Chapter 97: Imagining the opponent as a chicken leg

Translated by: Reiji

Knowing full well that Ayrin would definitely drag things on no matter what, Silva finally clenched his teeth and tossed his two shields away, even though he spent at least half his arcane particles for these “Iron Forest Fire Gem Shields.”

“Only half my arcane particles left! I can absolutely not waste them, I absolute have to beat him!”

Silva dashed wildly in Ayrin's direction.

“Oh my! My belly's hurting really bad!”

Ayrin seemed about to dodge, but he suddenly bent down.

“He's at it again!”

Silva stopped abruptly all of a sudden. He had the subconscious feeling Ayrin would certainly hit him with a surprise attack the next instant.

But nothing actually happened the next instant. Ayrin rubbed his belly, and straightened back up, looking very natural.

“Come at me! Brave warrior!”

Ayrin stretched his hand at Silva.

Silva was really speechless. He felt as if Ayrin were toying with him in the palm of his hand.

Yet the instant he set down the resolution not to be influenced by Ayrin's little tricks and focus entirely on his own attacks, a vibrant red ball suddenly appeared in his vision.

Dazzling arcane particles gushed out of Ayrin's outstretched hand, forming a burning eye.

“Evil Flaming Eye!”

Silva's body braced taut once again. He'd trained especially for this match, so he closed his eyes immediately. His body vanished from where he stood, and his silhouette reappeared again six or seven meters away along with a bizarre, dazzling light.

“He's already using arcane particles at a time like this, it seems he's not planning on revealing the secret of his greatly increased physical strength.” Carter brimmed with curiosity when he saw Ayrin use Evil Flaming Eye, wondering what kind of tactics Ayrin would adopt this time.

“His skill invocation speed is merely at this level, I can't let his tactics prevail anymore.” Silva took a deep breath in and suddenly clasped his two hands together.

“Black Iron Haze Forest!”

Arcane particles sprayed out from both his arms, immediately merging with the arcane power in the surrounding air and transforming into countless tiny black particles, forming a thick black fog.

This thick black fog immediately shrouded both he and Ayrin.

“Why can't we see anymore!”

Many people shouted in astonishment in the stands.

This black fog wasn't only wasn't only dense and pitch-dark enough that one couldn't see one's one fingers in it. The black fog wasn't distributed especially evenly, to the point black trees seemed to tower in the spots where it was especially thick.

Silva pushed his way through this dense black fog without a sound.

This black fog didn't impede him at all. He could clearly see Ayrin standing in front of him, but his arcane skill cut off his opponents' entire line of vision, to the point they couldn't even see one meter away from themselves.

“Evil Flaming Eye!”

However, just when he was six or seven meters away on Ayrin's left, Ayrin suddenly lifted his hand, and a devilishly bewitching eye of fire suddenly rushed in his direction with incomparable accuracy.

“Impossible!”

Silva stared wide, caught by total surprise. The moment he came back to his senses and tried to dodge the eye, the Evil Flaming Eye transformed into a huge trophy cup of the national tournament's champions in his eyes. He couldn't resist spreading both his arms, wanting to embrace it.

He only came back to his senses the instant he felt a burning pain. He hugged his head with both his arms, a steady stream of arcane particles flowing continuously out of his hands.

A “boom” exploded.

Everyone in the stands saw a fire wave suddenly spread out of the space several dozen meters wide shrouded in black haze. Hugging his head with both his hands, wrapped inside the fire wave, Silva heavily fell on the ground outside the black haze.

“How did he break Silva's Black Iron Haze Forest?” Wilde's complexion was thoroughly different now. “How did his Evil Flaming Eye catch Silva's position so accurately?”

“Could he have learned some kind of special sensory arcane skill?” Teacher Lee in charge of team Iron Forest also stared blankly, at a total loss.

“Swish!”

At this moment, Ayrin's figure already tore through the air and split the black haze, charging out from within.

Silva bellowed and sprang up.

Many spots on his arms and body were wounded by burns, his skin and flesh burned scorched black in many places.

Silva finally woke up to reality at this moment. No matter what way Ayrin used to break his “Black Iron Haze Forest,” he would be defeated at Ayrin's hands if he still tried to conserve his arcane particles.

“Ten Celestial Killing Hands!”

The moment he sprang up, ten blue-colored arms suddenly stretched out from his back, along with the gush of dazzling arcane particles.

With now ten more blue arms one time longer than his original arms, he looked as if he suddenly turned into a monster!

Ayrin made a one-eighty and ran!

“You won't run away so easily!”

With a wild, earthshaking roar, Silva not only pushed on his legs, but also pressed four out of his ten new arms fiercely on the ground.

His body caught up behind Ayrin's back almost in the space of a breath.

“Ah!”

Ayrin turned sharply around, his arms separately blocking the fists firing at his head and his belly. Yet, many fists still swatted him in a split second, flinging his body away in the air like a piece of rock.

