Stephen stood in the middle of Asher and Elena, who were 15 meters away from each other. He stood and signaled the start of the mock battle.
"3, 2, 1 Start..." Stephen disappeared from the duel field in an instant, due to him being a high-rank person as well.
"I will now teach you how to behave," Elena was speaking when suddenly Asher dashed towards her.
"Wait, he can use mana?" One of the guests spoke loudly. People were shocked to see Asher, who used the mana in his legs to propel himself towards Elena.
Asher instantly arrived in front of Elena, who did not have the proper stance yet. He immediately threw a punch in her stomach, levitating her above the ground.
"That's why I told you to shut that mouth of yours," Asher said, not even waiting for Elena to recover.
Elena, who was in pain, gathered her mana in the last moment, which helped her negate most of the pain that passed through the training suit. This suit was only for training purposes, so its damage negation was low.
'What, this kid is already an awakened person?' Louis was panicking at this moment. This was not the plan Elena had told her. For their plan to humiliate Asher, him being an unawakened person was an important key. Elena only wanted to exchange some moves and defeat Asher quickly.
'But she can still defeat him,' Louis calmed herself, remembering that her niece was not called a genius for no reason.
Elena stood up and ignored the slight pain in her guts. She took a proper stance and prepared to attack Asher. Asher stood still, coldly gazing at Elena. She dashed towards Asher and side-stepped just before she reached him and threw a punch at him. Asher saw through her feints and bent his body a bit backwards, dodging her attack.
Asher immediately took the chance to rotate his whole body at this moment and kicked Elena, who flew away from Asher.
"Weak," Asher muttered to himself, looking down on Elena.
"How dare you," Elena, who stood up, was going to argue with him but Asher did not give her a chance.
Asher threw multiple punches targeting every part of her arm. Elena kept blocking his attacks, but the pain was building up. Eventually, due to pain, she put her guard down for a moment and Asher did a roundhouse kick at Elena's jaw.
Blood was dripping from Elena's nose, she was breathing heavily while standing up, struggling to move her hands to block the next attacks. Looking like this, everybody knew that Asher had won the mock battle. Many young people cheered for him, but some fans of Elena stayed quiet.
"Let me educate you on what happens when you run your mouth too much," Asher's voice shocked Louis, Kevin, and Eva, who were shocked as well. They were shocked to see Elena lose this badly. Asher did not care about whether the quest was completed or not, and at this moment, he only wanted to take care of the person standing in front of him more cruelly.
Asher dashed, seeing which, Elena immediately panicked and closed her eyes and put her guard up. Asher did not care about her defense, he now channeled mana into his feet and punched and connected a kick to her face at the same time. The training armor could only negate so much damage, but Asher's aggressive attacks did not give enough time for Elena to recover her stance.
"Wait, why is he not stopping the duel?" One of the kids who admired Elena asked his friends hurriedly.
"Yeah, didn't he already win this mock battle?" Many people were confused as to why Stephen was not stopping the battle.
"Amelia, can you stop this duel? It's clear that Elena has lost already," Eva worriedly asked Amelia.
"Sorry, stopping this duel is not in my hands anymore," Amelia told them as she gestured towards her parents who were indifferently watching the fight.
"But can't you at least try?" Kevin shamelessly asked her, as he couldn't bear to watch Elena getting beaten up anymore.
"What? Why would she help you now when Elena herself didn't stop it when she tried to stop the duel from happening?" Damian was shocked by Asher's power, but Kevin's request made him snap out of it.
"You-" Kevin was about to say something but,
"He is right. It was you guys who started this, and now only my parents can stop my brother. Other than them, I doubt he would listen to anyone else," Amelia didn't want to argue anymore. Seeing this, Eva and Kevin could only step back and hope that Asher wouldn't trample on Elena's pride anymore. But their belief that this was a friendly mock battle with only their pride on the line was shattered soon.
Elena's breathing was rough, and her face was ragged with blood smeared all over her mouth. Asher had been targeting her shoulders after messing up her face. Only a minute had passed, and everyone present was silent. Asher got close to Elena, who could not hold her right hand up anymore. Asher's attack had made her right hand limp. He struck his elbow on her chin and immediately twisted his body, landing a kick on her face, making Elena's whole body twist in the air, and she fell to the ground on her face.
