(Aug 22 continued)

Huh?!?!

What’s going on?

Why… why is Briggs not slowing down? In fact, why is he even faster and stronger than before?

I strained all my dragon essence and focused it all into my eyes to zoomed in on the fight trying to figure out what just happened.

William was sent flying back crashing into the wall by one of Brigg’s punches and William also seemed as confused as I was.

Briggs was still in berserk form, there was no way he was smart enough to realize that he had fallen into William trap and that he had breathed in the ice steam so there wasn’t anything he could’ve done about it.

I gazed at Briggs which I then noticed the entire inside of his body was filled to the brim with his curse chakra and his lungs were also filled with it too.

So this must be why Briggs wasn’t slowing down, when William’s ice steam would enter Brigg’s lunges via breathing, his curse chakra would instantly evaporate the ice steam due to the curse chakra’s properties as stated before.

But how did he know? Briggs was in berserk form; he couldn’t even think properly much less be smart enough to know that he had to fill his lunges with chakra to repel William’s ice steam… so did he do it subconsciously?

But it’s hard enough to do that as is, so it’s near impossible to subconsciously fill your lunges with your own chakra.

Unless…

Then, a theory came to me.

William and Briggs were best bros, they were best friends for many years according to their stories and they knew each other very well. They sparred and fought each other many times.

What if, Briggs realized William was up to something or Briggs predicted Williams plan in some way to a certain extent and came up with a counter measure before he went berserk.

That would explain why his lunges and body was already filled with chakra and I didn’t check fi it was there before he went berserk. Briggs could have done it before he went berserk.

Briggs must have known William’s mindset and came up with every possible situation William could’ve done and set up a way to stop it. It was the most plausible theory I had.

If so, then this is something that only could’ve been done by the two of them, their bond and how well Briggs knows William.

If it were anyone else, Briggs wouldn’t be able to predict his/her plan but since it was William, Brigg’s used his past knowledge of how well he knows William to use it against him.

Briggs won using the power of friendship… in a way no one expected, because it was due to their friendship that Briggs found a way to win.

William had outsmarted Briggs, but Briggs outsmarted William’s outsmarting!

And Briggs was spot on, William did exactly as he had predicted and now...

William struggled to dodge around but he was clearly at his wits end, he was low on stamina and magic. He did his best to come up with a plan, but he got nothing.

He continued to run around some more creating small ice spears and striking them at Briggs but its output power was nowhere near its strength from before.

It was hopeless.

No matter what he did now, William would lose. And he realized that as well, so he paused for a second but after he gathered a bit of his determination, he shouted out;

“I FORFEITTTT!!!”

The moment he did all the A rankers within the vicinity jumped up at the same time to restrain Briggs, since Briggs was in berserk form, even if the match was over he wouldn’t stop.

So the only way to end the match was to wait until Brigg’s stamina completely runs out, but if we did that William would probably get killed by Briggs before then so the only other option is to restrain Briggs.

However even with every single A ranked in the city working together, Briggs still put up a good fight and nearly killed some of the A ranked. This truly shows how Briggs stands above even other A rankers.

Briggs was restrained and pinned onto the ground. His struggling caused the ground itself to shake, and a pile of A rankers jumped on him to keep him trapped.

Slowly though, Briggs fell asleep after a lot of struggling, probably due to a drug or something, I don’t know for sure.

As I watched Briggs get pulled away, I felt another chill down go down my spine.

I looked around and nothing was out of the ordinary.

My dragon essence was reacting to something.

Earlier in the day when I felt nervous and uneasy, I had thought it was due my upcoming battle with Briggs but, it’s already over…

So what is it?

I’ve never really had a moment where my instincts were warning me of something, I don’t know how reliable it is.

Even so, it’s making me very nervous right now. It’s telling me something big is going to happen soon.

I stood up and Brian (remember him? The guy from the early chapters), who just happened to be sitting next to me, casually asked me where I was going of which I just told him I was going to grab a drink.

He nodded and I left.

I went headed outside of the arena which the tournament was being held, and I went to a stall selling a fizzy drink called ‘soda’ which was getting popular recently.

I calmed my mind a bit as I sipped on the cold drink and sorted my thoughts.

This did calm me down a bit and I closed my eyes as I recapped on what happened today. It’s been a long day.

First off, I fought in a group battle and survived the battle against the A ranked archer. Then a bunch more battles happened and then I fought against an alchemist guy which I also barely won. Then some more battles happened and then my fight against Briggs.

Briggs was hella strong and although I did lose to him, I still inflicted good damage and I feel satisfied.

Then while I was being healed, more battles happened and then the William VS Briggs fight. The highlight of the tournament.

And leading up to now.

Of course, the tournament isn’t over but it’s pretty obvious who’s going to win, and the Briggs vs William fight felt as if it were the final battle. The hype pretty much all died down by now.

Should I just leave now?

After watching so many battles, I have a bunch of good training ideas and things to practice and try out.

There’s really no reason for me stick around anymore, I know who the winner is going to be (Briggs) and I’ve gathered enough knowledge to start training.

Just as I was about to leave though, a massive surge of power exploded… more energy than even Brigg’s magic output.

The ground trembled and the air itself vibrated.

What happened next made my blood run cold and caused my chest to tighten up as I clenched my fist.

Then someone shouted;

“DRAGGGOOOOOOOOON!!!!”

And the world exploded.