"The ape might lose this rate," Kaoru says.
"Most likely…..(a long pause).. No.
To be more precise, the participants lack the ability to do so," The mysterious smart guy replies again while resetting his spectacles.
The intense battle continues in the arena.
"What do you mean? Isn't the ape the one at the disadvantage now?" asks Kaoru in a state of confusion.
"Tell me, have you ever heard of 'The Akumaori'?" the man replies.
"Well, Yah! I've read about it in books. It's the insanely powerful beast that massacred countless adventurers. Even the head of the prestigious Kaen family had to struggle in successfully capturing it."
"Hahaha! You're smarter than I thought, kid."
In the arena, Fumihiro makes a scar on the ape's back with his kusarigama.
Unagi and Usagi are charging forward.
"But, do u know ~ what happened after they captured him, the beast?" the man adds.
"But that information is not for public disclosure, is that?"
"You are right, hahaha. It isn't. After capturing the powerful beast, they used a grade 1 artifact on him that has a special ability to limit one's powers and intelligence in order to stop him from rampaging again. However, it couldn't restrict his unique ability to absorb and adapt."
Zack charges forward with a kick to the face with a massive amount of force behind it but the ape blocks it with its forearms.
"Unique ability?" Kaoru asks.
"Yes, the beast has a divine unique ability ' Don'yoku ' that allows him to absorb any sort of damage and turns it into power to strengthen himself. Simply put, the more hit it gets, the stronger it becomes. And in truth....
Everyone's attacking the ape together but the ape is not attacking back, covering itself with its arms in a defensive form. From the view of the spectators, it seems to be at a complete disadvantage with blood leaking through some of the scars.
"The giant ape in front of us is none other than 'The Akumaori' himself," he continues with a carefree expression.
"And he should just be strong enough to defeat the contestants by now."
Just at the moment, that person finished his sentence, the earth around the ape, all of a sudden, shapes itself into giant and sharp spikes and comes out of the ground like a barrage of spears forming a wall of absolute defense and offense at the same time.
The contestants who let their guard down had to pay the price with serious injuries. The rest moved to a safe distance successfully evading it.
At that time, the air around the beast starts swirling around, instantly forms a tornado with stronger winds, and then expands throughout the whole arena in a split second. Many of the broken earth spikes and some other projectiles spread throughout the tornado, making things harder for the contestants while the others(spikes) stayed firm, acting like traps in this state of poor vision and chaos that the tornado created.
The tornado stops its destruction after tossing and turning the whole arena around but the view is still dusty for the spectators. Nothing can be seen clearly inside the arena ground. The viewers are protected with a special barrier.
The dust clears out with a surprising result. Only 15 contestants are remaining, the rest are either unconscious or injured enough to be unable to continue the battle.
But what is more surprising is that all the injuries on the ape don't seem to be there anymore. He is even giving off a stronger aura than before.
"No way! If that's the case then..." Kaoru continues.
"It's getting stronger in the proportion of the hits we are landing," Usagi thinks as he realizes the fact after his observation so far. So does Akimitsu.
"That means…" [Usagi]/[Akimitsu]
"That means...
The stronger they/we are, the harder it is to defeat it." [Kaoru][Usagi][Akimitsu]
But on the battlefield, they weren't the only ones who realized it.
"Our odds of winning against this are close to zero. The only thing we can do right now is avoid getting hit from it, Brother," says Aki to Zack.
"I get what you mean but battling with the others isn't a taboo, right?" replies he while wiping blood from the scar on his cheek.
"Glad you noticed, brother," replies Aki with a pleasant smile.
"Of course, of course. Aren't I a smart one? Hahaha." Zack smirks confidently.
"Ahahaha, Yes, brother. Also, look out for the …"
In the middle of the conversation, Zack senses danger and instantly jumps away, and so does Aki. Zuko attacks them in the middle of the conversation, smashing down his war hammer from above but failed.
He again goes for Zack, not wasting a second, and hits Zack, swinging his hammer. Zack, who just landed on the ground didn't have any time to dodge this and had to block it head-on with his both forearms in a crisscross posture. The strong hit pushed him back quite a bit.
Zack finally gets to take a breath. He stretches his hands to loosen them up which got stiff because of receiving that hit. Seeing him being so careless in front of his opponent as a sign of mockery, Zuko gets annoyed. It hits his pride as a warrior. He feels the desire to crush his opponent right at the moment, gradually leading to unintended rage that prompted him to take a dash at full speed aiming at Zack. He keeps swinging his hammer at Zack. Being prepared this time, Zack dodges them easily while wondering where all that rage came from.
Zuko's attacks are gradually getting faster. In a moment, Zack finds himself surrounded by the fast attacks from Zuko. The random swings that he thought to be simple, picked up a rhythm as he(Zuko) sped up and became more complex. It got harder for Zack to dodge them but that didn't bother him. What bothered him is the defensive rhythm that is making his chances to go offensive from slim to slimmer.
