“We have the Top 5 of the boys’ leaderboard in one place!!” Gazil exclaimed.
“Asher Greville almost beat two of the top 5 alone, but what will happen now?” he asked, hyping the audience.
Some minutes before Damian arrived at the final location,
Elena was the first to arrive at the final location of the girls’ tournament. She looked around and saw a small stone platform in the distance.
“That must be the special zone they told us about,” Elena spoke to herself.
As she stepped towards the stone platform, a voice came from her right.
“It seems I was a bit late,” Amelia said as she walked with a relaxed look on her face.
Elena looked back and saw Amelia, but seeing her red eyes made her instinctively take a step back. She regained her composure and glared back at Amelia.
Although she looked confident and was a strong contestant, she still carried the trauma of being beaten ruthlessly by Asher. Her whole life, she was treated with respect and care by others.
Elena clenched her fist as she got ready for a fight, but Amelia was not the one to back down either. As both of them channeled their mana, one more person appeared.
“Oh, you arrived quite fast, Elena,” Eva spoke.
Seeing Eva Amelia had her guard up because, after the incident with Asher, she had not talked to any of the three, and they were now pretty much strangers to each other.
“It seems we have company, though,” Eva turned towards Amelia, and all three of them stopped. Nobody made a move.
“This might be a bit difficult,” Amelia thought to herself as she was not confident enough to take on both Elena and Eva and battle others who would come later.
She pulled out her daggers and got ready for anything that might come her way.
As the three of them were getting ready to fight, they felt a gust of wind pass by them, and all three of them looked at the platform to see a pink-haired girl standing on the stone platform.
“Who is she?” Amelia thought, as she did not recognize this girl.
“Huff, huff,” Alyssa breathed loudly as she looked at the three of them, and her eyes shone seeing Elena.
“I am not late,” Alyssa spoke to herself as she saw the timer on her bracelet, which showed <00:14:09>.
Meanwhile, in the other tournament location,
Sam cursed to himself, “Dammit.”
He didn’t know Damian well, but he didn’t expect him to arrive at the final location so quickly.
“Well, it seems you were having your fun,” Damian looked behind and saw Kevin and Matthew, who had been beaten down.
Asher looked at Sam, who was standing between him and Damian. He raised his sword and dashed toward Sam. Sam reacted a bit late to Asher’s advance, but he immediately dodged Asher’s forward slash and countered it with a thrust of his spear. However, Asher easily blocked Sam’s thrust by striking down his spear.
“Argh,” Sam almost lost his grip on his spear due to the difference in their strength.
Damian did not intervene. He knew that Asher didn’t want his help right now, and he would step in if he felt that Asher was losing.
Sam side-stepped, and now Asher was facing Damian, and Sam was in front of Kevin and Matthew.
“Let’s team up for now,” Sam shouted.
Kevin wanted to deny, but his anger made him want to defeat Asher at all costs.
Even Matthew was convinced that he was nothing in front of Asher. He thought that the difference between him and the other kids from Elite families would not be that big. And it would have been true if he had not encountered Asher.
“Listen, you don’t want to lose like this as well, right?” Sam said, and Asher let him talk without interrupting him.
“Okay,” Matthew agreed, as he saw no other option.
“And you?” Matthew questioned Kevin, who had been silent the whole time.
‘I will use it,’ Kevin thought in his mind.
“I don’t need your help!” Kevin shouted.
“Are you dumb?” Sam stopped and frowned as he saw Kevin channeling his mana.
“Decided to bring it out, huh?” Asher said to himself, as he smirked looking at Kevin.
A spark appeared around Kevin, and after the first spark, another two appeared.
His white hair started floating as small sparks covered his whole body.
Kevin muttered something, and his spear was coated with lightning at the tip.
“Kevin Whiteheart is a lightning attribute user!” Gazil spoke, as many people were surprised. It was known that Kevin was a genius due to his record in the awakening, but his element affinity was unknown.
