Chapter 7 - Nerun's secret weapon

Maikal was happy to see the degree of Sylvester's improvement.

'I wonder what Nerun plans to do, otherwise at this rate he will lose miserably, hehehehehe'.

Nerun meanwhile, remained calm as he thought about his counterattack options. Sylvester stopped admiring himself and menacingly started walking slowly towards Nerun. He knew that the brat was a little more agile than him, so his plan was to first scare him and then put pressure on him with great strength so that he would make a mistake and thus be able to beat him. He believed he could eventually corner him and win the contest.

Nerun was slowly backing away, and trying to circle around Sylvester, though he was aware that he could not continue to act in this way for long. In a little while, Sylvester would catch up with him and then... Perhaps he dared not imagine what would happen to him if Sylvester caught up with him in case he lost his nerve.

Suddenly, Nerun ran straight towards Silvester, who was momentarily surprised, but quickly smiled to himself, as he opened his arms, trying to give Nerun a bear hug and squeeze him completely. Nerun quickly jumped back with a somersault, dodging him and landing with his hands and feet on the ground. Sylvester quickly pulled himself together and ran towards Nerun while he was still on the ground, but the latter suddenly swung his arm out quickly, opening his hand and releasing dust and sand into Sylvester's face. It was the same move he had once used against Maikal.

COUGH COUGH, ACHOOOO!!

Sylvester couldn't avoid the smokescreen and started coughing and sneezing while trying to remove the dust that had stuck to his mouth and nose. Nerun quickly jumped up and delivered a flying wrestling-style kick to the face of Silvester, who only took a couple of steps backwards. He only had a trickle of blood on his nose from the blow.

"Damn, fatso, you need to go on a diet. You're getting heavier and heavier, soon you won't be able to move except by rolling." Nerun blurted out, while the rest of the children laughed loudly.

Silvester became extremely angry and again rushed towards his opponent, striking with his right arm surrounded by the white mist, which Nerun dodged with great difficulty, especially when the wind generated by the attack kept knocking him off balance.

Nerun kept hovering around Sylvester, while Sylvester kept trying to attack him with both arms. Whenever he used his right arm Nerun was thrown several metres backwards, but with the left one, he was able to dodge with relative ease. However, this balance, both knew, would not last long.

In one of the exchanges, Sylvester managed to graze Nerun's left shoulder with his right fist.

- Punch! -

Nerun was thrown spinning around. Although not broken, his shoulder was dislocated. Fortunately, given the great flexibility of being a child, plus the daily exercises he performed, he was able to snap it back into place, but he couldn't help panting a little.

'Damn. This fatty is truly getting stronger and stronger. If he gets to really touch me next time, a broken bone would be the least of my concerns.' Thought Nerun.

"Sooner or later Nerun. You will not be able to run away from me much longer". Sylvester gloated while being completely confident of his soon-to-come victory.

Nerun continued to run around Sylvester, but the latter was staring intently at his opponent to prevent him from attacking him again as before. At one point when Sylvester tried to attack with his left arm, Nerun leapt towards him and kicked him in the shoulder, but to no avail and he was thrown backwards from the rebound. All seemed lost.

"You're too weak, you brat", Silvester kept gloating and increasing the pressure on Nerun to force him to make a mistake.

Several minutes passed and in an unfortunate slip from Nerun, the inevitable happened. Nerun ended up in one of the corners of the arena. If he took even one more step backwards he would be out of the ring and lose. Sylvester was smirking, just a few feet away from Nerun, looking at him like a snake looking at a trapped rabbit. The truth was that he too had expended almost all his Qi while attacking with his right arm in order to put pressure on Nerun and not let him recover. Sylvester was focused, eager to win, not just for the prize food, but to prove that he was the perfect heir to become the big brother of the orphanage.

"I'm not edible fatso, I'm warning you, stop looking at me like that". Nerun said as he assumed a frog-like position against the ground, his fingertips gently resting on the floor while wheezing slightly.

Sylvester's left eye began to twitch. Without wasting any more time, he approached Nerun while running, and using both arms pushed towards the boy, using all his remaining Qi force. He was determined to end the fight with this attack no matter what, thinking that Nerun was all spent.

