Chapter 20 - Ye Ziyun's Battle

'Wow, he really surprised me with that move…' Ye Ziyun thought to herself, the figure in front of her was definitely beyond the Bronze Rank.

"Should we leave the training for another day, Miss Ye?" the young man asked the princess of Glory City with genuine concern. He had sophisticated manners, along with power and technique. These qualities combined were guiding him to a certain fame in the city streets, and not even the three scars on each side of his mouth were enough to give him a bad image.

"No, no, please, let's continue." The girl said as she stood up once again.

The young man in long black robes assumed a fighting stance, bringing one arm forward with an open palm, as if it were a sword, while the other arm remained firm at his waist.

Ziyun, on the other hand, assumed a posture that, in modern terms, we can call a boxer's stance. She bounced on her toes and shifted side to side to maintain her stance. The young man smiled as he saw her fighting pose, as if remembering something.

The girl wasted no time, advancing with all the speed that a peak Bronze Rank 3-star could exert.

The young man remained motionless, waiting, studying.

An incredibly fast jab aimed at the young man's face.

"Too slow." He said apathetically, after moving his head slightly to the side and avoiding the blow. But the girl did not give up.

A straight punch with all her strength, but again the young man dodged it by simply stepping to the side. However, the young princess couldn't stop now.

JAB

STRAIGHT

JAB

JAB

The duo seemed to dance across the battlefield.

"Slippery!" Ye Ziyun said, increasing the number and speed of her blows, and the young man gave a small laugh at her comment.

JAB, CROSS, STRAIGHT, JAB…

Quickly, the strikes added up to forty punches thrown in vain.

The young man was enjoying watching the girl miss all her blows, so he began to play with her.

Nie Li, who was just watching from a distance, was seething with jealousy and feeling uneasy. He felt he knew this guy; those long black robes could easily be worn by someone from the Dark Guild. But since he seemed to be merely training with Ziyun, he wasn't a threat yet, at least not a physical one.

"I'll keep an eye on this bastard…" Nie Li thought with an irritated look.

Back to the fight, Ziyun launched a punch with her right hand, using all her strength and speed.

'Got you!' The girl thought, smiling. This boy was her age, so how could he be so much stronger???

For the first time, the young man really defended himself. He deflected her punch to the side and, taking advantage of her lost balance, moved quickly to her left, placing his foot in front of her to make her fall…

She really fell.

BAM

"HEY, that's cheating!" The girl said angrily, while the young man gave a silent laugh.

"Your stance was very unstable. Even if you had landed the punch, you threw it so sloppily that you could have broken your own-"

Before the young man could finish speaking, Ye Ziyun saw an opportunity. She grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and threw it towards his eyes.

'Damn!' The young man thought, irritated.

"Hey! Let's stop now-"

The girl couldn't miss this chance, so just as the young man looked towards her, in the last millisecond, he leaned back, dodging an uppercut that grazed his chin.

'I need to get away!' He thought, but there was no more time.

"It's not over yet!" The girl shouted, now landing a solid punch on the young man's right flank, sending him ten steps back.

Ziyun gave a beautiful angelic smile, feeling she had won. It was an absolute victory to land a solid hit on someone so much stronger, in any case.

The girl, with a smile on her face, was about to ask to stop the fight, but she froze at the sight in front of her…

A demon. That was the atmosphere she felt at least.

There was nothing left of the young man's sophisticated appearance. A large distorted smile showed all his rows of teeth, his expression so tense that his face seemed truly disfigured.

Ye Ziyun had not participated in many fights in her life; her status had always given her great confidence to do things, and she never really cared how other people might feel about her actions, as if she had a blank check to do anything… but this no longer seemed to be the case.

Her instincts were not as sharp as Nie Li's, not even close, but she could definitely tell that she had awakened a monster.

"You fought dirty, Ye Ziyun." The young man spat out the words, without the honorifics he used before.

"You've been giving your best until now… Please, allow me to let loose a little as well…" The young man continued smiling as he returned to his fighting stance, with his hand like a sword.

Ye Ziyun was paralyzed. In the fight-or-flight response mechanism, her body chose "freeze," the worst possible decision.

The young man contracted all the muscles in his body, as if he were cocking a weapon before firing, as if he were adjusting the aim of a bow before releasing the arrow…

Then the arrow was released.

The ground was pushed back with such force that an explosion of earth occurred, raising a small hill behind the point of impact.

The young man cut through the air, as if preparing to cut down anything in his path.

Ziyun had already accepted her fate; she couldn't dodge or escape, much less defend herself. She knew she hadn't lived long, nor had she lived the best life she could, but at least she had made friends… hadn't she? At least she had met...

"NIE LI?!?"

The girl shouted the name of the orange-haired boy as she fell to the ground. The vision she had was of Nie Li pushing her out of the path of the attack, with a gentle smile on his face and bright wings on his back. Without a doubt, he had been her guardian angel.