Leonel looked down toward Thetris whose mouth hung half open. The latter was so stunned by the sudden change that the swig of water he had just taken drizzled out from his mouth, falling down his chin and drenching his shirt completely.
Leonel's hand was like a snaking whip, shooting forward so quickly that Thetris didn't even have a chance to register its movement, let alone react to it.
Thetris keeled over, feeling as though every bone in his rib cage had shattered simultaneously.
His body seemed to lag behind the shot of pain he felt. Time dilated, his body convulsing in a fit of pain before, only then, shooting backward like a rocket.
He crashed into a thick pillar, his spine warping.
The freshman quarters fell into another bout of silence.
Truthfully, over the past two weeks, they had learned to live with Thetris' voice. They had no choice in the matter. It was either they accept it, or leave Valiant Heart entirely. None of them dared to deal with a person protected by a white belt, so how would they dare touch Thetris?
The pillar Thetris had just crashed into was just one of many surrounding a community meditation square. It was meant to be one of the many tasked with helping concentrate Force in this region. Though it was much worse than the personal meditation rooms, as freshman who couldn't afford anything, this was the best they could do with.
Knowing this, there was no surprise, then, that there weren't a small number of people present. Many of them had learned to ignore Thetris, so they hadn't seen the initial collision. But, they had most definitely heard the end result.
When they looked toward the direction Thetris had come flying from, they all felt their heart skip a beat.
Leonel was completely expressionless, but the energies around him seemed to be seething in rage for him. The wind around him was still, almost too still. But, it was as though the world refused to regain its normal color.
Leonel's figure blurred, appearing before Thetris in another blink.
"Hey, hey, hey."
Leonel found his wrist clamped down by someone else just as he was about to grab Thetris' head.
"What are you trying to do here exactly? Kill him?" Gersan frowned, looking at Leonel as though he had lost his mind. "If you were going to vent, don't you think it's a bit pathetic to wait until the true culprits have all disappeared just to take out your rage on a pawn? Are you even a man?"
Gersan's disdain for Leonel boiled over. He couldn't help but feel disgust when he looked at this young man.
He didn't know why Sael had asked him to protect him, but if he had to guess, it was because Leonel's family background wasn't simple.
But, for Leonel to have a family background robust enough for Sael to tiptoe around him, yet end up in Valiant Heart… Well, wasn't the conclusion obvious?
He was too pathetic to make it in his bigshot family so he came here to flex his talent, only to realize that Valiant Heart had its fair share of steel plates to accidentally kick.
The result was him hiding away in his little dorm room for weeks, only to come and bully someone far weaker than him.
If that wasn't pathetic, then what was?
It was clear that many agreed with Gersan's words. The freshman remained silent in their places of meditation, but most of them agreed. Their looks of disdain alone seemed to make the atmosphere several times heavier.
But, what no one expected was for Gersan to have hardly finished his words before he suddenly found a knee approaching his chin.
'Huh…?'
Gersan couldn't even react before he felt his jaw rattle. It was as though a steel club had swept up and through him. If it wasn't for the fact he had just shut his mouth, he would have bitten his tongue clean off.
Leonel ripped his wrist out of Gersan's grasp.
His fist cocked back even as Gersan's feet lifted off the ground. Flames suddenly erupted on his knuckles, concentrating to the point they formed a level a crimson that seemed reserved for hell.
BANG!
Leonel's fist collided against Gersan's chest. The latter flew backward, a trail of smoke and crackling flames following his trajectory.
It felt like he had been before Leonel in one instant, but in the next, he had collided with another pillar, blood flying from his lips.
Gersan sank down, violently coughing.
Unlike Thetris, though, he didn't lose consciousness immediately. He landed on the ground, his face grimacing in pain, but the flicker of rage behind his gaze was palpable.
"Haha… Attacking a member of Valiant Hall… it seems you really have a death wish."
Gersan growled, pushing his body up. At that moment, his blue eyes flickered with arcs of lightning.
He stood, his body exploding forward with an impossible speed.
But, he lost track of Leonel almost instantly. When next he saw him, he found a palm closing in on his face.
Leonel appeared to Gersan's side, his palm shattering the latter's nose. In that very instant, his fingers clamped down on Gersan's skull.
His back flexed, his thigh bulging.
BANG!
The back of Gersan's head smashed into the ground.
The stone tiles of the community meditation square shattered, shooting up into the skies in a rain of rubble.
Gersan's eyes rolled back, their whites looking up into the sky.
Leonel stood, his pace even as he walked back to Thetris. It was as though he had never fought Gersan to begin with, as though he never truly took the latter seriously.
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, a promising youth of Valiant Hall, a genius who had already gotten promoted to a white belt, was defeated.
Leonel kneeled by Thetris' side, picking up the latter by his hair to force their eyes level.
Thetris teetered and winced, his consciousness fading in and out. He wanted nothing more than to collapse and forget the pain his body was in, but the more Leonel moved him around, the less of a chance he had at this dream of his.
"Start speaking, or else I'm going to pin your headless corpse to this pillar."