The group of bandits slowly walked up to the village, they also carried a cage with some kind of monster in it, Teras and his friends blocked the bandits' way to the village, they didn't seem too happy about that but they weren't necessarily angry
"What's up with all you kids? Did the village hire you to fight us off?"
A man asked, he seemed to be the leader of the group
"Hello there, we are Orion and we are here to negotiate with you not to fight, so how about we have a civil discussion?"
Teras suggested, the leader laughed and his crew followed
"And what can YOU possibly offer us?"
"The opportunity to run away!"
Teras replied with a calm smile, the bandits' smiles slowly faded away from their faces, but after some time they started laughing again, this time harder than before
"What's so funny?"
Teras asked, the leader's response was a kick to the stomach that sent Teras flying, after what they saw Teras's group quickly went into a defensive position
"Teras are you okay?"
Cara asked with a worried look, Teras stood up but he was a bit damaged from the hit
"You seem that you underestimated our party's power"
Teras said as he activated his mana flow
"Hey, kid want to make a deal?"
The leader asked
'Deal? What could he possibly want from me?'
Teras wondered
"Because we clearly overpower you in number how about we have a little turn-based battle?"
The leader suggested
"What do you mean by that?"
Teras asked
He was a bit skeptical about his proposal
"The four of you will fight a selected four from my group in non-lethal fights and if you manage to win I will leave this village alone but if you lose I will take every coin you have on you, how does that sound?"
Teras thought about it and he ended up with a conclusion and decided to first announce it to his companions
"Fighting only 4 out of 20 and more seems optional to me so what do you say? Are you in?"
"I agree that it's better to fight only four but do you think that they would keep their promise? I mean they overpower us with their sheer amount of people"
Lia said, Teras didn't think about it
"I don't know about you Lia but I'm willing to risk it since they suggested it"
Teras insisted on doing this fight
"Even if you want to believe that they will play fair it may backfire on us"
Lia tried to explain to Teras, he understood that she was right but he still took the risk
"Hey you, what's your name?"
Teras asked the leader
"My name is Marco, why do you ask?"
He asked with a confused look
"Marco I want you to swear to your life and your group's life that you won't violate any rules, meaning you will actually leave if we win and you won't kill any of us"
Teras asked him
"Come on kid! We are bandits, not criminals, we will keep our promise because either way this village is doomed, we are just shortening their life span"
Teras got really angry when he heard that but he kept his cool
"So what are we waiting for, Let's start the battles!"
Teras said with confidence, Marco felt the same so he quickly assigned some of his people to fight, and after some minutes they all were ready for a fight
"Captain please, please, let me fight!"
A shot man with crazy energy asked Marco
"Fine, calm down, so as you heard we will first send our power unit Sot"
Marco announced
"We on the other hand will send Lia"
the 2 of them then stepped forwards and got ready to fight, the fights were performed in the middle of the street where no obstacles were to disturb the fight, the 2 of them then started fighting Sot could use the 9th card (Air mastery) and with it, he was pushing Lia around the field, she couldn't concentrate on her power so she couldn't attack back, after some time of pushing around Sot charged at her with a short sword he had, and with his air mastery he enhanced his movement, so Lia had a hard time aiming at him, Sot was completely overpowering Lia, she couldn't aim nor match his speed but she didn't give up, She was still trying to aim at him but with Sot constantly hitting and pushing her, resulted to most of her attacks to land on the ground, she couldn't even start aiming properly, minutes passed and nothing changed, Lia never landed a hit on Sot and Sot in the other hand easily managed to knock down Lia
"Haha, this fight was a joke! Are you all like her? If yes then you can straight up forfeit"
Marco said while laughing
"Impossible! Lia is supposed to be one of the strongest of us!"
Cara whispered to herself, Teras was a bit worried about the other opponents but he had faith in his friends
shortly after the second battle began
"For this one, I will let my friend Tristan fight"
Marco said
Teras went to fight himself this time, he wanted to give a glimpse of hope to his friends
When the 2 men walked up Teras quickly initiated combat, with a swift kick but his opponent dodged the kick by ducking down, he then tried to attack Teras with his card power, and he tried to crush Teras's leg with his enhanced power from the second card(super strength) but before he could get ahold of Teras's leg, Teras pulled his whole body away from him and he then punched his head with a full body movement that shocked Tristan, Teras then followed with a powerful uppercut that launched Tristan into the air, unable to do anything to defend himself Tristan prepared himself from another powerful attack by Teras, this time Teras rotated his whole body and kicked with Tristan to the head with a deadly hook kick, the attack was that intense that cracked Teras's foot, but the results were good since they managed to win one of the 4 fights
"Damn, you messed up Tristan"
Marco told Teras but he ignored him
"Fine I will fight now, and I want to fight with this tall guy!"
Marco requested but Teras refused
"I don't plan on doing what you are saying so..."
