The Renown Almakhadie

Chapter 70 - Other plans

Even with his speed and precision, training that would normally have taken days, if not weeks, for the average person, had quickly been completed. Within the six hours that had passed, he had further trained his senses, but most importantly, he had trained his teleportation abilities. In those six hours, he had achieved something very useful, and it would soon prove to be valuable. Velios instinctively knew that it was his time, so he returned to the arena without even having to move his body. It was only shortly after that he had to walk out for his second fight. Velios knew that dragons were strong, but without proper training, they were nothing more than punching bags that occasionally hit back. To the average human still currently alive, they wouldn't even survive a second, as the battle would have ended as soon as it started. That just proves how much stronger Velios is than everyone else.

"Next fight, a brave and strong adventurer named Olix fighting against Soilev!" It was the same announcer and referee, which must have meant that they had been watching all of the fights since they first began hours ago. The crowd that remained from the first fight six hours ago was booing Velios as soon as his name was heard. It was even worse when he actually walked out, revealing himself. They were all betting for his downfall with screams never seen before. Not a single one thought of him as a strong and capable warrior or even as a combatant at all. They thought that he looked not only weak but scared and unconfident. None of that was actually true, but they didn't know that. They had lost much money in his first fight and even bet against him, hoping that something similar wouldn't happen. They all thought it was a fluke, that something went wrong, or that he was cheating in some way or another, to have his opponent suddenly pass out.

"Fight, begin!" The referee screamed out to start their battle. This time, however, everything seemed to be going according to plan for the people betting, as Soilev just stood there completely still while the adventurer went straight in on offense. Velios watched as the adventurer ran at him with his sword in his hand, prepared to cut him down. The adventurer swung really wide, looking down on his opponent because of their size difference. "I'll end you right now!" The adventurer screamed out in a sort of anger, watching as Velios still wasn't doing anything. The attack would have been lightning fast if Velios didn't have his reaction speed and other senses to the max all the time. He slowly stepped out of the way from the sword's trajectory as he attacked once again, too fast for anyone to see. From the watchers' point of view, all they saw was Soilev stepping away, and as he did so, the adventurer didn't even get to swing his sword as he fell face-first, stopping completely unconscious.

The whole crowd watching turned quiet before rioting once again. "Give me back my money!" "He must be cheating!" "What happened?!" "That damn unknown...!" The crowd's reaction spoke for itself as they had no idea what happened either. Velios was caught looking at the adventurer's body for a bit before he turned him so that his body was instead facing upwards before promptly leaving the arena. "W-Winner, Soilev!" The referee couldn't believe it himself; he didn't know what happened but it couldn't be a coincidence as Soilev's opponents had fainted during both matches without anyone noticing. Hell, it was weird enough that his opponents had passed out at all. They couldn't even enforce their rules because they had no evidence to support the crowd's claims and neither did they themselves. Even more shouting and screaming continued as Velios exited the arena once more, finding greater attraction in training instead of fighting some weak no-name dragon.

Velios could hear the sounds from the crowd as he left the arena. Now, he was standing hundreds of meters away, still confused at how angry they could get from watching someone else fight. A voice suddenly speaks out to Velios; it was received by Velios, and he knew it was someone that knew him. He wasn't awfully unfamiliar with the voice, but he had only spent two days with him. A black cat had suddenly appeared as it began talking to Velios before jumping up onto his shoulder. "Those dragons sure are as dumb as ever; they don't even know what happened." He sounded confident in his words. "So, can you tell me what happened then?" Velios asked as he saw the cat's head slightly turn away at those words. "You... attacked him?" Velios patted the cat's head after stroking its fur. "Wow, what a detailed report! I should have let you be the commentator instead." Velios said it teasingly, knowing that Shiva wasn't familiar or good with jokes. "You little..."

"But still, have you become even stronger since we last fought? I believe you're even faster than that time." Shiva was both confused at Velios' improvement but curious as to how he did it. "I might have. Training for almost two days without taking a single break makes you stronger, I guess." Velios said it so casually but Shiva knows what kind of training he did. He tried to force him to fight with him and every time he did so, he got beat up as if he was some testing dummy, and even if he didn't want to, he had to and eventually got beat up the same way if not harsher. "With the amount of training you did, It wasn't even a question I needed to ask..." Shiva just sighed, looking up at Velios. "Still, how long are you going to fight these weak dragons? You look so bored when you do it as well. Do you even have a plan for your later rounds?" Shiva was curious as to what Velios wanted to do before his next fight. "I have to ask you, Shiva. Can you sense that energy?" Shiva looked confused as to Velios' question. "You mean... the mana around us? Yeah, some of them are stronger than the others." Velios looked at Shiva as if he was an idiot.

Velios points towards the middle arena, the arena located in the center of the cavern said to be where the finals will be hosted, many times bigger than the rest. "Can you sense it? Because of the amount of effort I had to put into my training, I couldn't even sense it, and even when I did, I wrote it off as something unimportant because it wasn't mana at all but something else. I didn't realize until after my fight that it was something I definitely should have checked out." Shiva looked to the direction Velios was pointing at. Noticing the huge stadium, he shrugged it off before feeling the same energy Velios was talking about. "Is that..." Shiva was so shocked that he couldn't even finish his sentence. The amount of the unknown energy wasn't that huge compared to the dragons currently fighting, but it was something even Shiva could recognize. Velios was still unsure of what it was and therefore, not knowing what it actually was or could be, he ran there while holding Shiva.

"You're going to kill me if you keep running that fast while carrying me..." Shiva looked dizzy because of a sole reason. He couldn't handle motion sickness too well. "Don't worry, you're a demon so you won't die." Velios said so with a smirk on his face as he sat himself down in the crowd. Velios could definitely feel something, some energy he's never felt before and he didn't know how to explain it. Velios was so stunned and intrigued by it but noticed that the other dragons in the crowd either didn't know about it or didn't care about it enough for it to cause a reaction. Velios knew that wasn't actually the case. He kept thinking to himself on what it could be or what it could have come from, but the more he began to think, the more questions he had. He would have thought about it for hours if it wasn't for Shiva, growling for some unknown reason. Shiva even tried to run away after but was caught by Velios. "You're not so fast in that body, are you?" Velios got interrupted but didn't seem to mind. He was instead more interested in the cat's reaction.

"Let me go! That's... That's...!" Shiva couldn't seem to be able to talk at all. Velios was confused and looked at his body to find that it was covered in what looked like burn wounds that only got worse with each passing second. The shining bright light that was illuminating from the unknown energy seemed to be able to hurt the demon, Shiva, directly. Velios's thoughts immediately came to a single conclusion on what it could be as he went ahead and asked Shiva. "Is that what I think it is...?" Velios asks curiously, still wondering what kind of energy it is. He thought that he maybe didn't know this new unknown world that much after all. "Yes... it is..." Shiva looked like he was in pain and it was only increasing. "Shiva, I have a new plan..." Velios got a big grin on his face but Shiva could only stare at him. With Velios noticing that little gesture, he now had begun speaking. "Shiva. I would like to try something. Would you mind coming over here for a bit?" Velios asked it ever so casually, seemingly only wanting to have Shiva get closer to him. Shiva walked over to Velios, still in pain. Velios then put his hand onto his body as both of them suddenly disappeared shortly after.