Return of the Woodcutter

\'I think his name was… Bai Xu, hum,\' Aito thought, seeing the applicant advancing into the center of the ring.

Both siblings stepped to the side, watching with keen interest the spar that was about to take place.

\'Archer class,\' Aito pondered, examining Bai Xu from head to toe. The young man had leather armor, a black cloak for some unknown reason, a belt with inventory bags probably containing arrows, and a war bow that probably required a level 2 strength to use properly.

Bai Xu had been one of the few archers to get on top of a chandelier during the Lunar Eclipse, which attested to his agility.

\'Also… it seems like he has recently reached level 2. That ought to be somehow interesting.\'

However, he still left his "shackles" on. Bai Xu would probably be a worthy opponent for the siblings, but to him, it required a handicap to make it worth his while. This wasn\'t arrogance, just a fact..

That did not mean he would underestimate his opponent, either.

Aito\'s armor immediately shone of a golden yellow. By now, he had realized the color of Durability was somewhat different. He didn\'t know if it was due to the skill level up or something else, though.

He deployed his shield steel side and unsheathed his ax. "Ready when you are, Bai Xu."

"Thank you for the opportunity, black challenger," Bai Xu said, grabbing a handful of arrows with one hand, using that same hand to grip his bow and the other to nock an arrow.

He was quite intrigued by the black challenger. It wasn\'t that he had trouble accepting the fact Aito killed hundreds, if not thousands of hobs alone.

No, he wanted to know what kind of capabilities the man who\'d done such a ridiculous thing had.

Bai Xu opened fire, his arrow flew straight for the black challenger\'s chest, only to meet an ax blade midair, severing the tip in two.

\'Am I not worthy enough for him to use his shield?\' Bai Xu thought, sending a flurry of arrows. Contrary to his expectations, Aito did not dodge any, hacking most of them. The few that went through rebounded on his armor, barely leaving a scratch.

\'What? My arrows didn\'t manage to pierce through?\'

What pissed him off the most was that Aito probably used this opportunity to improve on how to strike arrows mid flight with his ax.

The black challenger stepped forward, Bai Xu stepped back, thinking if he got into close quarter, he was done for. His only chance at winning was keeping his distances.

\'In that case….\'

Bai Xu\'s hand blurred as he rapidly drew more arrows from his inventory bag, unleashing a rain of steel tips, every one of them coated with Durability, albeit for one.

—Active Skill: Piercing Shot Lv2—

Like last time, the black challenger hacked most arrows with his ax while walking. However, he was underestimating him too much.

Bai Xu had already seen through his defenses, the black challenger couldn\'t manage to deflect two arrows that came at the same time at different angles. Counting on that, he simultaneously sent two projectiles that perfectly mixed with the others, both coated with his active skill.

However, Aito somehow managed to sense the danger behind these arrows and used his shield to block them.

\'Tsk, if that doesn\'t work, then…,\' Bai Xu thought, rapidly running in a circle around Aito who remained standing at the center of the ring.

The young man sent arrows after arrows, mixing them with Piercing Shots. Finally, one Piercing Shot managed to get through Aito\'s defenses, hitting him right at the center of his helmet. But it simply left a larger scratch than normal arrows.

\'How can this be!?\' Bai Xu thought.

At that moment, while he was running and entirely focused on his immobile target at the center of the ring, Aito suddenly appeared in front of him out of nowhere.

Panicked, Bai Xu stumbled a bit before dodging aside, drawing his dagger, coating it with Durability and aimed for the neck.

A large grin appeared on Bai Xu\'s face as his weapon dug deep into the black challenger\'s neck that… blurred and progressively disappeared like a mirage.

Two bolts flew past the still dissipating illusion, their tips shining yellow lodging in both Bai Xu\'s unprotected knee joints, preventing him from running any longer.

"Arg! Shit!"

He lost his balance and dropped to the ground while heavy steps slowly approached him. When he finally managed to brace through his pain, he realized that a short crossbow was aiming directly for his forehead.

"I…, I forfeit," Bai Xu said, clenching his teeth, not because of the pain, but because he knew the black challenger had gone easy on him. 

Aito lowered his repeater, holstered it, and stretched his hand. "Not bad, Bai Xu. But I can\'t take you into my team. You\'re still lacking when it comes to awareness of your surroundings. I\'m not saying your awareness is bad. If that were the case, you\'d have probably fallen to a hob\'s aerial assassination long ago.

But why did you solely focus on my illusion when it appeared? If you had kept your cool, you would have certainly been able to realize I was standing behind it. Always remain calm during a fight, even when destabilized. Also, I\'d get a chain mail under your leather armor if I were you. Leather is great because it is rather light. But there are gaps in your defenses one could exploit as I did."

"*Sigh*, thank you for the pointers, black challenger. I\'ll remember those," Bai Xu said, grabbing his hand.

