"Sorry to disturb this fierce fight, but I can't let you hurt Dray"
Rex stands between both of them with a calm expression as his eyes gaze at Valery, his hands stopped their attacks from colliding by blocking both of their attacks.
It shocks both Valery and Dray as they didn't expect someone would intervene.
After realizing that their attack has been blocked, Valery and Dray jumped away while keeping their eyes on Rex who is tidying his suit.
Even his suit is still buttoned while he blocks the attacks,
This makes Dray grit his teeth as he saw Rex's calm expression, his face started to turn red as he landed a couple of feet away from Rex.
"How dare you meddle in our fight! Are you Dray's associates?!", Valery shouted angrily.
Since she's from a high-rank family and also one of the strongest people here, Rex blocking her attack greatly offend her. She seems to even not know who Rex is,
With eyes burning with fire, she then added, "You look like a prick too, you must be Dray's associate!"
Hearing this, Rex was at a loss for words.
Rex even unconsciously looks at Dray in disbelief while inspecting Dray's appearance, 'I didn't look like him at all! Why did she call me a prick for no reason?', Rex thought in disbelief.
He then smiles wryly and said, "I'm not his associate"
"Shut up! You're not allowed to talk back to me!", Valery shouted as she disappear from her spot.
Swoosh!
Blue fire tracks were left as she dashes towards Rex with her blazing sword, it was very fast and precise without wasting any unnecessary movements at all.
It's clear that she's trained in the way of the sword, an offensive style at that.
Valery swings her sword downwards intending to chop off Rex's arm as an example, but right in front of her eyes, Rex turns his body a bit completely dodging her attack.
The blazing sword descend right in front of Rex's eyes before it smashed to the ground.
BRAK!
Without even pausing from her attack, Valery flips her sword blade and swings her sword horizontally seeing Rex manage to dodge her first attack.
Her movement is very fast, but Rex can see it all clearly.
'I shouldn't be able to dodge her this easily, her movement is very fast', Rex thought in confusion.
Rex saw the wide swing before he open his palm and slammed it on Valery's hands, it was a hard hit and it makes Valery's hands slip as the sword got freed from her hands.
Even when Rex manages to do this, he's still in disbelief, 'This is weird...'
CLANG!
With a backhand attack, Rex hit the hilt of the sword that just got freed from Valery's hands as the sword flung to the side before stabbing the wall beside them powerfully.
BAM!
This happened right in front of the descendants' eyes as they all widen their eyes in surprise.
All of them has their mouths open wide as they saw Rex handle Valery easily, he doesn't even look to be trying just from the relaxed expression on his face.
Many of them can't even see how Rex manage to flick Valery's sword away,
Valery swings her arms and finds that the sword that is supposed to be in her hands is gone, she swings nothing aside from brushing wind on Rex's face.
Rex was about to hit her to calm her down but he soon becomes quite surprised,
After realizing that Rex manages to knock the sword out of her hand without her even realizing it, Valery does a backroll as Rex raises his arm to hit her.
'She's pretty solid, Safran Family huh...', Rex thought, he's quite impressed by Valery.
"Who are you?", Valery asks after back-rolling away.
Hearing this, Rex looks to the surrounding and find that many of the descendants are also has a curious expression on their faces which surprises Rex.
'They're looking at me earlier, I thought they recognize me', Rex thought with a wry smile.
Turns out the descendants are looking at Rex since they didn't know who Rex is, and because they don't recognize him the descendants realized that he's not a part of the 25 Families.
Which explains the weird gazes Rex got before, especially when he even left with Adhara.
Dray who is watching from the side then suddenly said, "Now that I look at you, you're the barbarian that walks out from the banquet without saying anything!"
"Barbarian?!", Rex gasped in surprise.
The mocking from the descendants of the 25 Golden Crest Family sure surprises him.
Hearing this, another descendant from the side also joins in, "I saw him too! He dares to leave the banquet without even saying anything"
Rex was at a loss for words upon hearing this, 'I made a mistake', he said with a wry smile.
