Although the internal match between members of the national team made the Drakorian audience feel a bit regretful, but the intensity and excitement of the battle made it the most spectacular one in the tournament so far.
Both Evan and Sky wanted to win and advance to the next round, and since Julian had assured them that as long as their Pokémon weren't killed or permanently disabled on the spot, they would be guaranteed to be lively and healthy the next day—
The two of them fought with zero hesitation and zero mercy, going all out with everything they had.
Several of their Pokémon ended up heavily injured.
This made the audience subconsciously wonder whether the two had some kind of personal grudge. Otherwise, why would teammates fight so fiercely?
Even the winner would end up with several heavily injured main Pokémon. They probably wouldn't be able to battle tomorrow, and even if they could, their strength would be significantly reduced.
Wouldn't that just benefit competitors from other countries?
> "Stop fighting! Please stop fighting!!"
> "Why can I hear your text?"
> "This is pure internal destruction… are these two insane?"
> "Sky already has two heavily injured Pokémon. Evan has three. Even if they win, they'll be useless tomorrow!"
> "What is Champion Walker doing? Why isn't he stopping them?"
> "Aren't they supposed to just pretend to fight? Why are they going all out?!"
> "The Celestrian team's internal match ended instantly—one guy immediately surrendered."
---
Even Julian hadn't expected Evan and Sky to fight this hard. If the rules didn't ban moves like Explosion or Self-Destruct, Julian suspected the two might have actually used them.
Did they really have some personal grudge?
Of course not—the two simply wanted to advance to the next round, as they were all aiming for the Championship.
The fact that these two fought so fiercely naturally made competitors from other countries quite happy. Whoever faced the winner tomorrow might just get an easy pass.
The final result of the match was Sky's victory, achieved at the cost of three of his Pokémon being severely injured, while Evan had five severely injured Pokémon.
Sky also revealed his strongest Pokémon, Zapdos. Relying on Zapdos's power, he managed to take down two of Evan's Pokémon in one go, securing the win.
Meanwhile, Evan became the first to be eliminated from the Drakorian team. It wasn't that he was weak, but rather, his luck was just not good.
Right now, Evan's face was full of disappointment. After all, this was his first time participating in the World Youth Championship—and also his only chance. He never expected his journey to end in the Top 50.
In the afternoon, it was Pierce's match against a competitor from Celestria, which was also highly anticipated.
Drakoria and Celestria were the two most powerful nations on this planet. In the past, their overall strength was similar, making it hard to distinguish who was first and who was second—though both wanted to be number one.
However, with Julian's rise and his ability to command First-class Legendary Pokémon, Drakoria's strength finally surpassed that of Celestria, becoming the undisputed top nation. Celestria could only settle for the second place.
Now with both the nations clashing—of course it drew massive attention.
"So THIS is what Pierce meant by 'a few comrades' coming to cheer him on?"
Sky stared speechlessly at the spectator stands behind Pierce, where nearly a thousand soldiers in military uniforms sat upright in their seats.
The sheer intimidating presence was arguably greater than that from the 20,000 Celestrian spectators combined.
"Looks like it."
Julian nodded. Even he felt speechless by Pierce's move. This guy always acted serious, but apparently he was the biggest troublemaker of them all.
Others hired cheerleaders, but Pierce directly brought a thousand soldiers to cheer for him. Wasn't that more impressive than a cheerleading squad?
Looking at the rows of soldiers behind Pierce, Sky instantly felt that the cheerleaders he had brought this morning were no longer appealing.
"No. Tomorrow I must bring even more," Sky said with a grim expression.
He couldn't summon soldiers, but he couldn't allow Pierce to outshine him either. He brought a hundred this morning, so he'd bring two hundred tomorrow.
Julian glanced at them casually, but inwardly, he was actually quite envious.
If he ever participated in a tournament, he'd definitely bring a cheer squad like that too.
But then he remembered that he was already a Champion now—what matches were even worth for him to participate in?
Why didn't he think of this trick back when he was competing in tournaments himself?
As for Celestria—although Julian had killed five of their talents last time, a major power was still a major power. They definitely had many outstanding young trainers than just those five. And the strength of these ten participants was also quite impressive.
Pierce's opponent was an early-stage Pseudo-Champion, but with only one early-stage Pseudo-Champion Pokémon in their team.
After having three of his Pokémon fall, Pierce finally defeated his opponent. He originally wanted to kill a few of their Pokémon as well, but the opponent was smart—they quickly recalled their Pokémon the moment they were about to lose.
The opponent also understood very well that given the relationship between the two countries, if they had a chance to take out the other's Pokémon, they absolutely would. If his own strength wasn't inferior to Pierce's, he would have tried to take out Pierce's Pokémon too.
As a side note: the Celestrian team was being led by their newly promoted 35-year-old Champion, Williams.
For any country participating in the tournament, if they had two or more Champions domestically, one would come to lead the team. Besides showcasing the nation's strength, it was also to ensure the protection of the team members.
Even if a country had no Champion, the team leader would at least be a Pseudo-Champion.
Right now in Babath, there were at least a dozen Champions and hundreds of Pseudo-Champions gathered.
So was Babath safe? Well… they had over ten Champions present.
Was it unsafe? Also yes—because most of these Champions didn't belong to the country itself.
Babath itself only had two Champions.
With a population of less than 100 million and a land area only 1% of Drakoria's, honestly producing even one Champion would have been quite impressive.
The country had some serious flaws, but it also had its merits, which could not be denied.
As the afternoon matches concluded, the number of participants dropped from 113 to roughly half again—with one person receiving a bye.
Now there were 57 contestants remaining.
Among these 57, Drakoria had 9, Celestria had 7, Volkaria had 7, Gallia had 3, Anglia had 4, Babath had 2, Pampas had 1, and Malasiar had 1.
The number of participating nations had also decreased from the initial 360 to just over 20 now. Apart from a few countries having more than one participant, most other countries had only a single representative left.
Among them, Drakoria had the most participants, followed by Celestria and Volkaria.
From this, the gap between major nations and non-major nations was evident. It was not just a difference in the number of Champions; the quality of young trainers also showed a significant disparity.
Of course, the remaining countries weren't truly "weak." Their weakness was only relative to the three major nations. Compared to the rest of the world, they were still quite strong.
*****
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