BXBX NOVEL Chapter 285 - 285 Those Who Fly
"Now that's gonna be interesting..." Noah muttered.
"Yeah, right? Some ranged shit gonna happen," one of the warriors said, looking at the screen like an american dad watching football.
"Wanna bet how much they won't even get into the arena for a while?" another one said.
Little did he know, he'd win that bet and get incredibly bored in the process.
Noah watched, merely bored, as the two families launched long range attacks at each other like in a low quality towe defense game. At this point, it was clear not much was going to happen, aside from them running out of both arrows and mana and launching a suicide attack through the main arena, or so he and most there thought.
The arena layout this time was far simples than last time, corridors from each of the nine corners and meeting in the center. A very boring arena layout, for a very boring fight. By this time
"These guys... how did they even manage to get appointed for the arena?" the bearded warrior said while scratching his beard.
"Their leaders are probably related to the big shots in the family. You know those show up from time to time," Michael shrugged, as he cleaned his bow with an equaly unimpressed expression.
"Good luch of theirs that this first fight was between them, If they were to fight anyone from the real groups they'd be wiped the floor with," the scout butted in.
"They would probably just surrender if that was the case, though. They just want to put up a show, you'll see." Michael yawned.
"So, now, wanna explain that whole sponsor thing for Valorwatch?" Noah asked the scout, since nobody cared about this fight anymore.
"Eh... I didn't think you'd be that interested in it," he responded, half joking.
"Why not? Do I look too serious to care about a game?" Noah retorted back, teasing.
"Eh... Actually, yeah," the scout jeered as he changed seats to avoid being a nuisance to the others. "I thought you only cared about some higher goal or whatever."
"I guess I do give off that image sometimes," Noah responded while rolling his eyes. "So, how the heck does that work?"
"Are you familiar with game streaming?" he asked, with a serious expression.
'So he doesn't know about the whole Lucifer thing. Guess he isn't that into streaming,' he thought, as he measured his answer. "Yeah. I got introduced to it a while back. A frind of mine even streamed us at a championship... It was wild."
"A friend... Wait a second, you are that Lucifer?! Wasn't that guy an F rank blessed?!"
"Oi, shush! ... Nevermind, everyone is looking this way already." Noah facepalmed as his conversation had become the center of everyone's attention, against his original intention of learning what the heck this guy had to say. What followed was a lot of empty questioning about who he was and how he'd managed to become this much more powerful so quickly. But a couple of people weren't having any of it.
"Come fucking on, pleople! We are all at least Blessed Rank D, why the heck are you guys behaving like fucking groupies?" the bearded warrior stood up, hitting his hands hard against his armor with a loud clank. He was clearly not having any of that anymore, though Michael also had an annoyed expression, and so did Noah. "See, we lost the end of that shitty ass fight! Though those idiots just surrendered as soon as their mana ran out. God, what a boring fight. But we may be fighting the winners, and like he did last fight, someone in their group could've saved up a trump card. Grow up! We can talk about how much you want him to bang your girlfriends later."
Noah held back his laughter at that last comment, but refrained from doing so as he look at their serious expressions. Though, Michael didn't have to me so careful and burst into laughter.
"He's right. It's pretty obvious you can do some ridiculous stuff with your blessing if you don't have to worry about dying or protecting someone. And you all already know his power from the fortress, what are you trying to do by getting all over him? The only person here who managed to hold herself back was Eri. And look at how embarrassed she is at you all!" Michael gave them an earful, but Noah didn't really mind any of it. While it was a bit annoying that the scout hadn't finished explaining, they would have more time before leaving anyways.
But the girl was really red now, to the poing Noah felt like helping her a little. But it wasn't like he held all the answers. And there was not much he could do now to help her, as the rest of the group slowly sat back at their places while mumbling. Fortunately, it was at the exact time the other five who had been healed elsewhere had showed up.
"What's with the mood?" a mage who just got into the room asked.
"The fight was shit," a warrior responded, changing topics.
"Oh, and Noah was that Lucifer demon guy from the Valorwatch tournament," a female warrior said, making a lot of the people facepalm.
"Whaaat?!" A couple of the five, who presumably knew something about that, started hyping the whole thing, only to be reprimanded by the bearded warrior.
"Not again! For God's sake, let's watch the fight that's about to start, will you?" He turned towards the screen, turning everyone's attention. The change in the focus allowed Noah to finally talk to the healer.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked in a low voice.
"Umm, yeah. It's just..." she stalled mid sentence, her cheeks growing red. "Nevermind, I'll tell you about it later." She nodded, looking towards the screen with the rest.
Noah merely shrugged, while contemplating what she could have to tell him. But in the end, it was probably not something that important. Suddenly his attention also moved to the screen, his curiosity piqueting, and he saw that one of the families fighting this time was that of those obnoxious people from earlier.
'Now we'll see what these idiots have to show for themselves...' he thought, as the two families got in position and the countdown began. Noah took note to see how they were dressed. The biggest idiot of them all was clad in armor, like a palladin, brandishing a large sword that almost looked too big for him. He couldn't immediately spot the other guy, mostly because he already had no features that caught Noah's attention before, let alone now with a generic piece of armor on. But the girl, on the other hand, caught his attention. She was wearing very light clothes, and had a pair of hunting knives in her hands. She was the spit image of an assassin, and something about her posture and positioning at the edge of the group caught Noah's attention. Noah also caught eye of the conversations around, and the other side. While they also represented one of the nine families, they seemed exceptionally avarega for a C rank group. but something told Noah this battlle would be far more interesting than the last one.
As the countdown began, he started paying full attention to the girl on the edge of the arena. these two families were closer from each other than the Khan family group was to that in the first battle, but much further than the ones from last battle. This also gave Noah the arrangement of the groups participating in next battle, but he didn't care about that as much. As the timer ticked down the Hyu girl lowered her stance, almost as if preparing for something. Noah wondered about what she'd do, since the arena arrangement had not yet been shown, but as the time hit 1, she turned to the side, not to the arena.
The walls in the arena raised themselves, showing a near straight path between the two families with just a couple mid-height walls for cover. Noah watched as all 29 people rushed towards the center, to fight a head-on battle.
Only 29, though. Because that girl was doing something completely out of the ordinary. She ran towards the edge of the point, and jumped towards the other nearby point, completely ignoring what the rest was doing. She ran low to the ground, hiding herself until the last second, as she leaped over the stairs that would lead down and flew through the air. Noah was sure she would not make it across like that, but blessings existed for a reason.
"Michael, Is that allowed?!" Noah asked, surprised, as she suddenly double-jumped mid air, almost as if an invisible footing had materialized just for her to use it, landing cleanly on the empty point on a blind spot of the other team. She quickly recovered her low stance, jumping across each of the gaps without ever entering the middle of the arena, making her way closer to the backline of the enemy.
"So long as you don't touch the ground outside the bounds, it's all good."
Michael's answer only strenghtened one certainty in Noah's mind.
Those Blessed with the ability to fly, were leagues above those of equal rank.