The ship had a full-sized artificial training ground. The entire place was huge, almost the entire width and breadth of the ship, and about a single deck high. It was also covered in runes that helped dissipate force from powerful attacks.
In reality, calling it a training ground wasn't quite accurate. It could literally serve as anything. Most of the ti, it served as Ruby's playground. However, since the beast had been sent on an errand by Cain, it remained deserted.
Until today...
Today, there was quite a a crowd gathered. While duels were not uncommon, they were mostly unofficial and were used to settle petty squabbles.
However, this was different. Rhodes stared at the man standing before him.
He frowned, 'No, not a man, boy...'
He grinned, "Boy, I'll teach you sothing today."
Now that Lukas had been MIA, the people of the Western island had lost their apostle. aning the heart of these lost souls was up for grabs for those who were brave enough to reach for it.
Grabbing the hearts of the people also ant grabbing power. This was a secret known only to a few.
The power of a Celestial, living or not, was not sothing humans such as themselves could grasp.
Amongst the faithful, those who proved themselves would always be rewarded with greater power for their exploits.
Take Rhodes for example...
At the battle a month, he had fought valiantly, killing more than a hundred mutant creatures. This had granted him another blessing apart from his original blessing. His physical stats had also skyrocketed.
'For this naless boy, I'll be enough.'
This was the greatest difference between the Blessed and the Privileged, those who were granted access to the system, was that the fate of the Blessed lay in the hands of their patron Deity. The Privileged ones, those that had been chosen by fate, had to depend on themselves.
Both were reliable routes to chase power, but while it was possible for a Privileged to also be a Blessed, it was impossible for a normal Blessed human to awaken access to the system after the inception of god ash.
Li stared at this huge specin of a human, his gaze calm.
In his hands, he held no weapons, only a pair of gloves. These gloves were a dull white color with streaks of green converging towards the fingertips.
Not only that, but on both the palm and underside of the gloves were a set of peculiar runes.
Seeing Li's unbothered expression, his glare beca grim. He pulled the great sword on his back, revealing its sinister sheen.
"I'll try not to kill to kill you. This is for the glory of the god of Light, Hail Yanagi!"
Rhodes let out a growl, "Pri Agate!"
His body began to glow brightly like a precious gem exposed to light.
He grinned wildly, feeling power flow through him,
"This is the power bestowed onto my the Celestial of Light! The power to overco all!"
He launched forward like a bullet, dragging his giant sword behind. The air in front of him was violently displaced, and the sand on the training ground rose an inch above the ground.
Five gems shaped like droplets of water appeared around him. They moved as fast as he moved, circling around the static Li.
Rhode's burly form suddenly shimred fro existence, reappearing where one of the gems was. A split second later, he appeared near another gem. Again, the sa thing happened until he was disappearing and reappearing everything second.
Moving so fast, it was impossible for most of the crowd to catch a glimpse of him.
'Pri Agate. A blessing that allows to shuttle between summoned masses of holy energy at extre speeds. Not only does it confuse enemies, it allows to change locations rapidly. I can also attack from any angle. With this, I can evade and attack while giving my enemies no room to breathe.'
Rhode's let out an excited roar as he slamd his sword forward.
"Brass Breaker!"
His Greatsword glowed with power as it slled onto Li. His attack power was incredible. Most Mutant Creatures would be unable to do much against the combination of incredible evasive maneuvers and such devastating attacks.
However...
In the crowd, Sue had a bored expression.
She yawned, "How boring..."
Stan standing beside her nodded his head thoughtfully,
"Indeed. While his moves are definitely showy, he has barely basic knowledge of martial arts. Not only that, but he's rely wasting energy at this point. Besides, even with such attack power..."
The words had barely left Stan's mouth when sothing shocking happened.
Li sidestepped...
He didn't try to defend against the wild attack. He didn't shuffle backwards. No...
He simply sidestepped.
And the wildly swung blade struck nothing but air.
"Eh?" Rhode's had an awestruck look on his face as he felt the solid feedback. He had realized what had just happened.
Standing awfully close to him, Li had a wide smile on his face,
"Eh? Is this what you wanted to teach ? How to NOT hit your target?"
Rhode's eyes turned red with rage as he swung his blade again.
This ti, Li slightly tilted his body back. The sword glided just right above him.
