Chapter 91: Last Round

Chapter 91: Last Round ’What just happened?’

Kieran’s eye flashed seeing Liam who haf been brought to his knees in the last moment getting back up.

He snuck a glance at Sabrina, buy there was no visible emotion or change of expression at all.

’Is that how I am?’

The thought flashed across his mind and he almost raised his eyebrows. It was quite weird to see her light that, it felt like he was staring into a mirror. It was in way a pleasant feeling.

Kieran withdrew his gaze and focused back on the holographic projection.

Two fights had ended so far, but tye remaining three were still going on and Derrick was in one of those fights, currently rolling on the floor to dodge a few few spiked weapons that had been thrown at him.

His option wasn’t someone that Kieran recognized, and that was understandable. The rankings were very unstable during this period.

Derrick jad challenged the holder of the 94th position. When last Kieran had checked, the holder was a different person. This meant that his opponent was a new ranker.

Kierans eyes flashed with a weird emotion seeing the current state of the battle.

’What am I even doing here? I only picked this guy because the instructor asked to pick someone lower on the list. I didn’t expect to be this tough, I can’t even use my ability!’

Derrick mind was in whole different dimension as he had an internal debate om giving up, or going on with the fight.

From his limited movements, it was obvious to Kieran what he was doing.

"Sigh!"

Kieran rubbed his face with his palm, feeling like smashing the pole of his scythe onto Derrick head—something to get him straight.

Derrick’s personality was unique, similar to that point August’s. That was already a bad sign, hut considering that August had multiple personalities, which one of his did he take after?

Laziness.

He pretty much acted on things he HAD to do, Kieran had never really seen him act out om his own.

Even when August had roasted them saying that they shouldn’t even participate in the fights, all he had to say was "okay".

If Kieran was cold and focused, Derrick was chill and uncaring.

He must have chosen that position to challenge, thumbing it would’ve been easy to win, but it seemed like he was struggling a little against his opponent.

’Why is he doing that!’

Kierans eyes narrowed seeing the way Derrick moved, dodging all the attacks which came towards him, he didn’t even make an attempt to strike back.

He also managed to spot the frustration painted on his face as dodged those attacks.

’Tch! He didn’t ask me to win either, but I can just lose like this!’

Derrick continued his internal conversation, ignoring the increasingly intense attacks that came his way.

"FUCK IT! CAN’T YOU FOCUS FOR ONCE!!"

His opponent had finally had enough of being ignored and coated his arm in a sharp blade sending a strike at Derrick whose attention had just been drawn by the shout.

"Huh?"

His dazed eyes looked at the blade that was about to meet his face and he raised his palm.

"Interesting ability!"

For the first time, Derrick paid attention to his opponent who was looking dumbstruck at his blade which had been caught barehansed by Derrick, without any visible usage of an ability.

That was hia ability that had been caught like a stick.

Kieran was equally surprised.

’This wasn’t what I expected at all!’

Derrick inspected the blade in his hand and commented.

"Nice material, poor craftsmanship and balance. It’s a pretty cool ability you have there, similar to mine!"

Derrick’s eyes shone brightly as he made comments on the enemy’s hand blade, pushing his glasses up his nose.

He once again gave that needy impression Kieran had of him.

’His win then!’

Kiernan thought, swinging the feat he had just pulled off and considering what effect that had on his opponent who had eyes still widened in disbelief.

He was still yet to process what had just happened.

"Hmm, you win. I SURRENDER!"

"The fuck?!"

Kieran could control himself as he blurted out in shock.

Derrick had just surrendered and qas currently making his way off the stage. Even his opponent didn’t understand what wss going on.

"It was pretty boring anyways, I just hope the instructor doesn’t stress me on this one!"

Derrick muttered, walking off the stage while pushing up his glasses. The thought if what August could do to him made him shiver.

Just like that, Derrick had concluded the last fight of his set, walking away from the arena completely.

’Yeah, he should disappear for a while!’

Kieran’s face bore a small smile for a moment thinking about how Derrick was going to be avoiding the instructor for the next few days, if he could.

