The battle of the weak and strong

The whispers and ramblings from the crowd drown out the sounds around Norman. The raging fury in him continues to grow as he stood his ground with clenched fists, and challenged Nathan to a duel. It is a duel for his pride, no matter if he is a null ranked ability user or not.

Despite knowing he is at a disadvantage due to the power difference, he made a decision to fight even if it is a foolish choice. Nathan had a smirk on his face when he heard the bold challenge and looks down upon him in contempt.

After accepting the duel, Nathan readied his stance. There is about 3 meters between them as they prepare for the fight in the hallway. The crowd continue to gather around them, ever increasing.

A fight between the weak and the strong. Of course, naturally the strong would win but what the crowd came to watch is the thrashing of the weak. A torn in their system, a rank that is even lower than commoner rank is widely unacceptable.

Reality is cruel yet Norman have the courage to challenge Nathan and go against reality. Unarmed, he had to face an ability user superior to a commoner rank. He was nervous to the bones but he can’t take this lying down when he was provoked time and time again. He had his stance readied with legs spread out shoulder width apart, lowered to a half squat position. Both fists are out in front of him, the left further in front of the other. It is a martial art stance taught in the Orphanage as part of the curriculum when he is not of age yet for the ceremony.

The duel is nigh with both users at their position but it was stopped by someone from the crowd.

“Wait!” A boy with curly hair and dark deceitful eyes stood out from the crowd. “Since Norman doesn’t have an ability, he will be at a disadvantage so how about giving him a weapon.”

The one who made the suggestion is one of Nathan’s followers, Kuram. He is someone despicable doing some of the dirtiest work for Nathan and is a scheming bastard known to all of the victims of Nathan’s bullying. If he is making a suggestion, it is most likely not good.

“Yeah, I agree. Give Norman a handicap.”

“Yeah!”

The crowd soon followed along with the suggestion of a handicap for the weak Norman. To Norman, it would be a reasonable suggestion but on the other hand, this could go another way around where everybody would take joy in him being beaten down continuously over and over again.

A messed-up scenario which defy morals in his words. No, what is morals in this world? None of this makes sense to him at all, the logic going through everyone’s mind does not click to what morals is to him. However, with whatever coming next, he has to bear the suffering.

With everyone’s insistence, Nathan accepted it and had Norman to possess a weapon, having a slight chance of winning though it is impossible in everyone’s eyes.

Although this handicap doesn’t change the fact that Norman is going to lose this fight and be beaten as cruelly as possible, there won’t be pity for him as it is expected to happened to those who oppose the powerful. This is the responsible of a higher rank ability user to punish those lower whom oppose him. This is the logic, the moral in this world.

“I will give you another handicap, if you are able to withstand my attacks for three minutes, you win. But, if you are unable to withstand it, you lose.” Nathan declares his second handicap with a cold glare, capable of causing extreme chills all over Norman.

Both of them took their place once again, this time Norman have a sword on his waist, kept in the scabbard, ready to explode out to attack when he unsheathes his sword. The air turned silent and tense as both of them are on standby.

The crowd watch with anticipation. It was then the silence was broken by the first move made by Nathan as a strong gust blows everyone away with a bright golden light emitting from his body. Dust was blown away as well, obstructing their sight.

It was at that moment, Nathan rushed out from the cloudy dust with a shining golden glow emitting from his body. A huge sword came flying downwards onto Norman.

Clang! With little to no time to react, Norman manages to unsheathe his sword in time to block the vertical slash. On the attacker’s body, the glow appears to form a shape covering his body like an armor. In fact, it looks like an actual armor of translucent golden light.

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“Urgh...” Norman groan when he blocked the attack. It took him half a second to realize that the sword Nathan is wielding is made of the same material as his armor; a translucent golden light.

The strength behind that strike was enough to put him on his knee. Argh, what strength. So, this is the ability of a noble rank...this...is too...overpowered!

“Hmm, what a surprise! A weakling is able to defend my attack, I wonder how you handle this!”

He kicked off the ground and sprint towards Norman in high speed. He lowered his sword, prepared to swing it for another vertical slash but this time it is the bottom up.

