Chapter 225 Volume IV - Chapter 70: Tests to Determine Strength
With those words, a door slowly opened directly across the arena and my eyes quickly shifted to it.
No... It wasn't a door. It was a vertically moving passage. Emerging from it was a dwarf wearing nano armor, the most iconic weapon of war of the dwarves.
"Ye'll be tryin' to dodge the attacks o' this soldier for a minute. Got it?"
I smiled, craned my neck, and looked at the dwarf in front of me.
He looked like an ordinary dwarf. At the same time, his expression seemed to belittle me.
"Roger that."
"Alright, when ye hear me say zero, ye'll start. Three..."
I called out to my mind, to Sith, so that the spirit of the wind, which asked me not to disturb him unless I needed him, materialized in front of my eyes with a green glow.
"Two..."
'Sith, we are now in the testing phase before we go to war. All I have to do is avoid attacks, but we will do the best we can. So try to back me up from behind.'
"One..."
Sith quickly grasped the situation.
'Got it. Leave the flow of mana in your body completely to me and just focus on the front.'
As soon as he finished, the mana in my body began to swirl inside me, it spread throughout my body and the world was suddenly illuminated.
"Zero...!"
Of course, just that was not enough.
I poured mana into the Absolute Mind myself and made sure that my mind focused on nothing else but the dwarf in front of me.
Just as I did so, the nano-armored dwarf sprang into action, leaping out of nowhere and lunging at me.
He was fast, at least for someone like me. Still, with the help of Absolute Mind's focus, it wasn't impossible for me to see his attack.
It was a left hook aimed directly at my jaw.
Yet that was not the main thing that caught my attention. The main thing was... It was that the dwarf who attacked me wore an expression as if he was being held here by force as if he wanted to finish me off quickly and get out of here.
He didn't take me seriously. For him, this 'duel' had started and ended here. So, his attack was simple, unthinking, and direct.
The amount of mana released into my muscles increased under the guidance of Sith who shared my thoughts and I felt my whole body contract.
I tried to dodge the punch to my jaw by tilting my head to the left, but I didn't stop there.
Raising my left hand, I grabbed the dwarf's arm, planting one foot firmly on the ground and the other slightly apart, just in front of the dwarf's foot.
Of course, all this happened in just a second.
My body was burning like crazy from being forced to move like this for the first time in a long time, but I had to show my skills here. That's why I was going to ignore the minor side effects.
I pushed myself even harder, calculating everything in my mind, thinking of something that would give this dwarf a taste of darkness before he even knew what it was.
After successfully dodging the hook, I tripped the dwarf with my specially placed foot.
Using my left hand, which had caught his arm, I pulled him down and allowed him to gain momentum toward the ground.
I didn't stop there. I pushed my limits even further.
I put my free right hand on the back of the falling dwarf and spun him with all my strength.
The dwarf did countless flips in the air in an instant after I guided him by supporting his own speed with my own strength. He clung to the ground with a violence that made the floor tremble and even lifted up the little dust in the arena.
A deep silence fell over the arena as the dwarf lay face down motionless on the ground. I turned my head toward the booth at the top of the stands and smiled slightly.
"Is that it?"
*******
A perfect counterattack.
A tremendous move, using his opponent's own speed to counter his bluntness...
Of course, the dwarf had limited himself, but to see such a 'show' when he thought he'd have a hard time throwing attacks...
I was stunned, literally stunned.
So was everyone else in the booth.
"Well, my opponent fainted... What do I do now, General?"
The person standing in the arena, Aiden Tenebra, directly looked into my eyes.
This sentence brought everyone in the booth to their senses.
Even the nurses, who were waiting for something to happen to Aiden Tenebra, were so shocked that we had to personally instruct them to carry the fainted dwarf on a stretcher.
Then we had to bring another dwarf to face him. In the little time we had to prepare for this, I turned to one of the observers.
"Ye recorded what he did, right?"
"Y- Yes, general..."
"Keep an eye on the mana flow in his body at all times."
"Understood..."
When Aiden Tenebra's new opponent stepped into the arena, an involuntary smile appeared on my face.
It wasn't one of those stupid smiles I usually have. It wasn't fake, it wasn't something I did on purpose. It was a pure smile... It was the reflection of the excitement on my face, of my heart speeding up for the first time in a long time.
"Zero...!"