“Hmm, this boy is quite good, but he’s too emotional,” an old man who was watching the tournament spoke.
“But his potential seems great, even his element,” a document floated around him as he looked at it and then got back to observing the tournament.
“This guy has an advance attribute?!” Damian spoke with a surprised look on his face.
“Get out of my way,” Kevin spoke, and Sam stepped back with a smile on his face.
Kevin dashed toward Asher with incredible speed as his element boosted his agility a lot.
Kevin’s spear traveled toward Asher’s face, but Asher did not stay still. He side-stepped, but Kevin followed the thrust by spinning his spear toward Asher.
Asher kept dodging Kevin’s attack, but Kevin’s eyes followed every movement that Asher was making. His element not only boosted his speed but also his reaction time and all his senses. His body was reacting to every movement Asher was making.
*Clang* *Clang*
Asher countered most of Kevin’s spin attacks with an indifferent look that only made Kevin more furious. He attacked with even more intensity, causing his hands to bleed as he forced his body to match Asher’s strength. To the audience, it looked like Kevin suddenly had the upper hand.
“This boy!” Rewilh closely watched Asher’s movements.
“It seems Kevin Whiteheart might win,” Lishia spoke as she watched the fight.
“No, that Greville boy is toying with him,” Rewilh said with a serious expression.
“What? But Kevin is clearly winning right now,” Lishia questioned, but Rewilh shook his head and gestured for her to keep watching.
In another room, Nathan spoke, “Hoh, that spear boy is good. But when did this brat get this good at his basic footwork?” Nathan smiled as he watched Asher dodge every attack from Kevin, even countering some of them. Although it appeared that Asher was moving a lot, if they looked closely, he had not moved more than two steps from his initial position.
“Let’s end this,” Asher said.
Kevin was confused about what Asher meant, but he soon found out as Asher’s sword slipped through his spear and made a small cut on his side.
“Argh,” Kevin backed away, touching his side and noticing blood.
He coated his whole body with lightning so that he could attack Asher again. However, as Kevin put his spear up to block Asher’s strike, it turned out to be a feint, and Asher instead delivered a roundhouse kick to his ribs. The force behind the kick was enough to make Kevin crash to the ground.
*Cough* *Cough*
Kevin coughed and crouched up, but Asher did not give him any more time. Kevin saw Asher’s kick coming toward his stomach.
*Bam*
Kevin tried to put his spear close to his chest to reduce the impact, but the force was enough to lift his body off the ground. Asher gripped Kevin’s neck, and Kevin saw a punch land on his face.
*BAM*
Asher’s fist, coated with mana, landed on Kevin’s face, causing his nose to bleed.
ƥαṇdαηθνε|
He punched him again.
*BAM*
A third punch landed as Kevin’s eyes rolled back with his face bleeding and a broken nose.
“That will hurt, but…” Damian spoke as he threw his hammer toward Sam to interrupt him.
“I would avoid doing that,” Damian said as Sam glared back at him.
“This bastard,” Sam cursed Damian because he was about to trap Asher. But Sam and Damian did not know that these cheap tricks would not work on Asher, whose mana sensitivity was high enough to know about Sam’s attack in advance.
Asher looked at Kevin, whose body had gone limp as he had lost consciousness already.
“So weak,” Asher threw Kevin aside and looked back at Sam and Matthew.
Ding
Asher’s count of tokens went up as the barrier around Kevin activated, signaling his defeat.
“He has done it! Asher Von Greville has defeated Kevin Whiteheart!” Gazil spoke loudly, and the audience cheered, but Kevin’s fans were saddened by his loss.
“Yay,” Lucas put his fist up, seeing Asher’s win.
Arthur was calm, confident that his son would win, and Sylvie and Seymour were smiling, seeing the leaderboard change.
Asher looked at the timer on his bracelet.
<<00:15:34>>
“Let’s wrap this up,” Asher said, looking at Sam and Matthew, who were nervous after seeing his effortless win against Kevin.