Chapter 53: Beat Down

“FUCK! What the hell are you doing Kristofer!”, Zachery screamed from the stands as his anger rose.

From the start of the match till now, Kristofer had not landed a decent blow against Teo. All that Kristofer had accomplished was a few cuts to Teo’s clothes.

Teo was more slippery than an eel.

“Brother calm down and kick his ass!”, Erin shouted

Kristofer was being pressured by everyone from the Rizon faction. He represented them and if he failed to teach Teo a lesson, he would surely be punished.

He thought it would be an easy match since he had heard that last year, when Teo was attacked by the Silver Sword association, he just took it like a wimp without fighting back, but the battle did not go as planned.

Kristofer paused his assault and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. His heart was pounding so heavily and his breath was ragged.

‘This punk, how do I catch him. I only need one hit to slow him down. After that, he should be easy pickings’

Kristofer calculated his remaining elemental energy and stamina. He also had a bit of Qi as he trained in the arts of cultivation within the Rizon faction.

Then a thought flashed in his head.

‘Maybe if I put away my weapon I can lure this bastard into not running away’

He had already felt Teo’s punches and although they stung, it was not strong enough for him to worry about. Perhaps if he got hit 20 or 30 times consecutively then it would hurt, but with his ability, such a situation was unlikely to happen.

“Trash will always be trash! You are a cowardly trash always running around! You are a fucking monkey just like your sister!”, Kristofer taunted

Teo became enraged and retorted

“And you’re the idiot can’t hit anything but air. If I am trash what does that make you?!”

Kristofer’s face twisted from what Teo had said.

The people who watched could only shake their heads at the sight of two kids fighting with words instead of their fists. Some even mocked and jeered.

The Rizon faction looked towards those who opening mocked them and let out a killing intent to silence them.

“Then keep running you pathetic weasel! Let’s see how long you run!”, Kristofer continued his insults as he was buying some time to recover some of his energy.

Teo’s eyes twitched as he saw Kristofer concentrated on gathering Qi and elemental energy together. He figured out Kristofer’s plan and decided to end this conversation

“I’m not here to have a conversation, I’m here to kick your ass”

Then Teo rushed forward, changing his strategy from sapping Kristofer’s stamina by dodging to attacking him and prevent him from recovering his strength.

Seeing Teo rush forward, Kristofer gave a grin

‘Finally this bitch wants to fight!’

He raised his sword and quickly slashed the air twice. Two long wind blades flew towards Teo. As the wind blade traveled through the air, the longer it became.

Teo did not stop but carefully dodged them as he continued. When he was 1 meter from Kristofer, light flashed in front of him.

He twisted his body and dodged the blade and used this momentum to unleash a kick towards Kristofer’s hand that held his sword.

Kristofer was caught off guard. Teo’s previous attacks were all from his fists. Kristofer did not expect Teo was also able to use his legs to attack, but he did not back down. This was an opportunity!

Kristofer twisted his sword grip and aimed the blade towards Teo’s incoming kick!

‘I’m gonna slice up this bastard’s foot real good and then crush his mouth!’

Once Teo’s leg was injured he could easily strike down Teo!

Teo’s face saw the incoming blade and his face twitched. He braced for impacting and instead of trying to dodge the blade he placed all of his weight into his kick.

-BAM-

“TEO!”, Rowen was prepared to rush the stage but Tordin grabbed her arms preventing her from doing so

“Let go of me!”, she turned and shouted

“Calm down Rowen and look”, Tordin replied

The sword was knocked out of Kristofer’s hand and everyone saw that the blade had hit Teo’s shin, but surprisingly there was no blood gushing out from Teo’s leg! A following kick from Teo’s other leg struck towards Kristofer’s leg as he was kicked back, making him lose his balance.

Teo quickly retreated and picked up the sword that laid on the ground. He recovered his breath while sweat poured out from his forehead.

‘Shit.. that was close. I did not expect this tattoo’s defense to be this strong’, Teo thought to himself

Teo had tested the effects of the tattoo before but they were all with blunt weapons. He recognized that the tattoo had the power to reduce the damage done to him by sacrificing some of his Qi, but he had never tried to take an attack from a real blade before. He was unsure if it had the power to protect him from the edge of a blade so his nerves were all shaking after the exchange.

He looked towards his and only a thin layer of skin was cut; The muscles were perfectly untouched.

‘Shit this brat had shin guards underneath his pants?!’, Kristofer’s face became ugly. He was disarmed by Teo and now his weapon advantage had gone in the other side. He was sure that his sword directly impacted Teo’s legs but his sword unexpectedly could not slice through Teo’s legs, nor did it leave any large wounds.

“TRASH!”, from the stands Zachery cursed Kristofer. He did not expect that Kristofer, who was almost as skilled as him would be so useless against Teo.

Kristofer heard Zachery and cursed inside.

‘Fuck! This kid is not as simple as you think! Why don’t you try him yourself!’

He was angry at Zachery but did not explicitly showed it. Their positions were too different and he can only swallow his words.

Kristofer’s face became full of worry. He knew Teo’s agility was far better than his, even if he used his wind walk technique, he could barely compete with Teo in terms of speed but not agility.

With a weapon in hand, Teo finally gave off a huge smile.

He walked slowly towards Kristofer who had no other weapon. Their positions were quickly reversed and the hunter became the hunted!

Although Kristofer lost his weapon, he did not give up.

