I stood on a small dashed line where i took out a dagger. A man walked up too the side of the arena looking at the two sides.
"Alright, I know that everyone here is ready to watch todays fight. Between Akio the challenged party and Cole, Grant and Alex. Akio here has decided to fight Grant and Alex in the first round. If he succeeds in fighting Grant and Alex, then he will fight Cole. Contestants please put your hand on this level checker." He called out to the stadium and then too use.
The light green orb in his hands glowed as Cole approached, as he put his large hand on the orb two white numbers appeared.
"64, right in range. You are able to fight." he bowed to Cole as he looked smugly at me.
Grant and Alex both proceeded to put their hands on the orb. Both of them getting 62 and a bow from the instructor guy.
"And now you" he turned to me with his arm outstretched too me so i can put my hand on the orb
I followed his instructions and placed my hand on the orb, afraid that something wrong might happen. Slowly, the number 62 floated up into the orb. I let out a sigh of relief, thinking that it might have measured stats then determined the level. Luckily I was wrong.
The man nodded at me with a smile.
"All contestants are able to participate, The challenged party is now to decide what form of battle we shall do." he looked towards me with expectation.
"Uhmm… Would no armor anything goes work? No killing of course." i said to him with slight hesitation not knowing if that was an option. His eyes sparkled with interest in response.
"The challenge party has chosen No armor, Anything goes, till knockout. Healers will be provided at the end of the battle."
The crowd erupted with cheers, apparently No armor wasn't a very common fight. For obvious reasons. So seeing a 2 v1 without armor would be something seen every century, maybe even longer. The group of three people had varying reactions, Cole was agitated to fight. Grant seemed scared and Alex had the look of relief. This sparked some interest in Akio as to why Alex was relieved.
"The battle shall start when all fighters are in ready position." he gestures too two white lines drawn on the light sand arena. The crowd was hyping us up to fight immediately.
I walked to the white line and took out a dagger, Specifically wolf's fang. I don't want to accidentally kill one of them. Grant and Alex walked up, grant took out a giant axe nearly the size of him. Alex took out a rapier, like the one Hu uses. But his stance was off, it was less refined compared to Hu's stance.
'Alright, looks like i got Alex in the bag' I nodded to myself turning to look at grant who had a worried look on his face.
"May the fight begin!" the showman bellowed out loudly as he jumped backwards to the outer wall of the arena, gliding down slowly
Akio was amazed at this, the slow descent of the man. But he turned in front of him to attack when he saw grant running slowly, not speed wise but actually slower. Like time has slowed down a bit.
'What is this?' I thought dodging to the left of grants slow downswing.
[your speed has reached a certain threshold where you are now that much faster than everything in front of you. This only activates while in combat so don't worry about day to day interactions.]
'How weird' I turned to see Grant pick up his axe, ALex hadn't moved from his spot and was watching closely. His eyes stared at me as though i were an interesting book.
"I see what you're doing here" I said to Grant, who showed a confused face as I walked towards Alex.
Alex stared back at me with surprise as he tilted his rapier to stab forwards. I grabbed by dagger and swiftly ran too the side of Alex, who had barely even started to react as i punched his stomach. He vomited as he was launched back a couple of meters.
'He wasn't a weak one, has watching me. Figuring out my counters, he's the smart one.' I had a hunch they were playing something.
"WHY would you do that!? I just told you to go easier on him." Grant yelled at me as he charged once more.
"You mean he wasn't just watching how i fought and moved?" i asked him with a slight bit of worry surfacing in my chest.
He slammed his axe down on me and i deflected it by swinging to the side.
"No, he wasn't." he replied angrily.
"Oh, well too be fair, i did kind of give him an easy way out. I didn't cut him I just punched him in the stomach." i responded with a little reassurance, it seems I was wrong with this situation.
Grant looked at me with anger as he swung horizontally. His huge metal axe sliced through the air, tiny waves of air became visible with the sheer power of the hit. I looked at it with surprise as i jumped over it, i used the air to my advantage and twisted myself to a better angle. But Grant also saw the opportunity and swung where I was going to land. I heard the crowd gasp at the apparent dumb move i had made. Grant's swing was another low horizontal swing, aimed to hit the middle of my thigh.
I spread myself out as wide as I could with my face looking down. I couldn't move midair so I had to do something to avoid the oncoming attack. I might be able to take it and walk, but that's not a risk I want to take.
SPLAT
I landed faced down on the ground like a burnt pancake as the axe swung right over my head. I heard the crowd laugh a little at my hideous attempt to dodge. I pushed myself up and punched Grant in the stomach. He was pushed back a couple of feet but took little damage as his belly absorbed the impact.
"Hoh? Looks like you have some power" A voice grinned from the sideline. Cole was sitting there with a massive grin on his face watching my fight. I turned to the right of him to see Alex trying to get up but shaking a little.
I turned to grant who was running forward, his axe above his head with a scream of rage. He clearly wasn't thinking straight anymore as I ran forward at full speed. Arriving in front of him in the time it took to blink. Shock ran through his eyes as he couldn't react before I stabbed my dagger into his shoulder, using the blade to dig around his arm. I felt multiple bones at the conjoined part of the knife. I looked for the shoulder joint and stabbed my dagger in more and let go lodging it in.
"GAHH:" Grant screamed, dropping his axe as he reached for the dagger.
Before he could touch it I spun, giving my leg some momentum as I slammed my leg into the side of the dagger.
CRACK.
The knife slid out of the wound, but the damage was done. Grant held his arm as he slumped to the ground hurling his breakfast up from the pain. His shoulder was now a disjointed mess, his bone sticking out the side. A ran up behind him and gave him a quite heavy blow to the head, knocking him out lightly before he could scream once more.
i sighed, apparently i was too far ahead for this to even be close to a challenge. I took a look at Alex who pretended to be slumped over. I called out to Cole, who slammed a big sword down and pushed himself up.
"Alright, your turn" i said as the crowd erupted with more cheers, calling out my name.
'while the fights may be boring, putting on this show is quite the fun' i grinned as he approached, the crowd cheering both of our names. He grinned at me as he reached the small white line, two guards people picked Alex and Grant, rushing off the field in a hurry.
"You may be fast and powerful, but you're quite dumb." he commented as he raised his longsword with two hands, it wasn't really a longsword. It was as thin as one, but it was about 3 times as wide, it was huge and clearly had some power too it.
"I'm pretty sure I've seen through your little plan here, You don't have a plan when fighting do you?" he asked as he rushed forward raising his blade.
"I suppose I don't"