"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Peter's fists rained down. Lumian shielded himself with his sturdy guard. Peter shifted into kicks and landed one on his thigh.

Lumian tanked the thigh kick like a champ and then reached his hand towards Peter. He grabbed his loose shirt and pulled him in for a powerful headbutt.

Thump!

The headbutt landed with a bone-cracking force, and Peter stumbled back with a bloody nose.

"Haah!"

Lumian wrapped his arms around Peter's hips. He lifted him high up. Then he brought him down with a suplex on the hard concrete ground.

THUD!

Peter stopped moving. He was out cold.

The teacher came to the ring, checked him out, and waved off the match.

"The match is over!

"Winner is Lumian!"

While the crowd cheered, Lumian bowed and left the ring while Della excitedly skipped over to him.

"Good job!"

Della excitedly said.

"Just a warmup."

Lumian slid his hair back, looking across the gymnasium straight at Jock, and smirked with excitement.

"Warmup for… Jock? Sure, he did good in his first match, but he is no match for you."

Della said, and crossed her arms over her chest with a confident grin.

"This is not between me and Jock. This is between Ok Family style versus Iron Style."

Lumian said.

"Ah…?"

Della didn't quite understand what he meant by that, and he didn't go deeper into details and just walked away.

…

With the blood cleaned up from the ring, the next fighters headed to their corners and took a sip of water before getting themselves ready.

"…This match is more bothersome than I thought."

Ethan said, looking at the opposite corner, where Cleo and Jock were talking about something.

Jock was nudging his glasses up his nose. He didn't have that aura of strength. Yet, no one thought of him as weak anymore.

"Should I go first?"

Kitty asked.

"No. I will go."

Ethan said, took off his jacket, and leaped into the ring amidst the excited cheering of the crowd.

His strength surprised many during the first match, and there was a good reason for it.

For the past year, he had been very much stuck in High Stage Martial Recruit, but three weeks ago, after the announcement for the tag-team competition, he happened to rank up.

Thus, he was now a Low Stage Martial Soldier.

He kept it secret from everyone except Kitty, as she was his teammate, and he was able to take his opponent by surprise.

In that moment, his opponent took the ring. It wasn't someone he expected. It was Jock, standing before him.

He expected to go against Cleo, but after Jock's performance in the first match, it looked like they changed tactics!

"Interesting."

Ethan raised his fists and took his stance.

With a deep breath, Jock rooted his stance. Iron Style stance.

In that moment, it might've been a hallucination or nothing really, but Ethan could almost swear that he just saw a black fortress standing behind Jock.

It lasted only a split second, so he might've been imagining things.

"FIGHT!"

The physical education teacher swung his arm down, and the match officially started with a bell ding.

Ethan sprang forward.

He was moving so fluidly down the ring that it resembled an ice skater gliding gracefully across the ice.

Purge! Ferdo! Fum! Gurgo! Erge!

The five gods of the Old Giant Court. The forgotten gods. Ethan imagined that those gods were watching over him.

He had always been obsessed with the forgotten gods of the bygone eras. It most likely came from his father, who was a student of ancient history and often spoke of the lost deities.

This was his driving force to keep training martial arts. To become Martial God in the future and go to the Heavens as a God, to seek out the forgotten gods.

It was a crazy dream.

While his peers thought about going to the moon, to the Dead World, or to sail around the World Seas with a brilliant flag in the mast, he dreamed of going to the Heavens!

Ethan's first punch came in fast. Jock parried it. The second punch came as a cross. Jock leaned back just in time to avoid it.

The punches flew as if they were shot out from a gun barrel, and Jock's arms moved tirelessly, shooting down all his opponent's attacks.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

"Purge! Ferdo! Fum! Gurgo! Erge!"

Ethan screamed.

The speed of his punches increased. It was a blur of motions at this point. Jock was still able to defend.

However, his arms were slowly but surely getting tired. He had to grit his teeth and push through the exhaustion.

In the end, because of the exhaustion, Jock's speed dropped, and finally, one of Ethan's punches shattered his defenses and crashed into his chest.

"UGH…"

Jock's feet slid backwards—there was a slight dent in his chest—it knocked out all his air from his lungs.

He couldn't breathe.

However, he forcefully returned to his Iron Style stance and defended against the rest of Ethan's attacks.

Ethan's punches rained down on his defenses. It was like a meteor shower raining down on a defenseless planet.

Jock's legs felt like jelly. His arms were heavy as lead, and yet, more of those punches kept coming down at him.

Ethan's punches were relentless, each strike landing with an audible thud.

"Change!"

Cleo shouted.

With a painful nod, Jock slipped past Ethan like a slippery eel and hopped over the ring's ropes.

At the same time, Cleo jumped in, and while in the motion of jumping over the rope, she whipped her leg across Ethan's face.

The kick connected with a loud smack.

"Urgh…"

Ethan stumbled to the side, but he then spun around to minimize the damage and instinctively raised his arms to shield his face from further attacks.

"Huff! Huff!"

Ethan was also panting rather heavily.

Of course, he couldn't keep throwing hundreds of those punches without also feeling exhaustion creeping in.

"Shit… Damn."

Jock sat down on the bench, cursing himself out, as he was completely worthless out there in the ring.

There was nothing he could do!

'What should I have done in that situation?'

He began thinking, his mind running at overdrive.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.