Chereads / The Playground of the Gods / Chapter 23 - Chapter 23

Chapter 23 - Chapter 23

The Sanguisugion race was always a militant one, however, the Godfrey royal family always expected double of their great armies, and great things they had done. They always were bigger, were always better equipped, and better trained. With such a heavy drain, the royal coffers simply couldn't handle such a heavy toll, especially when they had already conquered the whole planet.

In a campaign lasting for a mere 36 years more than 14 rival countries were annihilated in a fast blitz; mass destruction and death were commonplace in the year 485 of the previous Fendile calendar created by Fendile the Wise. With over 100 years of rebellion, even the militant Sanguisuges were disgusted with the death of millions, thus the conquered tribes had gained greater freedoms in exchange for subservience.

Even after the compromise and demilitarization, they had never gotten rid of their militaristic way of life. If the people could no longer join the military and conquer others then they would find other ways to fight, one way they found was through Godremic a sport that uses a fighting style of the same name. With the militaristic tone of their culture, it's of no surprise that the sport is a fighting one, where one could fight another bare-fisted or with armor and weapons. The best of the civilian fighters could put even one of the royal guards to shame, but that was simply due to those select individuals only practicing it while the royal guards had other responsibilities and other things to train.

Godremic is such a popular sport that children play it, albeit at a very scaled and ruled version without sharp objects, but they still fight. Today about five hours before the court session Aleister is visiting a public academy-esque place for the sport; as someone who is a practitioner of the military optimized version and has been for 92 years Aleister's visit is purely to demonstrate the height of skill that can be reasonably achieved to the students of the academy, meaning both minors and adults.

Walking down the street with his 24 guards always around him he soon found himself in front of a medium-sized Fendile era building. Upon entering the building and walking down a few halls to a previously discussed area Aleister found his way into a large open area filled with students and teachers.

They had all given a military salute which was a simple pound of the chest with a clasped fist while the other hand which would have been filled with a sword, goes behind the back and if holding a sword would run parallel to the spine. Even though the academy wasn't technically part of any military force, they had still given a military salute this was because the very first practitioners were part of the army meaning it was now a simple tradition.

Looking around Aleister caught a glimpse of four snipers, 'probably more hidden' he thought he knew these were royal guardsmen and he knew they weren't there to kill him as dodging superheated plasma was an impossible task even for the superhuman Aleister meaning he would have already been dead.

Walking through a parted crowd Aleister climbed the steps to an arena with 35 adults and 45 minors on it, these were the people that Aleister would fight today, these people were the top talent in the academy. Taking a giant deep breath his eyes glazed over and his movements became wavy and lazy, the students didn't understand what was happening but almost all of the teachers and most of the older adult students instantly understood.

Two visibly old people walked out from the crowd on the side of the arena, Aleister didn't seem to recognize them nor did he even acknowledge them he simply held his hands at the hips while the two old men approached.

Calm and collected one of them circled around to Aleisters back while the other approached from the front once they were both around eight meters away from him the man in the back slowly approached from behind while the man in the front approached from the front.

In an instant, the man in the back jetted forward and kicked at Aleister's back while the other man prepared to punch the stumbling king, before his food could grace Aleisters back with its presence he spun around and caught the foot pulling him into his position while Aleister took his. With the switch, the other man almost punched his friend in the face but stopped right before.

With the man's foot in his hand, Aleister backhanded him to the right and kicked his foot to the left sending him toppling down, seeing his friend go down the other man saw an opportunity to hit Aleister. Dodging his punch by bending his back slightly the old man quickly spun around with a roundhouse kick which was dodged by bending almost impossibly at a 90°. seeing yet another opportunity the man who was facing the opposite direction due to overspin once again spun around but this time was aiming for his legs.

With a backflip into a handstand and back onto his feet Aleister cleanly got away from the old man who saw safety in the distance and helped the other man up, pulling his hand from his neck there was a little bit of blood nothing too serious just a little cut and it was definitely nothing that would stop an official game. However, this was a simple demonstration meaning the two old men simply bowed and began to walk back to the crowd.

For the first time sence, his eyes glazed over he elicited a response being a bow which was like a preprogrammed action in a video game. While Aleister was bowing in a slow and lazy motion the neatly lined crowd of people around the arena exploded into shock, even though they had expectations of how good the king would be they never thought that he would beat the head instructor and a man who was the world champion almost two decades before Aleister was even born over a century ago.

The next person to walk out was a woman with a similar packed and toned physique that Aleister had, in her hands were two long staffs as tall as they were. They were simple wooden staves with metal bracing to keep them intact even with heavy hitting. Once they were around eight feet apart she threw one at Aleister who caught it and almost instantly like a computer entered a stance.