The scene's brutality instilled fear in everyone as they witnessed Ludo lying on the ground with a bloodied face. In all of Ludo's existence, he had never suffered such a humiliating defeat. It was a shocking reality for everyone, given that Ludo's father held supreme authority as the village leader. A collective disbelief hung in the air, as they grappled with the idea of Asher's unexpected strength surpassing Ludo's. The question echoed through the onlookers: Did Asher even realize the gravity of nearly taking a life?
Peach staring at the scene was completely frozen in terror. She was scared for her son's well-being. He had just publicly beaten the third son of the chief half to death. After a couple of seconds of silence, the crowd grew rowdy. Everyone was chatting about what they had just seen. Oliva immediately took to the stage, he stared at Asher, like he was staring at a beast, and went on to carry Ludo out of the stage. Oliva ordered a test of to be conducted on Asher, he wanted to verify what stage of natural energy Asher had.
After a couple of minutes, another senior warrior came to the stage and administered the natural energy test on Asher. When the test was concluded, the senior warrior stared in disbelief. This year had produced some of the best warrior students in the village's history. There was first the beginning level 5 warrior, Boliva, and now there was one who wasn't too far off, a peak level 4 warrior, Asher. The senior warrior announced the result of the test to everyone. The test results shocked the crowd, and more so than others, the senior warriors that were present.
"No wonder he had such confidence earlier," Oliva thought to himself as he walked back on stage.
"Why did you not go easy on him, since you were much stronger," Oliva asked Asher while walking towards him.
Asher stared at Oliva for a short time, then responded with a smirk on his face "There was nothing I could do there, his face kept attacking my fist."
Oliva hearing this immediately grew angry, Asher had the audacity to come up such a stupid excuse after almost killing the chief's son. What on earth could have caused him to gain such confidence? After all, he was just the son of a lowly merchant.
"Don't forget, that was a fair match between equals. No one can blame anyone for any injuries caused due to this fight" Asher immediately said paraphrasing what Ludo had earlier mentioned.
"How was this a fair match between equals? You were clearly stronger, and shouldn't have fought a much weaker opponent to this extent." Oliva said.
"Oh, so why did you not stop the match earlier. You clearly knew Ludo was a level 3 warrior and thought I was a level 2 warrior. Or could it be that you were hoping I was the one in Ludo's condition?" Asher responded.
Everyone hearing this stared at Oliva, what Asher had said made sense. Soon after, the crowd got rowdy again, everyone started gossiping. Oliva being the subject of the gossip grew angrier at Asher. He was dumbfounded at Asher's composure.
"How can it be this brat would turn out this way? He was clearly useless months ago. How did this situation come about?" Oliva asked himself while trying to figure something out. Seeing things progress the way it had, Oliva turned to the crowd.
"Silence, the demonstrations are not yet over," Oliva said in other to get the crowd under control.
"I would like to challenge the victor," Boliva said while approaching the center of the stage.
Earlier when Boliva was watching the fight, he had doubts about Asher's strength. After the test results were announced, he got his original confidence back. He was determined to make Asher pay for what he had done.
"Only a level 4 warrior. I should be able to defeat him miserably." Boliva thought to himself.
Oliva gave a nod in acknowledgment of the fight. He then turned to stare at Asher. This time, he wasn't going to make the same mistake as earlier.
"Your opponent this time around is a level 5 warrior, would you like to accept his challenge?" Oliva asked Asher.
"I accept any and all challenges today," Asher responded with an air of confidence.
Although Asher did not have an ounce of his godly powers, he had the memories of his lifetime as the god of destruction, Brabus. During that time, Brabus had spent millions of years training and developing every aspect of his being. He had developed his own unique martial arts, one that was unique to himself.
"Haha. Here I thought you'd take that opportunity to run away, but instead, you choose to fight." Boliva said to Asher.
"I shall teach you the difference between us today. Pray you don't end up crippled." Boliva continued.
Asher only had a smile on his face. He had absolute confidence in his ability to evade his opponent. Even though he wasn't entirely certain he could defeat Boliva, he was completely certain he would not be heavily wounded.
"Pick your weapon and let this fight begin," Asher responded.
