The two older boys from the Song clan approached William. William found himself wishing they were wizards. He knew how to fight wizards, and knew what would take them down. Against martial artists such as this pair, he wasn’t sure. He let the feeling of their ki flow through him. It sort of radiated out from them, proud… arrogant. They seemed powerful, but only at first. After observation, it felt more like inflatable gorillas. Intimidating in size, but empty. This wasn’t entirely fair to them. It was just that they pulled all their power to the surface, so they were more like… inflatable gorillas that happened to be made out of steel. They were still empty inside, beyond their displayed strength. William supposed that they still had sufficient ki to defeat any adult who didn’t train in ki… or as a knight, but it wasn’t like they would defeat anyone sufficiently trained and older than themselves.

Upon reaching about a short distance away from William, he realized they were bigger than they had looked. Not that it was particularly helpful for them to be bigger, since all it brought about was a bit more muscle. Unless they emphasized body training, but William doubted they did, at least not to the level of knights. The taller one of the two, almost the size of a full grown adult already, looked down at William and spoke. “Seems like the little kid from the Yu clan doesn’t know how to give proper respect. If you kneel down and bow to us, we can let you go on your way.” He then stretched out his hand toward William, likely to force him to his knees.

“Don’t touch me.” William said this forcefully, and loudly, but not with any sense of fear. Instead, he was just calling attention to the area around, so the people nearby would be looking in his direction.

Obviously, the boy from the Song clan wouldn’t listen to William, and just sneered as his hand continued toward William’s shoulder, and pressed down.

For his sake, William did have to admit he would have been forced to his knees if there were just muscular strength involved. Instead, William distributed the force through the layer of ki covering him, and eventually into the ground, so that it wasn’t really pressing on him much at all. After a few moments, long enough for a look of minor irritation to appear on his opponent’s face and for the crowd to clearly see what was happening, William acted. He had a staff in his right hand, but wasn’t in a good condition to use it, and had other reasons to avoid its use as well. Instead, he let it fall to the side, as he grabbed onto a conveniently placed arm with both hands. William had to admit the grip on his shoulder was fairly strong, so one hand grabbed the wrist, his fingers pressing into a few sensitive points. Obviously, he wasn’t strong enough to cause any real results with just that, and his hands were barely even big enough to reach where he wanted. Plus, the boy was at least smart enough to have a thin layer of ki surrounding him, maybe subconsciously. However, some ki concentrated into his fingertips solved that problem.

The boy, who could have been called a young man if not for his attitude, didn’t particularly notice that his hand let go as it twitched reflexively. He didn’t have time to think about it, because he soon found himself looking up at the sky. He didn’t exactly know what was going on, but he had the wind knocked out of him, and felt a little bit dizzy.

His friend, or perhaps brother, cousin, or just associate, had seen what happened. It wasn’t particularly fast, but the first boy hadn’t expected William to be able to throw him over his shoulder. The second took a small moment to react, before moving to punch William. Unfortunately, that small moment allowed William time to ready himself again.

William would have liked to do the same thing to the second boy, but he didn’t have the luxury of an arm that was holding still for him to grab. He stepped in, punching the second boy in the gut. William didn’t manage to completely avoid the incoming attack, but his defensive ki deflected the attack along the side of his chest instead of allowing it to impact his ribs. Meanwhile, his own punch, though it had the force of ki strengthening it, didn’t manage to have the effect William was hoping for. Specifically, his opponent was still standing. However, William struck out again, harder. Then a third and fourth time, using progressively more ki. Each attack he had to step forward. The fourth hit probably wasn’t necessary, but it knocked the boy back a full bodylength, where he lay on his back.

After taking a deep breath, William spoke, not just to the two from the Song clan, but loud enough for the area to hear. “I gave you a chance not to embarrass yourselves. However, you still started a fight with me. Don’t try it again. Just go back to your Song clan and behave like good little boys should.”

William picked up his staff, and continued on his way. He couldn’t help but feel a bit of excitement and happiness at winning a fight. However, William knew he should temper his feelings. Beating up children wasn’t a particularly impressive feat. Even if they knew how to fight and had an older body, it still wasn’t honorable. It wasn’t dishonorable, since they started the fight, but it wasn’t anything to flaunt either. Not that people here cared about honor so much as “face”. William supposed he had gained that, for himself and the clan. However, he felt certain that some people in the clan would try to twist this incident to somehow make him look like bad. If they did, William would remind them that he was eight, and also indirectly remind them that he was quite a bit older than that, and didn’t have time for any of their stupidity. Assuming things worked out as he wanted, which of course was never quite true.