After realizing that him leaving the banquet is impolite, Rex then smiles politely and said, "I have an urgent matter to attend to before, I'm sorry if my actions offend you all"
While he's apologizing, Rex saw Evelyn is holding back her laughter from the side.
This somehow annoys him as he added, "I'm going to borrow Dray for a moment, please don't mind my intrusion and resume the banquet"
Rex then pulls Dray to the corner of the room under the descendants' gazes.
Some of them didn't care about Rex while some of them are still looking at him with unfriendly gazes, but Rex already apologized openly so it should at least wipe their hostility.
"Why the fuck are you pushing me?", Dray commented before pushing Rex back.
But to his surprise, Rex's body is rock solid and he's the one that got pushed instead even though he's the one pushing.
Rex then said, "Your father is asking me to spar with you"
"Father? Wait, you're Rex Silverstar?", Dray replied in surprise.
He then looks at Rex weirdly before he said, "I thought Rex Silverstar is an early-sixth rank"
"I am an early sixth rank, but don't underestimate me just because I'm a lower rank than you", Rex said before his body started cracking with black lightning.
Feeling this, Dray frowns when he felt the terrifying amount of mana Rex emitted.
"How?! You have more mana than me, a mid-sixth rank?!", Dray exclaimed as he felt that Rex is really powerful, even he who had used many items to increase his mana is still pale in comparison to Rex's terrifying mana.
After showing his mana, Rex immediately retracts them back to not attract attention.
Without answering Dray, Rex said, "I'm going to spar with you as your father's request, but I don't intend to do just that so I'm going to give you pointers if I can after I see your battle power"
Hearing this, Dray hesitated for a moment before he finally swallow his pride and nodded.
A moment later,
Rex follows Dray with Evelyn by her side, they're heading to a place that the hotel has already prepared in case something like this happened.
The two of them follow Dray walking to the top-most floor before they enter a room.
Dray gives somekind of membership card to the staff in front of the room before the three of them are allowed to go inside.
Upon entering the room, Rex and Evelyn were greeted by a unique place.
Turns out there is somekind of a sparring arena in this hotel, the place is square-shaped but is very big that takes almost half of the entire top-most floor.
Dray and Rex stepped into the arena, there is no ceiling above the arena.
Rex can feel the moonlight directly hit his skin,
Evelyn is watching them from behind the fancy marble fences that are surrounding the arena, she was also excited to see Rex fight albeit it's better for not being in the same room as Dray but she's not complaining to watch Dray get beaten up.
This hotel is a hotel that is used regularly for the 25 Golden Crest Family Banquet.
So this kind of room is not a weird room to have, they should have at least this kind of room where the 25 Golden Crest can spar or even settle a minor dispute.
"I'll be assessing your ability, attack me with all you got", Rex said calmly.
He's standing straight in front of Dray without any obvious stance, this makes Dray quite annoyed to see Rex's calm expression but he saw what Rex can do.
Dray then said, "I can't activate my spirit for some reason, so I can't go all out"
'Devo are you still suppressing his spirit? Stop the suppression right now', Rex said to Devo.
[I already stopped after you block their attacks before]
Hearing this, Rex can feel that his spirit energy is still latching onto Dray's body, 'Stop lying you damn spirit, I can see you suppressing him right now!'
[Tch, Fine... His spirit annoys me that's all]
After cursing Devo inside his head, Rex then said, "You can use your spirit now"
"Wait, then back when I'm fighting Valery and both of our spirit energy suddenly got blown away. That was your doing?!", Dray asks in surprise.
Rex can only smile mysteriously as an answer,
Looking at this, Dray was at a loss for words as he realized their difference in power.
He can't even believe that Rex is a lower rank Awakened than him, but the power gap between the two of them was very shockingly crushing.
Dray then snap out of his daze as he readies his sword,
The sword that he's holding is a very powerful sword and Rex can feel it, the hilt of the sword is wrapped with green cloth with the actual blade made purely by wind mana.
With a deep breath of Dray, his body turns into a gust of wind as he dashes towards Rex.
"Wind Disposition Technique, Compact Strike!"
SWOOSH!
Dray drives his sword forward creating an arc of wind with his thrust,
The power behind the strike was amplified multiple times by the sword he's holding, the attack was multiple times more powerful than the attack he did to Valery.
