"Blop!"

"Resistance statistic upgraded by 1000"

"Reached current system cap of the statistic upgrades!"

Before I managed to finish my flight lulled to sleep by a hard embrace of the stone slabs that made up the city streets, I can feel warm and comfortable energy enveloping me, only to soften my drop while miraculously not killing me from the sudden change of my speed.

"Don't you dare overstep your bounds!"

Hearing Venna's angry shout from behind, despite my sudden increase in the resilience, I'm in too much of a pain to turn my head around and look at her. Taking a closer look at my statistics, I see that my health bar dropped from maximum to merely twenty percent! I guess I used my points just a moment too late for it to fully take effect and chip the damage off.

"What do you want from me, junior? He was the one to make his first move!"

As I gnash my teeth and stand up while trying to ignore the overwhelming pain, I finally can see how Venna is blocking me from the elder's line of sight, with her hands already curled in fists. Before long, Eve catches up to me only to embrace me tightly while whispering soft nothings into my ear.

"Calling me junior? Do you mistake your head for your arse to be so audacious? Looking at how you dare to make a move at the tournament contestants, I wouldn't be surprised by it at all!"

Showing the back to this audacious elder, Venna turned around and kneeled in front of me.

"Are you okay? Do you need me to fetch you some medicinal pills?"

Looking at the disorderly state that I'm in, I would actually have a lot of uses for something to help me cure my internal wounds, but that would not only show my weak side to both my beloved and my business partner, but also put me in debt. While I know it's childish, I can't let this happen!

"I will be okay, as long as this old pervert will be brought to justice!"

Raising my hand and poting with it at the elder, I make sure that no one would have any doubts as to who am I speaking about.

By provoking Katenaris here, I made sure that no matter the outcome of today's events, every single move of theirs would be watched by loads of their rivals. Their strength might be big enough to hold the highest spot in the city, but even they wouldn't be able to face the combined wrath of all the other factions!

"I demand an explanation! If you don't want to die right here from my hand and put your entire family to shame for assaulting your juniors, you better have a proper excuse!"

Taking out her own, private weapon, Venna flared up when she saw the state that I was in. Or she simply saw through my unskillful act and decided to bank on it to pressure the opposite side even more!

"Hmph! Seeing how you are going to threaten me, this humble elder here will take his leave! Just don't think that Katenaris will forget this grudge that you just made!"

Sweeping his robes around, the elder turned to the opposite side and gestured to his butler to do the same. Fearing that they would actually manage to leave unscathed, I instantly cast a small barrier on me, while hiding another fireball between my hands.

"Do you think you can leave just like tha.."

To add even more spice to the situation, I slammed my own fireball against my shield, jumping back as far as I could.

This action was soo unexpected for Venna, who was actually carefully watching this elders energy flow, that no one was able to stop me from crashing down to the ground this time. Banking on this single situation, I tore down my shield and allowed the residual fire to settle on my clothes. In an instant, the smell of burning hair and flesh spread through the entire area, as I fed it some of the leftovers from the meal that we packed back at the city restaurant!

It goes without saying that with my current level of resistance, a halfbaked fireball was far from being enough to set even my clothes on fire, not to speak about burning my body. But I was the only one who knew that! Maybe with the exception of Eve, but that didn't change how did Venna percieved this!

"TRAITOR! KILL"

With some pills thrown by her in my direction, she instantly jumped forward while swinging her sword. While her movements looked planned and trained at first, it took me only a mere moment to realise that she wasn't trained in the fencing even a bit!

As her blade was about to crash into the elder's head, his butler finally entered the fray and blocked the hit with a sabre that miraculously appeared in his hand.

"Calm down!"

Before his words would even be heard by anyone else, the commotion finally erupted on a bigger scale. Seeing how the one following the Katenari's elder was a sabre practitioner, it didn't take long for the crowd to realise that he hailed from the Draconic Sabre Sect! Considering how keen the elder was on relentlessly attacking me and trying to kidnap my fiancee, it became obvious to everyone what this whole situation was about!

"KILL!"

Not giving anyone any chance to explain the whole conflict, a group of sword practitioners dashed into the fight, instantly taking the attention of the butler from defending against Venna's unskillful attack, allowing her to finally spill the first few droplets of blood. For some reason, despite how the Katenari's elder was skillfully dodging most of her attacks with ease, she was still somehow able to overcome his agile movements and force more and more small injuries on his body!

"Everyone halt!"

Before anyone else except for me managed to get seriously hurt, a big group of guards appeared out of nowhere, lead by some unknown expert with a familiar face. Only after looking at him for a short while did I realise that he was the one that took the main stage at the grand opening ceremony! If I wasn't wrong, this was the very city mayor!