Chapter 8

Kusan walked down the road that is slightly illuminated by the light stones, stones that light up when magic gets poured into them. The light looked eerie, as if they were the eyes of a monster with the wind howling, signifying that he was about to die.

He isn’t, but he can feel the intense hatred lingering in the air, enough to feel that they wanted to kill him.

‘Amateurs’

Was all he said when he felt it because from that, trying to do a surprise attack on him will be futile and it is considered a very grave crime to kill fellow disciples in the Dojo. With their unhidden killing intent towards him, it beaconed like a lighthouse as it shone out to scan the sea with its flaming eye.

‘Nine huh? I know eight of them, but I wonder who the ninth one is, no need to mind him considering he is actually the weakest of them'

Kusan started to secretly make preparation against the nine fellow disciples; he cast a water spell that he dubs as the ‘Eel’ because of how the name actually represents what it really is. The water covers his body, this is normal, but Kusan’s one is different because he slightly changes the way the water should act. Changing the water from normal water that when hit, will create ripples or splashes depending on the opponent’s strength and still suffer a hit, albeit weakened by the water.

Whereas, the ‘Eel’ one will merely look the same as the ‘Water Armour’ but instead of blocking attacks, it actually makes the attack slip away just like how a fisherman cannot catch an eel by hand unless he hooks the mouth of it, in order to catch it properly. So in effect, once an attack slides away, it not only nullifies the power behind the attack, it would force the enemy to create an opening, thereby increasing Kusan’s chance of winning with minimal effort.

Water rapidly poured out from his body and swiftly covered his entire being, including his face. If it was a sunny day, one could see a glossy sheen that only the eel and another fish kind naturally possessed, on Kusan. Unfortunately, it was night time so the hidden disciples couldn’t see the changes Kusan has undergone.

Two each are located on the rooftop on his left and right, three are currently burrowed in the earth like a mole, clearly waiting for him to enter within their radius of attack and finally the last two are disguised as two pairs of drunkards as they slowly made their way towards him.

He smirked, if he didn’t cultivate his sensitivity towards hostility, he would clearly have never discovered this almost flawless plan. Unfortunately, they had to have Kusan as their enemy.

There is a rule forbidding killing between disciples, but that is if anyone actually knows and are willing to tell the punishment corps, who are the law and order of the Dojo to a certain extent.

So Kusan could guess the influences the group had to make the area, surrounding him be devoid of people except him and them. However, he knows eight of them and their level of influence isn’t enough to force people to not linger or walk down this way. So this makes Kusan think that the unknown ninth one is the real mastermind.

‘Weak yet influential?

Only weak nobles are in that category.

Guess it’s time for some fun’

While he was deep in thought, he never stopped walking down the dim street. If one focused their hearing a little, one could hear faint splashing sounds echoing for every step that Kusan took.

When he reached within two metres of the two drunkards, he immediately felt all nine of them converge onto his position like a pack of wolves in an ambush.

He immediately took action to take care of the closest enemies, which are the two drunkards. He instantly cast water to come out of his feet, the water splashed out as it silently smashed against their feet, causing them to slip over at the unexpected action.

Before the two drunkards could regain their sense of balance, Kusan slid across the water and thrust his right hand between their heads. He straightened his hand out before he backhanded slapped the drunkard on the right away.

PAK

The hand rang out a soft sound akin to a bag being smashed into the wall.

The right drunkard felt an intense pain as if being seared by something that involuntarily made him produce water from his eyes despite being trained to withstand pain. The pain was something entirely different from his pain resistant training, however he forgot that coupled with the fact that he didn’t prepare his body for a counter-attack and the stabbing pain that was different from blunt force pain that he underwent by being hit by fists and not something that could produce a deadly sharp and instant pain like a needle being stabbed in his face.

It wasn’t surprising to see that it was beyond what he could withstand and ungracefully flew through the air like a cartwheel before he lightly smashed into a brick wall that cracked slightly under his impact.

