The brutality of that scene scared everyone. Philip was laying on the floor with a bloody face. In Philip’s entire life, no one had ever beaten him this miserably. How would anyone dare, his father was the leader of the village and had absolute authority. Everyone stared in disbelief, how was it that Willard could be this much stronger? Did he not realize who he almost just killed?

Angelica staring at the scene, was completely frozen in terror. She was scared for her son's well being. He had just publicly beaten the third son of the chief half to death. After a couple of seconds of silence, the crowd grew rowdy. Everyone was chatting about what they had just seen. Azeya immediately took to the stage, he stared at Willard, like he was staring at a beast, and went on to carry Philip out of the stage. Azeya immediately order a test of to be conducted on Willard, he wanted to verify what stage of natural energy Willard had.

After a couple of minutes, another senior warrior came to the stage and administered the natural energy test on Willard. When the test was concluded, the senior warrior stared in disbelief. This year had produced some of the best warrior students in the village’s history. There was first the beginning level 5 warrior, Quin, and now there was one who wasn't too far off, a peak level 4 warrior, Willard. The senior warrior announced the result of the test to everyone. The test results shocked the crowd, and more so than others, the senior warriors that were present.

“No wonder he had such confidence earlier” Azeya thought to himself as he walked back on stage.

“Why did you not go easy on him, since you were much stronger.” Azeya asked Willard while walking towards him.

Willard stared at Azeya for a short time, then responded with a smirk on his face “There was nothing I could do there, his face kept attacking my fist.”

Azeya hearing this immediately grew angry, Willard had the audacity to come up such a stupid excuse after almost killing the chief’s son. What on earth could have caused him to gain such confidence. After all, he was just the son of a lowly merchant.

“Dont forget, that was a fair match between equals. No one can blame anyone for any injuries caused due to this fight” Willard immediately said paraphrasing what Philip had earlier mentioned.

“How was this a fair match between equals? You were clearly stronger, and shouldn't have fought a much weaker opponent.” Azeya said.

“Oh, so why did you not stop the match earlier. You clearly knew Philip was a level 3 warrior, and thought I was a level 2 warrior. Or could it be that you were hoping I was the one in Philip’s condition?” Willard responded.

Everyone hearing this stared at Azeya, what Willard had said made sense. Soon after, the crowd got rowdy again, everyone started gossiping. Azeya being the subject of the gossip grew even more angry at Willard. He was dumbfounded at Willard's composure.

“How can it be this brat would turn out this way? He was clearly useless months ago. How did this situation come about?” Azeya asked himself while trying to figure something out. Seeing things progress the way it had, Azeya turned to the crowd.

“Silence, the demonstrations are not yet over.” Azeya said in other to get the crowd under control.

“I would like to challenge the victor.” Quin said while approaching the center of the stage.

Earlier when Quin was watching the fight, he had doubts about Willard's strength. After the test results were announced, he got his original confidence back. He was determined to make Willard pay for what he had done.

“Only a level 4 warrior. I should be able to defeat him miserably.” Quin thought to himself.

Azeya gave a nod in acknowledgement of the fight. He then turned to stare at Willard. This time he wasn't going to make the same mistake as earlier.

“Your opponent this time is a level 5 warrior, would you like to accept his challenge?” Azeya asked Willard.

“I accept any and all challenges today.” Willard responded with an air of confidence.

Although Willard did not have an ounce of his godly powers, he had the memories of his lifetime as the god of destruction, Thanus. During that time, Thanus had spent millions of years training and developing every aspect of his being. He had developed his own unique martial arts, one that was unique to himself.

“Haha. Here I thought you'd take that opportunity to run away, but instead you choose to fight.” Quin said to Willard.

“I shall teach you the difference between us today. Pray you don't end up crippled.” Quin continued.

Willard only had a smile on his face. He had absolute confidence in his ability to evade his opponent. Even though he wasn’t entire certain he could defeat Quin, he was completely certain he would not be heavily wounded.

“Pick your weapon and lets fight” Willard responded.

