Chapter 17: Defeat or Victory?

The battle was drawing on and on. Gondocks with his overwhelming dance moves was an unstoppable force!!

Relnandes was being laughed at by the people in the stadium.

How can he keep on missing his target when his target himself doesn’t know when or where the attack will come from?

No one could understand the agony that Relnandes was feeling. He has never been this humiliated in his whole entire life. Everything he ever did, he did with grace and talent and seriousness. But now, a person appears that is capable of dodging his attacks in the weirdest and the most foolish way possible.

By dancing on the stadium!

How is that even possible? How can someone as high in the rankings as Relnandes make simples mistakes like being off in calculating the distance by an inch or two? How can someones as high in the rankings as Relnandes keep on missing his target?

It wasn’t even that Gondocks was dodging the attacks in an expert style way. It didn’t even look like Gondocks was trying to dodge the attacks, which only add on to Relnandes’ furry. Because of the way Gondocks happen to be turning right at the exact moment that Relnandes happen to be striking at, it made Relnandes look silly, unprepared and not properly trained at all!

It made him look like a beginner Martial Artist. And the people in the stadium (that had some faith in Relnandes) were starting to lose faith in him by the minutes. Everyone in the stadium started to boo Relnandes and yelled names at him.

“You suck!!” yelled some of the people in the middle. “You need to get off the stadium!! We did not come here to watch baby fights!! You suck Relnandes! You can’t even hit someone with their eyes close, even my five-year-old is better than you”

The boos were growing larger and larger by the minutes. Sweats was dropping off of Relnandes’ face now.

His own teammates’ internal mana capacity was being depleted since the water-gear-defense was still running.

Relnandes’ teammates were arguing and losing confidence in their leader by the minutes as well.

Relnandes needed to redeem himself anyway he could. And that’s when he decided on a new initiative approach.

He told his teammates they should no longer bother with the water-defense and instead focus on attacking Gondocks. He told them this time they should ignore defense and focus on offense.

Relnandes’ teammates agree.

They decided to let go of the one thing that was giving Gondocks trouble without realizing it or maybe it was because of all the boos, tension, and exhaustion going throughout their mind and body that made them forget.

But now, it just means, Gondocks has no reason to hold himself back.

After hearing the crowd stopped booing Relnandes and silence fill the colosseum, Gondocks knew something was up.

He opened his eyes and observe the situation.

Noticing that Relnandes gave up his water-defense, a small grin passes by Gondocks’ face, he knew his time have come.

Gondocks decided to re-activate one of his previous skill. The [Haw’s Time Spec]. This skill would allow him to get closer to Relnandes, but he would only close the distance by half in order to panic Relnandes into action.

His next course of action would be to use [Moonwalk] and slowly get closer to Relnandes, until Relnandes would not be able to use [Expert Claw Reach] anymore. Then, all he would have to do is use [Edge Cutter] to cut the [Water Barrier] that was built.

The moment all of that has been accomplished, Gondocks would only need to stab Relnandes and maybe hurt the others. Gondocks could see his victory in sight.

Gondocks activate the [Hawk’s Time Spec] skill.

Time slows down. Nanoseconds turned into seconds, and seconds into minutes.

Everything is moving slowly. Words that are being said sounds really stretched out and barely comprehendible.

In this abnormal time flow, only one person can move freely within it.

Gondocks.

He walks at a normal pace and reach half-way to Relnandes.

He deactivated the skill.

Everything is return to normal. Time started speeding up again. Minutes turn into seconds, and seconds into nanoseconds.

Everything has been reset and brought to normal time flow.

Everyone in the stadium is stunned again.

Gondocks has already closed the distance between him and Relnandes in blink of an eye so fast that no one even saw that, well except for Orlandis who was the one who commented on that again.

Gondocks was just too fast.

How can anyone move so quickly? It was almost like teleportation. There wasn’t even a blur from when he moves to another location.

He was just there.

Only one person could master [Hawk’s Time Spec] to such a degree! Only Gondocks!

The crowd in the stadium cheered for him. Relnandes was stunned but for a different reason.

He was scared.

