Just One Slash

[Before the PGF beginning]

A man in a black suit, a black tie, and black sunglasses was walking toward a tree, where Joe was calmly enjoying the wind's gentle breeze.

Below the tree he stopped, looked around and after confirming that no one was around he took down his sunglass and with a slight bow started to talk.

"Young master, it's a pleasure to meet you again."

Joe opened his eyes after hearing his name and looked at the bowing man.

"You don't need to be so formal Scott. You are much older than me in the first place and we can say you are my father's right hand, so, please. Anyway, what brings you here?"

The man straightened his back and started to talk calmly, "I came here because of two things. One is because your father orders me to, while the other one is a request from me."

Joe hearing this frowned a little bit and waited for Scott to say what he wanted.

"Firstly, your father entrusted me with a job to recruit a student from here. He is your friend, Greg Hyde. He thinks he could be a huge asset for our family."

Hearing this, Joe looked shocked and asked instantly, "Why does my father ask you to do this?"

"I don't know, but he is interested in the kid that's for sure."

Joe nodded and asked calmly, "And what is the other one? Your request."

Scott bowed slightly again and asked in a respectful manner, "Please challenge him for a fight for me. I need pieces of information to determine if he really as good as Sir thinks."

***

Joe after punching Greg was thinking back to what Scott just said to him not long ago.

"I hope my father doesn't want to use him for anything bad."

He looked down, where Greg's body was hit and saw him kneeling in a small crater while clenching his chest.

"Damn! He hit me real hard."

*Ptooey!*

After spitting out a small amount of blood, Greg stood up and looked at Joe in the air.

"So you want to fight with speed. It's okay for me."

In an instant, as he said this, Greg's body started to shine with white light.

People seeing this got confused and didn't know what was happening.

"Why does his body shine?"

"Maybe he tries to blind his enemies or I don't know."

Joe looked at Greg's shining body and instantly knew what was happening.

"It's the same power from before. I need to stop him from using it!"

As he thought about this, he raised his hand and the clouds all around him started to spit bolts of lightning at Greg with insane might.

However just like before, Greg dodged the attacks easily and started flying up into the air with his fairy's help.

*BOOM!*

"BANG!*

Thunderbolt after thunderbolt started to fell on Greg, but no matter what, they couldn't hit him.

It was not just because of Greg's flying ability and fast reaction, but because of his never-ending speed acceleration. It was almost impossible to hit a target with a fast speed like that.

*Whoosh!*

*Bang!*

*WHOOSH!*

*BOOOM!*

Greg's speed was so fast that only a shining light could be seen on the platform as hundreds or more lightning wanted to hit their target with insane power.

Joe tried to keep up with Greg's speed. Just as he wanted to do something, Greg's smiling figure appeared in an instant before him.

"Payback time!", said Greg and punched toward Joe's chest, but just as his fist was about to hit him, Joe disappeared with a fast speed.

A second later he appeared not far away, while lightning bolts ran all around his body.

Seeing this, Greg without any hesitation appeared before him again and tried to punch him, but whenever he was about to hit Joe's body, he disappeared and appeared somewhere else.

People seeing this, was already dumbstruck a long time ago. Even Chris who was standing next to the platform looked at the scene before him with awe.

"They are fighting with insane speed while evading those terrifying thunderbolts from above like they were nothing."

"Okay, I think I will just give up the idea to challenge any one of them in the future."

"Yeah me too. They are not humans at all. They are like monsters."

"If someone tries to say bullsh*t like Greg has a trash Guardian, I will beat that one up for sure!"

Amidst the lightning, Greg's and Joe's figure flashed from time to time. Their speed was so fast that students started to get dizzy only by trying to catch up with their eyes.

However as time went by, people started to feel that something was strange.

Even Joe frowned as he looked at Greg and a while later his eyes grew wide in shock.

"His speed is... getting faster? But how? His body won't endure it if this goes on."

Just like Joe thought, Greg also felt that his limit was close too.

"I can be faster only a bit, but more than that will break my body. Only if these flashes of lightning were to disappear from my sight, I might have a slight chance to hit him."

Looking for opportunities as he thought about solutions, suddenly an idea appeared in his head.

"Why didn't I think about this earlier?"

With a sudden halt, Greg's shining stopped and patted gently the fairy on his shoulder.

Knowing what his owner wanted, the fairy flew above Greg and raised its small hand.

"Haha! Look at his pet. How cute! Haha!"

"What does he want to do? Pets cannot do anything, except defending their owner with their bodies."

"Maybe he gave up?"

Joe looked at the fairy and remembered that Greg told him he got a Soul Pet, which could attack. But that how, he didn't tell him.

Because of this, Joe prepared himself for anything.

As everyone watched the fairy, suddenly a thunderbolt appeared above it, ready to turn it into dust.

"Haha! Greg really used his pet as a shield!"

"Well, poor thing. It's flying ability was really good, so it's a waste to use it as a meat shield."

"He should have... Huh?"

Just as everybody thought that the fairy will get killed because of the lightning, suddenly it's small hand slashed.

*SLASH!*

*SWISH!!*

*BOOOM!!*

With a loud sound, a huge vertical wind blade slashed across the platform, cutting the clouds with their terrifying lightning in them into half and leaving a deep crack across the platform, while hitting the viewing area in the distance.

Luckily no one was sitting there, because what remained was a wide crack, separating that section into two. Even the outside scenery could be seen from inside, showing just how terrifying that attack was.

Joe, Chris, and everybody else looked at this scene with a dumbfounded expression and couldn't believe that the attack from before came from a Manifester Soul Creature, which is just a Soul Pet!

"T-that pet just now... Attacked and cut everything into two only with one slash!?"