"So long as you don't touch the ground outside the bounds, it's all good,

" Michael said.

"I'll keep that in mind. If all goes well, we'll only use it at the finals,

" Noah told him, making the leader nod. Turning back towards the screen, the fight had already begun. Noah curse in his mind the fact that he couldn't see the fight with his own eyes. The frame-rate of this television was very slow, even in comparison to cheap monitors. They had prioritized the size. As such, many quick motions appeared blurred, and he could barely see what was happening.

In very little time, both teams made their way to the center of the arena, where the annoying paladin tried to shine. Noah had already guessed his blessing at this point, but seing it in action was amusing to say the least. It was a sword blessing that gave him incredible strength in predetermined attacks, or so it seemed. As soon as he bade his way in the middle of the enemy team, he started spinning, a faint glowing line creating an extra edge on his blade. It was almost funny to see him go around like a spinning toy, his sword clashing against the enemy shields on the way.

From seeing how the warriors avoided touching that spinning blade, it was clear to Noah that it held extreme power. And as he thought so, the spinning blade clashed against the edge of one of the other team's shield. The sheer innertia of the blade sent the warrior flying, together with his shield, as the Hyu family member blessing dispelled.

'So that's how it works. He can spin for a long time, so long as he doesn't encounter a large resistance...' Noah wrote it down somewhere in his mind as he watched the assassin made her way around the arena, one point at a time. She was almost reaching the point were the other family group had started from. And Noah awaited with a certain kind of anticipation for how good she would be.

With his blessing dispelled, this obnoxious guy had turned an easy target, and soon long range blessings started pouring over him. None were particularly powerful, just the average fireball, ice and the occasional arrow of C Rank Blessed. It almost made Noah think few families took this arena seriously. At least when it came to choosing their teams.

But as he tried to dodge the spells and arrows targeted at him while retreating, someone else caught Noah's attention, the inconspicuous sidekick. He'd run towards him at full pace, and raised his shield, as if pointing it to the heavens, and suddenly, a white gust of wind flew from his shield, clashing against all blessings shot at the leader, and dispelling them all.

"That guy seems to be trouble,

" Noah murmured as he saw the enemy family's faces of confusion.

"Yeah, he's a massive pain in the ass,

" Michael said without turning around to face him.

"Last time that mother**er shot down all my arrows with that stupid blessing, and he's also fairly well versed in swordfight. He's a major pain.

"

"So he can use that skill that many times? Yeah... we better take him down fast,

" Noah muttered as he saw what was taking place, but almost at the same time he saw the female assassin jump into the enemy backline, Michael said something way more important.

"I'd rather have you take down that woman. A single scratch of her daggers can render you unconscious. Who in the **ing hell would get a blessing of a God of Poison or whatever?

" He grumbled angrily.

While thinking about the leader's words, Noah watched as the woman soared above the enemy backline unnoticed, falling from the air between two of their long rangers. And with a shallow cut to their backs, she retreated to the other side of the arena, jumping over the fight taking place in the middle and dropping to the backline of the Huy family's group. What surprised Noah the most was how she made footings to change direction mid-air to avoid the attacks of the very same people she had injured a second ago. But her cuts were not meant to kill, just to hurt.

Noah watched with curiosity as he saw the mages suddenly collapse, to the surpise of their companions who had considered the surprise attack a failure. But Noah was more wary of something else, the woman was extremely tired.

"Michael, are you sure her blessing is from the God of Poison?

" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure so, why?

" Michael this time turned around.

"I think there's something else going on, because of her other blessing that lets her jump through the air...

" Noah put his finger over his mouth, resting his head on his palm by the chin.

"I think the poison is unrelated to her blessing, her blessing is related to thievery, unless...

"

"Say what you think,

" Michael prompted him.

"There's a minor god in the Greek Mythos... Maybe two... No, that shouldn't be possible, right?

" Noah stoped mid way, realizing there was at least one major flaw in this argument. Also, blessed equipment could have its own power. And he also was pretty aware of the power of familiars...

"What? Having two blessings? Yeah, that can't be,

" Michael was also very thoughtful.

"Maybe it's something else, but we should make sure. However, it seems that taking those two down was her maximum, at least for now.

"

Noah nodded at what he said, seing her hide between the backline with a bad complexion, as if her willpower had been drained for her, and making him remember more clearly the god he'd accidentally stumbled upon while searching about Apolo a long time back

"I'll check it out later, but her complexion after those two fell points towards something,

" Noah made sure to keep that doubt in mind, as he watched the rest of the battle unfold.

With two fo their most powerful backline missing, having only a healer and an archer for support, the family that was facing the Hyu Family was putting up a good fight still. They were very good in comparison to the Hyu family in terms of both strategy and execution, while the Hyu was only focused on sheer power, aside from that strange sidekick and his shield blessing.

It seemed like, in full honesty, theyhad seldom worked together as a team. Like a jumble of

"powerful

" individuals of the C rank following blindly the three who made the center of the group, who only worked together while using the rest as pawns.

In the end, after a while, the time was ticking, and Noah could see the frustration in the face of the young master of the Hyu family. Though most of his strikes were landing, he was failing to give any substantial damage to the enemies, Noah was curois as to what he'd do next, but he surprised him.

"FUCK YOU ALL!

" He yelled, loud enough they could hear despite the closed room and the muted screen. He jumped, his sword pointing to the sky, as it started glowing yellow, and it came crashing down on the warrior in front of him.

That was the strength of a B Rank Blessed.

His sword sliced through the poor warrior's sword, shield, and armor as if they were sheets of paper, gouging a deep wound that extended from his shoulder all the way down to his last rib. And it wasn't like the sword had cut him, it had sliced cleanly through him. The warrior coughed a mouthful of blood with round eyes, covering the young master's entire armor in dropplets of vibrant red. Noah furrowed his brows as he saw the face of disgust in this guy's eyes, as he pulled his sword up, spraying blood all over, as the warrior fell to the ground, most likely dead.

"We surrender! Why the ** would you do that?!

" the leader of the enemy family raised his arms with a scared face, looking at his friend laying on the ground. Even the judge was surprised, waiting a second before declaring the Hyu family's win.

"What a **ty ass mother**er...

" the bearded warrior mumbled while clenching his fist.

Aside from the female healer's scared expression, everyone in the room had one of anger. Noah knew killing was not against the rules of this match, but there was probably som unspoken rule about going too far for no reason.

"Michael? What just happened?

" Noah asked, probing.

"He used his strongest blessing on the weakest warrior of the other team he knew couldn't defend it. This is just pointless killing... He'd already won this battle...

" Noah was confused by his answer. He didn't expect there to be that much of a problem, but Michael soon cleared his confusion.

"This is a place for the families to show their growing strength, the new people who are being trained, B Rank Blessed are not supposed to coem here. The only exception is the Leaders. But we always try to fight within the realm of the rest of our group, to avoid pointless killing just for the sake of it.

"

"So, not only did he choose someone he knew couldn't defend his hit at all, he did something that he's not supposed to do? Does that have any consequence?

" Noah asked, nout out of concern, but thinking about this maybe making his way to winning the bets he put a lot easier.

"Not really. It'll maybe lower the image of his family if they didn't want something like this to happen... But the Hyu family doesn't even have that good of an image to start with, so there's nothing else, really...

" Michael clenched his fist, watching the Hyu family go down the stairs, while the members of the other family tried stabilizing him with the use of healing magic.

The next fight took a lot longer to start this time.