Zuko is gradually strengthening his pattern of attack and swinging the Warhammer around targeting Zack's vital points. But Zack dodges every single one of them. He is dodging the attacks while looking for an opening.
Not being able to hit Zack at all, Zuko's rage reaches its peak, failing to realize that patience could have given him the full advantage of the situation.
"Stop!!! Running!!! Around!!" shouts he out of anger while swinging the hammer harder this time.
The war hammer hits the ground.
"An opening!" Zack thinks instantly as his muscles tighten up moving his arms with his fist rushing toward the opponent bearing a considerable amount of strength behind it. Zuko is about to get hit.
At that moment, both of them suddenly feel an immense amount of pressure as they see nothing but a huge fist coming toward them with an incredible amount of power in that state of action.
Zack withdraws his punch and barely escapes getting hit.
Zuko, on the other hand, tries to block it head-on with his war hammer but he couldn't. The war hammer bounces away breaking into two pieces just after Zuko moves away avoiding heavy injury.
The ape is not roaring anymore.
It's attacking calmly and silently like an experienced warrior. Its pupils are glowing dark blue with a cold look.
Barely dodging that punch, Zack lands on the ground. But as soon as he lands, his keen sense of danger picks something up again and he moves away immediately.
The ground he was in cracks and gets smashed with a high air pressure along with various other places of the arena.
The broken part of the whole arena starts flying up with a soft breeze and then suddenly starts raining down accelerating at a higher rate the same way as machine gun bullets but comparatively a lot more dangerous.
Aki appears in front of Zack at the right moment and deflects the projectiles with his naginata.
A third of the remaining people got eliminated. Some of the others are lightly injured.
"Be more careful, brother," Akimitsu says.
"Thanks, Aki, I owe you one," Zack says. "Now, let's get ourselves some seats, shall we?" He smiles confidently.
"You've read my mind, Brother," replies Akimitsu while getting ready for battle.
***
Unagi got hurt on her left shoulder. Blood is flowing out of her shoulder would which she's trying to stop by pressing it hard with the other hand.
"I should have been more careful. Now, this is going to become a hindrance. How annoying!" she thinks in her mind regretting her carelessness.
***
Zack was looking for a fight. But then, seeing all these contestants engaged in battle, he got confused about whom to pick a fight with. And just then he smiles and moves his neck to the left a bit sensing some sort of danger.
A flying one-handed axe misses his head by an inch, rotates around him, and finally stops reaching its wielder's hand.
"You have sharp some sharp sense for someone who looks like an idiot. Too bad for me though," says the wielder of the axe, Rokura, an adult-looking young man who has yet to reach his 18s.
"Who let an old guy participate?" says Zack in a silly way targeting Rokura because he actually took him to be an adult by his looks.
"What?! What are you talking about? I m obviously not much older than you," replies Rokura. "Whatever the case might be, I'm here and it's a battle, I cannot hold back, my friend."
Saying that he throws both of the axes he had at the same at Zack.
But Zack slips through the trajectory of the axes and dodges them.
"Not bad, not bad."
"I know, right," Zack replies. "But hey, you've lost your weapons."
"I was never a weapon user, anyways. I am more of a fist fighter in reality."
"But you used a couple of axes a moment ago. Didn't that make you a weapon user? Yet you say you never...." Zack gives him a strange look.
"That's not what I meant."
"You're weird," says Zack again with the same weird look.
"You are the one who is weird," replies the Rokura in a hesitant state. "Ahh! Whatever, I don't want to waste time here talking to you and give the ape enough time to come at me."
"You already did," says Zack with a smile that changed to a heavy tone.
Rokura didn't even have to look back to confirm that Zack's statements were true. His pure reflexes, honed by training and experience, made him jump really fast in order to evade the attack. But only then, he realized the opportunity that his fright for a split second created for Zack when he saw him(Zack) awaiting in mid-air.
~
Zack jumped before Rokura [when he subconsciously lost his focus from Zack dealing with the ape's attack] and kicked him mid-air from a higher point sending him back from where he jumped, right in front of the beast's fist.
Rokura gets a critical hit. He is eliminated.
A couple of instructors quickly rescued him before he hit the wall.
"What just happened!!?" exclaims Liam Loudmouth with a hint of curiosity and excitement to break the silence in the crowd.
"What terrifying power! The ape's power skyrocketed for some reason. Our contestants can't even hold a candle to it anymore~!" he continues in his loud voice to entertain the spectators.
The crowd also gets excited and cheers out to his comments.
The Ape might have seemed to gain some sentience somehow but it's still a beast solely focusing on destroying the opponents in front of it. It smashes the ground with four of its arms that shakes the whole arena and creates a strong whirlwind that expands throughout the whole arena and vanishes, followed by a rain of projectiles like before that went up floating with the wind.
The ground shaking and the whirlwind broke the balance of some of the contests while the projectiles were for the kill.
