Tournament (02)

"You damn brat!" exclaimed the youth in rage. For him to actually miss two attacks when attacking a thirteen years old… what kind of joke was that? He had just thrown his face out of the window!

"See if I miss this time!" He then channeled the maximum amount of Spiritual Power that Tiger's Punch could sustain and then dashed towards the downed Issei.

Issei, sensing the enemy's approach, lifted up his head with a hurt expression, his eyes slightly watered.

"Ouch~! That hurt~!" He murmured with discontent in a cute voice, only to widen his eyes as he saw the giant tiger's face heading towards him. It was like a shooting star, bringing destruction wherever he went.

"AH!" He screamed as he clumsily raised his hands to block, fright all over his face. At that moment, the audience almost held their breaths. This time, there was no way that Issei would be able to block, right? Also, if the attack were to reach… to them, Issei would be crippled for life.

Not surprisingly, Issei went past all their expectation.

Just when the attack was about to land, Issei's legs between to shake from fright, causing him to drop to the ground, the attack missing by a single strand hair's space. Also, when he fell, a piece of blank paper dropped from beneath him, falling no too far away from him. Since the floor was white, the paper was went unnoticeable by all, with the exception of Shinso.

"What?!" Exclaimed the youth in rage. To him, there was no way that he would miss. No one that age would have been able to think quick enough to dodge, so to him, the match was already won. He never thought of Issei's leg failing him due to fright, and to instead end up saving him.

The audience reaction was even more flabbergasted. They had heard of many times where in battle, an opponent's leg would fail due to intense fear, causing them to lose the battle and ultimately die, but they had never heard of leg failure actually saving someone!

"What heavenly luck!" A wise old man wearing a green robe exclaimed as he held back his laugh.

The others, upon hearing his comment, burst out laughing. It truly was incredible luck! So much luck that it was hilarious!

Even Shinso was laughing, although not at Issei. No, he was laughing at the naivety of the audience. To actually be so perfectly fooled by a ten years old kid...he knew that they would want dig a hole and bury their heads in it if they were to know what was actually happening!

On the stage, the anger of the youth was barely tangible. He had missed an attack once more! That made no sense whatsoever!

"You damn brat," screamed the youth in anger. "Although your luck is quite commendable, this battle has been dragged to long! I have lost my patience! I don't have time to deal with a brat who reeks of his mother's milk!" By each sentence, he grew more and more enraged, his voice only getting louder.

At that moment, a small bag that was resting at the side of robe shone with a mysterious light, coincidentally, a black hammer appeared on his hand, Spiritual Power all around it.

"Eat this, brat!" He exclaimed as the Spiritual Power near the hammer grew dark in color. "Dark Blacksmith Army!".

After saying that, he waved the hammer, making illusory dark hammers appear all around him, floating in the air. After reaching ten hammers in number, he waved the hammer in his hand, making all of the hammers fly forward in a dazzling black light towards Issei.

"Dark Blacksmith Strike!"

This time, he was sure that the strikes would hit. Sadly, Issei wasn't about to let that happen.

Always clumsily, he dodged all ten strikes. By that time, the audience no longer laughed. In fact, they had come to the conclusion that either the luck of the child was too strong or the youth was horrible at aiming.

At that, the youth began enraged. He then threw another attack against Issei, only for it to be clumsily dodged, along with the one after that, and then the following one, followed by the one after that… and so on it went for ten minutes. By then, the audience was sure that the youth's aim sucked.

During the time he spent dodge, Issei was gradually changing position, moving around, making the youth also move around. To the audience, it was completely random, but to Issei, each movement was carefully planned.

"Damn..." muttered the youth, panting. After launching a barrage of attacks non-stop for ten minutes, he became exhausted. He could barely keep standing. Issei, on the other hand, wasn't tired at all, since all of the times he dodged, he barely used his own energy, making use of the elements in the area. To the audience, it made it seem like it wasn't on purpose, while to Issei, it lessened his energy spent to a minimum.

Seeing the youth's tired complexion, and the place where he was standing, Issei coldly smirked in his heart. It was time to attack!

"It's my turn!" He exclaimed in timid voice, making the audience feel that he was only putting on false might. He then clumsily ran forward, and activated one of his weakest martial skills.

"Light Punch!" As he said that, light started surging from his fist. It could also be seen that a lot of light was escaping, meaning that the Martial Skill was poorly executed. Seeing that, the audience felt sorry for him.

Light Punch was one of the weakest Martial Skills around, and with so little control over the skill, it probably wouldn't make much damage to a cultivator. Thankfully, the youth facing Issei was dead-tired, and his defenses were low.

"Crap..." muttered the youth as he saw the approaching attack. Although it wouldn't really harm him in normal occasions, the Spiritual Power in his body was almost exhausted, which meant that his defenses were incredibly low. Even if it was such an attack, it could do some damage.

He then hastily took some steps back, not paying attention to his surroundings. On his third step, for some reason, his feet slipped, and he fell to the ground.

