Marionette

Ashur watched the smiling Atures with vigilance.

He knew that there was no way he could compete in terms of strength.

The only reason he was able to dodge Atures first attack was due to his fast reaction time, and the use of The Force to augment his speed, because if he fought with his normal speed, he had no chance of winning.

Picking his giant sword out of the ground, Atures looked at Ashur excitedly.

"Let's have a good fight!" shouted Atures as he suddenly burst out with speed, and slashed at Ashur.

Seeing the attack coming at him, Ashur didn't run away, but instead, charged right at Atures's giant sword, and before Atures could slash down at him, used the force to suddenly leap into the air.

Atures reaction wasn't slow, and he stopped his forward slash and slashed upwards into the air at Ashur.

But to his surprise, Ashur held out his hand mysteriously, and to his and to the other's disbelief, suddenly moved and avoided his slash in mid air, before turning and kicking off his huge sword, and slashed towards Atures's side, leaving a deep gash across his right leg.

"What, how'd he do that?" asked Aliceia.

"Interesting," said Carlem. Adjusting his glasses.

"I was sure he wouldn't be able to avoid that. Is it related to his hand motion before? Some type of propulsion?"

Aside from his love for books, Carlem was a natural strategist, and would often analyze battles in his spare time, and admittedly part of the reason why everybody else was on the sidelines was that he wanted to analyze the battle.

The reason why Atures was selected to fight was that he did not like to torment worthless prey, any would defeat them quickly and get it over with, and did not like pointlessly beating someone just because he don't like them or because you disturbed their free time, unlike a certain someone else who wanted to go.

But if Ashur did somehow manage to become Atures's prey, Carlem would be able to Analyze their battle to further improve himself, and to make up countermeasures.

he was calm and collected and didn't look down on someone because of their age or size. Although he didn't really have very high hopes before the battle, he was now focusing intently and making countermeasures based on the data of the fight.

After leaving a large gash on Atures's leg, Ashur gripped his sword and quickly turned around as he immediately prepared to follow up his attack.

But as he turned back around, he was suddenly greeted by the blade of Atures's sword.

Barely having no time to react, Ashur just barely managed to quickly raise his sword to deflect it with his sword, but as he did, he noticed that the incoming strike was surprisingly lighter than expected, and noticed what he just blocked was Atures's thrown sword!

Shit!

Quickly looking to the side, he noticed Atures's already oncoming fist!

Raising his arm, Ashur quickly tried to block but was quickly knocked flying through the air, before then landing and tumbling on the ground like a sack of potatoes before Ashur reached out his arm to stop himself.

Dammit!

Feeling the searing pain coming from his arm as he tried to stop himself, he could immediately tell that it was broken.

But Ashur had no time to worry about his arm, because he noticed Atures's huge sword was already quickly descending upon him, leaving no time to even catch his breath.

Gathering everything he had, Ashur used all his strength to push himself to quickly roll to the side, just barely dodging Atures's sword, as it impacted the ground. Less than two feet away from where he just was.

Ashur spared no time, and before Atures could retrieve his sword from the ground, quickly used The Force to propel himself downwards like a rocket, sliding right through Atures's legs and quickly slashing at his ankle and severing his Achilles tendon. Causing him suddenly lose his balance and before he could figure out what just happened, he suddenly crashed to the ground.

This Ashur's goal from the start.

He knew that he stood no chance if he chose to have a head-on clash, as even if he decided to use The Force to enhance his strength instead of his speed. He knew that his stamina probably wouldn't be last long. So he would have to end it quickly.

But he doubted that Atures would be defeated even if his body was covered in wounds. He was a wild animal that would relentlessly hunt down its prey and give it no time to rest. A true berserker.

In order to quickly win against Atures, his plan was to disable Atures's legs, as this was basically Ashur's only option to avoid a prolonged fight.

Tendons are a mechanism of the body, by which muscles connect to bone, and allow your muscles to manipulate your body to move. they are bands of elastic fibrous tissue

They work similarly to the strings to a marionette puppet.

With the control bars that control the puppet the muscle, and the puppet the body, they all work in tandem to put on a show, or to move your body.

But what happens if you suddenly cut the strings that connected to one of the puppet's arms?

Suddenly, you lose all mobility of the said arm.