Unagi's wound has opened up more. She was having trouble defending herself. Just then, Usagi comes to help his sister.
Some of the contestants that couldn't keep up anymore were protected and rescued by the instructors when the attack hit them. But they couldn't rescue everyone. One of the contestants was critically injured. The instructors didn't have enough time to provide him protection on time. Then again, everyone signed up at their own risk.
Carefully looking around, Usagi notices several pairs of eyes targeting the currently injured Unagi. He sets his focus on taking them out, the ones that are targeting his sister as he is pretty confident in his ability.
"Stay still and be careful, I'll be right back," says he before leaving.
When Usagi leaves for his opponents, something that he didn't account for took place. A violent fist of the ferocious beast trajects itself towards Unagi who is not in her best form.
By the time Usagi realizes this, it was too late. Nonetheless, he ignores everything else and rushes back with everything he had, like the wind, knowing it might endanger her sister's life.
"Faster! I have to go faster!" Usagi says to himself with an urge to save his sister.
Meanwhile, Unagi lost any hope of evading.
"I can't move fast enough to dodge that!" she thinks in despair with an eye closed because of the pain.
The punch is coming at her at a terrifying speed.
Usagi is still out of reach. He's just seeing his sister getting hit and not being able to do anything.
At that moment, Zack appears close to Unagi out of nowhere. He kicks a bo staff lying on the ground, picks it up, and gets in front of the Ape's fist just before it reaches Unagi and blocks it with the bo staff like a hero who saves the day.
Unagi falls to the ground in a sitting position with the buttocks touching the ground, keeping Zack in the scope of her blurry vision.
"Crap! This is stronger than I thought."
The bo staff cracks. Zack gets knocked into the wall at a high speed. The wall almost collapses.
Usagi and Akimitsu immediately attack the ape with their best shot which pushes the ape to some distance.
"Brother!" Aki rushes to the scene.
Zack lost consciousness.
"What we just witnessed is no doubt a valiant act of honor. What an Amazing young man! Looks like the young generation still has a lot of potential to spare!" Loudmouth continues.
For a moment, everyone was caught up in the temporary occurrence of surprise but the time didn't stay still for the Ape.
Their focus suddenly broke as the ground started trembling out of nowhere. The wind is getting restless. Large pieces of earth, ploughed up from random places of the arena ground along with the already broken ground parts start floating up. On the top of a ground piece, the shadow of the beast [highlighted by the intense sunlight on the back] is standing tall, more and more like a human.
Then, all the broken parts of the ground that are floating separately start merging with each other, concentrating on a single core and rushing towards it at an insane speed. Because of the speed of the rushing particles, their fraction with the air, and collision with the constantly forming core, it generates a huge amount of heat, gradually turning it into a huge ball of melted lava/ fireball.
Sensing the terrifying aura that the Ape is emitting along with the attack he is holding in his arsenal, even the spectators' hearts skipped a beat who are protected with a barrier, let alone the contestants who aren't. The contestants can comprehend the killing intent of the ape to almost its maximum, making things more miserable for them. Even the medical team doesn't dare to come out to pick up Zack.
A security team is observing the battle to ensure everyone's safety, but that sudden sense of minority and fear made them forget all that as if it were an actual battlefield, not a tournament.
"We cannot afford to be hit by that," says Aki.
"Yes, that can literally destroy the whole arena." Usagi steps forward, clenching his katana handles.
The whole place got overwhelmed with silence and tension. The ape is about to launch its strongest attack so far.
And that is precisely the moment the principal steps in.
He appears in front of the Ape, floating in the air with no restraints bound, wearing a black kimono, grey hakama, and a white haori over it. His facial expression is as cheerful as ever. Putting his hands behind his back, he slowly approaches the Ape. The sealing artifact on its neck starts tightening as he is floating forward steadily, gradually closing the distance in between.
The ape starts roaring more and more bizarrely and then it totally calms down at a point, by the time the principal was right in front of it. He puts his index finger and the middle finger on the ape's forehead, making the almost unconscious Ape lose its balance and freefall down. The artifact normalizes. The huge fireball disperses leaving the smaller flaming particles to fall down along with the Ape, doing pretty much no damage at all.
"We have got the remaining six seats for the inner phase," says the principal while still floating in the air.
"I, the principal of the Moonster Academy, hereby declare the outer phase of the tournament to be officially over."
"Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard the principal. What a great battle we've witnessed! It was simply magnificent."
Liam Loudmouth continues his exceptional comments.
"I knew my styles wouldn't fail," brags Fumihirio about himself imagining being in the spotlight.
"Are you alright, Unagi?" asks Usagi.
"I am but, is he?"
The medical team is taking Zack away. Aki is going with them shouting Zack's Name in panic and telling him to hold on.
Meanwhile, in the pavilion, the anonymous person who conversed with Kaoru looks at Zack in deep thought.
"Interesting!" he says while preparing to leave.