But before Teras could finish Har walked up and agreed
"Don't worry Teras, right now I'm really mad so I believe I won't fall so easily"
Har said with confidence in his voice, he was also very angry about what happened to Lia, once they walked up to each other they had a small talk
"You know I'm silver ranked and by what I have seen up until now you are all bronze ranked"
Marco said with a smirk that pissed off Har even more
"It's pointless chatting like this don't you think?"
Har told him while slowly walking away from him, the fight began with Marco launching a fire attack at Har but Har easily blocked it by raising a wall
"Oh, it's like that? Then I will change tactics"
Marco said, he then charged at Har with fire surrounding his fists, Har then covered his hands with rocks and prepared for a clash with Marco, the 2 of them traded punches but even though Har had rocks on his hands Marco was doing more damage since his mana control was better, after the trade of punches Har launched a poll out of stone at Marco, the way he did it was because he controlled the earth with his leg, Marco was struck by the poll, Har took advantage of his weakened moment to punch him with force but Marco blocked the attack taking some damage to his hands, the fight was pretty even but everything changed after something Marco said
"Now I'm finally warmed up"
When he said that his whole body became hotter and he was faster and stronger, he could attack Har without him being attacked back, he was also overpowering Har in every aspect
'I have to do something or else I will also lose'
Har thought, and he then decided to risk it, he charged mindlessly at Marco, or at least that's how Marco saw it, Marco then steeped into Har's trap by taking a step forwards
'He created a trap while we fought?'
Marco wondered and he was right, the trap was placed before when they were talking and the use for it was to capture Marco, the trap created a bunch of rocks that limited Marco's movements when Har saw that the trap worked he quickly rushed to Marco
"I GOT YOU!!!"
Har screamed while running, Marco laughed too, he then released as much fire as he could towards him, Har tried to defend himself but the fire was simply too hot for him, and before he knew it he came close to Marco but he was unable to see, his eyes were teary from the fire, Marco then used fire to boost the movement of his legs, and with that movement, he struck Har in the stomach with his knee, that attack made Har spit up blood, he then followed with another attack, this time he used both of his arms to clap Har's ears, Har's ears were ringing very loud after that and he also began to lose consciousness, and to finish him of Marco grabbed him and threw him on the ground with all of his force, when Har hit the ground he fainted, Marco was the winner of this fight making the score 1-2 for the bandits' favor
"What do you think about this?"
Marco asked Teras while staring him in the eyes with a smile
"Teras, please give me permission to ruin the next person!"
Cara said with a cold expression on her face, that request surprised Teras but he could understand where this sudden request came from
"Do whatever you want but make sure you don't kill him"
Teras said as he gently pushed Cara, he wasn't afraid of the outcome since he knew that Cara would win, he could see her D E T E R M I N A T I O N
"For the final battle, I will let the only woman here Rea fight"
Marco said, he was still smiling, the 2 girls walked up and got ready to fight
"You better stay focused because I c..."
Before Rea could finish speaking Cara charged at her with her water powers, Rea barely managed to block Cara's slash
"That was kind of rude little lady"
Rea told her but she didn't hear her, Cara kept on attacking her, and Rea couldn't do anything but defend since Cara was much more mobile than her, Cara was using her water powers to slide on land like she was on top of ice, Cara's swift and smooth slashes wore out Rea, Cara's speed mixed with her strength, had applied a lot of pressure at Rea making her weaker and weaker as time passed, after some time of fighting Cara stopped
"Come on! Don't tell me you are so useless that you can't even use the power of cards, I guess your only use is to be a plaything to the men"
Cara told her with a scary smile, some men laughed when they heard her
"You bitch! I will kill you!"
The exhausted Rea said as she used all of her power to run towards Cara, Cara used her powers to disarm Rea, she then threw her own sword out away and started beating her with no mercy, after 10 consecutive attacks Rea started to faint but Cara didn't allow her to fall to the ground, she kept on raising her body with water and hitting her over and over after some attacks Cara was grabbed from behind by an enemy, or at least that was what she thought, but in reality, it was Teras, he hugged her from behind and calmed her down
"It's alright Cara, you won this fight so don't waste your energy like that, we have a village to save"
Teras told her with a warm smile, he then slowly released her, Cara had a sad look on her face as she walked away from the fight area
"Now that we are 2-2 what do we do?"
Teras asked Marco with confusion
"We have another fight to determine who actually won of course"
Marco told Luck with confidence
'Every single one of them wasn't as strong as uncle made them to be, I also never needed to use overflow or my explosions, so whoever I have to fight will probably lose to me'
Teras thought, his mind was a bit at ease
"Have you decided who will fight?"
Marco asked with excitement
"Yea I will be the one to end you"
Teras told him as he walked up
"Release it!"
Marco said, Teras then was doomed to see what actually was in the cage, I was a tall humanoid creature with spikes on its back that extended to its tail, it also had long sharp nails on both feet and palms, this creature is mostly known as a mana mutated lizard
"This will be your next opponent Teras, make sure you don't die!"
Marco said as he began to laugh hysterically