He was pretty sure that August was watching all their fights. The instructor was pretty caring even though it wasn’t that visible under his lazy persona.

Now that that round of fights had ended, it was finally time for the final round to appear and he didn’t particularly know how to feel.

He had been watching these fights for a few hours now and had seen how unique the recruits could be when manipulating their abilities. He had also seen some of the weirdest endings to a fight; like Liam’s and Derrick’s fight.

Almost all of the fights involved the use of abilities which placed him at a massive disadvantage—his ability had yet to awaken fully. All he had access to were bits and pieces that shown through. It was nowhere enough to win a fight as easily as the others had done so far.

Still, that didn’t deter him.

’If anything, the experience he could gain was worth it.’

Just then, a beep was heard coming from the the watches of the people left in the room, he included and they all rose to their feet; Richard, Sabrina, two other recruits and him.

Together they made their way out of the underground waiting room, through the cold halls out to the open ground of the arena.

Now that he was sewing it upclose rather from the spectating section or through a holographic image, Kieran could see how big each individual states were.

Standing at a height of almost 3 meters, they all had to climb a set of stairs, just to get on top.

Kieran’s stage was marked with a bold "3" the same number he had gotten when the beep was sent to him.

Staring at the huge flight of steps in front of him, Kieran looked to the side where the rest had started to ascend their stairs.

Tightening his grip on the weapon, Kieran steeled his mind and took the first step onto the stairs.

Climbing slowly to the top of the stage, the cheers of the crowd who were eager to see someone get beat up, see some blood spill washed over him.

’It’s a pity how we never changed!’

A faint sense of pity and disdain washed over him observing the violence which still dwelled in them as humans. The same violence that had almost driven them to self destruction during the century long war.

Rather than learning from it and adopting a peaceful nature, humanity had instead cultivated that violence, channeling it away from themselves and to other planets and alien species in the name of galactic exploration. In plain terms, it was just exploration and plundering of resources.

Kieran shook his head to dispel those thoughts from his head. What humanity had become was none of his business, at least not yet.

Now, he had arrived at the top of the stage, met with his opponent who was waiting patiently for him to arrive.

"You define took your time! Having second thoughts?"

The recruit in front of his questioned with a small smile.

The recruit Kieran had picked to be his opponent was Raymond Smith, the recruit who currently held his position as the 80th ranker and had managed to defend that position since the ten day challenge tournament had started.

"Why would I?"

Kieran questioned in his cold, hard tone.

"Haha. This is fun. I read all about you and that attitude of yours. Considering the fact that you’ve got nothing to back it up, I was thinking you were on am act. Seems I was wrong!"

Raymond said, throwing silent shades at Kieran’s incomplete awakening and lack of power.

Ignoring his words, Kieran looked to the side where the others were just about to start their battles.

"Is it me or is this last round of opponents just extra chatty?"

Kieran said in a low voice, but his opponent could hear him crystal clear and another laugh escaped his mouth.

"Hahaha! You really are something else. Talking so big for someone at your level! You better have something up your sleeves, it would be a pity if all you could do was talk!"

Raymond replied with a snarky smile on his face.

His relax posed showed his confidence as he took his time to reply to each of Kieran’s words.

’I wonder how he reacts when I send him to the infirmary for the second time. Will he break mid-fight? How should I even target him... this is going to be funnn!!’

Raymond suppressed a giggle thinking of what method would be best to break Kieran completely. The thought of seeing that cold expression wiped off his face as he thought about his pointless existence and begged for mercy made him shiver in pleasure.

"Not only are you talkative, you’re also a pervert? I don’t even wanna know your fetish"

Kieran commented, looking at Raymond with disgust visible in his eyes.

Raymond’s face reddened from embarrassment and he let out a small cough.

"Hmm! Why don’t we sit and observe the other guys, I can’t have you—"

SWISH!

His words were cut off by a throw blade that had just missed his face by an inch when he dodged, leaving a thin cut.

"Do you think I’m here to trade words?"

Kierans cold voice appeared a few feet from him, having crossed the length of the in a few seconds, the pole of his scythe about to crash into Raymond’s torso.