He switched from using his wind element to his fire element. He did not immediately ignite flames to his surroundings, but gathered flame elemental energy. He took advantage of the slowly approaching Teo.

Teo was enjoying the scene of Kristofer’s worried face so he walked leisuredly towards Kristofer.

With a sword in hand, the power had shifted to his side. After being satisfied by Kristofer’s reaction, Teo swiftly rushed towards him.

He appeared in front of him and then suddenly a huge flame emerged around Kristofer. The flames were insanely hot and he could not get too close without being burned. It was the walls of flame that Windle had often used to defend himself.

Teo glanced the the wall and with his special eyesight and saw how the elemental energy was distributed along the wall. He looked for the most weakest area of the wall and stabbed straight through

-SKAC!-

Flesh was pierced through and Kristofer’s concentration wavered. His biceps was pierced by the sword that had passed through his wall. Although the heat was enough to make ordinary opponents rethink their attack, Teo unexpectedly found a weak area of the wall and sliced through it.

The sword’s blade was also heated by the surrounding flames and thus when it pierced through Kristofer’s biceps, it lightly burned the surrounding wound as well.

Kristofer was injured but while the wall of flame slowly dispersed, a wind blade flew through the wall and directly shot Teo on the shoulder!

Teo was unaware of the wind blade and could not brace himself in time. A gash sliced through his flesh and a large wound appeared on his shoulder!

Kristofer who was behind the flame wall used his finger as a sword to unleash a wind blade. Although this was indeed a wind blade attack, it was several times weaker than having to use a sword. The wind blade technique required a sword to improve its sharpness and speed and thus increasing his damage, but with only his fingers and arms, the attack was not as dangerous.

Teo’s wounds were large but was very shallow. Teo continued and swung his sword towards Kristofer’s head!

Seeing the incoming sword, fear emerged from Kristofer’s mind

‘Am I gonna die here!?’, he thought as he panicked

“BROTHER!!”, Erin shouted as she saw this scene

“YOU DARE!?”, Zachery in the stands stood up and shouted

Killing him in the arena was fair game to the public, but if a Rizon faction member was killed, the Rizon branch family would not stay put. A children’s fight was something they would not normally interfere with, but if life was taken, then a debt of another life was owed

The sword was fast and Kristofer could only close his eyes as he quickly tried to surrender but before he could

-BAM-

Kristofer was knocked back by the sword strike. Unexpectedly, Kristofer had not died.

At the last moments, Teo rotated his blade and used flat side of the blade to strike Kristofer!

After being knocked back, a wave of pain surfaced on Kristofer’s head. He held his head as he cried in pain.

Seeing this, Teo smiled and threw the sword in his hand off the stage and jumped on top of Kristofer who laid on the ground holding his head.

Teo mounted over Kristofer’s body preventing him from retaliating. His eyes flashed as he raised his fists and unleashed his unbridled fury.

One hit after another, his weak fists struck Kristofer’s face unrelentlessly.

“STOP!!”, Erin shouted from the stands but Teo turn a deaf ear.

Each blow to Kristofer’s face quenched his thirst for revenge. Each blow prevented Kristofer from surrendering and thus the scene could only continue.

Zachery’s face turned exceedingly ugly. The fight was clearly over and Teo was beating down on Kristofer. His anger rose to the heavens and shouted as well

“STOP HIM!”

After the 23rd blow, the judge who resided at the side of the stage quickly moved next to Teo and stopped his 24th blow.

“The fight is over, he is already unconscious.”, the judge calmly said

Then he looked at the audience and said “WINNER!”, as he raised Teo’s hand, confirming his victory.

Although Teo punched Kristofer’s face multiple times, his strikes were quite weak as he did not know how to effectively strike an opponent from that position.

Kristofer’s face was mangled but there was no threat to his life. Even his teeth was luckily spared.

The judge took out a gold coin from the bag and gave the rest of the bag to Teo

“Here kid, your reward”

Teo took the bag and opened it as he counted it in front of the judge. Seeing this scene, the judge was somewhat irked. It was like Teo did not trust their reputation at all, but he did not know that it was just Teo’s usual personality.

Rowen and the others rushed to the stage and hurried to see Teo.

Rowen grabbed Teo, hugged him and then looked at his body if there was any other wounds. She saw Teo’s shin and surprisingly the cut was not too deep and was much better than Teo’s shoulder.

“Rowen, Teo, we need to get out of here now. We have to rush back to the academy quickly”, Gina said in a soft voice.

Rowen looked at the surrounding area and nodded. They gathered everyone else and rushed out of the arena.

Zachery who had already foreseen Kristofer’s defeat had already sent some of his lackeys to gather members of the Rizon branch family to come.

They quickly rushed towards the gate. Tordin, Rowen and Gina each carried a junior on their back. Tordin carried windle, Rowen carried Teo and Gina carried Lia.

They used their top speed to travel across the road and did not hold back on their speed. Although they were carrying another person on their backs, it was still much faster than a horse and although there was some distance from Mirth city back to the academy, they had enough energy to reach the academy at full speed.

The older member of the Rizon factions could not block them at all. It was because they were mostly 5th or 6th years and no 8th year students were among them.

Within 10 minutes, they finally reached the academy. They let out a sigh of relief and relaxed and headed towards the dorms, after walking a while a powerful gust of wind appeared behind them.

“YOU 6 STOP!”, a loud commanding voice could be heard

The 6 of them turned around and saw Zackery being carried by the headmaster Elon.