Chapter 155: Quick spar

Getting out of the academy gates, Jelo, Mira, and Atlas were stunned to see a nice sports car parked outside the academy.

“Don’t tell me this is what we’re going in. Mira, don’t tell me this is yours,” Jelo shouted excitedly.

“Of course it’s mine,” Tongen replied. “First, you need to walk. I need to know how strong you guys are. I need to know your strengths and weaknesses. Come on, enter the car.”

Tongen pressed the button on the key he was holding, and the car unlocked. They all got in, and Tongen dropped them off at a building that didn’t seem too impressive, but wasn’t bad either.

They entered and went to the backyard. There, Tongen asked the three of them to fight him.

Jelo was surprised to hear this. He knew Tongen was probably very, very strong. He was a member of the elite clan, and he was S-rank, but still, fighting the three of them at the same time? Even though he was sure Tongen would still beat them, that just showed how confident he was, Jelo thought.

“If you beat me, if you manage to beat me, I’ll treat you all to dinner,” Tongen said.

“We know we can’t beat you. Make it something possible that we can do,” they replied.

“Okay. If you manage to land a scratch on me, if you manage to get a scratch on me, I’ll treat you to dinner. Is that better?”

They were immediately satisfied. “Yes, that’s much better.”

Atlas and Mira were sure they could at least catch him off guard while fighting. Besides, they had Jelo with them. Their true and only hope to win the match was Jelo.

They got into their stances and battle positions, ready to fight.

Three vs. One

Jelo, Atlas, and Mira fanned out around Tongen in a triangle formation. No words. They had already talked through the plan.

Atlas pressed his palm flat against the ground.

Mira split — her clone peeling off to the left while the real her moved right, both synchronized perfectly.

Jelo went first. He thrust his palm forward and Dragon Claw tore through the air, a crescent of raw energy screaming toward Tongen’s chest at full speed.

Tongen raised one hand.

The Dragon Claw froze three feet from his face. Every bit of momentum ripped out of it mid-flight, suspended there like a photograph of destruction. Then he flicked his wrist and sent it back twice as fast.

Jelo activated Skilled Guard just in time. The hardened skin caught the impact but the force behind it was monstrous — he skidded backward twenty feet, one knee cracking against the ground, arm shaking.

Atlas stomped both feet. A pillar of rock exploded upward directly beneath Tongen.

Tongen sidestepped — except the step covered twelve feet in an instant, momentum amplified so casually it looked like he simply chose to be somewhere else. He landed on top of the broken pillar and stood there, hands at his sides.

One of the Miras came from behind him, striking at the back of his neck.

He didn’t turn. He breathed out. A radial burst of released momentum expanded from his body like a shockwave and both Miras were thrown off their feet simultaneously. The clone dissolved before it even hit the ground. The real Mira rolled, caught herself on one palm, and came up with blood at her lip.

“He felt the air move,” she said quietly.

Atlas spoke fast, voice low. “Mira, distraction. Jelo, high angle. I take the ground. All at once — don’t give him one direction.”

Mira’s clone sprinted straight at Tongen making noise, arms wide, pure chaos. Not an attack. Just motion and clutter to fill his vision.

Atlas drove both fists down and the ground answered — stone spires cracking upward around Tongen in every direction, rising fast, trying to cage him, cut off his footwork entirely.

Jelo used Wing Burst and vanished, reappearing high above and behind Tongen in a blur. Both palms charged. He threw the biggest Dragon Claw he had ever formed — an enormous crescent, the size of a car, bearing down from above.

Tongen started walking.

Each step was amplified. The first shattered a stone spire from the shockwave alone. The second cracked the ground in a wide radius. He was building stored force with every movement the rising earth pushed against him, every step he took, absorbing and collecting it all without stopping.

The clone reached him. He caught its wrist without looking and it dissolved instantly — even the momentum of a duplicate stripped out of existence.

Jelo’s Dragon Claw crashed down from above.

Tongen caught it with one hand. Fingers closed around the energy projection and held it there, crackling and furious, for one full second. Then he threw it straight down between all three of them.

The shockwave threw everyone off their feet at once. Atlas slammed into a wall. Mira hit the ground and rolled hard, arms over her head. Jelo was launched upward before gravity brought him crashing back down, all the air knocked out of him.

They got back up. All three. Slower. But up.

Atlas pulled a slab of earth twenty feet wide and hurled it. Mira split again and both versions rushed from opposite angles. Jelo burned through his exhaustion, activated Wing Burst and Skilled Guard together, Dragon Claw already forming in his palm — a full commit, close range, everything left.

Tongen exhaled.

Every shockwave he had absorbed. Every redirected Dragon Claw. Every stomped pillar and shattered stone and hit blocked since the first second of the fight. It had been sitting in him, collecting quietly like water behind a dam.

He let it go.

Not aimed at anyone. Not a strike or a beam. Just outward. A pulse from the center of his body expanding in every direction simultaneously.

The stone slab reversed mid-flight and exploded against the far wall. Both Miras were thrown backward fifty feet without him touching either of them, the clone gone before it landed, the real Mira crashing down hard and skidding to a stop. Jelo’s Wing Burst rush hit the wave head-on — Skilled Guard caught what it could, but the volume of stored energy was something the ability was never designed to handle. He stopped completely, hung in the air for half a second, then dropped straight down onto his back like dead weight.

Atlas had driven his fingers into the rock the moment he felt the pulse building. He anchored himself to the earth, one knee down, teeth locked together, the wave tearing past him on all sides. He held. One man, barely standing, bleeding at the brow.

When it ended he slowly pulled his hands free and stood up.

Tongen hadn’t moved an inch from where he was standing. Coat still. Not a mark anywhere on him.

He looked at Atlas. Then at Jelo on the ground. Then at Mira against the rubble.

“You three coordinated well,” he said. Not mockery. Just fact.

He turned and walked away.

Footsteps quiet.

Not a scratch on him.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep