Way of the Knights

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"Make me."

When Raven said this, the remaining patience that the old man had was instantly gone. He quickly rushed forward towards him, not even bothering to hide his animosity towards Raven. In his mind, he won't be satisfied if he didn't break a few bones on Raven's body.

The old man raised his wooden sword and swept it towards Raven's shoulder joint, he was planning on dislocating his arm right away since he saw that Raven doesn't even have any weapons.

Many saw this and inwardly sneered, what a devious guy, attacking a junior. Wasn't he aware that his attitude was being watched by Raul? What a disgrace.

Nevertheless, none of them interfered. Nobody told this child to participate in this event, he came on his own accord so he must face the cruelty inside this arena.

But before the wooden sword landed on Raven's shoulder, a distinct smirk surface in his face. He raised his hand and met the blow using his bare hand.

The old man was shocked, is this boy planning on killing himself? He might be wielding a wooden weapon which reduced his lethality but meeting his attack with a bare hand was just outright stupid. The old man started to think that this guy must've been dropped when he was a baby, causing him to grow up with a few screws loose.

His attack connected, but imagine his surprise when he saw his wooden blade being grasped tightly by Raven's naked palm.

The old man's eyes constricted, he tried retrieving his swore but Raven's grip was too strong, no matter how he pulled his sword, it just doesn't budge, not even an inch.

Raven audibly sneered, that attack failed to hurt him at all. With a strong tug, the old man who was holding the wooden sword felt his whole body fell over, before he could even thought about stabilizing himself, he suddenly felt a strong abdominal pain that almost made him vomit gastric acids.

The pain was too much for him to handle, he lost grip of his weapon and kneeled on the stone floor of the arena while retching and coughing. He suddenly felt a strong grip on his hair, and before he knew it, he's already lying outside of the arena. His face was pale and he had an incredulous expression on his face.

He seemingly forgotten about the pain and just stared at the arena with wide eyes. He searched for the kid that he attacked earlier and saw him on his original position, standing straight like a spear and indifferent to whatever's happening around him.

'What the hell…' the man thought to himself, he looked around him and saw that the rest of the disqualified fighters were staring at the arena, no paid attention to him nor to anything that had happened to him at all. 'Just what the hell happened?'

Somewhere along the crowd of audience, Elyion was watching while munching some goodies.

He had been paying close attention to Raven since the beginning of the round, he also saw the spectacle that many people failed to see earlier. Inwardly, he felt pity to the old man.

'He never stood a chance…' Elyion thought inwardly, 'He got handled like a degenerate that he was. He still probably having a hard time believing what happened, it was his fault for provoking Raven.'

Elyion saw it clearly, the old man provoked Raven by telling him to obediently go down, he was also feeling rather smug about it, like bullying children was his hobby. As expected, Raven barely did anything to deal with him.

After receiving his first attack, Raven pulled the sword of the old man, making him lose balance and interrupt his thoughts. Then with a clench of his fist, he delivered a solid punch on his stomach without even moving from his position. When the old man kneeled in pain, Raven grabbed him by his hair and threw him out of the arena. It wasn't even a battle nor much of a fight really.

'I wonder how he would react if I tell him that Raven could take down a fully grown tree in just a punch.' Elyion giggled inwardly.

He then threw this notion at the back of his head and watched on.

***

"Freeze!"

The announcer's voice suddenly echoed through the ears of the fighters and the audience.

"The amount of people that are left in the arena are exactly 60. This marks the end of the first round!"

The fighters then stopped on their tracks and sighed in relief, some of them slumped on the floor, clearly exhausted but happy that they made it past the first round.

"Congratulations to all of you who remained." The announcers said in an amicable tone, "I will now explain the rules for the second round."

'We're starting right away!?' This was what majority of the contestants thought.

Some of them, specially those who were too exhausted to even move, despaired inwardly and felt bitter.

"We will follow the same rules of the first round." The announcer said, "But this time, you people will be divided into 6 batches. This means that each round, there will be ten people who will be competing. Each batch will only have one winner, simple right?"

The announcers voice were loud and clear, but some contestants were somewhat gloomy about this.

"The second round will begin after an hour, you can use this time to recover." After saying his piece, the announcer turned around and went down the stage.

The exhausted contestants heaved a long sigh of relief, at least they were given an hour to recover their conditions. The fighters dispersed from the crowd and checked themselves for injuries.

As for Raven, his indifferent expression remain as he sat back down to seats that were provided for them. After the old man, no one provoked him nor tried fighting him either. It was as if he became invisible throughout the rest of the round.

He basically did nothing and managed to pass, well this works for him. Even though he didn't have much action, it doesn't mean that he was clueless. He remained alert throughout that whole round and paid close attention to the rest of the his potential competitors.

Through his inspections, he found out that those who remained were all humans and at the same time, nobody posed a huge threat against him.

But Raven told himself to remain alert. This place already fooled him once, and he doesn't want it to happen twice. He still had little information about this place, who knows what terrible secrets remained unknown from him?

Time passed and soon, the one hour deadline was over. All contestants were called back on stage and they were asked to draw lots once more. The ballot contained badges with numbers 1 to 6 and there's ten badges for each number. The numbers represented the batch they're in, and because there are ten of each number badge, this will identify who will participate on the battles of each batch.

Raven was in the sixth batch, meaning he had to wait for a long time before it was their turn. The announcer asked the holders of the number one badge to remain in the arena as they will begin the second round right away.

Ten people remained, to each of their own, they glared at the other people who stood in the arena with them. Eyes brimming with impatience and determination. As soon as the announcer started the battle, all of them erupted into roars and charged at each other.

Some rules out who needs to be taken out first by appearance. There were two guys who looked very intimidating from the way they stood, which made them the targets of the rest.

An untold alliance were formed, eight against two. It looked grim for the two, they were out numbered. In the end, the two fighters found themselves cornered and separated. One against four, it was truly a difficult battle. In the end, the two fighters were forced to unwillingly admit defeat, which was a pity since they were too promising, unlike those who remained.

But even though they were eliminated, they made sure to at least heavily injure some of their assaulters before going down. This created some sort of disparity for the people who remained, some were heavily injured while the others aren't.

In the end, the first round ended with the crowd very unsatisfied. It was basically bullying, there are no honor in these type of battle at all. The winner of the first round himself also felt quite terrible about the whole situation but a win is a win in his book. Chances like this rarely come so he didn't regret any of his actions.

The first round made an example, thus a trend continued and was observed in the following matches as well. Second batch all the way to the fifth batch, the winners of the group battles were all the careful and cunning ones, leaving the crowd very unsatisfied.

"Fighters of the sixth batch, please come up on stage."