Niftan felt some gazes on him, and he controlled his face not to change his expression or facepalm. In any case, there was no way to change Rise’s mind once he had already decided to do something.

He could only ignore the gazes.

Seeing his attitude, the other higher-ups could not help but sigh. Of course, they expected this. Who would not know how he indulged his son?

However, none of them stood up to stop the duel either. In fact, most of them showed anticipation. Epsilon was an S-rank esper, but he was newly awakened, after all. And they had yet to see his capabilities.

Rise, on the other hand, his abilities were known to everyone. It would be best to use him to test the newly registered S-rank. Although Epsilon showed his abilities earlier, fighting a dummy was ultimately different from dueling a seasoned veteran like Rise.

Epsilon glanced at the higher-ups; seeing none of them object made his eyes flicker in displeasure. His hands almost clenched, but he softened them again, still showing such an attitude befitting his goody-two-shoes image.

Rise watched it all, and his laughter rang again. His eyes lingered on Epsilon’s hand before he shifted again to his face. Their eyes meet.

There was a kind of mocking glint in his eyes. Rise wanted to annoy him and show his true colors, preferably with a lot of people watching.

"Do you dare or not?"

Rise repeated, as Epsilon had yet to take up his challenge.

Epsilon’s purple eyes shimmered, and only Rise could see the rage in them, which made him grin widely.

"Okay. Let’s duel." His voice was calm, despite the raging emotions inside of him. The others could not help but look at him a few more times, somehow drawn by his majestic voice.

Rise did not even care anymore about his protagonist’s halo; it was to be expected, after all. So, he was there to test it.

He did not say a word anymore and directly jumped from where he was towards the testing ground. The ground even shook as it cracked from the heavy impact.

It then slowly mends itself. However, his display already earned a few gasps of admiration. Rise was such a show-off, and he would always do it his way.

There was not much distance from them, and his blood boiled at being this close to Epsilon. Likewise, the other was the same; his purple pupils shimmered with intense emotions, making them deeper.

At this distance from the audience and with them deliberately distorting their words, none would be able to understand their conversation from above.

"You arrived so early."

Rise probed, but he was a hundred percent sure that Epsilon knew who he was and his role in this world. He only needed to observe him a few times to realize it.

Epsilon did not have any intention to prolong this charade either. Just by this close proximity, Rise was already an eyesore to him. Pretending would not help him much.

His lips curled, controlled, and very annoyingly. It would affect everyone, but Rise was different. He found it pretentious and annoying.

"If not? You might have already stolen everything that belongs to me then." His voice was pleasant, but the content was taunting.

Rise was not affected much.

He merely shrugged, a wild grin remaining on his lips.

"Belong to you? I don’t think so. How shameless are you to claim ownership of things you haven’t even touched yet?"

The corner of Epsilon’s lips twitched.

"Good. How can a villain admit they are mere thieves?" Epsilon composed himself again and looked directly at Rise. "Whether you admit it or not... Nothing that you have really belongs to you."

Rise’s grin still remained on his lips, not provoked at all. However, Epsilon’s next words made the smile on his lips falter slightly.

"Even him. He’s mine... destined to be mine." Epsilon noticed the change in Rise’s expression, and his lips finally arched up in genuine amusement. "Do you think you already won? No, we’re only starting. And everything that belongs to me... I’ll reclaim it."

Rise admitted this epsilon never changed. He was still the same asshole who knew how to push his buttons. One thing that made him insecure was about Kamille.

And Epsilon knew how to use it.

Still, he was not one to directly attack without a care anymore.

Instead, Rise recalled Kamille’s assuring words. Though deep in his heart he had doubts, he chose to listen to his words. He used that to calm himself down.

"Reclaim, huh?" Rise’s lips stretched once more. "Let’s see if you really can do that."

At the same time that his words ended, a heavy pressure directly descended to encompass the whole training ground. Even spectators had felt it when they were not the target, so what was more for Epsilon?

Epsilon almost staggered because of the sudden pressure, and his chest tightened, almost suffocating him. However, he soon adapted to it.

In fact, some kind of immunity seemed to have been granted to him as he slowly lifted the restriction on him.

Rise was watching him and clicked his tongue. Sure enough, the protagonist was still the protagonist with his halo. He was not caught off guard by this, and he expected it.

What was troublesome about Epsilon? He was only half-affected by his force field. Of course, this only applied to his body. His abilities and projectiles were treated the same as others; if not, why would the author bestow him that ring to counter Rise?

Rise would not wait for him to make a move, though, and his body began to move to approach Epsilon. In his domain, while others were affected by the pressure, Rise was the opposite. His body felt so much lighter as he used the pressure to his advantage.

Epsilon narrowed his eyes and stretched his hand; the weapons on the side floated and flew to his side, surrounding him as he began his escape from Rise’s pursuit.

Rise did not care about those weapons at all; he concentrated half of the pressure on his surroundings as the others went to his fist.

His eyes flickered and pounced towards the fleeing epsilon. Who said he needed to completely touch Epsilon to hurt him?

At this, Epsilon had the premonition and quickly dodged to the side, and the weapons were used to brace the impact. Slowly, those weapons were destroyed, and fists were embedded in the wall.