Martial Arts Worlds

Zeus' eyes shook—there was a red mark on his forehead—and the audience's shocked gasps resounded in his ears.

The sudden betrayal shocked them all!

With a scream, he yanked his arms out of the brother's clutches and ran away in the opposite direction.

"Hey, get back here!"

The brothers chased after him.

Kiernan looked at his fingers—they were trembling—and he then formed them into a fist.

The trembling stopped, and he stepped forward, looked in the direction where they ran off, and went in another direction.

He didn't want to help with the brothers when it came to Zeus—he didn't want to team up and get betrayed next—all he wanted was to find the end of the maze.

Going through the right path, he found a dead end again—turned left, and another dead end again—moved straight, and when he made his way through, he finally reached the center of the maze.

However, there was a wall in front of him, and the tower was right behind it—he moved to the left of the wall, made almost a whole square, and then found the opening.

The black tower stood before him—it had a spiraling staircase going up—and the door above was still locked.

'Could it be that I am the first one here?'

Kiernan thought, moved into a walk, and approached the staircase, but then he heard the swooshing of wind behind him and quickly rolled out of the way.

The air bullets swooshed past him and drilled through the tower's walls in a destructive show of power.

Kiernan turned his head to the left and saw Seo, pointing his finger at him, and his fingers snapping in a menacing rhythm.

"Step aside, and I'll let you have the second place."

Seo said as he slowly approached the stairs, but Kiernan then moved to the front of the stairs and aimed his finger at him.

"Not happening."

Kiernan said.

"Fool."

Seo said, snapped his fingers, and launched an air bullet towards him—Kiernan rolled under the air bullet, pointed his finger at Seo, and snapped his fingers.

An air bullet shot out of his fingers, and Seo's eyes widened in surprise—he side-stepped, effortlessly dodging the attack, but it still left a deep impression on him.

"You copied my technique?"

He asked coldly.

It shocked him because Kiernan only saw him do the technique briefly and shouldn't have been able to understand the intricacies of it so quickly.

"I've learned more complex techniques than that."

Kiernan said and then started running up the stairs—Seo hurled his air bullets at him—he dodged and kept running.

"Tch!"

Seo chased after him, jumped many steps at times, and slowly caught up to Kiernan, and when he saw his running figure, he turned his fingers into a gun.

With his thumb pulling back like a trigger, air bullets kept shooting out of his finger.

"Crack!"

Kiernan stomped the stairs under him, made them collapse, and jumped out of the way of the air bullets.

He almost fell off the stairs but grabbed onto the stairs just in time and leaped back, then immediately resumed running.

Seo leaped over the gap in the stairs and continued running up the steps two at a time.

Kiernan reached the top of the stairs—the brown door stood before him, and it had a key embedded in the lock.

However, he calculated that it would take him about one to two seconds to open the door—slightly more to enter the room—and he would be left defenseless during that.

Thus, Seo would have plenty of time to just shoot him in the back, and with those injuries, he doubted he would be able to continue in the championship.

'Let's try this.'

Kiernan turned around, rubbed his hands together, and pressed them hard together—it was the technique that Nathaniel used to do back during his school days.

Melody of the three techniques!

Seo reached the top of the stairs, saw him looking at him instead of going straight to the door, and frowned.

He also didn't dare to go straight to the door, as he would be left defenseless, and that would be bad.

At that moment, Kiernan clapped his hands together, and an ear-piercing sound resounded throughout the tower area.

"?!"

Seo's face crunched in annoyance as ringing filled his ears, and everything turned hazy around him.

'I didn't know before how Nathaniel did his technique, but he must've also increased friction in his hands, pushed the air between his hands to create a bubble, and then caused it to collapse on itself at a high frequency.'

Kiernan walked over to him, leaned closer to his ear, and whispered.

"What's your greatest fear?"

"Tch!"

Seo threw a punch, and Kiernan quickly jumped out of the way with a wry smile on his face—he just wanted to give it a try.

He didn't expect for it to actually work, and just as he expected, it didn't work.

'I guess my voice is too rough for that to work. Nathaniel's voice was quite soft and kind of feminine, so it must've had a better effect.'

The ringing finally stopped, and Seo's hazy vision returned to normal—but then he saw people arriving at the tower.

It was Sun who chased after the brothers, and Zeus was nowhere to be seen, strangely enough, with neither of them having any idea what happened to him.

"If we fight, neither of us will get enough good points. You placing second will give you enough points to get back to the top ten."

Seo said.

"You placing second will also place you at the top of the rankings. I came here first, and I am not settling for second place."

Kiernan said coldly.

"Fair play, I suppose. Let's settle with rock-paper-scissors?"

Seo asked and put his hand forward—it was clenched into a fist—and slowly opened into a palm with fingers extended.

"…"

Kiernan slowly reached his hand towards him, and they both swung their hands down on the count of three.

They both opened their hands to reveal their choices.

Seo's hand looked like scissors—two fingers were extended and crossed—while Kiernan's hand looked like paper with all fingers straightened.

"I won."

Seo said and shrugged his shoulders.

"…Well, fair play."

Kiernan said, stepped aside, and let Seo open the door—he turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and entered.

With a sigh, Kiernan entered the room in second place and closed the door behind him—there were soon footsteps near the door as Sun and the brothers also arrived.

However, they immediately started fighting for the third place. Kiernan paid no mind to them, walked down the dark room, and soon exited through a pathway.