Chapter 46  First Duel

Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!

Sophia!Sophia!Sophia!

The crowd erupted into cheers as Rocky and Sophia walked onto the martial arena.

Unlike Sophia who looked confident and assumed a proper fighting stance from the start, Rocky stood more freely as he looked towards the heavens as if praying.

He had no idea on how to fight properly, however, if he failed to defeat Sophia here, his most important cheat, the strongest system threatened to go offline for three full months.

By now, Rocky knew that the system was slightly evil, however, there was no denying its strength, as despite its disposition to put him in awkward situations, Rocky did not wish to have it deactivated.

‘I can’t throw this match away, I need to do my best…. But how?’ he wondered as he tried to steady his breath as he closed his eyes.

To Professor Mave and the rest of the crowd, it looked like Rocky was completely relaxed and taking his time to get into the mindset of a fighter, as many admired his composure and were excited to see what he would produce.

On the other hand, Sophia was stretching her muscles and moving lightly on her feet, ready to start the fight at the professor’s signal.

As Rocky opened his eyes, he knew he was drawing empty in the ideas department as he had no clue whatsoever on how he could defeat Sophia.

“May the better fighter win” Sophia said with a grin as she spoke those words with confidence, yet not arrogance.

Rocky said no words of encouragement to his opponent as he put one arm behind his back and pointed the other one at her as he said “Come”.

The crowd went absolutely wild, thinking Rocky was planning to fight with one arm behind his back as loud cheers erupted from the stands.

Uptil now, no-one except Professor Mave really noticed that Rocky’s fighting stance was absolutely shit, as the only one not happy with Rocky’s stance was him.

Since Rocky could not think of any good strategy to win, his entire plan was simple, which was to not make a single sound and look tough throughout the fight, no matter how badly she beat him.

He prayed for there to be some form of divine intervention to help him miraculously win, however, in his heart he knew that it was highly unlikely that anything like that could take place.

“Hey! Don’t break each other’s bones, don’t cause intentional harm, I want this to be a nice clean fight! You both understand?” Professor Mave said as both Sophia and Rocky nodded in acknowledgement.

“BEGIN!” He said after a few nerve wrecking seconds as his loud voice cut through the chatter of the crowd.

***************

As the word “BEGIN!” echoed through the arena, the crowd’s excitement reached a fever pitch.

Sophia, with the grace of a seasoned fighter despite her novice status, wasted no time as she closed the distance between herself and Rocky with quick, measured steps, her eyes locked on Rocky’s, reading his posture and lack of experience like an open book.

Rocky, on the other hand, stood frozen for a split second, the gravity of the situation finally dawning on him, however, without any combat experience, he could only observe his opponent without taking any appropriate measures to counter her offense.

As she came within striking distance of him, his feet suddenly moved as he began taking a step back gradually with his heart racing wildly, his mind blanked out and his base survival instincts kicking in.

“You’re wide open!”

Sophia said, launching a series of feints and jabs, testing Rocky’s defenses, which were practically non-existent.

Cheers went up from the crowd as unlike the previous match where the action ended before it ever properly began, this fight seemed much more high caliber.

With one hand still behind his back, Rocky made clumsy attempts at dodging Sophia’s attacks, as he was visibly stiff while moving, looking like an absolute amateur as he barely avoided being hit by Sophia.

“The champion of Gemini is a joke! The very basic of fighting is to stay quick on your feet, what the fuck is that clumsy foot movement?”

“I thought looking at his composure that he knows what he’s doing, but apparently not”

“Oh boy, this is going to get ugly real soon-”

The supporters of Sophia and Poseidon seemed to be having fun as they got excited by Rocky’s clumsy display, however, the supporters of Rocky still bore hope that maybe this was all a part of his plan to misguide Sophia into making a mistake.

To the neutral one’s watching who did not favor anyone, it was abundantly clear that Sophia was the superior fighter, her moves were fluid and precise and seemed to give a testament to her demi-god strength and her training.

However, fate, it seemed, had a different plan.

Realizing that he was making a fool out of himself, Rocky decided to make a bold move, as he realized that simply dodging was never going to let him win anyways.

