Damn, so he was the head disciple, maybe this would be trouble.

His little brother wasn't any pushover and he's seemingly weaker, I should be careful.

People heard Fittino’s shout and started congregating around the alley.

Now we had a crowd to my dismay, there was no backing out now.

“It's an Honor to meet you Fittino, please instruct me in the Martial Way.”

I knew what I said sounded stupid, but according to Kemoro these were common things Martial Artists said before and after a duel, even though no one here had shown me such respect so far.

I was beginning to think Kemoro was screwing with me.

“Save your stupid words defend yourself!”

Right away he assumed a very wide stance as his brother had done before.

This time I knew what was coming, or so I thought.

I took a Quick Game stance, preparing myself to dodge a wide area attack, but what Fittino did next caught me by surprise.

Like a rocket he sprung at me, flipping in mid air and aiming the soles of his foot at me.

His speed was almost incomparable to his brothers; it was a superhuman feat.

I finally felt like I had witnessed the true potential of Martial Arts.

I had no time to gawk at Fittinos impressive feat, as I did my best to dodge his attack and not get destroyed.

My efforts only managed to mitigate his attack, he was going so fast I only managed to dodge part of his attack, his right leg struck me right in the shoulder sending me reeling to the side.

The pain I felt was enormous, this guy was tremendously dangerous.

The fight I had found myself in was on a completely different level than the three kids outside the gates.

This guy was a serious threat, I had to pull out all I had learned from Kemoro if I wanted to win this fight.

Despite all the training I had accomplished I still felt like a normal human, and it was obvious this guy was reaching a level beyond that state.

Again I catch a glint in the corner of my eye and immediately drop to the ground as low as I can.

I feel a strong hot wind pass above my head barely just missing me.

The hot wind actually felt like it burned the nape of my neck.

This guy was insane, I actually started to feel fear and my survival instincts started to kick in.

If I had one of my weapons, or my slingshot, maybe I could feel more confident, but the amount of damage and speed this guy could dish out was leagues above mine.

I took a low crouching stance, “Crouching Fiend Stance”, as I felt that was the best way for me to defend myself at the moment.

I still felt the aching pain coming from my right shoulder.

Had I gotten hit straight on I probably would be done for.

I looked up and saw that Fittino hadn’t attacked yet.

“Do you see now why you should never offend the Heavenly Hop School, give up now, and offer recompense, and ask for forgiveness, and we'll end it at this, you're not a bad Martial Artist, maybe our School might have an open spot for you.”

After what Fittino said, the crowd that had now gathered by the alley way started to murmur aloud.

I managed to hear someone that was close by inquire about the situation.

“What's going on, what's all the commotion about?”

“Fittino challenged someone to a duel it seems that person over there offended their school, but now he's giving him a way out.”

“What is that guy insane doesn’t he know who he messed with?”

Suddenly I hear the guy screaming at me.

“Hey buddy take his offer today is your lucky day, Fittino is an F Ranked Ranker you have no shot!”

Almost everyone nodded in agreement and screamed similar words to me.

No wonder this guy was a monster; he was already a Ranker!

My fear and anxiety should have increased by magnitudes, and to say I didn’t feel nervous would be a lie, but all of a sudden I felt a sudden burst of motivation.

After turning around and seeing Fittinos' arrogant and gloating face, enjoying the adoration he was getting from the masses, I suddenly felt an urge to punch him in the face.

This was technically my first Ranker fight after becoming a Ranker, if what Kemoro and what the voice said was true.

And even if I wasn't, if I defeated this guy I would become one.

There was no reason to run; this was my fate.

“You insult me with your offer aren’t we both Martial Artists, why would I do something so cowardly, F Ranker Fittino, I Ranker Guso, challenge you to a Ranker Duel do you accept?”

Suddenly everyone turned silent; things had taken a crazy turn.

Fittino started laughing hysterically and started to mock.

“Are you stupid who would ever believe you’re a Ranker? Don't make me la..”

Suddenly Fittino stopped laughing, and he looked at me in a dumbfounded manner followed by a look of anger.

“It seems like you're not lying, either the Seeier is going blind or you’ve been acting the fool, either way this only makes the actions you did towards my brother even more insulting. Perhaps you were looking for this fight to begin, yes you're probably Rank hunting, very well this makes things easier on me, I no longer have to go easy on you, Ranker Guso get ready to forfeit your life, I Fittino accept your challenge.”

Suddenly I heard a voice.

“You have been Locked by Fate to a Ranker Duel. Ranker Fittinos has accepted your challenge, the only way out is Death, Mercy or Victory! Let the strongest Ranker Win!”

So I was a Ranker! F**k!

Things were more serious than I thought, why was it called a duel?

This was a battle to the death, getting a victory was my only choice.

“Everyone get to a safe distance, Heavenly Hop will not take responsibility for anyone who gets hurt.”

Everyone scampered to a safe distance away from us, but with a good vantage point over the battlefield.

I saw some guards among the crowd; I was surprised they didn’t intervene and stop the fight.

I saw Fittino enter the same battle stance as before, except this time he performed the same move his brother had done in our fight.

Of course his was a lot more impressive; he soared an incredible height into the air.

So high it was difficult to see him.

I stayed in Crouching Fiend Stance, and prepared myself for what was to come.

He came down into the ground, and slammed into the nice brick paved floor.

The ground exploded with a barrage of bricks, superseded by a massive shockwave.

I was ready to dodge a mass of debris, but the shockwave threw me off with the damage it caused me.

I ran in the opposite direction of the impact, and towards the center of the square, doing my best to dodge all the bricks, but because of injuries I failed to dodge all of them.

I still didn’t stop running.