Issei also tripped on his clothes at the same time, making him tumble forward at a speed even faster than before, obviously about to all down.

Just as expected, he fell, but who screamed wasn't him.

It just so happened that the moment he lost his balance, he was already at the youth's side, and when he fell, his hand that was with an activated Martial Skill fell down at an unbelievably fast speed, right at the youth's groin area, completely smashing against his precious.

"Argh!" screamed the youth in pain as the Spiritual Power completely ripped through his clothes and solidly hit his precious. At the moment of contact, the pain was so great that he almost lost consciousness. He kept screaming like a hurt animal to no end. Screaming from pain and also sorrow. Because he knew, that from that moment onwards, he would forever not be able to leave a descendant on this world.

At that moment, Issei's face was quite close to his ears. With a devious smirk that only the youth noticed amidst his screams, Issei muttered in a voice that only the two of them could hear, "So, if you lost to a brat like me, who reeks of his mother's milk, what does that makes you?"

The youth's eyes widened even further as he heard what Issei had said, but before he could say anything, Issei increased the Spiritual Power in his fist to an even greater extent, causing the youth precious to almost explode. The youth eyes immediately rolled back as he passed out, the screams finally ending.

As the audience looked at the scene, they felt immense pity for the youth, specially the males. Some of them even went as far as to place their hands in front of their crotches in a protective manner.

"Huh?" said Issei in faked surprise as he looked at the passed out youth laying near him. "I won?"

Immediately, his face was overwritten with joy as he pushed himself up. He then looked at the announcer expectantly.

Being gazed at by Issei's expectant stare, the announcer broke off from his stupor, quickly announcing the victor. "Issei from Azure Tiger City wins!

Immediately after he finished that, a bunch of people entered the stage, picked up the passed out youth and brought him away.

Seeing that there was no more reason to remain on the stage, Issei clumsily climbed down and made his way to where Shinso and Ye Chong were. On the way, all eyes followed him with incredible interest.

After reaching Shinso's side, he looked over to the two purple clothed youths from before. "H-How d-did I d-do?"

"Hmm..." said the black haired one, slightly awkward, seemingly at a lost of words, "Impressive, I guess?" He finally answered. Although it seemed like a half-assed answer, it was the truth. To dodge a barrage of attacks all due to luck, and then to even go as far as to win by crushing your opponent's balls… that was nothing short of impressive.

"Yeah," said the brown haired one, quite absentminded. His hand had also moved dangerously close to his crotch the moment that Issei appeared, seemingly in a defensive manner.

As he looked at their reactions, Issei's outer face remained bashful while he madly laughed in his heart. These guys reactions… they are priceless.

As they chatted, the black haired youth seemed to have just remembered something. Eying Issei curiously, he asked, "Hey, since you were so close, do you know why that guy fell down on that critical moment?"

"I'm sorry, but e-even I-I don't k-know," Issei answered with an honest look, "I was a-also s-surprised."

Obviously, that was a big, fat, lie. The reason why he tripped was because of the paper that Issei had intentionally dropped down when his legs supposedly dropped. During the entire exchange, Issei's movements that seemed random to the audience was all so that he could place the youth in front of the paper, so he could then make him trip during his attack, making it all seem as a stroke of luck. All in all, it could be said that from the moment the battle started, Issei had already won.

The black haired youth, seeing Issei's honest countenance, believed him completely. He also couldn't help but to feel that the kid was truly blessed with heavenly luck! Seriously, that luck is just too much!

"I see..." he said, "Well, either way, just hope that you're as lucky on your next match!" He exclaimed, seemingly in a joke. In his mind, there was obviously no way that he would have such luck twice. Oh, how wrong was he…

In total, there were 32 contestants. After a match, the winner would continue in the competition and the losers would drop out. After that, it would then begin the second round of matches, this time with 16 participants in total. After that, the winners would stay, and battle again. It would keep this way until only one person was left, who would then fight against the contestant from Azure Lightning School. In total, the last person remaining would have fought a total of five matches and the sixth one would be against the Azure Lightning School.

Issei just went and did something that no one believed possible. He won all five matches by luck. Also, all opponents would end up passing out, no exceptions. The audience was flabbergasted. Such luck was simply impossible. Some even thought that he was pretending, but after carefully analyzing Issei, they would always come to the conclusion that there was no way that such a young child would be so good at acting and his schemes would run so deep.

After finishing all of his matches, Issei was once more standing on the stage, facing him was a youth using an azure robe that was decorated with lightnings. He was a young male, around seventeen years old, with an aloof air around him.

"Let's just get this over with," he said in annoyance. It was obvious that he did not put Issei in his eyes. He wouldn't even look at him.

Seeing such an arrogant youth, Issei decided that he would give him a good, tasty beating.

"Hoh~" Issei said, his bashful expression disappearing, replaced by a sharp one. "Don't worry, we'll be over sooner than you think."

At that moment, boundless Spiritual Power surged from Issei's body.

It was time to get serious!