Kusan didn’t stop when he smacked the right drunkard and with the momentum of that hit, he swiftly followed up and smacked the left drunkard.

Who—PESSHHH

The wind howled before a loud and fearsome sound rang out that was akin to a deadly whip that had whipped the back of a bull.

The left drunkard, unlike his counterpart, received a more deadly attack and shot through the air before the wall where he smashed into, cracked under his lightning fast speed to the wall before the wall tumbled down and covered him in rubble.

Despite that, before the two men touched their respective walls and creating a scene of instant defeat, Kusan coursed the energy through his left hand and the energy wrapped around, creating almost invisible incandescent hand armour. He swiftly smashed his armoured left hand into the ground.

BOOM

Small spider webbed cracks, reaching 3 metres from the epicentre of his hand. It looked to have been a futile attack as it didn’t hurt anyone, but that wasn’t what Kusan was aiming for in the first place. The shock produced by his punch, shuddered through the earth before it impacted the control the three disciples that were burrowed underground, had over the earth as it disrupted their thinking, giving them a small dizzy spell. Thereby stopping the advances of the three of them as Kusan took to the sky to deal with the four disciples that were snaking through the air as if it was like water.

He jumped towards the two right side disciple and extended his right leg aimed at the first and closer right disciple.

The disciple, who saw this, sure enough reacted fast enough and twirled his arms around, clearly was making a move of catching Kusan’s leg in mid-air. However, before he could fully close his arms to lock Kusan’s leg, unexpectedly a small explosion erupted from Kusan’s leg. Blinding the disciple with the instant light and getting pushed back by the force of the explosion but he escaped unscathed.

Unlike the disciple who suffered the minor close range explosion and not knowing what happened, Kusan used the newfound momentum from his explosion he made from his right leg and propelled himself to the disciple on his left with a speed beyond the disciple reaction who changed his attack when he saw one of his fellow disciple being aimed at by Kusan.

PAK

The left disciple was smashed by the lightning fast kick by Kusan and involuntarily spurted out blood. If one had a heighten hearing during the instant when Kusan kicked the disciple, one could hear a faint cracking sound made due to the disciple’s ribs getting cracked under impact.

The disciple rocketed down to the earth, due to Kusan twisting his feet to make the disciple descend downward instead of across the air and into the unknown. Kusan didn’t stop and threw a sticky water hand, akin to the entire thing being made of glue, from his right palm and it went straight for the last disciple on the left side.

The last left disciple reacted swiftly and brought his hidden sword down on the sticky hand.

PIK

Instead of the normal slicing sound that would indicate that he sliced it echoed, it was the sound of something sticky splattering on his steeled sword.

The disciple didn’t bother about the weird sound and continued to advance through the air towards Kusan, since he jumped higher than his friend who was kicked down to the ground and Kusan was lower than him in the air.

Kusan didn’t expect the man to have a weapon out so early and decided to change his course of action. Originally, his plan was to glue the disciple down with the sticky water and swing him around to collide with the last right disciple, which will bring him enough time to deal with the three burrowed earth magician who has yet to appear from the ground.

Now his plan was to close the gap between himself and the disciple. He cannot snatch the weapon of the disciple considering warriors are trained to be firm in grip and even then, it isn’t guaranteed that he will succeed in taking out the weapon. So for that reason, he could only close the gap between them.

Kusan pulled the water magic ‘Glue’ that had one end attached to a disciple’s sword, towards himself, making him propel towards the disciple. While closing in, he put his left hand out and instantly a thin water needle lengthened as it extended through the air, aiming straight for his head.

Since it was night time and the miniscule size of the water needle, it wasn’t surprising to see that the disciple didn’t notice the great danger. Silently and before he knew it, the needle already passed through his head and his eyes was still focused. However, he has already died instantly and unknowingly too, while his body slowly started losing its strength but his body still maintained its course of action as it descended down towards Kusan before death and so nobody knew he died except Kusan.