The Achilles tendon is one of the most important tendons and allows you to move your heel, and stand on your tippy-toes. Without it, you would have great difficultly even standing straight, nevertheless running, jumping, or combat using said leg.

After slowly sliding to a stop, Ashur took a sigh of relief before slowly picking himself off the ground.

If Ashur wasn't so small, his plan might not have succeeded. he wouldn't be able to pull it off such a feat if it was his old body. But due to his small size and Atures's huge body, he was able to easily slide straight through Atures's legs and cut his Achilles tendon.

Ashur slowly started trudging towards Atures.

Atures didn't think it would suddenly turn from him winning overwhelmingly, to him suddenly finding himself crashing to the ground. Atures could only wear a weary smile as it seemed like he greatly underestimated him.

Ashur slowly came before the fallen Atures before slowly lifting his sword, and holding it to his neck.

"You lose"

"Not quite" Atures cryptically replied.

And before Ashur could figure out what he meant, he was suddenly grabbed by the back of the head and was thrust headfirst through the air.

"Did you forget?" Seph's voice suddenly echoed from behind him.

"You're fighting not just him!" shouted Seph as he thrusted Ashur's head into the ground, and grinded his face across it, before slowly coming to a stop.

"Is this all you got?" asked Seph as he crouched down. Still holding Ashur's head against the ground.

While Ashur glared back at him.

"That's a nice look," Seph said with a smile. "I look forward to crushing it!"

Seph then slowly stood up, and smilingly said "Now scream!" before stomping straight down on Ashur's uninjured arm, as a sickening crunch echoed out as Ashur's arm bent backwards unnaturally.

But Seph failed to get a sound from Ashur as he silently lay on the ground.

"Scream!"

"Scream!!"

"Scream!!!"

Seph shouted repeatedly stomped on Ashur's arm. Wanting to elicit some reaction from Ashur.

"MASTER!!!" shouted Ene with tears in her eyes. She couldn't handle seeing Ashur getting beat up like this. She felt powerless. She never wished to be able to have a real body so badly. When she turned into a digital being, she never really minded it. Although there were some downsides, like being unable to eat. There were some benefits. Such as the illness that plagued her in her old life that made her tired and irritated all the time, was gone. Which made her energetic, and her true personality shine through.

But her comfy home of Ashur's phone, now felt like a prison as she watched on, unable to do anything.

At the same time, up in the stands.

"Father!"

Riveria couldn't stand it and pleadingly looked towards Larfal, wanting him to do something.

But Riveria's plea was coldly ignored, as Larfal said "If he cannot handle this much, he has no right to ask to become your personal bodyguard"

Riveria wanted to interject, but after seeing Larfal's cold gaze stopped her.

Her father was extremely stubborn, and she knew no amount of arguing would change his mind when he becomes like this. All that would happen, is her being sent back to her room and her being unable to do anything. So she chose to stay quiet and silently hope that Ashur could somehow reverse the situation.

Seph never relented.

Seph's stompings turned into kicks as he mercilessly kicked Ashur's head

Speh's laughed as he repeatedly started kicking and stomping on Ashur's arm, But only after a few minutes, he noticed Ashur was unresponsive.

"Hey, did you die on me now?"

asked Seph as he crouched down and lifted Ashur's head, only to realize that Ashur was already unconscious.

"Tch, what a drag"

He had no interest in beating a dead dog, so Seph quickly got back up and turned away before starting walking back towards the others.

Seeing this scene, Larfal let out a sigh, as he got out of his seat and turned to leave. He had seen enough.

But Larfal wasn't disappointed in Ashur, rather Ashur had managed to exceed his expectations.

Never once, did he expect for Atures to be the one to be defeated. He naturally had a lot of confidence with his knights, so to see Atures, his second strongest knight, only outclassed by Seph, to be defeated, managed to lift Larfal's impression of Ashur by a lot.

To be able to defeat Atures at his age, he had no choice but to think of Ashur as a Prodigy.

He had also seen his resolve and decided to agree to allow him to become her bodyguard.

But he was also a little saddened that he wasn't able to see more, as his performance left him with a little expectation.

"See to there be an Elixir Prepared for the boy," said Larfal as he turned around to leave.

"Seph! Quickly back away from there!"

But as Larfal was about to leave, he suddenly heard a panicked shout from Carlem inside the arena and turned back to see a black and red aura erupt from Ashur's unconscious body from behind Seph.