It was only when the new 'duel' started that I was able to get out of my own thoughts, but this time I didn't fix my eyes on the screen reflecting them.
On the contrary, I connected a piece of the nano-armor hidden under my uniform to my eyes to see what was happening in the duel.
I wanted to experience this duel myself, not through a screen. Then... I saw what was happening as the two engaged each other.
Punches, kicks, uppercut attempts, hooks and more. Aiden's current opponent wasn't holding back or underestimating him like the previous one.
Yet Aiden was able to avoid all the attacks. All his focus was on his opponent, but he didn't seem to be having much difficulty.
So his opponent increased the tempo with each passing second. With each passing second Aiden got into a more difficult situation.
The attacks got faster and faster. Aiden's movements seemed to be lagging behind his opponent as time passed, but... he was calm, so calm that it was strange, unnatural.
"Stop!"
Uh... A minute went by.
I clenched my fist when I realized my body was tingling.
I want to see more.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I paused.
It's a waste of time to give this young man such pointless tests... He said he was a D grade, didn't he?
"Don't be rushin' to the next test."
I saw everyone in the cabin turn to me, even my brother Dorhud. Then a momentary uneasiness, a momentary fear on all their faces.
I started unbuttoning my uniform, which did nothing but make me uncomfortable.
"General... No, what're ye doin', brother?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
When I had unbuttoned all the buttons on my uniform, I threw it into a corner of the booth and stepped out, looking into the center of the arena.
Aiden... That boy was looking directly at me as if he had been waiting for this all along.
"Ahahah...That was yer goal right from the start, ain't it?"
*******
When I saw General Darbal slowly descend from the stands into the arena without any effort on his part, the dwarf, who had been my opponent until a moment ago, leaned at exactly a ninety-degree angle.
However, General Darbal didn't even look at him.
"At ease, soldier. Ye can go back to your seat."
The dwarf, without any disrespect, turned and walked back the way he had come. Then, Darbal looked at me with a grin, a different grin than usual.
"Do you know why nobody listens to what I say without showing the slightest negative emotion, let alone disrespect, young man?"
Oh... he dropped the dwarf accent.
"They are afraid of me. All of them, every one of them. They're scared to death of me. Do you know why?"
I smiled slightly.
"I know, general."
"Then why aren't you afraid?"
"Because I know why you came down to the arena."
Darbal narrowed his brown eyes. Even if the smile on his face remained the same... he looked different now, and he was. If before he had a bright smile that spread joy around him, now he had a... frightening smile.
"Take out your sword then, Aiden. I want you to use everything, literally everything. Use everything you want in any way you want. Satisfy me and I will take you where you want to go, to the bloodiest place in the war."
As Darbal said this, the liquid metal that made up his nano-armor oozed from his wrist, elongated, and took the shape of a sword.
The sword was short, simple, but with blue lights shining on it, it looked like a technological weapon from a science fiction movie.
I sighed lightly, focusing inside my ring and pulling out the obsidian runic sword I had somehow managed to find in the warehouse when I escaped from Caleuche.
I gripped the black sword with purple inlays in both hands, and Darbal, in stark contrast to his short stature, pointed his sword at me.
He did not take any stance. He did nothing but hold the short sword gripped with one hand. It wasn't that he was belittling me. He was adjusting himself to my level, just like he said.
"It doesn't matter if you win, or if you lose, or how long you last. Just convince me to take you with me."
I widened my smile and nodded at him.
'Sith, we are putting everything on the line.'
As I felt the mana warming inside me, I gave all my focus, all my everything, to this man alone.
A green glow enveloped my body as a crown, seemingly made of tree branches, slowly appeared above my head.
Yet this ascension was different from the previous ones.
Because after the crown, when the bracelets on my two arms also formed, something that normally does not happen happened.
This time, as if there was no point in my body where mana could be found, the excess mana was leaving my body in particles and entering the atmosphere.
They looked like small pieces floating over a flame, except that they were a darker shade of teal.
"Ready when you are!"
"Yes, general."
The moment those words left my mouth, the nano-armor surrounding the general's body rippled, covering everything except his head, and then a blurry image appeared where his body had been.
At the same time, the strongest wind I had ever seen blow during my time on Lunerra caused the stands to tremble slightly.
When the general's sword made contact with my black sword surrounded by teal-colored mana, the entire arena shook with a loud shockwave.
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