Faim had just gotten back on his feet when he sensed danger coming from behind him. He also felt that the axes lodged in his shield were pulled away by some external force acting on them.
Faim knew what was going to happen. Instead of confronting Eren, he drove the long shield into the ground and jumped over it to make it to the other side. Even he knew the black snake scales that had just formed were not enough to deal with Eren's crazy momentum. His scales needed time to manifest the way he wanted them to.
Bzzt. Bang. Swoosh.
Faim had just made it to the other side of the shield when he received a tremendous force acting on his body through the shield. He had attacked the shield with his two axes, over the same dent they had inflicted from the other side.
Eren attacked the shield multiple times within a fraction of a second. He finished off his attack with a round kick.
Faim's defensive artifact could not stand up to such an assault and invasion of mana from two opposing sides. A major upper portion of the long shield was chipped off from its original body and flew in a northwest direction. The broken shield itself moved in the northeast direction. Faim flew straight into the air.
Barely 15 seconds had passed since Eren and Faim had started sparring. And the former had managed to break the latter's defensive artifact he had been counting on for the majority of his fights.
Faim saw Eren bringing his feet down and looking at him with narrowed eyes. He then tugged at his axes using his Igni Chains before holding them firmly in his hands.
Faim was looking at Eren while he was being carried in the air in the opposite direction from him. Eren's lightning mana was trying to injure him by dancing all around his body in the form of lightning streaks.
Kinnn!
The white noise in Faim's ears was intensifying. He was too shocked and out of his element to even feel the emotions of fear and frustration. He felt he was naked in front of Eren even with his black snake scales protecting him from most harm.
Faim summoned his earth-element snakes that manifested on his body by wrapping themselves around his limbs. He took out his broadsword when he knew he was about to crash land.
Faim blinked his eyes when he was about to land on his feet. But when he opened his eyes, Eren's eyes were staring right at him. He had gotten within striking distance of Faim in the blink of an eye.
Clang! Clang Clang!
Faim could only tackle Eren's reckless dual-weapon assault for a few seconds using the most proficient swordsmanship he could muster at the moment. However, it couldn't hold on for longer. He was getting wounds all over his body.
Faim had also assigned the summoned snakes on his body to attack Eren using their icy breaths. However, Eren simply used his fire-element mana through his axes to chop the snakes' heads off.
Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.
Faim could only hear Eren's axes cutting through the air all around him and inflicting him with injuries. Then he cast his inherent spell.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The audience watched as the fight started getting one-sided only 20 seconds into the spar. Eren was pushing Faim back while chipping away his black scales and injuring him.
Pieces of flesh fell on the ground with black scales still on them. Those black scales would disperse in thin air, leaving behind only a freshly cut chunk of skin and meat.
Eren had again stepped overboard after falsely assuming Faim's black scales could withstand his assault. Subconsciously, he put more of his will into his attacks, and Faim's flesh started getting carved out of his body.
The healer on standby was also caught off guard by Eren's sudden erratic attack pattern. The guy was swinging his axes around him with such precision and agility that he applauded Faim for defending against Eren. Even Faim losing a chunk of flesh was not a serious loss considering the damage that could happen if the attacks landed on him.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Eren looked at Faim as the latter defended himself against his attacks with a desperate expression on his face. His will to dominate his opponent took over Eren and his attacks got even more frantic.
A distinct mana pulse was released by Eren as his attacks blurred.
"Damn it. It happened again! Stop the fucking fight!"
Ekay shouted while imbuing his mana into his voice. But it was already too late.
Faim's arms flew off in the air like they had wings. The gushing bloodwork painted a dreadful picture in the air as the chopped limbs flew in opposite directions.
It looked as if the pouring blood itself was propelling the snake-scaled arms forward in their respective directions.
"Aaaaaaaaaa....uuugh!"
Swoosh. Grip. Boom.
