Age Of Heroes

Arial understood the crowd's shock.

After the war began, he had rarely set foot in the city, not to mention that he had spent many years training at the Academy.

The people who knew him were administration officials and anyone from the village, the merchant association or the guilds.

The new settlers had never seen him.

Arturo was as shocked as everyone else and stared at him with caution. Arial suspected that the young knight and the girl were not who they claimed to be.

"A lord?" Arturo asked.

"Why does it matter?" Arial snorted.

The blue-haired girl nodded. "Yes, why does it matter? You are certainly a member of the martial arts community. There is no doubt considering your technique."

The fight resumed, and the girl's attacks became more dangerous and reckless. A desperate move, Arial thought.

He used this opportunity to memorize her moves, but it was very difficult. She was unpredictable like the clouds, elusive like the wind.

She began employing internal energy in her attacks and releasing powerful blows.

Arial responded.

Gale wind enveloped the wooden stage and even making the entire platform tremble and shaking.

The spectators moved back a little from the platform stage, fearing injury by stray blows.

The girl attacked and Arial parried her strokes.

She pierced, he dodged. Their fight was like a dance of the Sun King and the Water Princess. The Renasian had a unique fighting style.

"Hurry up!" cried a voice from the crowd.

"Defeat her Lord Arial, marry her and have many children!" The audience bursts into laughter. Arial and the girl both looked at each other and blushed.

"What are you looking at?" she said, yelling at him in order to hide her embarrassment.

"Nothing!" he answered, blushing.

Arial had had enough and now knew who the blue-haired girl was.

The crowd was right.

It was time to defeat her and send her back to her homeland.

If she really were the disciple of the Eastern Devil, she might invite chaos wherever she went.

It is a pity, of course, Arial thought.

I would have liked to have known her better, but I can't afford to let her make a mess in my region.

Disciples of the Four Immortals were regarded as very dangerous if the rumors were to be believed.

"Are you ready?" he said while maintaining a safe distance from her.

"Ready for what?" she asked.

"Ready to be defeated," he answered and quickly lunged at her with lightning speed, aiming for her shoulder.

She looked surprised as Arial used his palm attack.

She ducked, escaping the blow, but the nearby wooden pillar exploded next to her from the force of the internal energy.

Arial looked back. "All right," he said in a panicked voice.

He had not meant to use that much internal energy, but luckily, the girl had dodged his attack. His opponent looked at the wooden pillars and then looked at him.

"You are an expert! Who taught you how to fight? The Northern Badger? The Western Serpent?" she asked, completely fl.u.s.tered.

"I taught myself," Arial answered.

"Pah!" She spat at the ground. "Lies! That is impossible! You fight in the Northern style. You were taught by the Northern Badger. Correct?"

The young girl had a point. Vern was located in the North and so it was obvious that what Arial had learned in the imperial library was internal martial arts in the Northern style.

"Like I said," Arial reiterated, "I did not learn from anyone."

The girl was incredulous and attacked him ferociously, more brutal than before.

Arial advanced in order to not give her time to settle, but she moved quickly like an arrow, trying to land a blow, twisting her hand in a sharp motion and kicking in the direction of his vital organs.

These moves were the core of the deadly Eastern Devil technique.

Brutal, cruel and unwaveringly fast.

Arial increased the use of his internal energy and the air suddenly changed.

The people around the stage began to fall to their knees, their hands trembling.

The pressure of Arial's internal energy began to choke everyone around him. He still could not control it that well.

"Get away!" he yelled.

This time he had to end the fight.

The girl looked alarmed and so did her knight.

Arturo jumped on the stage and lunged at Arial, quickly throwing a fist at him.

The young Vermont used Palm of Wrath, hitting the knight in his ribcage and throwing him off the stage. He landed far over the crowd and lay unconscious on the ground, his bones probably broken.

"Arturo!" yelled the blue-haired girl. So that was his real name, Arial thought.

The crowd was shocked at what they had just seen and began to whisper. Some people ran away to call the guards.

Arial scanned his surroundings, making sure no one else had gotten hurt by his attack. Thankfully, no onlookers had been injured.

This time, the girl took the initiative to resume the battle. She attacked and Arial countered. This was no longer a dance, but a storm.

"Take this!" she yelled, jumping in midair and directing the full brunt of her internal energy at Arial in the form of a palm attack.

With his right hand, the young Vermont channeled his own internal energy to stop the blow.

Both forces collided as the young fighters tried to push each other off the stage with their energy.

I'm sorry my lady, Arial thought, but you will never defeat me with your level of internal energy. He then increased his power and the girl was thrown off the stage.