Some of the children, especially the younger ones, supported Nerun because they believed that he was the leader of the youngest among them and was the one who defended them the most, especially Miriam, who was very attached to him. Several of them screamed and closed their eyes, so as not to witness the defeat of their friend.

But at that very moment, Nerun quickly closed and opened his eyes. His normally ochre-coloured eyes turned a deep golden colour. A soft, white, serpentine mist was circling around both his hands and legs.

Maikal stood up suddenly, staring at Nerun, quite startled by what he saw, with an intense gleam in his eye.

When Sylvester was mere inches away from touching him, Nerun leapt towards his left side at a much more agile speed than before, so that Silvester could not react in time. Quickly Nerun grabbed Sylvester's left arm and pulled forward, while also resting his side and right foot in front of the other's left foot, and at the same time raising his leg. Taking advantage of Sylvester's weight and loss of centre of balance, Nerun managed to lift him off the earth and slam him to the ground outside the ring.

BAAAAAM!!

Sylvester had made a small crater with his fall and lay wide-eyed in disbelief. Nerun, for his part, fell to the ground on the sand, exhausted and wheezing, while sweating profusely.

"Bu, bu, bu, but .... But what happened, how....." Sylvester babbled nonsensically.

All the children fell silent, as they watched Nerun in the sand. Even Maya couldn't help but gape. Suddenly they all stood up and jumped up and started clapping and shouting loudly. They had just seen something extraordinary and they couldn't believe it. Nerun had won the match and the competition.

Nerun fell backwards and lay on the ground as his heart, tachycardic from adrenaline, slowly calmed down. Still, he found himself grinning from ear to ear. It was a magnificent victory.

Sylvester sat up and stared at Nerun as if he were a freak. "You... You're a Qi Master?".

That's right. The white mist that appeared on Nerun's four limbs is the energy accumulated in the body that is displayed when master warriors use any attack through an open meridian. The mark that indicated that one has become a true Qi master.

"No," Maikal replied. "He is not yet a Qi master. His energy level is still 6. I can guarantee you that.

"But... it's impossible, I saw it with my own eyes," replied Sylvester.

"Give it up Sylvester. Accept your defeat at once. You were overconfident because of your great physical strength, plus your power level is the highest among the children. The truth is that you should have won, but in the end, you got careless. Nerun used your own power to make you confident that you could beat him easily. His first attacks were to make you believe that no matter what he did, you would eventually win since he could not harm you. This fed your pride and eventually, your downfall was a consequence of this carelessness. Let this be a lesson to you. Never lose concentration for an instant, nor let your guard down in the face of any enemy, no matter how weak he may seem. The most dangerous beasts are not those that show their claws at the outset, but those that hide their fangs under a non-threatening guise and then go for the jugular".

Maikal said sternly.

"Still, I'm very proud of both of you. It was a magnificent fight," he then said with a gentle smile on his face, as he looked towards the wall overlooking the courtyard to the street.

A figure was sitting on the wall watching all the children with a large bag on his back. It suddenly started laughing happily and uncontrollably as it said:

"Hahahahahahahaha... It was a spectacular fight. Truly incredible. Sylvester, you've gotten fatter since the last time I saw you. And you Nerun, look how much you've grown. Not long ago, you were little more than a squirt chasing me around, but you've grown into quite a fighter. That last move was truly brilliant".

The figure stood up on the wall and then leapt towards the centre of the courtyard about 20 metres until he landed. He was a tall, athletic-looking young man, dressed simply in an old shirt and trousers, but they did not detract from his heroic and somewhat wild air. He had a well-shaped face, dark eyes and long hair, which seemed as difficult to control as a lion's mane.

All the children and Maya turned to look at the young man and could not hide their surprise and joy.

"ELIJAAAAH," said all the children who couldn't contain their joy, as they ran to hug their big brother.

"I've missed you brats so much," said Elijah, with a small tear of joy welling up in one of his eyes.

"It's good to have you back," said Maya and Maikal too, as they smiled. For the first time in over a year, the entire Radem orphanage family was reunited once more.