Chapter 60: Battle's Outcome.

Just moments before Felix met his opponent's attack, a voice sounded inside his head and a message from the system appeared before his vision, confirming the creation of a new skill.

[Ding!]

[Skill Name: Agility Burst.

Description:

Allows the user to instantly double their movement speed with a slowed-down mind, but it comes at the expense of increased stamina consumption.

Note:

Excess use of this skill may result in dizziness and could potentially faint the user.

Cost: 110 Skill Points.]

[Do you wish to use 110 skill points and create the skill 'Agility Burst'?]

'YES!', he shouted inside as the opponent's mace almost reached his sword.

[Ding!]

[Successfully created a new skill.]

Right after he heard the last chime from the system, he subconsciously tried to activate the new skill.

'Agility Burst!'

Suddenly, Felix felt some energy getting absorbed inside his body and his surroundings started to slow down.

He could see with his eyes the nearing mace from his opponent who had a twisted smile on his face.

'So slow....'

It was right.

The mace appeared very slow to him. In fact, the whole world looked slowed down as he could hear strange buzzing noises from the crowd.

As he surveyed the situation, a growing sense of energy depletion swept over him, jolting him out of his stupor.

'I can't waste any time or else I'll only harm myself.'

Coming back to his previous serious mode, Felix tightly held his short sword and dodged the incoming attack.

He deactivated the skill and time returned to normal.

Demiro lost his balance as his attack missed its target, causing him to stumble.

Felix retreated a few steps and dashed forward again toward his confused opponent, simultaneously activating his new skill.

'Agility Burst!'

Time again slowed down and Felix could feel only his body moving faster. He also activated the skill 'Ratio technique' which showed various red lines on Demiro.

'Let's end this....'

Grasping the short sword, he decided to finally end this battle.

Felix dashed ahead and approached his opponent at a quick speed, finding the perfect spot to attack.

Demiro and the audience were stunned to find the boy moving faster than he was before.

"W-What is...."

And before they knew it, he was already a meter away from Demiro, slashing his sword at his chest.

Demiro tried to block the move with his mace but the short sword moved in a zip-zap manner easily and made contact with his body.

"Slash~"

A deep wound surfaced on Demiro's chest making him grunt in pain.

Pausing, Steve tilted his head and pondered.

"Hmm....what do I want? Well..."

He turned his head around and noticed the crowd getting restless. Abruptly a thought entered his mind making him give a sly grin.

"Hehe, good luck saving yourselves."

The two men got confused with what he said but he didn't explain further and cupped his hands on his mouth before shouting toward the crowd.

"HEY EVERYONE! THEY ARE THE ONES WHO TRICKED YOU!!"

His shout echoed out loud making everyone in the arena turn their heads toward him.

All from the crowd noticed the boy who was jumping about and pointing toward two buff men with an excited pose.

"Wait- That man...."

"He's the one who told me.."

"Wasn't he the one who lied to us about this match?"

One by one, all of the people who had bet realized the reason they lost all their money.

"It was all because of them."

"Those fuckers- Wait for me!"

"You dirty liar!"

It was a bizarre scene.

Everyone from the audience started to run in a single direction, jumping on the seats and pushing others while making their way toward the two buff men.

"F-Fuck this. I'm running"

"Wait I'm coming too!"

The two of them lost their brains, their face pale and figure sick, they ran away from the arena with a huge crowd hurriedly chasing behind.

Steve stared at the chaotic situation that slowly left the arena 23 and shook his head.

"So this is what it means by 'you reap what you sow' huh..."

He turned behind to look for Felix and found him leaving the stage with a smile to the underground path.

Steve's face turned strange when he saw the smile on his face.

"What kind of smile is that? Did he lose his brain too or something...."

He shrugged and didn't give it much thought.

Giving a last glance at the retreating crowd who were like hungry wolves chasing their prey, he walked to the place where both of them would meet.

*****

In the underground path that led out from the Arena 23 stage.

Felix took short steps still holding his sword tightly in his hands.

His face was slightly red from excitement and madness, thinking about how he had won his first battle in front of a crowd.

"...that felt amazing."

He clenched his hands, remembering the adrenaline feeling he got from fighting before a huge number of people who were mostly demoralizing him.

The emotions overwhelmed him when he fought without caring for the crowd's criticism and made them shut up from the final outcome.

He felt that he could get addicted to it.

"I want to battle more.....", his words carried detectable unsatisfication.