Boliva walked to the weapon rack and selected the long spear. Since Boliva was acknowledged as one of the greatest genius to have ever been born in the Red River village, the village's chief had spent a lot of resources training him. He had even begun teaching him some of the spear techniques he knew. Before the current chief was assigned the position as the chief of the village, he was luckily accepted as a student at a second rated martial arts school. There he learned some basic spear techniques the school taught every student. Because of his experience, his position as the next chief of the village was bolstered to greater heights. Ever since he came back to run the village, he had only taught three people the spear techniques he had learned, and of the three, Boliva was one of them.
Oliva looked at both of them and gave the go-ahead for the battle to start. Boliva upon hearing this started attacking with his spear. He aimed at Asher's head with the clear intention of ending the match fast. Asher had been prepared for a sudden attack, and as he saw the spear coming, he easily evaded the attack.
"So he is truly trying to kill me," Asher thought inwardly.
Now Asher was more than ever determined to teach Boliva lesson. He originally planned on fighting him to draw, but now that idea was out the window. Since Boliva was coming for his life, he would do the same. While Brabus was alive as a god, he had on multiple occasion fought Oya, the chief god of darkness, who wielded an eternal darkness spear. He was well versed in the movements of the spear.
Asher was continuously attacked by Boliva's spear, but every time it came close to him he evaded the attack. Asher was waiting for an opportunity to attack Boliva, but soon he discovered that there were no opportunities he could exploit with his current level of power. As the fight went on, scratches could be seen on Asher's outfit. Boliva was relentlessly attacking him, and with the fact he was in a prior fight to this, Asher was starting to get fatigued.
"Not good. Never would I have expected this Boliva usage of the spear to be this good. I need to do something fast."
Everyone watching the match was surprised at what they were witnessing. Boliva's usage of the spear was quite extraordinary for people of their caliber. He was like a shooting star blazing up the stage. While his opponent, who defied common sense and was able to keep up with Boliva. In the hearts of everyone, including the senior warriors, they had started respecting Asher. It was painfully clear who had the upper hand, so everyone paid extra attention because the match was about to reach its conclusion.
Ever since Asher gained his memories as the god Brabus, there was one thing that bothered him. He was originally gifted in two elements, fire, and earth. His affinity for the both of them was of the highest level, and fire being the most prominent of the two, but after his reincarnation, his affinity to the fire element had completely gone. He was slightly able to still sense the elements of the earth but to a much lower degree.
Asher decided to do something crazy. He was going to gather elemental earth energy. Normally, it would be impossible for one to gather elemental energy without stabilizing one's own natural energy base, which meant you had to have successfully cultivated and passed the 12th level of natural energy. Then the body will be strong enough to accommodate the power of any given element. Asher executed his movement skill and created a great distance between him and his opponent.
He immediately closed his eye and started trying to gather earth elemental energy. With the distance between him and Boliva, Asher had estimated it will take Boliva exactly eight seconds to get before him, which meant he had only eight seconds to gather elemental energy. Asher was gathering this energy with great difficulty, he had immediately zoned out and thought of how he had been wronged in his former life. Was he going to be left in this life as a useless weak mortal? At that point, Asher coughed out blood. Something seemed to have changed within his body. Asher had successfully drawn a little bit of earth elemental energy. He knew that forcefully drawing elemental energy will damage his current body and shortens his lifespan, but he wasn't in the position to care about those things. After all, there were other means to lengthen one's lifespan and heal the body.
Asher opened his eyes and noticed Boliva had gotten right in front of him. Boliva attacked again with his spear, this time, he was confident he had won. After all, Asher was clearly tired and injured. Boliva wasn't holding back the least bit, his intentions were clear, he wanted to inflict the maximum damage possible. As the spear was about to strike Asher's head, Asher quickly moved his left hand to try and catch the spear. Boliva seeing this was surprised. Even though the spear was somewhat blunt, no one with a brain would try something so stupid.
To Boliva's surprise, Asher had succeeded in catching the spear. Although he was bleeding from catching the spear, everything seemed to have gone according to his plans. The earth elemental energy strengthened his palm, helping curb the impact of the blow.
While holding the spear, Asher utilized the movement skill one more time and directly appeared in front of Boliva. He immediately struck Boliva's chest with his right palm possessing the might of earth elemental energy. That attack was incredibly loud, one could hear it from miles away. Boliva immediately got to one knee, blood could be seen dripping from his nose and ears. Suddenly, Boliva completely collapsed on the floor.