Martial Arts Worlds-Chapter 861: Strongest - Part 8

"Ngh!"

The baseball bat hit Michael in the arm, and he grimaced with pain.

Merrick kept swinging the bat, and Michael just weaved whatever swing he could and blocked the rest with his arms.

"I only left you alive last time because there were other groups nearby. They were just waiting for an opportunity to pounce on us.

"We didn't leave you all because we thought you were strong or anything like that!"

Merrick shouted and brought his baseball bat down.

It landed against Michael's arms. Crack. Something definitely broke, and Michael let out a cry of pain.

"Jab!"

Michael threw a quick jab. Merrick blocked it with the bat. He followed with a fierce swing of the bat.

Michael bent his body backward, and the baseball bat grazed past his head—it was so close to almost cracking his skull.

"Argh! Argh! Argh!"

Meanwhile, Samuel suffered under the onslaught of Ives' metal pipe strikes, and his body was screaming in pain.

In that moment, Ronan came forward while swinging the knife and left behind a long trail of blood on Samuel's face.

'I… just need to take one of them down!'

Samuel screamed inwardly.

He waited for an opportunity, and at that moment, Ronan pressed forward with a very reckless knife stab.

In that moment, Samuel caught him by the wrist and disarmed him with a quick twist of the hand—Ronan looked shocked.

Samuel quickly picked up the knife from the ground and held it towards Ronan and Ives with a painful gaze.

"Back off, or you will die!"

Samuel screamed.

"How could you let this moron take away your weapon? You should be fucking embarrassed, Ronan."

Ives said in annoyance.

"Tsk!"

Ronan clicked his tongue in anger.

"Huff! Huff! Huff!"

Kellan and Bishop stared at Kiernan—they were panting heavily—and they were honestly afraid to make a move.

They had noticed that Kiernan wasn't really paying any attention to them, as if he didn't think of them as any kind of threat.

"Let's work together, dude. We'll defeat them together!"

Isaac shouted.

"Work together? No need."

Kiernan walked past Kellan and Bishop—they didn't even notice him walk as he left behind afterimages during his walk—he used Firefoot technique.

Crack! Crack!

At that moment.

Kellan and Bishop's necks broke.

"Stygian Strain…"

With a whisper, Kiernan stopped walking, and behind him, Kellan and Bishop dropped down to the ground.

They were dead.

"?!?!?!?!?!"

Isaac's eyes widened in shock.

'So, you decided to show your real strength after all.'

Bael spoke inside his mind.

'What're you talking about? I barely did anything. They were just too weak, so even acting weak was hard for me.

'Enough of that, though. I've been watching Michael fight, and he is very average, don't you think? I know when a person tries to act weak because they can't hide the strength that flows in their veins.

'Michael, on the other hand, is as average as he can get.'

Kiernan thought.

'I don't know, but there is something about him that I find really unsettling, and I'd suggest not to underestimate him.'

Bael said.

'Whatever…'

Kiernan sighed.

He then turned to Samuel and saw him struggling—he thought about helping but decided not to.

"Let's go help Samuel!"

Isaac said excitedly.

With Cross, Kellan, and Bishop defeated, they were the ones with the number advantage, and with three of them, they could easily defeat Ronan and Ives.

"You go… I am a little tired… It took a lot of my strength to defeat these three… I need to catch my breath…"

Kiernan said.

"What?"

Isaac said with a frown.

To him, it looked like Kiernan was in excellent condition, unaffected by the battle, and not tired at all.

'Maybe I am mistaken? I mean… he defeated those three… and there is a possibility that doing those techniques of his is quite exhausting.'

Isaac nodded and went alone to help Samuel.

"Those fools all lost?"

Ives said in surprise.

They weren't watching the fight that was happening, so they didn't know whether it was Kiernan or Isaac that defeated them.

They looked at Isaac with suspicion.

"Hah…"

Samuel looked relieved at the sight of Isaac, and the grip on the knife turned tighter—they could actually win this!

Isaac picked up Bishop's crowbar and then launched himself straight at Ives—the metal pipe and crowbar clashed.

"Die!"

Samuel slashed down at Ronan. He dodged. And he then grabbed Samuel's arm, trying to take the knife back.

