"You got knocked the h.e.l.l out."The contender gradually stood up with Kyle and Bruno"s help while he was holding his chest looking still to be in pain Archie who was still standing in the arena saluted to him which the contender returned before thanking Bruno and Kyle and returning to his seat.
Archie stepped down from the arena and also returned to his seat next to Neil who greeted him.
"That was great but why didn"t you beat him earlier?"
Neil asked with confusion as with their current strength Neil or Archie could defeat someone at that level in only a couple of moves. Archie thought for a moment before he responded.
"He was honourable so I didn"t wish to disgrace him."
Neil was a blunter individual who while honest couldn"t understand nuance while Archie had a calmer understanding of the human psyche and didn"t want to cause his opponent unnecessary pain or humiliation.
Neil thought about this and felt that what Archie was saying sounded profound but when he looked at Raith his anger boiled so he asked the question on his mind.
"Would you give the same courtesy to that maggot?"
Neil indicated in the direction of Raith, Archie on seeing where Neil was indicating had a small cold smile on his face and responded simply.
"I said my opponent was honourable that piece of offal is anything but."
Neil was satisfied with this and was happy again. The tournament marched on with the contenders vying with each other Kyle and Neil also won their matches. An unusual thing happened during Bruno"s match however as when he went up he surrendered before a single blow was struck.
When Bruno returned under the boos and jeers of the crowd Kyle looked at him with curiosity and seemed to be waiting for an explanation. Bruno looked at Kyle in all seriousness and spoke his thoughts.
"I know what may happen today and I don"t want to risk not having enough mana to protect the people I care about in the coming conflict."
While saying this quietly he looked to Alena and knew he couldn"t risk her safety just to continue in this tournament. This wasn"t an option for Kyle as he needed to fight for as long as possible to maintain the honour of his parents, if he stepped down early people may think he was a coward which would adversely affect his parents standing.
Respecting Bruno"s choice Kyle didn"t comment while the others on their bench also held a certain respect for Bruno at this moment. Archie was up again against another no name contender who only exchanged a few moves before he retired leaving Archie as the winner.
Finally an interesting battle was coming up; this was between Neil and Raith. These two hated each other with a pa.s.sion and the crowd was looking forward to this battle. At the choice of battle type Archie opted for weapons while unusually Raith opted for unarmed so a coin toss ensued while they stared at each with fire in their eyes.
Neil won the coin toss so it was a weapon battle; Kyle noticed the disappointment in Raith"s eyes when he lost the call. This piqued Kyle"s interest as why would Raith want to fight without weapons unless he was planning something which would be to Neil"s detriment.
There were a few reasons Kyle could think of as to why Raith would want to fight unarmed but the two most prominent in his eyes would be either to cheat somehow or if he had a specific skill which needed to be used without a weapon.
There were a few skills like this but as far as Kyle was aware there was no reason to specifically aim to use these kinds of skills as you could get a similar or better effect if you used a skill with a weapon instead.
There was no point in thinking about it too much so Kyle simply waited for the match to begin. Neil had his pole axe which like Archie"s great axe had the shaft reinforced but in accordance to Neil"s wishes the blade was in a crescent moon shape and extended an entire third of the weapon.
As they were preparing to fight Neil"s eyes lit up as at the entrance to the venue he saw his father and other uncle had arrived. Harris was Neil"s father while James was Clyde"s, they entered the venue and rather than take a seat with their clansmen they instead sat near the entrance.
Ever since Kyle had become involved with the running of the family Harris had stepped back and didn"t get involved in the affairs of the family even though he was supposed to be in charge of the guards in the family.
James on the other hand dealt largely with the families businesses so spent a great deal of his time out in the city and only returned to the estate occasionally. Clyde didn"t have a very good relations.h.i.+p with his father because he spent so much of his time out and didn"t spend hardly any time with him or his mother. Clyde also thought that his father may be having an affair but he hadn"t asked Kyle to look into it as he feared to know the truth.