I knew he was going to come at me with another attack, I needed to seal his movements and restrain his mobility.

I had noticed a rock garden in a certain part of the square.

My mad dash was towards that direction.

But before I could reach the garden I felt someone grab the back of my head, and suddenly I was flying like a bullet.

Unfortunately, I had no time to enjoy the moment, when suddenly I felt my face being slammed into the ground.

Somehow I managed to hold on to my consciousness, and felt my opponents hands grabbing me by the neck.

“I'm going to make you regret ever coming to this City!”

Damn this guy was violent.

It seemed something I had said or done before had ticked him off.

Who knows what it was but I had no time to dwell on it.

I pulled off a Ground Beast Style Grapple Reversal, called “Catapult Reversal” and flung him into the air with my feet; luckily although his attacks were superhuman, his body still weighed as much as a normal human or else the maneuver would’ve been hard.

The move definitely caught him off guard.

I wasted no time and kept on dashing towards the rock garden, eventually I made it.

Although my move was successful, he had managed to land on his feet without a problem, since he hadn’t taken any damage so far.

“Are you only going to run away like a scared rabbit, you sounded so confident when you declared to me you were a Ranker, seems like somehow you managed to slip by the cracks, The Seeier should thank me for making a correction to his list.”

“Do all Rankers talk as much as you do?”

What I said made Fittinos flinch.

Again he was even more enraged.

“That'll be the last time you ever make me look bad!”

He squatted all the way to the floor, and launched himself at lightning speed towards my direction; this time I only moved towards the edge of the rock garden behind a large stone.

Again he made an impact on the floor and debris flew all over the place.

But on this occasion the damage of the impact wasn’t as bad.

Despite debris flying, the large rocks of the rock garden hardly moved, and served as cover for all the projectiles.

I found myself safe behind the rock, my plan had worked!

The shifty and soft ground of the rock garden had absorbed and diminished the impact on the ground.

I knew a little about rock gardens from an old man in my old village who used to have one.

In this life and death situation knowledge of that memory had suddenly appeared.

“Where are you, you little Rat, you dare call yourself a Martial Artist!”

I came out of where I was hiding, and revealed myself to him.

“There you are!”

Immediately he flipped into the air and launched another stomp towards my direction.

Even though it was still fast, the fact that he was forced to do a more measured move with less acceleration allowed me to timely dodge his strike.

His stomp landed on the stone, and he actually managed to crack it before his momentum stopped.

He did a corkscrew spin, and aimed a kick towards my direction again; I barely managed to dodge and positioned myself between another two rocks.

Again his kick actually managed to damage the rocks.

The power behind this guy's legs was monstrous.

A direct hit by any one of those attacks, would take me out in an instant.

A frustrated Fittino tried to get smart, and started to jump around and off every one of the rocks.

He seemed to catch on that his attacks were too predictable, and decided to try to confuse me with a barrage of movement.

At first I did get thrown off, but in the end I caught on to what he was trying to do; it changed nothing to what I had planned, in order to gain the victory and end my suffering.

Finally he decided to strike.

He came at me when he managed to catch my backside, or so he thought, again I managed to dodge and planted myself against the rock that was opposite to the one I was previously in.

Again he struck the rock and this time he almost shattered it.

Despite his impressive feat, it only made things more convenient for me, it would take him longer for him to reposition himself for another attack.

That's all the time I needed; I copied one of his tactics and launched myself off the rock I had leaned against.

Although it wasn't as fast as Fittino, it was enough to catch him off guard and make contact with his body.

I maneuvered myself into an aerial tackle, and because of his bad posture managed to take him down the ground.

That was all that I needed.

Fittino was furious at what I had done.

In a fit of fury, he wailed at me with strike after strike in the ground.

Thankfully his punches weren’t as strong as his kicks.

“Get off me you worm! What the hell are you doing, stand up and fight?”

I was planning on fighting, little did he know there was no rule against fighting on the ground.

After taking a bit of his punishment, I managed to seal his movements on the ground, through the Groundbeast Art of Fighting.

Groundbeast Art, Earth Bind!

It was a fundamental move Kemoro had taught me when teaching me about Ground Fighting.

It puts you in a dominant position over the opponent's body, and restricts the opponent's arms and legs.

In ground fighting; kicks and strikes were the fighting moves that suffered the most, as being on the ground reduced your leverage and posture to attack.

In ground fighting grappling, smothers, positioning, and submissions were king.

“ What are you doing you freak? Let me go!”

Despite my perfect execution of Earth Bind, his legs were so strong I still had trouble sealing his movements and preventing him from standing up.

I decided to resort to a drastic technique.

Although strikes suffered the most, there was still a couple that worked pretty well.

I looked him in the eye and lined up my head with his; I then proceeded to head butt the heck out of him.

His head was hard but mine was harder.

Soon enough he was wailing in pain, and thereafter I managed to draw blood.

He was more resilient than I thought.

If I wanted to knock him out purely with headbuts I would suffer as well.

The headbuts had done their job though, he had stopped resisting my Earth Bind so much, now focusing more on the pain in his head.

This gave me enough space to perform my transition into a finishing submission move.

I kept my seal on his limbs, but positioned myself to where I was behind him on the side, and wrapped around him.

I then proceeded to choke him out.

“Groundbeast Art Earth Extinguishes Breath”, one of the most common submission moves in Ground fighting.

It doesn’t matter how strong you are, for most sentient beings the neck was a very vulnerable zone.

As soon as I managed to make contact with his soft neck flesh with the side of my forearm, I knew victory was mine.

I did nothing but breathe and focus on maintaining pressure on his neck.

I would do so until I felt no more resistance and his breath was almost extinguished.