The quarterfinals were soon over and the final four were left. After the semi-finals came the finals, where Arthur had managed to reach.

Here, he was matched up against another one of the major subfamilies within the Breckenridge family.

As the two warriors stood against each other, there seemed to be a bitter rivalry between them. Their eyes didn’t come off each other, and their bodies were totally frozen as the fight was soon to be underway.

Arthur’s opponent was Preston Breckenridge, another talent who was a great candidate for the position of patriarch. His father had pushed for the position a very long time ago and was left bitter and furious when he was unable to acquire it for himself.

His cousin, Leighton, and Arthur’s father always managed to outdo him when it came to talent and his combatant skills.

Now, he almost felt the need to live through his son to try and make him achieve what he could not. Cael was not a fan of such a mentality, but it seemed like Preston was fully on-board.

It wasn’t like his father had ushered him down this path, but he had instead sent himself down this journey himself. He looked determined to take the position of patriarch for himself.

He had large cornrows, that dangled all the way down to his upper back. Even at the age of 15, he already had a sharp jawline and facial hair.

The two stepped back from each other, and the spectators were now on the edge of their seats to see what was to happen next. Even if Cael didn’t care much -if at all- for such family dynamics, he felt the intensity.

This made him even more interested in seeing who would come out on top.

Preston possessed two shoulder-mounted energy rifles, along with a long, superheated blade that protruded out from his right forearm.

Arthur simply resorted to his gauntlets and wrist-mounted energy rifles, that functioned more as obliterating machine guns.

“May the final match begin!!”

Arthur and Preston remained vigilant, circling around each other instead of just rushing in. That would be the easiest way to get walloped and defeated. Through each other’s visor, they closely examined the other’s footwork and timing.

Feinting and pretending to attack, each one was feeling out the other to see the perfect opportunity to attack.

Suddenly, Arthur lifted his fist and started firing off with numerous blasts straight in his direction.

Blasts rained down on Preston, but his exosuit was much better at taking on the damage. With more mana reserves came greater quality exosuits, and Preston wasn’t bothered much by these pellet blasts.

With a large roll, he was largely out of the line of fire then he charged straight toward Arthur.

In a flash, he zipped across the arena and caused the thin layer of sand on the ground to lift right up. After covering the distance between them in this short time, he clashed with Arthur and grunted as he pushed up against him.

Even if Arthur was quite the prodigy, so was Preston and he was a year older.

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With that, he possessed a more muscular, capable physique.

Arthur continued to push but his legs gave in. As he continued to push, he would ever so slowly slide back and lose his footing. Preston was just throwing his weight onto his adversary, making it ever more difficult for him to push back.

Suddenly, though, he hurled himself back and gave Arthur some distance. In the process, though, he was hurled forward from the great pushing force that he was just applying on him.

This left him on really bad footing and wide open to further attack.

VRMM!

Preston’s rifles glowed a bright green, which was something that Cael had never really seen before. If a barrel of a metal was to glow that sort of colour, it was known to beware of what was to fire out from it.

BOOM!

Two large energy blasts fired out from the rifles and slammed straight into Arthur, literally lifting him off his feet. The blasts left some deep damage in his metal armour, and he’d already felt the pain from the energy beams on his skin.

Thud!

Upon landing on the ground, Arthur did not grimace or grunt from the pain. Instead, he remained resilient and muscled through the pain, aiming both of his arms straight at Preston as he remained on the floor.

Roaring, he fired off numerous energy blasts straight at him and slid back across the arena floor in the process.

Preston, again, was not hard-pressed to evade these blasts but was certainly annoyed by how fast and pestering they were. Each one was fast and had quite a bit of force behind it and felt like miniature musket pellets constantly slamming into his person.

Nothing much seemed to have happened to his armour but steadily, its health was deteriorating. Cael could see this from the stands, and the outer layer or armour across his forearms and torso was degrading swiftly.

After a few seconds of continuous blasting, the match continued, and the fighters closed in on each other to exchange several punches and kicks.

Preston didn’t have as much skill as Arthur when it came to fighting but was faster and stronger. His muscles were just better equipped for battle, and each punch that he threw just had significantly more weight behind it.

POW!

Preston managed to rock Arthur with a strike straight to his face, following up with a slash from the superheated blade that he extended out from under his forearm’s armour.

It sliced straight through the outer layers of Arthur’s amour, making him fall back and evade the following swings that came. Even though the blade didn’t light on fire and look as chaotic as Cael’s, it was of similar heat.

Cael was just emulating this sort of heat through the gimmicks that he possessed through his system, and made his weapon quite unstable.

As for Preston, he was generating this heat in quite an ordinary, safe way.

The two fighters continued to go at it toe-to-toe, degrading each other’s armour plates. Their constant energy blasts were heavily damaging and the outer layers of their armour had been reduced to slag by this point.

Both were bleeding rather profusely under their armour, and their immediate family members were screaming, vehemently waving their hands and stomping as they watched on.

Leighton and their mother watched on from the stands, above the rest of the Breckenridge family, whilst Preston’s father watched on from the other side.

They continued to battle, slugging their fists forward as their stamina had almost been totally depleted. With the constant use of their energy rifles, they didn’t have much mana to rely on to continue.

Each fighter was forced to take seconds off, trying their best to get air in and recuperate. It wasn’t enough, though, as somebody would end up breaking apart first.

Both of them was hoping that it wouldn’t be them and so, continued on with just willpower – the only thing that kept them fighting.

Panting through their helmets, they slammed into each other and began to wrestle, and Preston was given the immediate advantage. With his greater weight, he almost threw himself onto his opponent, constantly pushing him down with his larger frame. This forced his opponent to work much harder to keep himself up on his own two feet.

Both warriors managed to get back up to their feet, just standing against each other with heavy breath. They panted like they were suffocating, and it felt like that for both of them.

Their bodies simply needed more oxygen than they could provide. Now it would be a battle purely of who had the stronger mind.

Who wanted it more!

Cael was excited upon seeing this happen, and couldn’t help but lean forward in his chair.

That’s when an idea suddenly popped into his mind.

A mischievous smile grew across Cael’s face as he continued to watch.

The fighters were near the edge of the arena now, and only a few metres from him. Both fighters would be in range for his mana stream skill.

“Now, who should I give the win to?”