Quin walked to the weapon rack and selected the long spear. Since Quin was acknowledged as one of the greatest genius to ever be born in the Yellow Hew village, the villages chief had spent a lot of resources training him. He had even began teaching him some of the spear techniques he knew. Before the current chief was assigned the position as the chief of the village, he was luckily accepted as student at second rated martial arts school. There he learnt some basic spear techniques the school taught every student. Because of his experience, his position as the next chief of the village was bolstered to greater heights. Ever since he came back to run the village, he had only taught three people the spear techniques he learnt, and off the three, Quin was one of them.

Azeya looked at both of them, and gave the go ahead for the battle to start. Quin upon hearing this started attacking with his spear. He aimed at Willard's head with the clear intention of ending the match fast. Willard had been prepared for a sudden attack, and as he saw the spear coming, he easily evaded the attack.

“So he is truly trying to cripple me” Willard thought inwardly.

Now Willard was more than ever determined to teach Quin a lesson. He original planned on fighting Quin to draw, but now that idea was out the window. Since Quin was coming for his life, he would do the same. While Thanus was alive as a god, he had on multiple occasion fought Zinus, the chief god of darkness, who wielded an eternal darkness spear. He was well versed in the movements of the spear.

Willard was continuously attacked by Quin’s spear, but every time it came close to him he evaded the attack. Willard was waiting for an opportunity to attack Quin, but soon he discovered that there were no opportunities he could exploit with his current level of power. As the fight went on, scratches could be seen on Willard's outfit. Quin was relentlessly attacking him, and with the fact he was in a prior fight to this, Willard was starting to get fatigued.

“Not good. Never would I have expected this Quin usage of the spear to be this good. I need to do something fast.”

Everyone watching the match were surprised at what they were witnessing. Quin’s usage of the spear was quite extraordinary for people of their caliber. He was like a shooting star blazing up the stage. While his opponent, who defiled common sense and was able to keep up with Quin. In the hearts of everyone, including the senior warriors, they had started respecting Willard. It was painfully clear who had the upper hand, so everyone paid extra attention because the match was about to reach its conclusion.

Ever since Willard gained his memories as the god Thanus, there was one thing that bothered him. He was original gifted in two elements, fire and earth. His affinity for the both of them were of the highest level, but after his reincarnation, his affinity to the fire element had completely gone. He was slightly able to still sense the elements of earth.

Willard decided to do something crazy. He was going to gather elemental earth energy. Normally, one would be advised to gather elemental energy only after stabilizing your natural energy base, which meant you had to have successfully cultivated and passed the 10th level of natural energy. Willard executed his movement skill, and created a great distance between him and his opponent.

He immediately closed his eye and started trying to gather earth elemental energy. With the distance between him and Quin, Willard had estimated it will take Quin exactly ten seconds to get before him, which meant he had only ten seconds to gather elemental energy. Willard was gathering this energy with great difficulty, he had immediately zoned out and thought of how he had been wronged in his former life. Was he going to be left in this life as useless weak mortal? At that point, Willard coughed out blood. Something seemed to had changed within his body. Willard had successfully drawn a little bit of earth elemental energy. He knew that forcefully drawing elemental energy damages one's body and shortens one's lifespan, but he wasn't in the position to care about those things.

Willard opened his eyes and noticed Quin had gotten right in front of him. Quin attacked again with his spear, this time he was confident he had won. After all, Willard was clearly tired and injured. Quin wasn't holding back the least bit, his intentions were clear, he wanted to inflict the maximum damage possible. As the spear was about to strike Willard's head, Willard quickly moved his left hand to try and catch the spear. Quin seeing this was surprised. Even though the spear was somewhat blunt, no one with a brain would try something so stupid.

To Quin’s surprise, Willard had succeeded in catching the spear. Although he was bleeding from catching the spear, everything seemed to have gone according to his plans. The earth elemental energy strengthened his palm, helping curb the impact of the blow.

While holding the spear, Willard utilized the movement skill one more time and directly appeared in front of Quin. He immediately struck Quin’s chest with his right palm. That attack was incredibly loud, one could hear it from miles away. Quin immediately got to one knee, blood could be seen dropping from his nose and ears. Suddenly, Quin completely collapsed on the floor.

***********************************************************************************************************************

Thanks for reading :)