“Ah!”

After crashing on the ground, Ayrin sprang up and shouted miserably, then once again flopped on the ground.

“Dead?”

Stingham became excited all of a sudden.

“...”

However, Ayrin suddenly bounced up the next second, and started running again.

“His hardiness is indeed superhuman. Just like we predicted before the match, it seems I have to hit him four or five more times before he entirely loses his ability to fight!”

The thought flashed like lightning in Silva's mind. He accelerated again.

“What!”

However, what made him almost curse was, he suddenly saw a patch of red lighting up.

It was something he simply never thought of. Ayrin actually ran to where he tossed away his red shields, in what seemed to be a long premeditated move, and unexpectedly took one in each hand. He pulled the two fire shields erect and shrank his own body between them.

“...”

“It's too funny.”

“Ayrin actually picked up the shields he threw away!”

Many people in the stands almost sprayed their spit in laughter.

“You!”

“You think that's going to be useful?”

Blue veins even popped on Silva's forehead. His fists pounded like rain on the two fire shields.

He was keenly aware that, by counting the time from when he first solidified them, these two fire shields only had around a third of their power left. They could only persevere for a few seconds at most under the intensity of his attacks.

“Crack...”

Just as he expected, the two fire shields crumbled entirely under his punches only a few seconds later.

“Ah!”

Many of his punches also landed on Ayrin at the same time, and sent him spraying out together with the fire shields' broken fragments.

“Why is it like this?”

However, Silva's body also froze in this instant.

He could feel as if he couldn't maintain his “Ten Celestial Killing Hands” anymore, that they were about to collapse!

Logically speaking, he should absolutely have had enough arcane particles to last him long enough for another four or five attacks on Ayrin!

“He's actually able to use every sort of way to make an opponent of this level run short of arcane particles. He's indeed the most outrageous guy, the guy hardest to predict.” Carter, the one most aware of what was going on, couldn't help but shake his head.

“It hurts it hurts!”

Ayrin jumped up, not looking at all like a master, and rubbed the spots on his body where Silva's blows landed as if his life depended on it.

“I can't waste any more time! The more I hesitate the less time I'll have!”

With the spots blasted by the Evil Flaming Eye also hurting fiercely, Silva appeared again in front of Ayrin, his punches smashing Ayrin like a torrent.

“His arcane particles can't sustain him any longer, he's reached his limits!”

A chorus of alarmed cries descended from the stands at this moment. Everyone saw Silva's ten arms formed by his arcane skill crumble one by one. Blue particles spilled on the ground like sand, then transformed into invisible primordial energy.

An absurd feeling once again popped in Silva's mind.

Because he still felt that, though the time difference was tiny, there was still an anomaly in there he couldn't control. The collapse of these ten blue arms happened faster than in ordinary circumstances.

“Ah!”

Just at this instant, Ayrin displayed the reckless tactics he most excelled in. He also punched with both his fists and ferociously smashed them on Silva's chest.

The burn injuries on Silva's chest immediately split open, spilling out fresh blood.

“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”

Silva started counterattacking the instant he was hit.

The two rained their punches nonstop on their respective opponent, the two of them mutually beating themselves up as if they never went through any sort of training in arcane skills.

However, after a mere two or three rounds, Ayrin could still persevere, but Silva's body couldn't endure it any longer. He couldn't find any strength in himself anymore.

His body became a sand bag constantly retreating in the air. He only fell down on the ground after Ayrin struck him with more than a dozen punches in quick succession.

“Ayrin's really too tough! So cute!”

“Ayrin's really too vigorous!”

“How savage, I like it!”

Countless such voices suddenly descended from many stands occupied by girls.

“...” Stingham was so depressed he couldn't even talk anymore. He really couldn't understand what was cute about getting beaten up.

Silva had thoroughly lost his ability to stand up. And he also knew full well that Ayrin's fists would certainly rain down again without the slightest hesitation if he even thought about getting up. His face was swollen already, and his voice was vague and indistinct when he asked, “How did you break my Black Iron Haze Forest?”

“Because you already used Black Iron Haze Forest in the tournament last year. Teacher Carter explained it to me, he said that I should still be able to sense your concrete position if you had on you a smell I'm most likely to pay attention to. So before coming here, I bought a small bag of leftover chicken leg broth.” Ayrin looked at him and explained in a friendly tone, “So after I found out my opponent in this match was you, I sprinkled the broth on my own feet. Your body smelled like our academy's roasted chicken legs after I landed the first kick. So, when you came near me inside the thick black haze, I sensed myself as a great chicken leg, and you were also a great moving chicken leg, heh heh.”

“...” Silva wanted to blow off his top and shout at the top of his lungs, just how much do you like them chicken legs! But he didn't even have the strength to yell at this time.