The sound of a panic crowd echoed across the arena coupled with a burst of evil laughter from the brawny man as the whip swung towards the audience.
"Let's see if you can ignore me now, Lord Jin!" he bellowed with his provocative gaze on Jin Chen. Just as the whip was about to strike the fleeing crowd it was suddenly gripped stretching it taut. The bear claw man's expression changed into a look of vexation.
His line of sight slowly followed the whip up to its other end. His expression turned ugly when he saw Jin Chen holding the other end of the whip like it was nothing.
The only thing that showed a glimpse of the whip's formidable force was the trail of blood seeping down the chain from Jin Chen's lacerated palm.
Bear claw's eyes widened as he yelled, "What?!..... Let go." He tugged the whip from his end trying to pull it out of Jin Chen's hands. Unfortunately, his strength was incomparable to this overlord looking down on him. He bent his knees giving his heels a firm hold on the ground creating a dent on the firm surface but even then he failed to move the whip a single inch. Jin Chen smirked seeing the man struggle. It seemed he found this fairly amusing.
The crowd that had just been running away slowed down looking back to the arena in admiration. As though forgetting they had almost got decapitated just now, they walked back and resumed jeering for Lord Jin.
Angered to insanity, bear claw sent four flying claws in his direction at light speed. A whoosh sound followed by the clanging sound of the chains permeated the air making the onlookers' blood run cold. According to the specs displayed by the system, this bear claw guy had upgraded his rank to vetust as shown by the bright red dot next to his name.
In Equino any Tom, Dick and Harry could check a player's information like name, guild and ranking but the precise level in that specific ranking was concealed. The last time bear claw challenged Jin Chen he was clearly ranked as mediatas, a rank below vetust but two weeks later he was back having upgraded in a short period.
Unless he was at the brink of making a breakthrough this didn't make sense. Normally after a breakthrough into another rank, which was incredibly difficult to do by the way, one would need to recuperate in seclusion for about a month as their entire genetic sequence had been broken down and reconstructed.
But here was bear claw a fortnight later with the previous orange light next to his name changed to an obvious red walking around like he had just received a new lease in life with a new weapon at that.
No matter how one looked at it, something was definitely wrong with this situation. The claws opened up with a hissing sound aiming at all of Jin Chen's four limbs. The azure lightning strokes underneath Jin Chen's skin spread further toward his left eye changing the colour of his pupil to a deep shade of blue which was in heavy contrast with his other eye.
He couldn't control it as this was a natural response to strong emotions. He pulled the whip taking it out of bear claw's hold disarming him in the blink of an eye. The man had tried his best to hold on to the whip but he found his hands empty eating dirt on the ground from the tug of war just now.
Jin Chen used the whip to take down the flying claws from the sky. Two out of the four flying claws broke at the chain falling to the ground in pieces. Bear claw growled in rage as he retracted the two remaining flying claws. "Give it back!" he bellowed before leaping into the sky using his powerful legs for momentum.
Seeing this, Jin Chen dodged the incoming human missile as a bright yellow flame spread from the handle of the whip to the tip of the lash. Bear claw who had just been dodged landed back on the ground before leaping up into the air again launching another attack.
"ARGH!!!" was his battle cry as he lunged at Jin Chen. He had received help from someone to break through and attain this formidable weapon. All he had to do in return was beat this haughty lord but who would have thought he would not only lose two of his precious flying claws but also get robbed of his newly acquired weapon.
His anger made him change his strategy to act first think later which was a huge mistake when dealing with Jin Chen. He thought since he and Jin Chen were both ranked vetust he would be able to beat him based on strength alone. But he failed to account for what level his opponent was and yes, it made a big difference.
The fool blindly attacked but before he reached halfway he was mercilessly struck across his chest by the flaming whip. The smell of burning flesh wafted the air followed by loud heckles from the crowd.
The man's body fell from the sky but before he could touch the ground he was whipped again. This time he was struck across his face then again on his back with pieces of his flesh flying in the air. Jin Chen held the whip as he watched the brawny man tumble to the ground.
He patiently waited for him to get up as the crowd yelled, "Finish him! Finish him!" Some of the onlookers threw rocks, sticks and anything they could find at the arena all out of thrill.
Jin Chen frowned at the things thrown in his arena and cracked the whip causing the audience to quieten down with their overgrown tails tucked between their legs. It was a well-known fact that this lord was a bit of a neat freak as seen from the city of Rykan. His motto was simple. 'We aren't savages so we don't have to live like ones.'
The brawny man had wanted to play dead for a while but his ego got the best of him. He looked through his space storage checking if he had anything useful in his inventory. He could use a healing or a resuscitating elixir but after Jin Chen broke his bones the last time he was left with nothing. He decided to buy from the system but it was declined. There was no doubt about it, he was dead broke.