A few minutes before the explosion:
As the king charged at him, Tom finished materializing his gauntlet made of Etherium that wrapped around his arms, offering a layer of protection, but also potency in Tom's punch.
The moment the gauntlet materialized around his arms, Tom also charged at the king, which actually surprised him.
Since the beginning of the fight, he had always been the one initiating the attack, while Tom concentrated on dodging, parrying, or counterattacking, but never on initiating an attack himself.
This sudden shift in Tom's fighting style threw the king off guard; he wasn't experienced to begin with, so when his opponent did something unpredictable, it led to the unfolding situation.
Tom easily dodged the fist by lowering himself and since the king wasn't prepared to throw a punch so soon, he completely missed.
Tom then gave the king a serious punch in his abdomen, making the latter stumble back with a pained expression. Since now Tom was wearing a gauntlet, his punch finally managed to hurt the king.
Not wanting to let go of his advantage, Tom pressed on by quickly shortening the distance that the king had created between them when he stumbled back.
Obviously, the king didn't want to let him do as he pleased, so he tried to punch Tom. But he made a mistake that further proved he lacked experience.
Trying to punch Tom, he made a large movement. The problem was that Tom was already too close to him. Before his fist could even descend upon Tom's face, the latter was already right in front of him, landing a punch at the same spot he had targeted initially.
The king felt pain in his abdomen and attempted to create some distance from Tom. However, Tom had already anticipated this move. The moment the king took his first step back, Tom kicked his other leg, causing him to lose balance and fall toward Tom.
Tom seized this opportunity and used his leg to kick the king on his chin. Since the king was falling toward him, Tom's kick carried twice the force it should have, causing the king's body to lift slightly from the ground as he fell onto his back.
However, at this moment, the king did something unexpected. He used one of his legs to kick Tom on his chin, mimicking Tom's previous move. Due to his greater strength, when the king's leg made contact with Tom, it propelled the latter into the air with such force that Tom actually pierced through the ceiling of the tent as he soared upward.
Meanwhile, just as the king was about to land on the ground, tentacles of shadow emerged and wrapped themselves around his body.
The tentacles of shadow held the king all over his body, from his head to his toe, completely immobilizing him!
The problem was that all the shadow tentacles did was hold him down, but Midas judged that it would be enough. He was also running low on Etherium, so he made those chains to hold the king down so that Tom would end him while descending from the air.
One could say that his bet was risky because if Tom didn't quickly find his bearing, he might just crash on the ground without doing anything to the king while gravely injuring himself in the process.
Fortunately, Tom quickly recovered. He was still feeling dizzy from the kick, and blood was oozing out of his mouth and nose, but he was still conscious of what was happening and what kind of situation he was in.
He glanced at the ground, worried that the king might be waiting for him to punch him during his descent. But he was surprised to find the king struggling to free himself from Midas's shadow grasp.
Tom immediately understood Midas's plan and decided to go along with it. So, he dismissed his gauntlets, and in their place, he materialized a sword of Etherium.
When he started to descend towards the ground, he pointed his sword at the body of the still struggling king.
With every passing second, Tom sensed his speed significantly rising. The wind entered his ears, and his hair whipped in the air. Despite this, Tom didn't attempt to decrease his speed, not even slightly. In fact, he was even trying to increase it, although he understood that he might not come out unscathed from the collision.
On the ground, the king witnessed Tom rapidly descending towards him, holding something sharp. This led him to thrash more desperately, attempting to free himself from the confining chains before facing potential impalement!
Alas, a second later...
Boom
A loud explosion rang out from all the village, making everyone turn toward the location of the royal tent, wondering what the hell was happening there.
"Sh*t, it hurt like hell," exclaimed Tom as he felt like his legs were on the verge of snapping in two.
Not only did his legs shake, but his entire body trembled upon crashing to the ground.
'All of this to miss him,' thought Tom with a frustrated expression.
It's not that his attack had failed; he had got the king. The issue here was that the bastard managed to free himself at the last second, so Tom's sword didn't kill him.
"At least it was not for nothing," said Tom as he looked at the bloody arm that was laying on the ground just in front of him.
The king might have managed to escape, but Tom was so close to him that the king had lost his arm on the way of his escape.
"AAAHH...."
As the dust cloud dissipated, a heart-wrenching guttural scream echoed, audible to the entire village.
When Tom glanced at the location the scream came from, he saw the king clutching his arm while screaming like a madman.
When the king looked at Tom, the latter suddenly felt a chill crawl down his spine as an unsettling sense of fear crept over him. His heartbeat accelerated, and it was like he had just run a marathon.
With sweat rolling down from his forehead, Tom came to a realization.
Taking the king's arm might have not been a good thing after all.