everyone would be fighting for their lives.

As he casually browsed through the list, Tang San gradually formed a complete strategy for the competition ahead.