Martial Arts Worlds

In the commentator's booth.

"The balancing beam has turned out to be quite a difficult and slow obstacle. Currently, the eleventh- and twelfth-ranked representatives are…"

At that moment, the commentator leaned close to the screen, and through one of the cameras, he saw that someone was climbing under the balancing beam!

"Wait, wait… What's going on over there? Someone decided to go under the balancing beam, but to do that, the grip strength and arm strength must be enormous!

"However, who is it?!"

A flying camera moved under the balancing beam and captured the sight of Kiernan for the whole wide world.

"It's Kiernan Hunter of New Rakuya—the one who was briefly ranked third after the first event, dropped in the second, and is making a huge comeback with this risky strategy!"

The commentator shouted.

After he reached the end of the balancing beam, Kiernan flipped back up and landed perfectly on his feet.

On the screen, his placement rose all the way to the 11th spot—he was one shy from being in the top ten!

"Could it be that it wasn't all luck? Kiernan is approaching the front!"

After taking off, Kiernan ran off the balancing beam and approached the next obstacle—the fog-shrouded forest—and the ones ahead of him had already entered it.

They couldn't be seen because of the thick fog.

"Huff… Huff!"

Kiernan crossed his arms in front of his chest and ran through the fog—the thick forest appeared around him—and he couldn't see where he was going.

When he tried running, he almost immediately crashed into a tree, so he had to change the course and run in a different direction.

He didn't know how much time went by—he kept running around the forest—and couldn't find the end.

"The forest wasn't that long from what I've remembered. I should've been able to run through it already."

He said to himself, walked a distance, and then found a paper nailed into one of the trees—it was written in black ink and was dripping wet.

[To go through this forest, you must first defeat an foe]

'A magical forest—I haven't even seen anyone in the forest, but now I have to find one?'

Kiernan clicked his tongue, but then he heard the crack of a twig behind him—he slowly turned around—and his eyes narrowed.

"I was looking for someone… To think it was you."

Seo Donghae said coldly and showed his hands from his sleeves—the fingers were long, and the nails were thin.

"Oh… Great."

Kiernan slid his feet forward—he took the stance of Iron Style—and readied himself for a fight.

"…"

Seo narrowed his eyes, then stepped to the left, and pointed his right hand towards Kiernan—he snapped his fingers—and air bullets shot out of his fingertips.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Kiernan void stepped, dodged the flying air bullets, and then appeared in front of Seo—the fist of his already flying.

Seo grabbed the fist, pulled his arm back, and kneed Kiernan in the stomach—but he already had his left arm blocking the knee—and stabbed his spearhand forward.

"Iron Lance!"

With the backhand, Seo slapped the spearhand away and snapped his fingers towards Kiernan, shooting the air bullets.

The air bullets swooshed through the air, and Kiernan rolled out of the way—the air bullets smashed through the trees and exploded into splinters.

"What's this style? Able to shoot air bullets out of your fingers? I haven't seen martial arts like this before."

Kiernan said.

"It does not have a name."

Seo said, lowered his stance, and put his arms next to his body—his fingers looked like a gun, and his thumb looked like a trigger—he motioned pulling the trigger.

"Volley of Bullets!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The rapid-fire bullets cut through the air, drilling through the trees, and chased after Kiernan—he ran circles, but Seo followed him with his fingers.

At that moment, one of the air bullets hit Kiernan in the thigh, and blood spurted out.

"Argh!"

Kiernan frowned, tightened his muscles, and closed the wound—he then turned around, grabbed a tree, uprooted it from the ground, and threw it towards Seo.

Seo sliced through the tree with his hand, but then, Kiernan had disappeared from in front of him.

"…"

He looked around, thought that Kiernan would attack at any moment, but after waiting for a couple of minutes, his shoulders slumped at the realization.

'He escaped…'

…

'Yeah, nope. I don't have time to fight against one of the strongest opponents in the championship. It's a fight that would either end quickly in my defeat or a fight that will last an hour.

'Neither of us has time for that!'

Kiernan thought while running through the forest in search of another opponent—hoping that it wasn't as strong as the last one.

The wound on his thigh was still bleeding, no matter how much he was trying to close it.

At that moment, he saw a frightened-looking young man run around the forest—he was frantically looking around the forest and didn't seem to know where to go.

'He doesn't look all that powerful, but we're in the Junior Martial Arts Championship, and no one is weak here.

'However, I doubt he is as strong as Seo!'

Kiernan jumped out from behind the tree and punched towards the young man—he saw the fist coming, backstepped, and swung his arm forward.

However, the arm of his stretched forward—it was like a whip—and smacked Kiernan across his face.

"Whew, you scared me!"

Arnie said with a trembling voice.

"…What a strange physique."

Kiernan rose up from the ground, wiped the blood off his mouth, and looked at Arnie's right arm—it was slowly reeling back to his shoulder.

The arm was about two meters long just a moment ago.

'I am not foreign to the ones with such strange physiques, but this is getting quite ridiculous—I wonder what Nathaniel is thinking when he sees this.'

He thought to himself.

"W-why did you attack me? Isn't it waste of time?"

Arnie asked with a shaky voice.

"…You cannot leave this forest without defeating someone. So let's fight."

Kiernan said.

"Oh… Is that so?"

Arnie said, then his gaze turned cold, and the scared persona seemed to disappear—he was like a completely new person now.

"Take over, Anger."

He said, and his expression turned angry—he growled menacingly—and turned red like a tomato as if he was burning from inside.

'What the hell is going on with him?'

Kiernan frowned and took his Iron Style stance—there was something wrong with this person, and he knew he had to be cautious.