He forgot about Gondock’s hawk time speck skill. Relnandes in a panic attack Gondocks with everything he has in [Expert Claw Reach] skill. But to no alas.

Gondocks dodged everything with his eyes close again, and weirdly, he got even closer to Relnandes. So close, that Relnandes could no longer rely on [Expert Claw Reach] skill but had to change to [Expert Claw Attack] skill.

Gondocks opened his eyes at the same instant something blurry hit him!

Gondocks was not aware of [Expert Claw Attack]’s existence. He thought Relnandes only had [Expert Claw Reach] at his side.

Due to this eventuality, an attack so blurry that even if Gondocks’ hawk time spec was still active and he was trying to slow everything down, he would still be unable to see the attack.

It was an attack that Gondock’s fast reactions could not match at all!

Gondocks got hit straight in his left chest all the way down to his abdomen.

He fell to the floor! And he is bleeding and in pain!

Relnandes was in shock. He could not believe he finally managed to hit Gondocks. He could not believe it was at the moment when he was not relying on logic and talent, but when he was panicking and in distress.

After calming down a bit, Relnandes gained his footing. He was breathing hard but still manage to make this confident smile and laughter.

“I did it!” exclaim Relnandes. “I finally did it! Take that you m-monster!”

“I can’t believe you did it Relnandes!” exclaim Relnandes’ teammates. “Sorry for having doubted you, leader”

“No, it’s alright” explain Relnandes. “You know what they say, a true martial artist, always save the best move for last, hahahaha”

“Hahahaha” laughed Relnandes’ teammates.

Gondocks was still lying in the cold ground in the stadium and in severe pain. He turned his head to look at Relnandes’ direction.

He smiles this painful and difficult smile and everything slows down again!

“This hurt” thought Gondocks watching as everything slows down even the high-five Relnandes was giving his teammates.

It was all so slow, so very slow.

If he merely wishes it, he could walk to Relnandes to kill him right now, but to break the barrier he would need to stop [Hawk’s Time Spec].

If [Hawk’s Time Spec] is put to a stop, no matter how fast he naturally is, Relnandes’ attack would hit him again, and if he gets hit by that again, he would definitely not be able to move.

The number one assassin in Ryoukai town faced a dilemma.

Use time spec to approach Relnandes undetected and use his regular knife to try and break the barrier which would prove useless since it would take an offensive skill to break the barrier.

Or Use time spec to approach Relnandes undetected and stop the spec when he is at close proximity to Relnandes and use the [Edge Cutter] which would allow him to break the defensive barrier but the price would be, he would be vulnerable to another attack by Relnandes.

The only solution that Gondocks could think of was only one, and it wasn’t in the list of possibilities.

Use [Moonwalk] to dodge Relnandes’ attack when he is at close proximity, but the problem is that, the usage of [Moonwalk] isn’t as easy as it looks.

[Moonwalk] requires the martial artist to close their eyes and let go of any malicious thoughts in one’s head.

Therefore, thinking about anything offensive would deactivate the skill.

Also, [Moonwalk] isn’t as invincible as it looks like.

[Moonwalk] lowers the chances of the opponent landing an accurate hit by 45%.

Not invincibility. The rest was just luck.

And if the opponent keeps on staring at his dance, the opponent’s accurate hits decrease further. So, the more Relnandes was letting himself get infuriated by Gondocks’ dance (since he was looking at it) the more his hits’ accuracy was dropping.

But there is another catch to [Moonwalk], the moment that Gondocks stopped using it, the accuracy of Relnandes went back to normal.

Gondocks was going to have a hard time defeating Relnandes, especially now that he is injured. Blood keeps on dripping to the floor, slowly since time spec is still being used. Blood drip from Gondocks chest and passes all the way down and fall to the floor.

Gondocks movements were being restricted by that deep cut he have received. And he was losing blood and fast. He only has two minutes or so to decide what to do. That’s all the time that time spec can give him.

Now, what choice will he make? Will he fall unconscious here and now since he is already feeling dizzy?

Who will win?

The talented Relnandes who has everything he could want? Or the number one assassin in Ryoukai town, Gondocks?

Only two minutes remain to this battle!