Asher stomped his leg on her face, and before he could attack her face again,
"STOP THIS INSTANT!" Louis Rothschild flared all his Rank S pressure, seeing Asher's true motive. He immediately targeted Asher, not even caring about the other low-rank people around him. Eva and Kevin also signaled their guards to go and intervene right now. Many high-rank guards flared their mana and were ready to fight if the Greville tried to stop them.
"DON'T YOU DARE-" Louis was shouting in anger when suddenly,
BAM
An immense flood of pressure flooded the whole villa. Nobody could move except the Greville Family and their servants, who somehow were fine. Louis and the other bodyguards fell to their knees, blood came out of their mouths. Then suddenly, a voice could be heard,
"It seems that the Greville are not feared anymore?" Nathan appeared, and Louis looked up barely and saw who it was. What he saw made his face pale. Nathan, seeing everything had calmed down, took his pressure back. His pressure was like a flood coming through, eradicating everything in its path.
"Nathaniel Von Greville?!?" One of the guests who was aware of the faces of important people shouted, seeing the appearance of Nathan.
"We greet the Seat Holder of Greville" Several voices were heard together. Seat Holder was a special position. Nathan should have been the family head, but for some reason, Arthur was called the Family head. Why was that?
It was because Nathaniel Von Greville was someone who represented the Greville in the High Council. Every person who was given the opportunity to be a part of the High Council was called a Seat Holder. Seat Holder was a title of utmost authority, and because of being a Seat Holder, Nathan passed the family head title to Arthur.
"coughcough* I-I greet the seat the Seat Holder of the Greville?" Louis felt weak under the gaze of Nathan. Rank SSS was not something anybody just by efforts and time could reach. People were born to be Rank SSS. Some people still tried to break the barriers of SS Rank despite that being their potential, but the wall they met was not something they could conquer.
Kevin and Eva were seeing Nathan for the first time, although they knew who he was, but seeing him up close, they felt fear for the first time in their life. All their life being protected by their families made them forget that this was a strong eat the weak type world.
"It seems that the people have forgotten what we Greville are famous for?" Nathan laughed and looked at Arthur, who smirked in response.
"Rothschild, was it? Even your Seat Holder doesn't dare fight me. Why are you, despite being a weakling, making so much noise in my house?" Nathan's voice was like that of an emperor. His title of the Swordgod was given to him by his peers, SSS-rank hunters, not the masses. They knew what a monster Nathan was and nobody provoked him for one reason.
The Greville family, although they may have seemed like a good family who cared for each other and treated their servants fairly, even going as far as to provide their family protection in their huge estate, in reality, they were the most feared family out of all the Elite families. Although after Ivar's heroic death and all these years of no one provoking the Greville family, people had forgotten their past, the path they had made out of the blood of their enemies.
Bam
Everybody turned to see who was stupid enough to cause trouble now, and they saw Asher who had just kicked Elena and made her back hit the barrier field of the duel space. Elena, who barely got up and had her hair in front of her face which was covered with her own blood, could only lift her left hand barely. Seeing Asher approaching her awakened her survival instinct. She broke the rules of the duel and used a low-tiered fire spell.
"F-Fireball," Elena muttered barely, and a ball materialized in front of her and shot forward at Asher.
People subconsciously thought that the Greville family would stop the duel now, but nobody moved, nobody interfered with the duel. Even Sylvie didn't move to help Asher. Damian was worried about his friend, but the barrier would not allow him to step in and help Asher. Eva and Kevin were still in fear of Nathan, so they did not speak, but they were glad Elena broke the rule.
Asher easily dodged the spell that came his way and slowly walked as he dodged the barrage of fireballs coming towards him.
"Stop! Don't come near me!" Elena's previous princess attitude was now gone. The only thing she felt towards Asher was fear. She was almost out of mana now and, seeing the opportunity, Asher immediately closed the distance between them.
He grabbed Elena's neck and lifted her up. Elena struggled as she tried to remove his grip from her neck. She could only use her left hand and tried to use her legs, but everything was useless. His grip was not budging, and this made Louis's face even paler.
"Please stop this duel," Louis shamefully held his head down and asked Asher directly. Looking at Louis, Asher dropped Elena's half-unconscious body to the side and turned towards him and said,
"As I have said before, I don't like people who use their mouth too much." His cold gaze and indifferent voice chilled the spine of many people.