In that moment, Samuel kicked Ronan in the groin. It caused something to crack in Ronan's body.

"ARGH!"

Ronan screamed in agony.

Samuel slashed with the knife and cut straight through Ronan's neck—the man collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood.

"Ronan, shit!"

Ives paled.

He lost concentration for a moment, and that was enough for Isaac to take full advantage of it—the crowbar's sharp edge slashed through Ives' abdomen, spraying blood everywhere.

"Aaaaaaarghhhhh!"

Ives tried stopping his guts from spilling out of him, and he dropped to the ground in agony—screaming, screaming, and screaming even more.

"What the hell?"

Merrick then noticed that everyone had somehow died—he only asked 'How?' with disbelief in his face—and the bat dropped from his hand.

He turned around, tried leaving the room, but the door was tightly locked, and it refused to open no matter what he tried.

"You are not leaving alive. You should've killed us when you had the chance!"

Michael picked up the baseball bat and struck Merrick's head—the skull cracked—and the body fell to the ground.

"W-we did it!"

"Yeah, haha!"

Samuel and Isaac cheered.

"Hmph."

Michael dropped the baseball bat to the ground and looked at all the accumulated damage on his arms.

They were bruised and might even have some broken bones there as well.

"Tch…"

He looked annoyed.

Click! Click!

The doors clicked open, and they rushed out of the room—they breathed the air of freedom—even though it was the same stale air of the previous room.

[5:33…]

[5:32…]

"The Sanctuary opens soon, so we should start heading over there."

Michael said.

They all agreed and started heading over, but while walking, Isaac and Samuel were whispering about something.

"Are you serious…?"

Samuel whispered with disbelief.

He took a quick glance at Kiernan—who looked like he was daydreaming—and then turned back to Isaac.

"Yes… all of them…"

Isaac whispered back.

He just told Samuel about how it was Kiernan who defeated three of them.

'That means he is really strong…'

Samuel thought with a frown.

It was good to have a powerful teammate so they could survive, but if they reached the end and they had to deal with both Kiernan and Michael, it seemed very hard.

'What to do…'

Soon after, they arrived back at the Sanctuary, and everyone else was also slowly arriving over there.

[0:00]

The clock struck zero, and the doors of the Sanctuary opened, and when they were fully open, they came across surprising sights.

There were now tables and chairs in the Sanctuary—filled with food of all kinds—and at the screen it said 'Enjoy the food.'

"Food!"

"Alright, let's fucking go!"

"I was actually getting hungry just now!"

Everyone excited sat down around the tables, filled their plates with food, and started stuffing their mouths with food.

Except for a few.

Kiernan didn't join others at the table. He just grabbed a few apples from a bowl and went to sit down at the corner.

'Is it poisoned?'

He looked at the apple and did some tasting—smell and taste in particular—and it didn't smell like poison.

It seemed like a real apple.

'I doubt they would go through all this trouble just to poison us, but maybe there is something else in the food that they aren't telling us.'

Kiernan thought.

He then pocketed the apple and decided to wait and see—see how the food would affect everybody else.

If it looked like it was safe to eat, he was going to eat the apples, as even he couldn't survive without food.

He wasn't the only one doing this.

Across the Sanctuary, Erik was also just keeping an eye on the dining participants and looked deadly serious.

"…Hmm?"

Erik also saw Kiernan and narrowed his eyes.

'There are around 40 fighters left. They are dwindling quickly.'

Kiernan thought.

It seemed like the weak ones had all perished, and there were mostly only legends of the underworld left.

"…That's not who I expected to see here.

Sitting at the dining table, a blue-haired man said while he was enjoying some chicken and beer.

"Who?"

One of his companions asked.

"That guy."

The blue-haired man pointed his chin towards Michael, who was calmly eating like a gentleman.

"What about him?"

His companion asked.

"I never expected him to amount to much. That guy is from my hometown. We used to compete in the same tournaments."

The blue-haired man said.

"Oh? You two must've had some crazy fights then since both of you managed to reach this tournament."

His companion said.

"No, quite the opposite. I won all the tournaments. Michael never made it past the first round. He is a below-average boxer.

"He was the most talentless fighter I've probably ever seen, but since he made it here, I guess he trained hard."

The blue-haired man shrugged his shoulders.