Again, the sword ca crashing down. However, this ti, rather than dodge, Li held up his arms.
Rhode's eyes glinted with an excited light,
"You are mine! Brass Breaker!"
BOOM!
A shockwave spread from the point of impact. Up until this point, the crowd had been relatively ta. However, right now, everyone went wild.
"What?! He... he...!"
"He used his bare arms!"
From the crowd, Stan tried to suppress a smile,
"This guy..."
Sue snorted, "Show off..."
anwhile, Li had a barely suppressed grin on his face as he grasped the long blade of the Greatsword.
He sneered, "With this bot of ager powe, you want to teach a lesson?! How about I teach you sothing!"
An explosive deluge of power poured off his palm. The runes on the glove began to glow with soft light. If translated, they could be interpreted to a single word;
'Condensation'
The na of this glove, was {Windjaw}. It was a special weapon that gave one the ability to condense any sort of energy in a split second and release it all at once.
In the hands of a regular person, it wouldn't be very deadly. But Li, and everyone in Cain's camp was not normal...
Rhode's sword exploded into shards of broken tal, so of which stabbed into Rhode's eye.
"Ah! My eyes! Help! I can't see! Oh my God!" He yelled in pain and horror, gripping the bleeding eye socket.
Shoving his hands in his pocket, Li glared down at the grovelling man.
"W...what are you doing?!" Rhode's said, tears flowing down from his only good eye.
It was one thing to stop a man's weapon barehanded, and it was another thing to completely destroy it in the sa breath. It was complete morale slaughter...
"You rember the deal, right? I don't give a fuck if you lost your balls. I don't expect to see you on this ship in the next hour."
Fear boiled on his soul...
'How?! How have things given so wrong?!'
Suddenly, realization snapped at him,
"That's it! Guys! Help ! Kill this bastard!" He yelled at a certain section in the crowd.
"Oh? A sore loser? Well, I'm not surprised." Li said, shaking his head.
He ignored the man grovelling and yelling like a mad man and turned around. However, the mont he did, a sinister glint flashed in Rhode's eye.
"Die!"
Grabbing whatever remaining of his broken sword, he attempted to stab Li in the back.
"Look o-!" Stan had already begun to shout, however it was unnecessary.
Li's eyes were as cold as ice as he snapped back around. In his hand was a rotating ball of smoldering flas.
"I gave you a way out, but you didn't take it. You only have yourself to bla."
Grabbing Rhode's sword arm with one hand, he thrust his other into his solar plexus.
The rotating ball of flas floating in his hand smashed into the soft flesh...
And exploded...
Blood, torn organs and viscera exploded from Rhode's back, along with pieces of his ribs and spine.
Li let the already stiffening corpse fall to the ground. Taking another glance at Rhode's as the life and color drained out of his face, he let out a sigh.
Then he turned and left.
By now, th crowd had already turned silent. Most people had expressions of fear on their faces. Is this the level of power these gods amongst n had co to wield?
With this power, they protected them from this terrible world, but they could also use this power against them, the weak and powerless as well...
It was a scary thing to think about, and it filled their many hearts with uncertainty...
The duel was over, cented by the cold corpse on the ground. Slowly, the crowd thinned out until just three people were left in the training ground.
Stan sighed, "This might be troubleso..."
Li shook his head, "It's okay. I already got the go ahead from Hunter."
Sue raised a brow, "Really? When?"
Li smirked, "Before the battle. Apparently, this is just the prologue. There are a lot of people that aren't satisfied with the way things are right now. So they want to make moves."
Sue smiled, "Unfortunately for them, we aren't pushovers."
Li shook his head, "Things are more complicated than beating up a few lackies. The ones we are going to be dealing with are far more insidious than mutant creatures."
His eyes still carried a trace of coldness,
"Whoever it is that is trying to start sothing is very smart. So we need to be careful and pick our fights smartly. That's what Hunter said..."
Stan nodded, "Well, this is ant as a ssage... A warning shot. We won't be holding back."
"By the way... Who's going to get rid of... all that?" Sue asked all of a sudden, pointing at Rhode's hollowd out corpse.
Li frowned, his brows scrunched up,
"I an... can't we just leave it ther- Fine, fine! I'll get rid of it!"
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