"Uhuk, uhuk," the girl began to cough up blood. Oh, God! Did I overdo it? I did not mean to hurt her!

And with that thought, Arial jumped off the stage to check on the girl. Suddenly, a projectile came flying at him.

He used his internal energy to deflect it and it hit a tree instead. Its leaves turned black.

"Poison!" Arial hissed.

The girl had hidden a weapon laced with poison. Looking at the tree, Arial guessed that it was probably the Devil Rot poison.

He backed away.

She is dangerous, he reminded himself. Who would have thought that such a beautiful young girl could be so deadly?

An honorable person would never do such a thing in the heat of battle.

If the projectile had struck Arial, it would have taken him months to expel the poison from his body.

Anyone else without his level of internal energy would have surely died even with a simple graze.

"Hah! the Eastern Devil would be ashamed to call you his disciple!" he said tauntingly.

The blue-haired girl spat at the ground again. Surely, she is not nobility. If she is though, I do not wish to be acquainted with her, he mused.

"Using poison?" he continued. "That is a Western Serpent technique. The Eastern Devil might not be the most honorable of martial arts masters, but at least he does not use poison on his opponents!"

She smirked. "Well, I'm not him, am I?"

She is bold. I'll give her that.

The girl looked at Arial with a straight face. The crowds had retreated and kept a safe distance from the battleground.

After the display of poison, even they knew better not to interfere.

The guards would be arriving soon.

Arial had to put an end to this once and for all.

What had started off as a curious event had now turned into a very dangerous affair.

He raised his left palm and concentrating his internal energy, sent a powerful blow in the girl's direction.

A violent gust of wind pushed her back and she tried to block it, but her effort was futile.

Arial knew that his internal energy was superior and no one could match it.

He had trained since he was a child, a bay in a crib. However, he did acknowledge that if he roamed the central plains of Vern, he might find someone as strong as him.

"This level is like that of the Grand Teacher," she whispered in disbelief.

"Fun time is over," he said smiling.

The girl got up, determined.

Arial could see that she enjoyed the fight.

She tried charging at him again, but was unsuccessful.

She then grabbed her spear. Weapons, Arial mused. Fine, let's play.

The blows that he employed were powerful and she could not approach him. It took all her strength to dodge his attacks.

Sensing an opportunity, he then used Dragon Regret.

Bones were heard cracking and an agonizing scream pierced the air.

The girl was thrown back and fell on a stall, destroying the wooden structure. She lay in the debris, unconscious.

Arial cautiously approached her and checked her pulse.

He then quickly channeled his energy and transferred some to her body so she wouldn't suffer any internal injuries.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was wearing body armor, hidden under her clothes.

She was not severely injured and had only suffered external bruising and maybe a few cracked bones.

Nothing rest and sleep cannot fix, he thought.

I don't know who she is, but she is too wily for her own good. She must be around sixteen or seventeen, a year or two older than me.

If I hadn't stopped her now from her evil ways, who knows what she could have done? And using hidden weapons and poison?

That is not an honorable way to fight in a martial arts fight

Suddenly, Arial's House Guard arrived.

"Who is responsible for all this chaos?" he shouted. The audience, hiding inside a teahouse and behind the stage, stared at Arial. The guard saw him and quickly approached him.

"Are you the culprit of all this destruction of city property?" he asked.

Ser Brooke who was also at the scene quickly recognized Arial and reprimanded the guard,

"Shut up Drake! That is the Count!"

The guard looked again and realized his error.

"Sorry, my lord," he said, fumbling for words. "Of course, my lord… this is your city. You are free to destroy any part of it as you please."

Ser Brooke hit him on the head. "Idiot! Don't you see those two unconscious individuals on the ground? They are certainly the ones responsible for this whole mess! Why would the Count destroy his own city?"

The guard looked around. "Oh, of course. I'm sorry my lord," he said, bowing his head.

"My lord, what should we do with these two?" Ser Brooke asked.

Arial looked at the girl and the knight.

"Send them to the Healer, patch them up and escort them out of the city. Tell them that I am sorry that our meeting had to end this way."

He then left the scene.

He felt his hands trembling.

I must find a teacher and learn how to control my internal energy.

They almost died, he thought to himself. The wind blew and the leaves rustled softly in the breeze.

Suddenly, thunder boomed in the distance and it began to rain. Arial put on his coat and glanced one last time in the girl's direction.

He then walked away as the storm intensified.

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They say that you are destined to meet the person you are meant to be with even when you are not searching for them.

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Next chapter will be a bit of ackstroy of Ryssa backstroy and how she ended up in Alan