Chapter 84: A Beaten Shrimp.

Chapter 84: A Beaten Shrimp. After the battles were separated, each drone followed a duo. Selene and Jojo went to the roof while Melissa and Kiera stood on the ground floor. Before the viewers could prepare themselves mentally, all the fights were launched simultaneously! Melissa and Kiera were both range-based fighters. One wielded a crossbow and the other a set of throwing knives, making their battle all about positioning and evasion! They were smart to choose the ground floor since it was packed with rubble and rubbish, giving them the best places to take cover. Meanwhile, the battle between Jojo and Selene was the opposite. One wielded a rapier while the other fought with martial arts. While it might seem like Jojo was on the losing side since she had no weapon, the viewers were shocked to see her evade all of Selene’s strikes flawlessly! Her movement was as smooth as flowing water, while her strikes were powerful enough to make Selene reconsider getting hit by them again. She rarely struck first, waiting until Selene made her move before counter-attacking when Selene was at her most vulnerable state. "Is it just me, or is she using Tai Chi martial arts?" Mao murmured while lying on top of Feng Ling’s shoulder. "I don’t know where she learned it, but she seems reasonably proficient in it." Feng Ling raised an eyebrow in surprise, not expecting to witness ancient martial arts from his mainland. He knew that almost 80% of the world’s culture was erased after the great fall of civilization. This included the majority of the ancient Chinese martial arts, as the mountain temples and rural areas were the first to fall after darkness took over. "I thought she was dressing as a monk for fun after finding a book about it, but it looks like it’s a big part of her life." Mao chuckled. "I should have known better after seeing her go bald." Feng Ling smiled in amusement while taking a deep breath of his cigarette. Soon, he switched to Levi’s live stream, wanting to see how he would fare in combat. When he saw the development of their battle, a flicker of astonishment crossed his face. Ting! Ting!... Demetris was going absolutely crazy on Levi with precise and technical sword strikes from every possible direction, making his attack patterns almost unrecognizable or predictable! Yet, Levi was weathering the storm, blocking the strikes with his staff while weaving through the unblockable ones. Although he was on the defense and had yet to attack Demetris, the viewers felt like the flow of the battle was under his command. ’How?! How!! He is f*cking blind for f*ck sake!’ Demetris assumed that once he caught Levi in a fight, he would steamroll him and reclaim his lost aura. Alas, his dream vision of the battle was nowhere near the reality. Ting! Ting! As their clashes continued, Levi kept walking backward, seemingly incapable of keeping up with Demetris’ barrage of strikes. Demetris was too pissed, too embarrassed by the notion of going even against someone blind to stop his assault for a moment. He didn’t even care that their fight had spilled out of the first floor, continuing into the narrow corridor leading to the back door. In fact, he welcomed it with a frigid look. ’His staff is too long for this corridor... he won’t be able to swing it properly.’ Demetris switched to a sword technique better fitted for this narrow space. But before he could embrace his newfound advantage, he noticed Levi’s entire demeanor switch. He gripped the staff with one hand at the midpoint, the other near the base, choking it for better control. Then, he held it diagonally across his body, the tip angled slightly upward. He stood sideways, shoulder-width apart, one foot forward, minimizing his profile. His knees bent slightly for quick shuffles while his head remained low, leaving Demetris and the viewers to gaze at his messy black hair. The air around him shifted, making him resemble a slumbering beast awakened. "Dragon’s Coil Stance..." Levi murmured under his breath, glimpses of the abuse he went through under Ash’Kral to learn this stance coursing through his mind. Since Levi’s fighting experience was no more than two months, he simply couldn’t become a proficient staff user in such a short period... not even Ash’Kral’s mentorship was enough. He prioritized teaching him a single-staff stance to fend for himself. It was the Dragon’s Coil... one of the best stances for tight quarters. But Demetris had no idea about any of this. Although his instincts tingled at Levi’s posture, he had no plans of taking a step back. That would be the same as admitting defeat. Unbeknownst to him, Levi’s stance wasn’t even the most dangerous part. It was his advanced use of echolocation. He deafened all the noises outside the corridor and highlighted the wind noises alone in this narrow space. The wind coming from the wall cracks and broken window behind him was enough to draw the corridor and Demetris, giving Levi a near-perfect 360 sight of his surroundings. Ka-thumb! Ka-thumb!... Ka-thumb! The instant Demetris’ heartbeat skipped, Levi found his sword aimed at his chest, seemingly moving in slow motion. The sword itself wasn’t moving slowly, but the wind carried by the swing reached Levi first, painting its wavy trajectory in his world of darkness. In a swift, smooth motion, Levi evaded the strike while counterattacking at the same time, smashing the top part of his staff on Demetris’ right shoulder. Before Demetris could even groan, Levi pushed the staff to the side and smacked him in the mouth, bursting his lips wide open! Blood spilled, pupils widened, and disbelief clouded Demetris’ face. Sadly, this was just the beginning of the worst beatdown in his life. Bam! Bam!... The black metallic staff moved in a tight, controlled manner as Levi kept landing short swings. Each one struck Demetris, leaving him wincing in pain. Shoulders, wrists, elbows, knees... Levi targeted only Demetris’ joints, as if seeking to cripple him instead of finishing him. Demetris tried his best to fight back, but his swings missed while his blocks couldn’t catch up with the rain of strikes. Levi moved like a possessed demon, his head never facing Demetris as he kept assaulting him from all angles, even bouncing his staff off the corridor walls to land sneaky blows. ’Argh... how... is... he... so... strong!’ As the bombardment grew intensely, Demetris’ expression crumbled in this order: anger, disbelief, pain... and then dread. Pure dread, as he felt every fiber in his body twitch from the constant pain. -It can’t be...- -How is he being owned like this...- -Woah, Levi isn’t messing around.- Mantis and the rest of the viewers were stunned at the sight of the prodigal son, covered in red bruises, panting like a beaten dog. His face was a mess of swelling and torn skin, unable to even lift his hand to wipe the blood off. As for his sword? He was barely hanging onto it. His arm trembled like it was hoisting a mountain. Levi, ever so generous, relieved him of that burden. He smacked his wrist one more time, forcing Demetris to drop the weapon. No sword, a body turned to pulp... He was nothing more than a standing dummy. Demetris knew it. The viewers knew it. The nightcrawlers knew it. Instructor Seraphis knew it too... Yet, he didn’t teleport him away. Unless Demetris surrendered or passed out, the fight had to continue. Levi could have ended it right there if this were just a regular fight. But Demetris had made it personal with that nasty remark. Levi might be generous...but he wasn’t that forgiving. Bam! Bam! Bam!... Under the stunned stares of the viewers and the hungry gazes of the nightcrawlers, Levi rained down on his opponent with the nastiest beatings ever captured in the assembly...until Demetris curled into a fetal position, screaming in torment. All that bravado got beaten out of his ass, leaving him trembling like a misbehaving child getting the whooping of a lifetime. Only then did Levi stop. He crouched next to Demetris’ thrashed face and brushed some hair out of his eyes, revealing the terror within. "Lucky for you, I still need you to stay within the top five for the sake of the wager," Levi whispered, gently slapping his face. "Let this be your first and last warning... never cross my path again. Or else..." Levi’s smile twisted into something wicked. Through Demetris’ bloody eyes, it resembled Ash’Kral’s demonic grin to an eerie degree. If the beating didn’t break him, that smile surely did. Levi reached into his backpack and pulled out a two-meter rope. He tied Demetris’ legs and hands together, leaving him curled up like a whipped shrimp. Just as Levi let go of his staff and dusted his hands, a sudden wheezing noise brushed his ear from behind, aimed straight at the back of his neck. He didn’t even hesitate. Levi ducked his head on instinct, watching a thin arm whip past, a dagger slicing a few strands of his hair. Ting! Sparks flew as the dagger hit exposed metal on the wall. Levi instantly tapped on the sound bouncing off his attacker’s body, painting her outline clearly. The moment he saw her curvy figure, he knew who it was. "Nice reflexes, but it ain’t enough." Nurah’s sultry voice whispered in his ear as she kicked him into the wall, his crouched stance giving him no time to dodge. The impact echoed. Levi’s echolocation pulsed...an incoming heel kick was flying in from above! Whoosh! He rolled to the side, barely dodging it. Then he swept at Nurah’s leg, trying to trip her. But her flexibility was unreal. She merely smiled and hopped away. Levi had expected that. He swept again, timing it for when she landed. But this wasn’t her first rodeo. Instead of coming down, Nurah split midair, her black heel boots sticking to the walls like a spider. Now Levi was stuck lying on the ground in the worst possible posture. Whoosh. Whoosh. Two daggers came flying at his stomach, forcing Levi to crawl back quickly, fast enough to startle Nurah when she saw his head wasn’t even facing her! Ting! Ting! The blades slammed into the floor an inch from his crotch. One even cut through his pants, forcing him to freeze. He could feel the ice-cold dagger’s blade breathing near his little general... any small movement might cause an unexplainable pain. Before he could pull it away, Nurah rolled toward him, snagged the second dagger mid-motion, and stopped right next to his face. Their breaths mingled. But Levi didn’t enjoy it, not with one dagger near his throat and the other still threatening below. "I told you, don’t forget me." Nurah smiled seductively. "Now... what do I do with you?" Demetris, the viewers, and the nightcrawlers were left speechless by the sudden twist. They didn’t even get a chance to cheer for Levi’s win before Nurah showed up like a ghost and flipped the scene on its head!