Aito helped him up, then brought him to the side for a battle surgeon to examine his wounds. Although, included Ogoro, there were currently only three battle surgeons on this floor, they ought to be enough to heal Bai Xu\'s injuries.

The crowd looked at the black challenger with complicated gazes. By no means it had been a shitty spar, but they were expecting something…, more. To them, it hadn\'t looked like Aito was struggling, nor had the upper hand.

Weirdly enough, they wanted to see him either completely destroy his opponents or be beaten by another challenger.

Why? Because it\'d make for a damn good show.

"Who\'s next?" Aito asked, walking back to the center of the ring. Apart from George, he expected none of the nine remaining applicants to challenge him.

Next, either George would manifest his interest in sparring with him, or, like Aito was expecting, someone would challenge Sheyla or Ogoro.

George was about to say something, but another applicant beat him to it.

"Spar with me, black challenger!" An exaggerated cute voice said. It belonged to a woman with a lean body, green eyes, pearl white skin, a beauty capable of toppling mountains, provoking wars, and bla-bla-bla.

She was fully dressed in plated armor, armed with a shield and a morning star—a metal-spiked ball-shaped end of a flail.

That reminded Aito of the weapon a certain Sorcerer King had in one of his favorite movies, LOTR.

\'Lucie… damn it I forgot about her…\' Aito thought, remembering who she was. That woman has been harassing him for sex every single day when she wasn\'t out hunting. She literally declared herself as his girlfriend in front of everyone.

Ogoro has been poking fun at him because of this, and Sheyla simply… said nothing, really.

Apart from that, Lucie had been one of the few women who had managed to remain "unraped" during the Lunar Eclipse, not because of luck, but sheer strength.

\'She also leveled up recently… Actually, now that I take a better look at the applicants, they are all level 2. What the fuck did Allan put in their backpacks? Or maybe it\'s because they\'ve been farming for so long.\'

"You\'ll go easy on me, right, blacky?" Lucie said, winking and smiling cutely. Her twin tails waving in the air. "You wouldn\'t want to hurt your girlfriend, right?"

Some people in the crowd snickered. Eager for drama, they started talking amongst each other about how the black challenger was lucky at having such a strong and beautiful girlfriend.

Ogoro chuckled. Next to him, Sheyla gave him a quick elbow strike. Unfortunately for her, her brother was wearing a full plated armor and barely felt anything, though he got the message.

Aito didn\'t like her one bit. Her ass was okay, a pass. But that overly exaggerated cute side pissed him off. He knew she was acting this way to appeal to the opposite sex. Someone else might be hiding underneath that mask, though.

"Blacky…." Aito frowned. Amongst the nicknames or titles people called him, he hated this one the most, even more than "masochist."

Why? Because of Belmand, the m*ther fucking god of sloth. 

\'Alright, I\'ve had enough,\' he thought. If he didn\'t remind other challengers what he was truly capable of, he felt like more would challenge him.

Also, he wanted to give this woman a piece of his mind. He had kept his cool until now, only rejecting her with words, but enough was enough.

Aito was no gentleman, not with that kind of woman, at least.

Lucie stepped in front of Aito, keeping a distance of three meters in between them, and immediately coated her equipment with Durability, let loose of her morning star spiky end, lifting her shield.

She might act cute, but underestimating her because of that was a grave mistake. Aito knew it.

He closed his shield and sheathed his ax, seemingly getting rid of his weapon to "go easy" on her.

"Ready when you are, Lucie," Aito said.

Seeing this, she smiled sweetly and sent him a flying kiss. "Oh, that\'s so cute of you, darling. How about a s***ky-s***ky afterward? Just you and me? Ah, right, I\'m ready. Come get me, blacky."

Aito couldn\'t help but frown again. Keeping his calm, he immediately deactivated Weight Control on his equipment, returning them to their original weight, then decreased their weight by eight times while applying Durability to his right hand, Impact to his right foot for a better footing and more propulsion.

Suddenly, the ground shattered under his feet as he dashed forward at incredible speed, covering the three meters separating them in less than a second.

At the last moment, he increased the weight of his entire equipment and gauntlet by three times and overlapped the latter with Impact.

His fist rammed into her shield, bending the metal despite its coating, launching Lucie into the air, five-meter backward.

BAM!

The crowd did not have time to dodge the human projectile that struck poor spectators. Air Lucie landed amidst them with a shocked face.

Still conscious because Aito went "easy" on her, she stumbled to her feet.

"You mother fucking brute! Don\'t you fucking know how to treat a wom—" she tried to say, but Aito\'s punch struck her temple like a truck, sending Lucie back onto the ground, unconscious this time.

\'That idiot didn\'t even wear her helmet, foolish,\' Aito thought as he picked her up to drop Lucie next to the medical team.

He regained his place at the center of the ring.

"Who\'s next?"