Ning used his space essence at the last moment, creating a portal above him as the momentum of being thrown up carried him through it. On the other side of the portal, he was directly tossed into the ground far off to the side.
He was only trying to regain himself when something slammed next to him.
Ning looked to the side and saw the sword jamming to the side, merely a meter away from him. He looked toward the young man and saw him sticking his sword through the portal that he had created.
Ning swung with what force right then and halfway through the rock sword. It was too large to cut entirely. Then, as the young man tried to pull back the sword, he closed the portal.
The weak part of the sword that had been cut crumbled at the force of collapsing space and the piece that broke off fell onto Ning.
Ning rolled to the side to dodge it and barely managed to escape. He heard something and looked back just in time to see the young man tossing the remaining sword at him.
At the last moment, Ning created a giant boulder in front of him, but that was broken into pieces by the force of the sword as the rocks flew back at Ning, most pelting him before he could get back up.
Most of them hurt, but one, in particular, hit him in the head, and suddenly coldness covered a part of his face. Even without looking, Ning could tell he was bleeding.
'Great,' he thought. 'Just what I needed.'
He saw the young man create another sword and pulled it out from the ground. With that sword in hand, he started walking toward Ning.
Ning tried to get back up to fight, but even as he stood up, he stumbled to the ground, dizzy. The hit to the head had given him a bit of a concussion that would take some time to heal.
His head was bleeding, his body was hurt, and his ribs were definitely broken. Even so, his opponent came at him with caution, just in case.
Ning tried to get a hold of himself but the dizziness only continued to grow as his bleeding went on. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn't get treated until the match was over.
In the state he was in, it could only be when he lost.
He didn't want to lose. A part of him told him to let go of such foolishness. There was no need to feel this much pain, this much trouble just to gain nothing. A part of him told him to simply use the system to heal himself and beat his opponent.
However, the other part of him told him that if he were to do so, that would be his loss. It would be the same as giving up on what he wanted. It would mean that he was a man that couldn't stick through with what he wanted. He would be a loser.
He did not want to lose.
"I'm not losing," Ning shouted to himself as he punched the ground to push himself back up. "I… am not going to lose."
He knelt on one leg to balance himself, but on the other, he stood. He pushed on his leg to look forward at the young man that came toward him.
The young man stopped when he noticed that Ning was halfway up. He worried if he was going to use Lightning essence, or maybe use his Space Essence to get behind him.
He kept his senses alert. However sensing that nothing was coming, he started moving forward again. But, he was forced to stop once more when he saw Ning's terrible grin.
The maniac face that Ning had at the moment with one side bloody was not something the young man had seen in anyone before. "I know what to do," Ning said and stabbed his sword onto the ground.
"You like it, don't you?" he asked with bated breaths. "You like sending people into the air with your tiny rock pillars. How about I do it to you instead?"
The young grew alert of his surrounding as he expected a pillar to grow from underneath him. When it did, he would have to move aside.
However, when he sensed what he did, his mind went blank for a moment with confusion. Was his Essence sense correct? Was it, not an illusion?
The young man's shock came at the fact that the Earth Essence that should be forming somewhere underneath him instead formed all around the stage.
The stage was a massive ground and as the young man could tell, Ning was using his sword as a conduit for Earth Essence. So what was he trying to do by using his essence in such a massive area?
The young man immediately believed that Ning had bluffed. He had told him that it was going to be an earth pillar like the ones he had used, when in fact, it was going to be a rock spike.
He doubted it was going to be quicksand as barely anyone had Mud Essence, and that sword certainly wasn't one.
The young man created his own rock pillar, pushing him off the ground and into the air in preparation for the spikes growing from the ground.
However, when he looked down, he instead saw that he was falling back down toward the stage even though he had just jumped up.
"No…" the young man realized belatedly. It wasn't that he was falling back down toward the stage, but rather it was the entire stage coming onto him.
The speed at which it came slammed onto the young man, hurting him a bit. However, that was nothing compared to the inertia he felt as his body continued to stick with the ground while the ground moved up.
The young man couldn't tell how many seconds had passed before it abruptly stopped moving. When it did, the momentum carried him into the air, and from there, he saw the curvature of the plant he was on.