Norman was barely able to catch that movement and adjust his sword upwards, prepared to strike vertically downwards. In his mind, he knew that even if he tried to oppose the direction of his strike, he will lose in the game of strength. Therefore, he decided to do this.

Just when Nathan’s swing was about to blow his sword away, he changed his direction and swing his sword in the same direction as Nathan at the last minute and jumped away while doing so, dodging the vertical slash.

The crowd was in an uproar when they saw this exchange. They were in amazement from watching this spectacle. An unexpected turn of event. A weakling was able to stop a noble rank attack, not only once, but twice.

This fight has become even more entertaining as the show of the weakling being beaten down cruelly has transform into of a mouse struggling to survive from a cat’s fury of attacks.

“Damn You!”

Nathan was extremely furious with the outcome; a weak null rank was able to not only parry his attack but dodge his next. Furthermore, he is one of victims that he often picked on and bullied. This has stained his pride as one of the superior ones.

As a victim of Nathan’s bullying, Norman has accumulated the experiences of his fighting style and movement.He has learnt how to dodge at the right timing and make it looked like it has an effect on him. These experiences had led him to his decision during the previous exchange. You can say it is a perk or a blessing in one way or another.

Taking advantage of the loss momentum, he decides to strike Nathan at his weakest. His opponent quickly noticed his change of stance and whipped out a round shield from thin air, glowing the same as his equipment. What a surprise he has given to Norman, he has a shield made of the same material as his armor. Adding to that, his shield is rock solid as if it will never break.

Contrary to his expectations, Norman was disappointed of his lack of ability even in swordsmanship. He figured his swordsmanship although is inferior to Nathan, he could at least land a blow to regain his pride but it ended in a failure.

The fight continued on as Nathan unleash a series of unrelenting and furious strikes on his opponent. His face blushed in fluming red anger, eyes full of hatred towards the lowly one who hurt his pride. His blows are swift and heavy as each strike pushed Norman back a few steps at a time, barely blocking his torso.

Seconds became a minute, Norman is full of blood and sweat. His shirt was ripped during the clashes leaving a couple of cuts and wounds on his body. He pants heavily while he meets the onslaught of strong and devastating slashes with blinding speed. At this point, he couldn’t rely on his eyes or his past experiences any more. He could only gamble on which side is he going to attack next.

One thing left his mind during the brief moment when he decided to make the decision to gamble, I hit my limit.

It was during that moment he realized this, a threshold, an obstacle, a giant wall stands before him. It is the limitations of a human body, one would have this issue being a null ranked user as he will be a normal human being. No special power or abilities at all, just a plain normal human being.

The person before him is a noble ranked user with an ability classified as one of the strongest and has surpassed the limitations of a human body. One word to describe this would be ‘Monster’ or ‘Inhuman’. Like him, everyone else in this room are monsters except for those whom are not of age yet but they are potential monsters. This realization hit him hard.

Against such a monster, can he even imagine to win a fight against them? This question has led him to go with next action. After the one-minute mark, he changed his style of dodging and parrying to just dodging. If you can’t win against a monster, run. That’s the answer he arrived upon. There is one thing to take note of, whether his stamina is enough to last.

As soon as he does this, Nathan turned into a demon as his face is seething in anger and lost his patience of keeping up with his cowardice, discarding his shield. Although he is filled with hatred, he is actually calm in his mind. Coming up with new ways and angles to strike, the pressure on Norman increase tenfold.

“Urgh...”

Faced with this predicament, he has to rack his brain even further as the level of attacks increase with the added feints. It has become a mind and reflex game, though he will lose in terms of speed, he has to make up with his brain.

The two-minute mark reached, and it happened. Nathan launch a horizontal attack aiming at his abdomen. Norman reacted accordingly and jumped backwards. The horizontal attack then changed it trajectory half-way, becoming a thrust. Low and behold, it was a feint.

What! He screamed inwardly when Nathan shifted his attack to a thrust. It was like how Norman shifted the direction of his sword to be the same as Nathan and avoid the game of strength. It startled him and fell for it. The direction it was pointing at was the chest, a counter with death looms over him.

“Shit...”