Landon saw his brothers arrive but also saw they had no interest in joining with the family to enjoy this event. He knew a gulf was growing between them and this was largely due to the poisoning of Kyle and the knowledge that the most likely suspect for this was one of his brothers as they had the best opportunity to administer the poison.
While everyone else was thinking about their family issues, Kyle simply smiled as he thought to himself "all the players are here now, let"s see how this plays out". Kyle believed one of these uncles was the traitor and probably pulled the other along today to instil fear into them so they could take control once Landon and Kyle were dealt with.
On the stage Neil and Raith were waiting for the go from the referee, Raith was using a b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword in this match s he would be a bit faster than if he used a great sword. Neil was moving his pole axe around agitatedly while waiting for the match to begin; he was itching to pound Raith after what he had said previously.
"Begin."
The referee didn"t even wait a second before he ran outside of the ring as he had seen how these young men had been looking at each other and he knew this would be a vicious fight between them.
Neil moved first and faster than Raith, but rather than run straight in he came at him from Raith"s 2 o"clock. This forced Raith to reposition himself to receive the strike cleanly, while Neil may not be the smartest in the world he was a good instinctive fighter and he could tell that Raith wasn"t good with his footwork so by forcing him to move would be his best tactic.
Striking hard and fast Neil knocked Raith back several steps, Raith hadn"t had a chance to brace himself properly before Neil had struck and due to lack of stability from having his feet to close together he stumbled a bit.
Neil quickly followed up with a couple of swift diagonal strikes keeping Raith off balance. Neil"s way of using the pole axe was a bit different than Kyle originally expected as he used the whole length of the weapon to his advantage.
By gripping behind the axe head where the crescent came down it would almost act like a short blade but when he wanted a powerful strike he would hold further down so he could get a more powerful swing.
Raith couldn"t keep up with the rapidly changing form of battle and was wholly defensive at this point and started pus.h.i.+ng his man into his blade to try and force a change of pace.
Neil also began channelling his mana into his weapon and the pace stayed exactly the same. Raith was being pushed all over the ring by Neil. For Neil"s part he was getting annoyed as he was dominating Raith but he was continuously retreating so he couldn"t land a decisive blow against him.
Moving in again Neil was ready to strike out but suddenly Raith dropped his weapon, this made Neil freeze for a second and in this second Raith lashed out to his chest. His hand was covered in a putrid green mana which exuded a vile feeling.
The strike impacted on Neil"s chest that was knocked away by the strike but the mana from the strike remained on his chest and seemed to be seeping through his clothes. Neil"s face became pale and he tried to remain standing but fell to his knee.
"Neil retire right now!"
This was Kyle who shouted out; he had seen this strike and saw that the mana contained was somehow corrupted. He had seen something similar when his teams had cleared out some of the cults. It was something like a mana poison or parasite which would convert the mana in the opponent"s body and gradually kill them.
This was extremely painful and difficult to treat. Kyle had managed to find a way to drive out this corruption but if it was left for too long the physical damage would take months or even years to repair even with Kyle"s technique due to the damage affecting the soul realm rather than the flesh.
On hearing Kyle"s shout Neil immediately quit but Raith continued approaching him with a vile grin on his face and his hand glowing with that same putrid green glow. The referee wanted to halt the match but was scared to approach so he simply called out the result.
"Winner Raith of the Miles family."
Raith seemed to ignore him and continued to approach Neil.
*s.h.i.+ng*
Suddenly there was a flash and Kyle was standing in front of Neil with his katana drawn in a mid-stance looking at Raith coldly. Seeing the expression on Kyle"s face almost everyone was scared and thought Raith was about to die.
Well everyone except one of the guards who was looking at his side where he had been holding Kyle"s katana but all he had left was the sheath and he hadn"t even noticed when or how Kyle had taken it.
"Oh s.h.i.+zzle."