Chapter 73: Take heart

Riven ran fast and hard. He made Big Guy run faster and harder. He did not care about being discreet again as he crashed against trees and snapped branches, the monster’s steps shaking the ground.

Before long, he reached the clearing where he felt the strips.

It was as if they had been waiting for him. The trees had been cleared, and they were sitting on tree stumps. Ten of them, and on each of their hands, encircling their wrist, was a strip of cloth.

Big Guy towered over them as it entered the clearing, but none of them flinched. They simply watched him.

Jasper smiled. “You sure took your time in coming here, my points.”

Riven sighed in return. “Good. You’re all gathered here. One of you can just give me their strip, and I will make sure not to take your points. I don’t need anyone anyway.”

Jasper sneered and laughed together with the other ten. “Are you this stupid? We are the top ten of Rank Two. Do you think a barbarian like you can defeat us?”

Riven frowned. “I defeated you just fine.”

Jasper’s face flushed with anger, and his eyes flashed. “You…”

“Don’t worry yourself about him, Jasper. I, Lucien, will take care of him for you. I saw his fight earlier with you, and he’s totally useless without his summons. We’ll kill him before he has the time to summon any.” The guy named Lucien was a bulky guy. He carried a hooked blade in his hand, the end fitted with a long chain.

Riven scratched his head. “Are you not afraid of my monster?”

He had not finished speaking when a hooked blade that was glowing like melting metal came for his head. Riven raised and whipped his sword in a counter, slapping the hooked blade with his own. But immediately the two weapons made contact, a blast of rolling flames lit up the air and cracked, blasting Riven back from the monster.

The fight of Riven against the ten ranked ten had begun!

Riven scowled as he dusted ashes away from his body. Although some of his robe was burnt, he was still all right. His body had gained a green luster as he used his Enhance technique.

Something sharp sliced the air towards him, and Riven jumped back immediately. He took to the trees and hung on the branches like an ape.

The place he was standing before exploded into fragments of ice, and frost began to creep on the ground.

“Why are you running? I thought you were strong enough to face the three of us, you animal. You think yourself something special, but I’m going to tear you down!”

“Yes. Together with that girl! Kivara, or what’s her name.”

They laughed, totally ignoring the monster that was standing motionless in front of them.

Riven gave a mental command, and the monster exploded into motion. It lurched forward, claws extended straight for the throats of two of the students.

But suddenly, it froze in midair. A female student stood to the side, her hand extended. The air around the monster had been frozen, and it almost looked as if it was encased in glass.

The monster tried to struggle out of its prison, but it was near impossible. The most it could do was wiggle. The female student who was holding the monster back with winds gritted her teeth, her face dripping with sweat. “Jasper, kill it now!”

Jasper sneered arrogantly at Riven, where he was dodging the hooked blade of Lucien. “I’ll deal with you after.”

He went straight for the kill. Jasper brought his own hands together in a claw motion, and then he brought them apart just as sharply.

The space above and below the monster crumbled like cheap glass, forming near-invisible fragments. Unlike Spartacus, the full result of Jasper’s attack showed itself.

The undead monster was torn apart. The ripping sound was like ropes snapping. Bones crunched and cracked like twigs. Blood and guts sprayed in the air, and the body flopped to the ground.

“How do you like that!” Jasper shouted.

Riven used his sword to hook the hooking blade in turn, and then he gripped the chain. He yanked forward, pulling Lucien towards him.

But instead of continuing with the attack, Riven leaped into another branch. “Be happy with your short victory, Jasper!” he shouted and took to the forest.

Jasper was stunned. He had thought that Riven was a brave warrior, but it turned out he was just a cheap coward. “That bastard. Did he think he’s going to escape a beating?”

“Should we go after him?” one of them asked.

Jasper shook his head. “No need. That warrior of his is quite strong. We don’t want to fight it in the trees. That’s why we cleared this place for ourselves, to deal with him.”

Lucien shrugged. “It doesn’t matter though. We all have the strips, and he has none. But I must admit that he’s very strong. Look at the thing’s monster that he killed!”

Jasper sneered. “He’s strong, no doubt, but he’s still a barbarian. He has to know his place!”

Meanwhile, in the combat hall, the instructors were giving Master Zandrel a pitying look when they saw Riven run away. Suddenly, nobody was jealous of him having such a promising student again.

And why should they? He was a coward. It is better to have a weak but brave student than a strong and cowardly one. It seemed Master Zandrel had been given the shorter end of the stick.

One instructor, the one who criticized Zandrel earlier, could not help the smile that came to his mouth. “Indeed. The environment makes the person. How do you expect someone from the village to be able to stand up to someone like them? It’s impossible!”

“Take heart, Master Zandrel. You can’t always be lucky with students like Kivara. Indeed, it would be too greedy!”

The head instructor shook his head in disappointment. “I thought he would be a new rising star, but he’s destined to walk the short road with that kind of cowardice. This is not even a real battle. It’s an assessment, and he ran without even fighting!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep