Chapter 53: Invisible foe

From the beginning of the match, Safo Nur felt a murderous intention directed towards him as if it had a physical form. Never in his experience, before he felt something similar, Kardon's bloodthirst was on another level. His hatred, his thoughts, every cell in his body wanted to kill Safo. For some brief moments, Safo could swear that he saw the actual form of the hatred as if a cloud of dark emotions came out of Kardon to choke Safo to death.

"Haha, so you unquestionably can sense other people's intentions. Well, I just wanted to make sure that she wasn't making things up. You know girls, they like to exaggerate things…

Anyway, now when I'm certain of all your skills, I want to show you mine one by one. I love when my prey feels inferior to me." With that, he instantly disappeared from the sight.

The crowd and users at home in front of the screens came to life after an abrupt start of actions.

Safo was alerted from the beginning and not for a second thought that Kardon was his friend. But his heart was heavy after Kardon's stinging words. 'Girls?'

"I. can. turn. myself. in.visi.sble." Voices with no picture of the owner came from different places at once making it hard to pinpoint the location of Kardon.

"As. you. can. see. I. also. disguise. my. voice." Sounds came from all over the place, disorientating Safo.

Suddenly Safo's senses received something. An attack. The sound of the blaster shoot came from the side, but something about it was not right. From behind. Safo turned back and moved slightly from the trajectory but still was too late and a green laser beam from the blaster of the Kardon flew right into his Flame armor to be burned by it.

"This was the. ten. percent. of the power. of the. blaster. Now. I will mask. everything. about me. in hope to. bypass your. danger sense. ability, and will increase. power. of the. blaster to 20%."

Safo concentrated on his perceptions of the world, he had to react on time even though he had his Flame Armor on.

For a moment all around was quiet, only to bring a storm of laser beams from above. No sounds of shooting nor the foreboding of intention to kill came from Kardon, he successfully hid everything.

Safo wanted to jump sideways but the projectiles were faster. In no time they have reached the barrier of fire and were defeated by fire. Twenty percent was not enough to penetrate Flame Armor's protection.

Safo was lost, without seeing, hearing, or even feeling the enemy he couldn't attack he didn't know what or where to attack. The last resort was an Explosion skill but due to limited range he had to make sure that Kardon will be in ten meters or closer to be affected by the power of the skill, otherwise, Safo would lose a great amount of energy.

He ran through the ideas in despair to come up with something, but alas was distracted by thin laser beams coming from different ranges and angles each and every time.

"Sixty. percent." A voice rang seemingly under his feet. And slightly thicker green beams came from the farthest corner of the battlefield. For Safo's surprise, each beam dissolved inside of the fire aura but came close to an alarming range to his body. Almost ten centimeters.

"You. are. not bad, I will. use. full power. this. time." Kardon's voice boomed from the corner which was out of the range of Safo's mini pillars.

"Flame Armor, Mini Pillars, Explosion, and Fire Pillar are your skills. I know them all as if they were my own. Range, duration, power, every detail. You are pretty primitive with your resources, my friend." While talking Kardon became airborne, indicating it by shooting the floor. Laser beams one after another, from the far corner, came raining to the floor all while Kardon flew towards Safo.

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Arching above the arena, Kardon played his wicked game. "You know where I am. But you can reach me only with your strongest attack. Will you do it, though? With one bucket of the water well, you can only last ten seconds, my premature friend."

Safo, gasped inside, his heart sank. Kardon knew too much about him. Water wells inside his Soul Room. Only the closest circle of trusted people knew about it.

{"How did he know about water wells? He mentioned a girl befo..."}

Kardon interrupted, Safo couldn't concentrate to hear what Luna said he was too focused on his enemy's voice and his laser beams descending vertically one by one. "I see your shock, my friend. You are wondering how he knows? I will answer you." The voice paused and another laser beam came in at a different angle piercing right through Safo's right knee.

Safo shouted a scream of agony, he had a tiny hole burned out in his knee, making him unable to move his right leg. With both hands he grasped his leg hard with no actual purpose for it, it didn't help to ease the pain nor to stop the bleeding coming out from both sides of the hole.

In a state of pain, his straight thinking ability subsided greatly, nearly in trans Safo started shooting his mini pillars in a chaotic pattern.

{"Stop, stop. He is trying to wear you out. I know it hurts but you have to stay calm."}

Next laser beam came, making another hole, and then another after. Safo screamed in misery. A small puddle of blood appeared under his feet. He used his mini pillars to surround himself with another layer of fire defense and it worked. The fourth beam of green light was consumed by flames and didn't hit its target.

While Luna was celebrating a small victory a blaster that was out of charge fell from above.

"I didn't expect your armor to be so good, my praises." Mocking tone came from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.

"Show yourself, coward, fight like a man. I will burn you to crisps." Fuming with rage, Safo Nur spat the words looking for his opponent's trace.

The clanking sound of a metal hitting metal noise came from beneath. A grey round object rolled close to his good feet. A second took for realization - it was a grenade.

"You know, I could drop it in total silence but I wanted to see your face." The menacing voice of Kardon rang before the deafening explosion erupted under Safo, tossing his seemingly lifeless body up high and to the other side of the field. With a thump, it landed on the solid metal flooring.

A moment of absence of any sound and half cheering half sighing sounds could be heard from the spectators in the stadium. While many people were pleased with a bloodthirsty show, many others had compassion for the royalty boy. They thought that Kardon went too far. Killing royalty was not an easy thing to forgive.

The motionless body lay on the ground, surprisingly for everyone all his limbs were intact, his flame armor was off though. Suddenly he jerked and Safo Nur coughed heavily, blood came gushing from his mouth. The crowd was amazed, some stood up to show their support rooting for him, clenching hands, unable to sustain a calm sitting on the seat.

"How are you alive?" Kardon's voice came from the side. Not giving Safo enough time for recovery he utilized his next weapon.

Being still dizzy and almost deaf Safo didn't even hear Kardon's question. His vision was blurred and his head was spinning, incapable of finding proper orientation to hold on to. Nothing changed, Safo's vision or state was unchanged when a blazing sword of plasma heated to a high degree came whooshing towards his stomach. He had no chance to see it in advance and dodge it.

Nothing happened, except Safo twitching in pain, but he still had not enough strength to pull himself up. As for the sword, it couldn't go through a vulgar-looking fishnet t-shirt. Kardon struck again and again. Finally, he understood and went for the relatively healthy left leg. He swung the sword high above his head and under the accompaniment of the crowd's disapproval cries he went for chopping the leg off.

The purple sword came down to a knee that wasn't covered by the short tight shorts, leaving it vulnerable to heat damage. The floating camera captured and transmitted every small detail of the collision of the sword and the knee. Plasma-sword struck the flesh and stopped, taking away the breath of every viewer.

"Huh?" Kardon Gar couldn't help but let out a surprise exclamation. His sword wasn't able to cut through the flesh and bones. It used to penetrate a meter thick metal and stone with ease let alone severing the limbs. It was true that the plasma sword was in fact a stick that could generate a plasma of nearly ten thousand, controllable, degrees. But that was more than enough. So why can't it cut the mere leg? Asked himself, Kardon Gar.

Not knowing the answer he fell under a blind rage. With an uncontrollable yell, Kardon started swinging his sword up and down each time bringing a new crack or break to Safo's pummeled left leg. When finally, satisfied with the flattened look of his opponent's lower part of the legs, he saw a new target.

"If I can't decapitate you I will smash your head into dust."