Jacqueline punched Erik, but he raised his arm and parried the strike, using the mana surrounding his appendages to deflect the girl's lethal claws. This left the young woman open, and Erik took the opportunity to spin on himself and kick her in the abdomen.
POW!
The young woman felt the kick on her stomach and gasped for air. She was thrown off balance and fell on her butt.
Though despite having trouble breathing, her mind was still sharp and focused on the fight. Without air in her lungs, she rolled on her back and gained distance from Erik, who, in the meantime, went back into posture and started chasing the young woman. Erik was trying to kick her in the face with his knee.
He actually replicated Zakir's stylish move, and he ran, gaining momentum. Once he was sufficiently close to his opponent, he jumped at Jacqueline's height and extended his leg to hit the young woman.
The young woman barely had the time to move her face out of harm's way. Still, Erik hit her on the clavicle, sending a bolt of pain throughout her body. Though Erik ended up stumbling on her, and she took the chance, despite the pain, to grab Erik's legs, making him fall to the ground.
Contemporaneously, Erik swung his sharpened arm at Jacqueline's back while the young woman punched Erik hard on his leg. Two gaping wounds appeared on both the contestant's bodies. A long gash over Jacqueline's back and four holes into Erik's thigh.
"ACK!"
"AAAAH!"
The two fighters shouted in pain. They knew they were both at their opponent's mercy in that position, so Jacqueline immediately left Erik's leg and jumped on his feet to regain her posture. At the same time, Erik rolled on the ground and stood up but with a limping leg.
Things turned ugly for Erik. With an injured leg, his movements were bound to become sloppier, and he could muster no more his original strength. Instead, Jacqueline had trouble moving her arms since every time she did it, a jolt of pain coursed through her body. She had to be careful about what to do.
Since both the contestants knew this tournament was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, they knew they couldn't allow their wounds to stop them from fighting. Besides, Erik knew that in a life-and-death situation, the fight wouldn't stop because he was injured, so he decided to take this as a learning opportunity to figure out what to do when such a situation happened.
<If only I had a healing power...> Erik thought. Then his eyes went on Jimmy Sanders, their designated healer, and a sinister thought spread inside his mind.
Though, Erik was taken out of his thoughts by a sudden blow from Jacqueline. While Erik was deep in his thoughts, the young woman charged at the young man, and since she had difficulties using her arms, she decided to use her legs as her primary mean of attack.
The young woman knew that Erik was injured on his leg, and that was where she started aiming. The blow left him slightly staggered.
But Erik wouldn't let the young woman take advantage of him like this. Since his arms were still well functioning, he swung his arm like a sword and slashed at Jacqueline.
It was a straightforward move and one that didn't belong to any martial art, but it was efficient in keeping his opponent at bay.
Erik knew he had to do something, Jacqueline was at an advantage, and the gap between his and his opponent's speed and strength wasn't so big anymore.
Erik thought about using the five attribute points he still had to spend to increase his strength. Still, Erik wanted to use them to pump up his mana so that he could fight equally against thaids.
It was true that this tournament was important, but Erik knew that the real battlefield was the forest outside the city, where he could kill thaids and absorb their mana thanks to the system.
The young man observed his opponent. Jacqueline was trying to kick the young man's leg, where his wound was located. But Erik, despite his slowness, was like an immovable mountain. Since he went into a defensive position, he had no openings.
Jacqueline started circling around Erik to find an opportunity to strike, but he didn't leave her the chance. Though, it was clear that Erik was at a disadvantage.
It was at that moment that the young man had an idea. He started channeling a large amount of mana and spreading it into his surroundings.
Since he was inside a garden, Erik used his first power to make the plants around him grow at an unbelievable rate. The grass he and Jacqueline were fighting on suddenly grew to be two meters tall and ten centimeters thick.
Erik basically gained a hiding place and multiple weapons he could use against his opponent.
Jacqueline was greatly disturbed but, at the same time, astonished by Erik's power. It was true that he wasn't considered a power worthy of a warrior, and for this reason, it got a low rate on the Jorm scale, but she had to admit that it wasn't as useless as the others said.
By using a power that essentially didn't harm her, the young man gained a hiding place, impaired her movements and created several tools to help him defeat her. This showed how much Erik had developed since he awakened.
She was aware of the young man's situation. Not that she cared; after all, this was a dog-eat-dog world where the strongest ruled supreme. Though, she also felt slightly happy for Erik, despite not knowing him, since he was someone who could go out of a life of misery and now had a bright future ahead.
In the meantime, the healer's face paled. He couldn't see the two students; if something terrible happened to them, it would be his ass on the line. Especially if something happened to Erik.
Instead, the crowd was furious since it could no longer see what was happening. They were throwing insults at Erik, the obvious owner of the power that stopped them from seeing the match.
Since Erik was on the receiving end, most of the onlookers thought that he was going to lose and were very excited about the fight's most likely outcome. Though, with what Erik did, he had a chance of tipping the scale of the fight in his favor.
Jacqueline tried to get away from the small forest that Erik had created. She had lost sight of him due to the grass and was in a perilous situation. Unfortunately, at that moment, a slash cut the grass surrounding Jacqueline at her height and made a gaping wound on the young woman's abdomen.
It was at that moment that Jacqueline felt something weird going on. It wasn't only the pain from Erik's slash but also the feeling of her own organs shifting! The wound Erik opened was too deep, and her organs almost came out of her!
It was at that moment that she saw Erik, with a giant blade of grass in his hands, run in her direction while throwing the weapon on the ground. Initially, Erik had a sardonic grin on his face, which got instantly replaced by an alarmed one. The young man was enjoying to much the fight, and things got out of hand.
"FUCK! FUCK! SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THIS!" Erik shouted. The young girl retracted her claws and used her hands to keep the organ inside of her body.
The student immediately picked up the young woman and brought her outside the grass field under the astonished eyes of the crowd, the healer, and the referee.
Once people saw the scene: the referee called for Erik's victory, while the healer had a pale face since he saw Jacqueline's wound. He knew that he had to close it immediately since a lot of blood was oozing out of it.
The healer had the ultimate power to overthrow the referee's verdict. If Erik damaged one of the young woman's internal organs with his attack, he was going to declare Erik as the loser since that would have been a lethal move.
As the healer fixed Jacqueline's wounds, he noticed that, despite the attack being very strong, it didn't even scratch the young woman's inner organ. So Erik was officially proclaimed the winner of the fight.
"You are very lucky, young man..." the healer said while explaining the situation to Erik. His face paled. He knew that was a very dangerous move. The problem was that Erik was so engrossed in the fight he almost forgot that it was a friendly match and his brain went into hunting mode.
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