The head elder looked at King and understood why he was here. He said, "The academy has rules and under no circumstances should they be violated. When a student intentionally avoid taking part in the challenges, the academy arranges a must-battle for such students after all we are training you for the future of the country. In the future, you'll become elites in the military and will protect the country from its enemies. Therefore, there should be no coward in the academy."
The head elder paused for a second before going on, "On the first day of the competition there was a student who admitted defeat right away. Although am aware he is new in the academy, I am sure he was handed the sheet of paper containing rules when he was being admitted. Such actions should be reprimanded and they should not be witnessed in the academy therefore, he must fight and is denied the right to concede. The fight will only come to a stop when I say so."
Everybody understood what the head elder was talking about. The 'coward', as Mo was called by many students was the student the head elder was talking about. Many students had guessed he would have to fight a must-battle but the question everyone had was who his opponent was. Everybody with was curious about who Mo would fight with apart from Alvin who had guessed correctly after seeing King had no intention of challenging him.
Alvin could not help but wonder if the academy had thought too highly of Mo. "Moses! Grade eleven, get in the arena now!" The head elder ordered. Nearly all the students turned their faces to Mo. Although not many knew his name, there was no other student who had violated the second most important rule of the academy and his red uniform was way too eye catching. Mo who was just a few meters from the arena stepped in the arena with a calm expression. Many had their eyes fixed at him as they wondered who his opponent would be.
The head elder looked at Mo his eyes full of pity. Mo noticed it but was not bothered. "Now that you are in the arena, you are not allowed to step out without my permission!" The head elder shouted. "I'll now announce his opponent who is none other than," the head elder intentionally paused before stressing out, "King!"
Silence!
It was so silent that one could hear a pin drop. After the silence was an uproar. "What!" "How is that possible?" "No way!" Many people would rather not believe than believe. "That kid is done for. Fighting with King, even the strong version of Alvin who had ranked first resulted to shameless means to avoid fighting with that monster let alone a kid who don't even have guts to fight a yellow tier student," many students lamented Mo's bad luck.
"I warned him but he didn't listen. He only has himself to blame," Alvin muttered to himself smiling bitterly. Alvin was one of the few people who knew King's strength after all he had fought him alone before joining hands with Jason and Taylor. The most depressing thing was even after joining hands none of them was able to land a strike on King's body.
"Start!" The head elder shouted after King had stepped in the arena. All the students were quiet with their eyes fixed on the arena. "I'll give you a chance to attack first," said King his voice full of arrogance but he had the qualifications to be arrogant. "Me? Forget about it," replied Mo as he remained standing on his position without showing signs of making a move. "Then don't say I never gave you the chance to make the first move," King said as he started moving towards Mo. For every step King took forward, Mo would take one backwards.
Though he did so, nobody dared to mock him after all they knew that if they were in his shoes they would do the same thing and one could fight against anyone but not monsters like King. King increased his pace as noticing Mo kept retreating. King wanted to finish the battle using the least possible time so that he could leave this crowded place.
After retreating continuously, Mo found himself at one end of the arena. When he saw King nearing him, he ran to another side. King furrowed his brows as he increased his pace. Mo could only continue to retreat but as the battle continued he found he was unable to run all over the arena and could either confront King directly or think of another way to cope with the situation. Mo started exchanging blows with King but those with keener eyes could tell but he was actually not coming into contact with King.
He seemed to have copied King's moves and was currently imitating them. When King threw a punch he would retreat and also throw a punch but the punches would never meet and there was a gap of two meters between the punches. King could not hurt Mo at all but the students knew that king was barely using half of his strength if not lesser.
Nobody noticed that seven old men appeared where everybody was gathered apart from the head elder who exclaimed in a low voice, "The Guardian and elders!" The head elder was shocked by the appearance of the seven, but he was the head elder meaning that he wouldn't be shocked by the appearance of those he called elders so they were not elders of the academy. They had to be anything else.
Mo who was dodging King's attacks seemed to be barely from his expression. "He is barely holding and King has not even exerted a tenth of his strength. Seems like he won't be able to hold on for long," Alvin muttered with a sigh. Others could not tell the strength King had used but Alvin could. King was increasing the force behind his arms as his speed increased accordingly. This continued until his strikes were only half meter from Mo. "Seems like this guy is not simple. I think I'll have to use half of my strength to defeat him."
When he used half of his strength, it only shortened the distance but he was still not able to harm Mo. He then increased his strength to three fifths but still was unable to bear fruits. The distance between Mo and his punches was a feet at that moment. "This guy," King frowned, "I can suppress those three with only sixty percent of my strength but am still unable to land a strike." King increased his strength but that only shortened the distance. Many students could only catch a glimpse of the shadows of those two but as the battle progressed even Alvin could not see the moves of those two.
King used more strength and the distance between Mo and where his strikes could reach decreased. He was using eighty percent of his strength and was still half foot away from Mo. The thing that troubled King was that Mo still had the same expression on his face as if he could barely hold on which had given King illusions that he was about to defeat Mo for quite some time. At that moment average students could only see blur figures moving at very high speed in the arena.
"Even I would be defeated if he fought me using this speed and strength. King has never been this strong even when he was fighting against three at the same time but Mo can keep up with it," sighed Alvin as he remembered the confident look on Mo's face when he told him that he could up his ground against King without getting injured. Thinking about how long it had been since they started battling each other, he sighed once more. It had been exactly…
King had started using ninety five percent of his strength but there was still a five centimeters gap between them but due to how fast they were moving, one could mistake it as they were exchanging blows. Most of the instructors could not see the moves of the two and more than half of the elders were having trouble following up with the two's moves. There were only eight people who could see everything clearly without straining themselves and those were the head elder and the seven old men.
After fighting Mo for a long time King paused and everybody saw Mo taking deep breaths. King said, "You are the first person to force me to use my full strength for the past two years. You should be proud of yourself but be careful!" At the end of his statement King stressed on the word careful meaning he would get serious. After King used his full strength his speed nearly doubled. He attacked crazily but Mo also increased his speed and his clothes fluttered due to the force from King's punches which were now just a centimeter away from his body. King tried to increase his strength but he had already used it all.
"I'll let him exhaust himself first since I can't get a chance to win if this continues," King thought as he continued to attack madly. The battle had reached its climax. "Look at the movements of that kid," Feng told the six old men who were standing near him his face full of excitement. When the old men paid special attention to the movements of Mo their eyes brightened as Seth said, "Old man Feng, you have really lucked on a treasure this time." The others nodded their heads in agreement.
"Humph! Who was the one that said that I was overpraising the kid?" Feng snorted. Seth refrained from answering that but the bright light in his eyes did not fade away. "He is still not exhausted! My energy is nearly depleted. It seems like I have no other choice," King sighed. Mo still had that look on his face but to King it looked as some kind of mockery. King had already tried his best but couldn't not even touch the clothing of Mo let alone defeat him.
"I admit defeat!"
Silence.
"Can you pinch me, I think am dreaming," students told those who were close to them. "Aarghhh! Who told you to pinch me that hard?" The students could not believe what they had heard. Some even thought their ears were playing tricks to them. King, the unrivalled student in the academy had opened his mouth and conceded to a rookie who had not even spent a month in the academy. Truly unbelievable!
"Oh, finally he can't hold on longer," Mo who had a look that he would collapse the next moment out of exhaustion was actually very calm on the inside. If the students knew how calm he was they would think that he had already expected the outcome. The one who found it hard to believe was Alvin after all he knew that 'monster's strength' King had used his full strength but was unable to defeat Mo, he even admitted defeat in front of so many people, a miracle indeed.