"There is no fate between us!" Ryoji rejected the Amazoness girl's advances with an imposing manner.
"Even Loki Familia has finally made their move, huh?" Under the arena, Shakti let out a helpless bitter smile.
The Lv.5 "Crusher" was undoubtedly an executive-level figure in Loki Familia, holding significant authority within the familia.
Knowing how boring the arena was, her appearance here was definitely not a spur-of-the-moment decision. The only possibility was that she had been assigned a quest by the leader of Loki Familia.
And this quest could only be to recruit Ryoji, the super rookie who had caused a sensation in Orario.
Loki Familia was one of the two strongest familias in Orario. Although they couldn't compare to Ganesha Familia in terms of numbers, they surpassed them in every aspect of strength. Moreover, for a rookie like Ryoji, having too many members in a familia wasn't necessarily a good thing.
Shakti shook her head in disappointment.
It seemed there was no hope for Ganesha Familia.
On the arena.
"Gununu!"
The Amazoness girl pouted, her black eyes glaring at Ryoji with frustration.
"Facing an Lv.5 opponent... this is probably not going to be easy."
Ryoji was not blind to the situation. From the gasps around him, he could tell that this girl was precisely the person from Loki Familia he had been expecting. The reason she had come to the arena was likely to test his abilities.
As for how strong an Lv.5 adventurer truly was, he honestly had no idea. Whether his current strength was enough to catch the eye of such a familia was still unknown.
"No, here I just need to give it my all!"
Ryoji took a deep breath, suppressing the slight nervousness that came from facing an opponent beyond his expectations, and entered a state of clear mirror, still water. His eyes quickly became calm and unruffled.
"Can't you reconsider..."
The girl named Tiona was still unwilling to give up, trying to salvage her love that had ended before it even began.
"Enough talk, let's duel!" Ryoji's attitude was resolute as he raised the standard katana in his hand.
"Damn oh oh!" The girl let out a cry of grief and indignation.
She raised her seemingly delicate fist, her bare feet stomping heavily on the ground.
"Boom!"
The stone bricks of the arena instantly shattered into fine fragments like leaf veins.
Her tender feet unleashed the power of a rocket launcher, giving the girl an enormous amount of kinetic energy and allowing her to charge at Ryoji with a ferocious momentum!
So fast!
So fast that her figure was almost impossible to see with the naked eye!
It was as if in the blink of an eye, she had already arrived in front of him.
In that instant, her speed surpassed the limits of Ryoji's dynamic vision. There was no way he could dodge—
"Bang!"
Tiona's fist struck the ground.
"Boom!"
The ground of the arena instantly split into pieces, and the pure white rocks within a radius of more than ten meters were effortlessly turned into scattered islands on the ground.
"Dodged?" Tiona turned around in surprise.
In that moment, she had clearly felt that Ryoji seemed to be stuck in a quagmire. The huge disadvantage in physical strength made it impossible for him to escape her strike.
She had originally intended to pull back her strength and just lightly touch him, but her vision blurred, and the boy's figure flew out. She then took the opportunity to release her strength, shattering the stone arena.
She looked in the direction beside her.
The boy was standing more than ten meters away from her.
His left foot was in front, his right foot was behind, and he had slightly raised the heel of his right foot. His posture was somewhat unnatural.
"Did he injure his foot?" Tiona looked at Ryoji's stance, showing a look of realization.
He had shifted his body's center of gravity significantly to his left foot, but in combat, a warrior would never adopt a stance that concentrated all the pressure on one foot, as it would reduce the power chain.
That was clear evidence that his right foot was injured.
Although she didn't know how he had managed to dodge her punch, it was obvious that it hadn't come without a cost.
"So strong..." Ryoji took a deep breath, enduring the sharp pain in his right ankle, and focused his attention on Tiona's body.
In that instant, he had subconsciously activated "Absolute Divine Speed" on his body, setting his dodging speed to be faster than Tiona's running speed, barely allowing him to escape her punch.
This move was originally still in the conceptual stage, created by Ryoji to compensate for his inability to use footwork, making it his own unique footwork.
The reason it was still in the conceptual stage wasn't due to its complexity; on the contrary, the principle behind it was quite simple.
It relied on the idea that "his running speed was absolutely faster than the opponent's running speed," thus forming an "absolute evasion" footwork, which had no technique involved.
He named it "Sword Step."
However, Sword Step required Ryoji to give himself a direction, meaning he needed a starting action to push off, and after dodging, he had to land perfectly instead of being thrown off balance by the momentum.
Therefore, a certain level of leg strength was necessary for the Sword Step.
Due to insufficient leg strength, Ryoji's hasty use of Sword Step had injured his ankle, and now his right foot was sprained.
Indeed, Lv.5 was incredibly strong!
The first move of only making a move forced him to use Sword Step, which he couldn't yet master perfectly, just to survive.
But this made his need for "Blessing(Falna)" even more urgent.
"Ugh... with my foot injured, I've completely lost my mobility. If I want to win, I can only rely on the Lightning Flint move—"
But he couldn't use it.
Ryoji suppressed the burning desire to win in his heart and designated Lightning Flint as a forbidden technique.
He wanted to win.
He hated losing; it reminded him of his weak and helpless past.
But all of this was predicated on being able to preserve his life. If he lost his life, not only would victory become meaningless, but he would also have to abandon his ideals.
Given that, he could only let her attack first and then use that move—
"I'm not fighting anymore!"
As Ryoji contemplated his strategy, the Amazoness girl suddenly dropped her stance.
"I'm Lv.5, after all. It's already enough to bully the weak, and yet I couldn't finish you off in one move. How embarrassing! I'm quitting!"
She waved her hand, showing a lack of interest.
Her fighting intent had completely vanished.
Just as she said, fighting between an Lv.5 and an ordinary person was akin to an adult bullying a baby, and not being able to finish it in one move made it particularly embarrassing.
"... Let's postpone the outcome." Ryoji remained silent for a moment before making a suggestion.
"The outcome doesn't really matter... but if you insist, that's fine!" Tiona initially didn't care much, but seeing Ryoji's serious attitude, she scratched her head and readily agreed.
"Speaking of which, are you interested in joining our Loki Familia?" She flashed a big smile, "To be honest, I was sent by the Captain to invite you!"
"Let's go!"
"You agreed so fast!"
(End of Chapter)
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