"The first match, Nathaniel Waters vs. Kornelius Ashworth!" The elderly referee shouted.
"Are both fighters ready?"
"Of course." Kornelius shadow-boxed with a confident smile.
"I am." Nath replied with less enthusiasm in his voice. 'Triple Technique… Triple Technique…'
"Fight!" The referee shouted and swung his arm slowly, as if his joints were rusty.
"Ashworth Family Style, Spirit Cutter!" Kornelius rushed in, his arms crossed into an "X," and slashed both down as if they were swords.
Nath blocked them with his arms, but then his skin ruptured and blood splattered everywhere. There were two deep cuts on his arms, as if he were cut by a knife or some kind of sharp machete.
'He is going all-out straight away!' Nath thought with a pale face.
'Ashworth Family Style is a dangerous style.' Jin thought with a frown. 'Rumors say that Ashworth used to be a family of assassins and thieves. That's how they managed to amass their immense wealth. Their style originated thousands of years ago.
'Ashworth Family Style is basically a style made for assassinations.'
Kiernan sat quietly without changing his expression. It was unclear what he was thinking about, but it must be deep based on the small frown on his face.
"Ashworth Family Style, Spirit Punch!" Kornelius threw an over-shoulder punch and smashed it straight into Nath's arms.
Spurt!
Again, Nath's arms burst with crimson blood, and it clearly hurt him, but he tried to keep calm and collected. He kept thinking about his Triple Technique, but he didn't want to miss the timing.
The outcome of the match depended on it.
"Ashworth Family Style, Spirit…" Kornelius tapped his hands together—one hand facing upward and the other hand facing downward—and then smashed them straight at Nath's chest.
"Unleashment!"
Spurt!
Crack!
The attack sent Nath flying like a comet. He was on his way to fall off the ring, but at that moment, his feet grew a few centimeters and landed back on the ground. It gave him enough traction to stop himself at the edge of the ring.
However, it was looking bad.
Nath's chest was bleeding furiously.
The elderly referee narrowed his eyes. He had a duty to stop the fight if it was going to threaten the life of one of the contestants.
"Nath…" Klaus and Timothy grinded their teeth. It was looking horrible.
"Oh no…" Shura held her hands close to her chest.
"As expected," Kang said, shaking his head. "The strength difference is vast."
"Tch…" Jin looked at the towel in his hand. He could also end the fight whenever he wished, but at that moment, Nath made his move.
Nath clapped his hands together with a loud smack and then started running forward like a mad man running towards the jaws of death.
Kornelius raised his arm over his shoulder. "Ashworth Family Style…"
'Is Nath going to do it?' Jin's eyes shrunk. 'Can it work against Martial Fighter?'
A small air bubble appeared between Nath's hands, and then he clapped them together, which created a strange sound followed by eerie ringing.
"Melody!"
Kornelius' face seemed uncomfortable. His ears were ringing as if a loud alarm had just gone off right next to him.
"What's your biggest fear?" Nath asked with an echoing voice.
"Rgh, why the fuck do you want to know that?" Kornelius angrily whipped his arm down and chopped across Nath's shoulder.
"Spirit Chop!"
Crack—the shoulder broke and dislocated.
Nath, while holding his broken arm, backed off with cold sweat running down his face.
"Oh no, it didn't work!" Jin cried out.
At that moment, Nath again clapped his hands together. This time, it was so loud that his hands turned red and swollen.
The ringing was now so loud and wide-spread that even other members of Karuza and Raimei High heard it. It caused their ears to ring as well.
"Tch, what the hell is that?" Arthan picked his ear with a frown.
"I wonder what he was up to." Kalen said with a chuckle and rubbed his ear. "Is he planning to turn Kornelius deaf or what?"
Kornelius' eyes turned blank for a moment, and he stopped moving.
"What is your greatest fear?!" Nath screamed out loud with pain etched on his face.
"Ngh…" Kornelius struggled and finally answered. "To… disappoint… my parents…"
Nath quickly snapped his fingers. "Fear!"
Kornelius saw the stadium spin around him as if he were inside a washing machine. The stadium then disappeared and was replaced by a cozy-looking room with fireplace in the corner, frost-covered windows and a warm, inviting smell wafting through the air.
It was a room inside the Ashworth family's mansion—they lived in Raimei, where it was mostly snowing all year round.
At that moment, the door swung wide open, and an angry-looking gray-haired man stepped inside.
Kornelius turned around and whispered. "F-father…"
"You lost in the tournament, huh?" The father raised his hand high and slapped him across the face. "What an embarrassment to the Ashworth family! We, Ashworths, don't lose!"
"I…" Kornelius, with his cheek swollen red, tried to explain. "I-I win next time… I'll train harder, a thousand times harder!"
"No, you already made our family lose face; you're disowned!"
As those words rang across Kornelius' ears, he fell down on his knees, tears running down his face. His whole life was falling apart around him.
"Wait…" Kornelius looked around the cozy room and frowned. "The walls are grayish. Didn't we just get them painted red-brownish? Also, the sofa feels low quality."
He thought to himself while touching the sofa. It didn't feel as soft and comfortable as it used to.
"Wasn't I in the stadium just now?" Kornelius slowly stood back up with a frown. "How did I get in here?"
The walls and the ceiling started cracking.
The feeling that something was wrong turned stronger, and then Kornelius grabbed a vase and threw it at the wall. That caused the entire room to fall apart, and he appeared back in the ring.
A punch was flying in his direction.
Kornelius quickly grabbed the punch mid-air and twisted it till Nath flipped over to the ground.
"W-what?" Nath grunted as his back touched the ground. 'H-he destroyed my hallucination?'
"A hallucination?" Kornelius picked him back up with just one hand and smirked. "There were a few mistakes—your hallucination manages to make my own memories fight back against me.
"The room was based on my memories, but I hadn't visited that room ever since it got repainted. Also, your hallucination can't mimic the exact touch of the items if I have only a faint recollection of them.
"Without seeing the wrongly painted walls, I probably wouldn't have realized that the sofa was all wrong. However, it helped me to see a little bit past the hallucination, so seeing the error in the sofa was easy as well."
"S-shit…" Nath kicked up his legs, but then Kornelius tossed him aside like a piece of garbage.
Nath rolled and tumbled around in the air and eventually fell to the ground, outside the ring.
"Winner, Kornelius Ashworth!" The elderly referee quickly announced.
"Ah~" Kornelius stretched his arms with a smile. "That was unexpectedly difficult."
Karuza High's side looked sour-faced. After seeing that Kornelius was completely stuck inside his fears, they thought Nath would win. However, in the end, the fight ended as expected.
And the worst thing was that Kornelius wasn't really injured either. That's the flaw in Triple Technique. It had a lot of steps that could fail and only one of the techniques that could actually hurt the opponent.