Eren was about to chop Faim's head clean off after taking care of his arms. However, the Awakened ranker healer finally intervened when one of his axes had gotten an inch deep into his neck. He held Eren's ax by its handle and pushed it just before it could cut Faim's jugular vein.
He also punched Eren in his chest and sent him flying. What shocked the healer was the fact that Eren had managed to injure his punched fist with his other ax just before he was sent flying.
The healer could understand that Eren hadn't planned to attack him. It was just his body's natural reaction. It had been trained to tackle any attack at any time. If the healer wasn't an Awakened ranker himself, he would have lost the better part of his arm that he had used to punch Eren with.
'It seems I overdid it once again.'
Eren had this thought as he was sent flying. He deployed Alfem right under his feet as he was flying and detonated the firebirds to change the direction of his momentum. The impact of the detonation changed the vector force acting on his body, allowing him to stabilize himself in the air before landing safely on the ground.
The healer had already covered Faim in his water-element healing spell. A dense coating of water had climbed over his skin and healed multiple injuries inflicted by Eren at the same time.
The Awakened ranker had also used a whip-like spell to retrieve Faim's chopped hands. For the moment, he was trying to heal them with his spell. Of course, this was just first aid. Faim needed to be moved into an intensive care unit with the right set of healing arrays and a panel of healers.
Faim won't be the same ranker as he used to be for quite some time. The chopped arms won't function as they used to for quite a while. Plus, he'd have to serve the Stardust guild for longer because of the medical expenses he'd be charged after the surgery.
While giving first aid to Faim, the healer looked at Eren as he deployed his fire-element spell to stabilize himself in midair. He was impressed with the way the guy could move and control his trajectory. It was as if he had complete control over himself and wouldn't be at a clear disadvantage even against an Awakened ranker.
The fight between Faim and Eren was over in less than a minute. People started remembering what the former had said to the latter. That Eren needed to stay in the same ring fighting for at least five minutes for him to prove that he killed three Spiders all by himself.
Eren shook his head a bit and adjusted his shoulder-length white hair cascading his face. His blue eyes seemed to glow as he looked at the audience before speaking up.
"Anyone else want to find out if my kills are legit or not?"
Eren rotated his wrists while holding his two axes and asked the entire audience. He didn't care what happened to Faim. He wouldn't have cared if the guy had died or not. After all, he had given him a fair warning before.
Eren didn't mean to hurt Faim so severely. But now that he had, he felt it was for the better. Otherwise, the cowards who had nothing better to do would have circulated more rumors about him just to make themselves feel good about themselves.
'Violence is not the answer. But use it enough and use it well, and it'd prevent a whole lot of questions from arising.'
Eren snorted in contempt as he watched the audience quietly staring at him with nobody in the Meta rank bold enough to take him on. This is the effect he wanted on the mediocre rankers from his spar.
The healer witnessed Eren's bold challenge and pursed his lips. It was not his job to tell Eren that he had pushed too far in his sparring match. Preventing Eren from killing Faim was already the right thing to do for Faim. So he carried Faim on his shoulder and vanished into thin air.
Eren's performance against Faim was so overwhelming that people stopped doubting his kills. The audience quickly started thinning out, leaving only a few rankers behind.
"This... when did Eren turn into something like.... THAT?"
Reece couldn't help asking the question to her group as she saw Eren coming out of the arena from the other side. He had taken a solo mission for himself and was moving out of the city to reach the mission site.
Ekay, Rhea, Miranda, Mia, and a few other rankers were stunned watching Eren's performance as well. Mia was especially shocked. That's because other rankers hadn't considered something at this point even when they convinced themselves that Eren had killed the six Spiders.
When Eren encountered the Spiders' ambush, he was in the sixth stage of the Meta rank. His ranking status back then was one of the main reasons people doubted his kills after all.
The fight between Eren and Faim was also watched by another group. One of the rankers from that group spoke up as they watched Eren leave.
"Didn't I tell you, Raina? He is an ideal addition to our party."
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