He feigned a direct charge, hoping to catch Sophia off guard, however, Sophia, watching his movements like a hawk, sidestepped easily with the intention of countering.

However, as Rocky advanced, his foot caught on some uneven patch of ground, as he awkwardly lost balance and stumbled forward, contrary to the movement he initially wished to execute.

‘Shit’ he thought, as he felt the very real fear of hitting the ground face first.

Stumbling forward, Rocky’s initial panic turned into action as he flailed his arms, desperately trying to grip anything that he could get his hands on to try and stabilize.

By sheer happenstance, his hand gripped Sophia’s arm, pulling her slightly off balance. Instinctively, Rocky’s other arm wrapped around her waist belt in a desperate bid to correct his fall.

Instead of crashing to the ground as everyone expected, Rocky’s stumble transformed into a moment of unexpected advantage.

With a combination of momentum, surprise, and perhaps a touch of unintended skill, Rocky managed to lift Sophia off her feet. In a fluid motion that seemed more luck than design as he executed a move that resembled an overhead body slam, using Sophia’s own forward momentum against her.

*BAM*

Planting her on the ground with a loud *THUD*, Rocky found himself in an advantageous position over her, as he saw the opportunity to hit her face which was wide open and took it without hesitation.

*POW*

*POW*

Punching with sheer power rather than technique, Rocky planted two nasty punches on Sophia’s face, as Professor Mave instantly stepped in and pulled the two fighters apart.

The crowd gasped, then erupted into cheers as Sophia hit the ground with a thud, the impact echoing through the arena.

For a moment, everything went still. Rocky, as surprised as anyone by what had just occurred, stood over Sophia, his expression a mix of disbelief and happiness as professor Mave pulled him away from his defeated opponent.

“Winner! Rocky!” Professor Mave eventually said as he raised his arm to the energetic crowd, while Sophia watched in pure horror.

To her, this event did not feel like a fluke. Since Rocky’s patron god was Shakuni, she thought he had deliberately pretended to be weak at the start to get Sophia to lower her defenses and when she did, he immediately pounced on that opportunity and defeated her.

As she stood back up, blood dripping down her face, she clapped for Rocky with grace as she said “It seems like you are the better fighter amongst us both”.

Internally, she was mad as hell for losing, however, externally she maintained her prideful image, as with her praising Rocky, half the rumors that would have been generated in the university the next day, were already put to bed.

Rocky, accepting the complement from his rival, smiled politely and nodded, once again not responding to her kind words at all, as he let her believe in the myth that all this was intentional.

” NAH NAH NAH, HOW ARE YOU ALL SO DUMB AS TO CHEER THIS? THIS WAS CLEARLY SOME CRAZY FLUKE” said a tall and strong tiger Beastman, who seemed to have taken offense to Rocky winning.

“If you have any honor as a man, admit to the fact that this was sheer dumb luck! I bet the whole fur on my body that you can’t do it twice” said the beastman, as Boos rained down on him from the crowd.

“It was clearly a strategy!  Hahaha, fools like you can never understand what level the Champion of Gemini fights at”

“Hahaha, Sophia admits that he’s better, but her kitty can’t handle it”

“If you’re so confident it’s fluke, why don’t you go and fight him! Do you have the balls?”

The crowd began arguing about Rocky’s win after the Beastmans shout, however, Rocky did not care.

[ Strongest System Notification –

You have successfully defeated Sophia and completed the system quest!

You have obtained, (Basic) martial arts mastery.

You have obtained, (Basic) Swordsmanship mastery. ]

Closing his eyes, he felt all the knowledge about martial arts and swordsmanship flowing from the system to his brain as within seconds he went from an absolute fighting novice to someone who had the same level of martial arts understanding as Sophia who had been training since she was a child.

“We still have time in this lecture, Rocky, Do you wish to fight the next challenger?” Professor Mave asked as Rocky turned his head to face him.

Professor Mave, who was also one of the very few people skeptical of Rocky’s win, wanted to see if it was really a fluke or was Rocky just that genius of a strategist, as he personally hoped that Rocky accepted the fight.

“Sure professor, I’ll fight the Beastman” Rocky said with a confident smile now, as he put one arm behind his back and pointed towards the beastman as he said “Come”.

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