He didn’t stop there and changed the shape of the needle into a blade that was thin as a piece of paper and it widen into a metre. This instantly cut the dead disciple’s head in half before Kusan swung it towards the right disciple’s neck.

The right disciple, unlike his counterparts who didn’t even have time to make a successful counter-attack against Kusan, already made one as ten pitch black daggers howled through the air as it homed on Kusan.

Despite the darkness which protected the daggers from Kusan’s keen eyesight, he still detected them as the wind brushed before his face but he didn’t do anything. He simply flew towards the last disciple in the air as he created explosion under his feet, after he re-positioned himself in the air as he was shot through the air by the effect of the explosion without affecting the momentum of his swing as it closed in on the disciple’s neck.

The daggers touched Kusan’s body but instead of them stabbing his body, it surprisingly slipped away from his body as if though it encountered a slippery surface that was akin to an eel. This was the reason why Kusan dismissed the daggers; it was because he was confident of his eel-like armour that he erected ever since the start of the battle.

The disciple managed to detect the almost invisible long sword of Kusan and swiftly reacted by striking it down with his two daggers.

CLINK

The disciple blocked Kusan’s water sword which elicited a smile before it vanished as he stared at the disciple and changed his action. He maintained the water form up to the point of the clash and loosened the water after the point as it arced around like a snake that was hit in the middle of its body before the head turned around and assaulted the enemy while the middle body was impaled.

The disciple was caught off-guard at the unorthodox action that Kusan took, however he didn’t have time to be fully shocked before the bending water sword cleanly sliced through his neck.

Having successfully dealt with all four of the assailants in the air, Kusan twisted in the air and then did another series of explosion that shot him down to the ground at an alarming speed.

He thrust his hands outwards, striking a pose like superman zooming through the air as his hands underwent a magical weapon materialisation. The water magic swirled around the left hand like a snake, before it condensed into an ice blade that gleamed with ice-cold silent death as it widen to the size of the hand and a metre in length. The fire magic burst out of the right hand like a dragon’s signature breath attack before it turned around and engulfed the hand and solidified into a flaming blade version of the ice one on Kusan’s left, as it showed intense fury with the flames occasionally licking the air.

Kusan continued to streak through the air, with no sign of slowing down in sight as he wore a determined expression. With eyes that looked as if it could pierce the earth in front of him.

When he was 2 metres from the ground, suddenly the ground cracked and three silhouettes appeared. However, before they could fully emerge from the ground, two on the left and right side were instantly pierced through their chests by Kusan’s elemental attacks of his while the one in the middle was smashed by Kusan’s iron hard head.

Since he never slowed down in the first place and his momentum got slightly affected by the body mass of his three enemies. This still didn’t stop Kusan in his tracks and so blasted into the ground. He used the three disciples as screens and cushions to lessen the damage of the crash into the earth of himself as he, in the blink of an eye killed three enemies.

Earlier, when Kusan smashed the ground and put the three earth magicians into a momentary lapse of dizziness, this forced them out of the battle for six seconds. Despite the short amount of time, for an expert like Kusan it is enough time to dispose of his enemies and come back to deal with them when they finally break out of their stupor.

Sure enough, Kusan took out seven disciples within that time limit and still rush towards them with killing intents.

The three magicians on the other hand, when they broke out of their stupor, the first thing that came to their minds is getting out of the earth. Unlike their warriors’ counterparts who can vaguely sense their enemies’ whereabouts through their hidden sixth senses, the magicians didn’t reach a high enough level in order for them to determine the battle above ground through the vibrations of the earth like a mole could.

And that was the train of thought Kusan was hoping for, luckily his plan worked and he killed three disciples in one go, just like killing three birds with one stone.

At the same time, the two earlier drunkards and the four hidden disciples in the air finally landed at their respective walls or grounds. This elicited continuous sounds of blood-wrenching chaos that will surely mean the end of most people if they heard how loud their crashes were.

BANG

CRACK

BOOM

WHOOSH

Kusan finally stopped his descend into the earth after burying himself more than 2 metres into the earth. He got off relatively light compared to the three mangled bodies that were either burnt or cracked due to being frozen and the earth cracking the ice.

In eight seconds, Kusan disposed of eight enemies and swiftly wiggled backwards as he appeared from the small tunnel he made. He didn’t bother to dust himself off and dashed towards the only disciple that was not injured.

The first disciple, that Kusan encountered first when he took to the air and disposed of his fellow three friends.

The disciple wasn’t an idiot and knew danger was coming, so without a second thought he made a mad dash. He attempted to escape but sadly Kusan threw a water shuriken that did a beautiful arc under the moonlight, creating an effect of a dazzlingly star closing in on him before it silently cut through his neck. Although it cut his through his neck, the disciple continued to run for a metre before his head fell off and his body slump forward with a quiet thud.

Kusan turned around and descended up the right disciple who was groggily getting out of the little hole he got himself stuck on. Before he could, Kusan extended his palm and slapped his vulnerable head. This caused the disciple’s head to splatter in a colourful bloody red with meat and brains parts flying through the air.

Even with the close proximity Kusan had with the head upon its explosion under his hand, none stained his clothes as it slipped of his water eel armour.

He heard a sound behind him and he, with lightning speed, appeared before the left disciple who was the only two alive but the only one conscious at the moment.

cough cough hack

With coughs that would have made any normal person pity whoever was the owner of the sound due to its vulnerable and sickly state that the voice exuded.

Unfortunately, for Kusan, he is not a gullible person or a charitable person or even allows the injured disciple time to recover as he choked the person with his right hand. This action stopped the disciple’s coughing and he started to make chicken like sounds as he gagged under pressure.

He lifted the unknown disciple, the weakest and the only one Kusan didn’t know due to their aura that each person gives out. He isn’t a memory freak but he at least knows most of his enemies. After all, know thy enemy, know thy self. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

So obviously Kusan had to know his enemies to prepare himself for their ambush and many other forms of threats.

He created a fireball in his spare hand and brought it near the unknown enemy’s face.

A slightly chubby face that was marred by the bloody broken nose and bleeding lip with a swollen left eye was revealed to Kusan. Due to these, Kusan couldn’t instantly recognise whoever this person was and so he released his choke hold on the fella because he looked to be on the verge of suffocating.

Although he couldn’t pinpoint who it was, he entered thinking mode until he was interrupted by a raspy voice.

“You..*hack*…you bastard, do you KNOW WHO I AM?”

After calming down and getting enough air, the unknown man yelled at Kusan as if he was speaking to a lower being.

“Who are you?”

Kusan wasn’t fazed the least by the injured disciple’s outburst as he calmly asked. At the same time, he was amused at how the man couldn’t recognise his place because he had the ability to kill the man if he so wishes to.

“YOU! I AM THE FUCKING CROWN PRINCE YOU PEAS----kuh”

Without waiting for the man to finish, Kusan instantly sliced his throat as he spoke to himself.

“Oh, so it’s that fat oaf that is the younger brother to Nage.

Consider this me taking out the trash.”

Kusan kept his amused expression while staring at the second crown prince who wore an unbelievable expression. As if conveying through his facials, that he couldn’t believe he was being killed despite knowing his status of being a crown prince, albeit second in line.

The person, who claimed to be the crown prince, really was the second crown prince of the Warch Empire and the younger brother of Nage who is popularly known as the number one in the Dojo. With his brother status and his own status, he believed that anyone who heard him would shake in their boots and prostrate themselves before him. They may even go so far as to give their girlfriend to him if he so wishes.

But not only didn’t Kusan prostrate himself or shake in his boots, he even dared to kill him and this made him not believe the case as he always believed himself to be immortal and untouchable. Because, after all, with his status, he could do anything he wanted to in the Dojo and outside without getting into troubles. However, before he could even enjoy the number one beauty of the Dojo who he has been trying to get for the last three months, he hasn’t even had sex ever since then. Since he only joined the same day that he was punched by Kusan.

Despite being intimidatingly warned by Nage to not cross Kusan, he ignored him and tried hard to find him. When he found him, it was during the first match of the tournament and when Kusan won. He had him tailed and what happened shocked him to no end.

He shockingly discovered that Serenity, the woman who he chose to be his first wife, unexpectedly came out of Kusan’s changing room. So from that moment onwards, with a belly full of rage, he vowed to have Kusan killed one way or another. When Kusan smashed through all the paid off disciples and entered the semi-finals, he couldn’t help but get even increasing angrier and without much choice, decided to goad his brother into killing Kusan.

However, what he didn’t expect was that instead of helping him, like an older brother should. He was actually fiercely slapped by his brother and it didn’t stop there, he was even reprimanded for insulting Kusan.

This didn’t curb his anger like Nage hoped it would, it instead propelled his rage into a whole new level and hired the best 6th ranked warriors and magicians he could get his hands on. He couldn’t hire 7th ranked since they were under his brother’s control and he knew they were loyal to his brother. He also couldn’t use his personal 9th ranked bodyguards because anyone over 6th ranked, no matter whom, without authorisation would immediately be killed on the spot.

After the finals, he followed Kusan to the hospital and then back to his room. He couldn’t follow Kusan previously due to the fact that participants stay in the tournament quarters until it finishes.

He was about to order them to just ambush his room until they saw Kusan casually walking down the streets. And what happened afterwards is history and so this is how it came to the current situation.

‘This….this is impossible, this peasant dare to kill me!

Fucking little---‘

Before the crown prince knew it, he was already dead.

Kusan didn’t spare him another glance and grabbed his body and threw it into the hole he made earlier when he dealt with the three magicians.

Next he gathered everyone, including one unconscious one who was now the only one not dead, into the hole. Once this was done, Kusan gathered fire magic and insta-cast the fire magic ‘Torch’.

A simple spell that can let out a continuous flow of fire, as long as magic is pumped into it

BWOOOSSSHHHHH

CRACKLE

Crackling echoed out from the tunnels until a powerful gush of pungent smell that would have instantly sent any normal person into vomiting. The smell was so bad that not even a week old dead body would be able to rival this smell as it pervade the surrounding air.

Even so, Kusan wasn’t one of them and he even welcomed the smell, as it tells him that he burning the bodies is actually working.

He has been through many battles and through that, would sometime burn his enemies, human or beasts and gets assaulted by the deadly and pungent smell of death. After a while, his nose got used to the smell.

The reason why he is burning the bodies is one, to get rid of evidences of any disciples. Secondly, to make sure they are all dead. Thirdly, because the punishment squad can deduce the number of suspects down to a certain number by the manner of their deaths and what magic was used in the battle. Fourthly, he felt like it.

After 5 minutes passed, he stopped and saw the bodies were turned into dusts particles. He swooped all the dead dusts using water magic and dashed away from the scene while scattering the dead dust everywhere.

Kusan noticed strangely enough that, everywhere, no matter how loud the short fight made. It still didn’t wake up or draw any attention from the nearby disciples and they all pretended that it was nothing.

Sure it’s a Dojo and it is expected that one would occasionally hear battle sounds, that should only be heard when one is near the training area and quite frankly, the training area is a further 200 metres north of where Kusan was battling.

‘So this little crown prince influence extended this far hm?

Oh well, too bad he just had to fight me’

With that, Kusan disappeared into the night, having not forgotten his original intention when he first walked in the night as he made his way towards Dray’s place.