Rex dodge the attack by moving to his side,
An attack with a straight-line trajectory like a stabbing strike Dray did is easily dodged, it can only be used against opponents that are already weakened or much slower than yourself.
But Dray did it to Rex knowing that he's slower, Rex can dodge this easily.
After missing the strike, Dray duck low intending to slash horizontally to cut Rex's legs, "Disposition of Wind, Circular Compact Arc!"
Slash!
Dray who's confident in his combo widen his eyes when he saw Rex dodge his slash.
Rex jumped dodging the motion of his sword while cloaking his legs with black lightning, he can feel that the wind created by the slash can slash him if he doesn't use his element.
The full moon is illuminating Rex's back cloaking his front in shadow,
Looking at Rex who is still in the air, Dray swings his sword thinking that Rex can't dodge this.
But the same thing happened to Valery happened to Dray, Rex knocked the sword out of Dray's hand and kicks the sword away before stabbing right beside Evelyn who is watching.
She was caught in surprise when she saw a sword stabbed a couple of meters beside her.
"Now, Try fighting me without your sword", Rex said snapping at Dray who was still in disbelief that he got hit exactly as Valery did before.
He looks at Rex in surprise before he added, "Your move is sloppy..."
A moment later,
BRAK!
"Damn!", Dray cursed as he got knocked down screeching all the way to the edge of the arena after Rex landed a clean kick onto his chest.
He rubs his chest a couple of times as Rex walks towards him,
"You're fast just like Valery, powerful strikes, great footwork, but you focus too much on attack. Don't forget that you only have one life, you must judge when to be offensive and when you need to be defensive", Rex lectured while shaking his head.
Dray is powerful, but he's too reliant on attacks that Rex manages to land clean hits on him.
After saying that, Rex walks to the side while checking his phone.
With a struggle, Dray stands up while still feeling his chest burning from Rex's kick but then he heard someone is laughing behind him.
"Is there something funny?", Dray asks in annoyance.
While still laughing lightly, Evelyn then said, "The mighty Dray Burton has fallen, It seems you're right. Lady luck seems to not be on your side right now"
"Shut up", Dray replied with a rough exhale.
Dray decided to lean on the fence catching his breath,
The spar with Rex takes a toll on his cardio since he got hit multiple times, Rex didn't hit him for real though since he's trying to teach him respect for Daniel Burton.
"So, Is he your boyfriend or something?", Dray said amidst his heavy breaths.
Hearing this, Evelyn went silent for a moment before she said, "Nope"
"Not yet at least", she added making Dray turns to look at her, he even was at a loss for words when he saw Evelyn's cheeks start to turn rosy.
He never saw Evelyn like this, at least not to him.
Feeling irritated, Dray then said, "Why pick him instead of me! I've been trying to get myself close to you for a year now and you never gave me that kind of expression"
"Such a clever way to get close to me by drugging me", Evelyn replied sarcastically.
This makes Dray's mouth turns shut before he sighs and asks, "What kind of guy do you like anyway? I'm a pretty capable guy you know"
Hearing this, Evelyn was put into thoughts,
She puts her fingers on her chin thinking before her eyes land on someone, "I like guys wearing black, muscular, powerful, and certainly a gentleman that wouldn't do petty tricks"
Evelyn's answer makes Dray put his head down, there's a regretted look on his face.
"Then why are you clinging onto Rex?", Dray mutters in confusion.
His eyes then look at Rex who is checking on his phone on the side, "He's just bigger and more muscular than me"
"Probably more of a gentleman than me"
"He's also wearing a black tuxedo"
"I heard he's also a Zeragon"
"I also heard he helped in fighting the demonic cities"
"He's clearly stronger than me..."
Dray's mutters become lighter and lighter, at the end of his mutters Dray clench his jaw after seeing Evelyn's cheeky smile, "A clearly better option indeed", she said.
"You're talking about him didn't you?", Dray asks in realization.
Seeing the cheeky smile so evidently plastered on Evelyn's face, Dray looks back at Rex before he can't help but curse, "Fuck...."