Chapter 33 Examination Part 11

The beastmen Angus called out the name of an attack, "Blue streak!" and he swung his double-sided axe, whose name he had just called, Rickenbaker. The blades of the axe began to glow a brilliant blue. Then, a wave of blue energy shot from the axe, beelining towards the applicants that tried to take advantage of the situation while he was preoccupied. The moment the energy was near them, it exploded. Applicants were flung around all through the air; they fell like raindrops.

Jake still stood where he was, not once moving a muscle. He wasn't the only one shocked. For the first time since the exam started, Zack's eyes were wide, and his mouth fell open. But his shock wasn't the same as Jake's. Jake's shock was full of hesitation and fear; Zack's was more full of surprise. He thought it was a bit much, a bit overkill. After the surprise melted away, Zack smirked then tried to land a surprise attack on Angus while his focus wasn't on him.

Without even missing a beat, Angus blocked the attack quickly, using Rickenbaker to guard his back. Both weapons clashed as both warriors smiled at each other. "Come now, small one. I hope you didn't think it would be that easy," Angus said as he spun his body, knocking Zack back. The spiky-haired boy plunged his broken blade into the ground to slow down his momentum. When he came to a stop, his smile was even wider. "Would you be mad if I said yeah, I did?" The two laughed then charged at each other once more.

As the two were locked in combat, down in the hole back on normal ground, it was chaos. The after-effects of Angus's attack exploding made everything seem as if it was a scene straight out of a war film. Applicants' bodies scattered all about, crying and moaning from pain. But if one were to look closely, none who took the attack head-on were even severely damaged. The lucky ones who avoided getting hit by the attack were the ones who didn't make a mad dash toward the exit while Angus and Zack were fighting.

One of those lucky ones was Jake himself. He still stood as still as a hundred-year-old statue, gazing at the scene before him. This action, or rather inaction from Jake, began to disgust the voice that had been ridiculing him. But it said nothing to him, and even if it did, it wasn't sure if he would even hear it speak. It could feel his heart beating; it was fast and loud. And this sound was what Jake himself was hearing. He couldn't move, and if he could, he didn't want to. It was simply pathetic. But he and those who chose not to run were the lucky ones, or they would be if among the hoard of downed bodies, one hadn't stood up.

The energetic little girl with two pigtails stood up. She was scuffed up but none the worse for wear. She dusted herself, turned to look at the downed applicants, also the cowardly applicants she thought that didn't run full speed ahead. She giggled as she stuck her tongue out and patted her backside. "Suck it, losers!" she screamed as she took off with blinding speed, cackling the entire way.

"That… little… bitch," one of the downed applicants barely managed to say as they struggled to get back on their feet. "She thinks she's better than us," another applicant said, fighting their own body to stand back up. "Fuck this shit!" another applicant roared as they began to rise. "Yeah, fuck her and the bull man! I'm not failing this year!"

The actions of the little girl had an almost inspirational quality. Her act of teasing lit a raging fire in the downed applicants, making all that could raise back to their feet. "Holy shit, they're getting up!" one of the applicants that hadn't moved said as the downed applicants got back on their feet almost in unison. They screamed, "I'm not failing!" and they charged forward like an army. The sound of the applicants' roars was so loud that Angus and Zack couldn't help but hear it.

"Damn, I knew I went too easy on them," Angus thought as his grip on his weapon changed, and the blade started to once again shine a brilliant blue. Taking in all this information within only seconds was Angus's opponent, Zack. He watched as the beastmen's eyes shifted toward the origin point of the collective roar. He watched as Angus's weapon, Rickenbaker, began to glow again. He observed his surroundings and prepared for his counterattack.

"This is it," he thought. "This is perfect. I can finally land an actual attack on this bastard." His lips began to form a slight smile, but he did his best to make it disappear. He needed to stay focused and not get carried away. To those examiners watching the entire exam, what Zack was about to do made no sense. First, he didn't have to be here in the first place, and second, defeating or even hurting Angus wasn't needed to clear this part of the exam. Yet still, he was challenging a soldier of the Gardenia army wielding one of the mythical blades.

It seemed insane to most, stupid to others, and prideful to some. And out of all three, it was closest to probably be pride, but even that wasn't correct. Why was he doing this? Why was Zack facing a well-trained warrior with a magic axe? Simple. It was fun. He was having so much fun and he simply wanted to keep having fun and test his own limits. The examiners, the other applicants, none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was his next move.

Within the fraction of seconds Angus was distracted by the escaping applicants, Zack got into a crouching stance. He had his half broken rental blade by his side, mentally visualizing that it was placed inside of a scabbard, his right hand on the blade's handle ready to pull it from the imaginary sheath, and his left hand holding the blade itself. Still, even though it was only a rental, and it was already badly chipped, cracked, and damaged, it was still a blade. His hands began to bleed, but Zack either didn't notice or care because he was too focused.

The spiky-haired boy closed his eyes; what seemed like thousands of memories flashed across his mind. Memories of years of non-stop training. He could do this. He knew he could do this because he had done it a thousand times before. His grip on the blade handle tightened as his grip on the blade itself loosened. As he slowly opened his eyes, he said in almost a whisper, "Tiger Style, Form 1: Morning Pounce."

Zack moved with blinding speed. He was moving so fast and so strong that he cracked the ground that was under his own feet. Even while distracted, Angus heard the spiky-haired boy say something. He wasn't sure what, but he was sure that he was planning an attack. Angus was shifting his attention back to his opponent, but it was far too late. Before he could do anything, Angus felt a deep pain coming from his right shoulder. He saw droplets of blood—that…. Droplets of blood—that was his blood, he noticed—and he saw the boy closer than ever before. Zack had finally landed a deep cut on his foe. That slash he delivered was so powerful that it completely shattered Zack's rental blade. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered because right here, right now, at this exact moment, in his eyes, Zack had won. From preparing his attack to damaging the beastmen in less than six seconds, the spiky-haired boy named Zack was a true blue monster.