Martial Arts Worlds

The ceiling shook and rumbled.

As it fell apart, the silver-eyed stone golems fell to the ground, and then they rose to their feet from their kneeling position.

They were tall and monstrous-looking.

With their glowing silver eyes, they saw two young men running towards their direction.

In their stony minds, only one thought surfaced—kill.

With their boulder-sized fists, they punched straight at Drago, but again, it was a very straightforward punch without any technique behind it.

Drago leaped over the fist, flipped himself over the stone golem, and landed gracefully on the other side, unscathed.

The couple of other stone golems closed in on him, but Drago sprinted past them with his superior speed, and without fighting any of them, he started heading straight to the third challenge!

'You don't have to defeat these stone golems?!' Kiernan thought in shock. 'That's where I lost so much time!'

Kiernan narrowed his eyes, and then he bolted past the stone golems with his insane speed. The stone golems tried to crush him, but he just ran past with wind rushing past his black hair.

He ran past all the stone golems!

The stone golems turned their heads around, but instead of chasing after him, their silver eyes turned dull, and they stopped moving altogether.

'Drago has a slight lead now that I stopped to watch Drago do the second challenge. I expected him to fight, and I can use that to my advantage to pass him.

'However, I didn't expect him to just run past them all, but that's fine—I can still see him!'

He was seeing Drago's silhouette in the distance—he had managed to get a good lead on him.

The third challenge appeared in the distance.

Drago started heading up the hill, and after a few meters, the hill started to shake, and the chains started flying in his direction.

To Kiernan's surprise, Drago jumped off the ground, turned around, and kicked the chains away from him with incredible force.

The chains returned back to the ground.

Drago landed back on the hill and kept running, but then the chains started to fly back at him, but like before, Drago just kicked them away.

'That's another time save!

'Instead of letting the chains grab him, he is trying to avoid that altogether. I am not surprised that there are some time saves, but this is just completely avoiding the point of every challenge!'

Kiernan thought, but he also thought it was very smart.

Those chains cost him like five minutes last time around, if not even more. It was extremely slow to try to walk all the way to the top with chains wrapped around arms.

Kiernan reached the hill and started running up—just in time to see Drago reach the top.

As the hill started to shake, the chains started flying towards him.

"Rendering Edge!"

Kiernan moved his hand behind him and smacked the chains away. He didn't bother to jump and kick them away as he believed that would be slower.

It was time for him to find any possible way to gain time on Drago!

The chains fell on the ground.

Kiernan gritted his teeth, ignored his burning lungs, and started running towards the top before the second chains came.

The chains started to fly towards him.

Kiernan reached his hand towards the top, then felt the chains arrive behind him, and he quickly rolled across the ground.

The chains missed him and got pulled back to the bottom of the hill.

He reached the top of the hill!

"Whew, that was fast!"

Kiernan thought out loud, but then he turned his gaze to the fourth challenge, and to his surprise, Drago was already swimming quite far away.

He was able to see the ending from here!

'I can't catch him!' Kiernan thought with round eyes.

He noticed that Drago was a good swimmer—it wasn't a surprise since he had most likely practiced swimming to improve his time at the Game.

'I will lose?'

Kiernan narrowed his eyes and started running towards the water, but he wasn't diving in. Instead, he jumped off the edge of the road, and as his feet landed on the water, he quickly kicked off the water surface.

"Iron Style, Water Walking!"

Crack…

A few of his bones cracked, and a wave of pain washed through Kiernan, but he didn't care about any of that and kept running over the water like an unstoppable force!

Whenever his boot touched the water surface, he quickly kicked himself back up, and like that, was able to run on the surface of the water as well as on road.

This was one of the techniques that he rarely used—it was pretty much a party trick that he learned because he thought it was pretty cool.

Drago was busy swimming, but there was a smile on his lips. He knew he was about to win. However, he was still being careful.

The tentacles of the octopus were trying to grab him, but he was perfectly evading them.

However, at that moment, a never-before-seen sight appeared before him—someone ran past him.

That's right—ran past him… on water.

Drago's eyes bulged out, and his eyes almost fell out of their sockets—he watched as Kiernan RAN past him on water.

'What the $%@#&?!'

Drago didn't know what he was looking at.

With Water Walking, Kiernan arrived at the solid road and reached the final challenge way before Drago.

BANG!

The bullet came flying in.

"Rendering Edge!"

Kiernan kept running, smashing his hands through the bullets, and neared the exit!

"No!" Drago climbed out of the water and screamed. "Please wait a moment!"

Kiernan evaded the last bullet and ran through the exit.

"Yes!"

A shout reached his ear immediately as Julian jumped to his feet in excitement.

"I-Impossible!" Roesia and Fae looked at each other in shock.

"What the…" Gardner's eyes shook. "Drago lost?"

"Woohoo!" Kiernan clenched his fists in triumph. "Fucking easy!"

He was truly excited about his victory; his childish self resurfaced for a moment.

"Haha!" Julian jumped on his back, wrapping his arms around Kiernan's neck in a bear hug. "I knew you had it in you!"

Through the cave entrance, Drago walked out with a sullen look, his head hanging low in defeat.

"Drago…" Gardner grabbed him by the collar. "How did you lose to that bastard?"

"He…" Drago sat down with a look of shock. "Ran on water…"

"Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?"

At the stone time tablet, the time had frozen.

[FINAL TIME]

[10:30.444]