When the Young Count's eyes gleamed, the warrior who had grabbed the assassin was trying to get away from him, while his friend, left to manage alone, gripped his machete tightly with both hands.
"You are staying right here!"
These were the last words he could utter before his teeth chattered; a breath or two later, his jaw locked shut.
"How are you going to do that?"
Jashua released one of his hands gripping his massive weapon, resisting the enemy's two-handed pressure with only one hand.
"What an interesting hairstyle, I don't like it at all!"
Reaching out, Jashua grabbed the head of the man right next to him with his free hand; the pressure his fingers applied to the bare skin was visibly apparent.
Then a cry of pain rose; agonizing screams mingling with the sound of the heavy weapon hitting the ground made the arena echo.
The first joints of Jashua's fingers were almost inside the enemy's head. The terror created by the sight wiped away all sounds except the man's shrieks.
"That's one!"
Jashua violently smashed the head caught in his hands against the stone floor; black was meeting red once again. He didn't stop at one; two, three, four... the sound of bones striking the stone and shattering was heard several dozen times.
"Three left!"
The Young Count began to run toward his opponents—the archer who had fled the blood needles and the warrior type carrying his friend who was about to lose consciousness. Judging by his trajectory, his first target was the slow-moving party.
He descended upon them like a tiger, dealing a heavy blow with his weapon to the enemy whose back was turned to him. The hulking man stumbled but didn't fall, struggling to run away with all his might.
It was a futile effort; with the strike landing on his legs, he involuntarily collapsed to the ground, and the friend in his arms tumbled down with him.
This Black Lily Clan member was determined; even on his knees, he was trying to reach his friend, but Jashua did not allow it. He stepped on his wrists, and continued to press down with all his might.
"Enough, don't do it!"
The assassin, coming to his senses as the pressure on him decreased, found his voice and begged for mercy; Jashua's response to this attitude was harsh.
"What did you say, is this a kindergarten? Why didn't you say stop when that girl behind me was being bullied? It's fine when your friend's brother does it, but not when I do?"
Jashua stepped on the warrior's back and walked over him; the gut-wrenching sound coming from the spine slowly entered his friend's ear.
"No, no!"
After moving backward with fear-filled eyes, the scrawny assassin stood up and started running away. He was running to clear the two-step high wall separating the arena from the spectator tiers.
"Is this a joke?"
"I can't believe my eyes, is he seriously running away?"
While the spectators discussed the bizarre event among themselves, the Ten Lilies member was fleeing on four legs, not two.
"It's two against one, but the guy is literally running away, there can't be such a disgrace!"
"Don't let him, Count Jashua, tear that bug's head off!"
The arena crowd was pumped up; especially the voices of those who bet on the Young Count were booming a bit louder. The assassin didn't care about the world; he just wanted to take the last few steps and escape the situation he had fallen into.
"Coward!"
Along with the words coming from Jashua's mouth, the blood needles reached the enemy at the same time. One entered his ear, the others entered many parts of his body.
He clung to the wall with bloody hands; as the blood needles fell from his body, he followed them, leaving red trails on the wall.
"Now for you; the other archer couldn't take me down in three shots! What are you going to do? By the looks of it, you don't seem stronger than him either!"
Jashua spoke while spinning the long weapon in his hand in front of him. Then, he furiously slammed the giant pipe he was playing with in circular motions into the ground.
The archer didn't try to run away like his friend; he drew his bow and started fighting. Jashua warded off his first arrow, but this time he wasn't stationary like before.
He dodged the attack while running; his opponent hurriedly fired his arrow again. Two arrows were advancing in the air, one from the right and the other from the left, but the Young Count didn't slow down.
He took his weapon and started spinning it; the long pipe rotating in circular motions practically formed a shield in front of him, blocking the arrows.
The bow was drawn again, and the number of arrows rose to four. After the right and left ones, two more arrows rose into the air and began to descend toward his head. If Jashua covered his front with his weapon, his head would be exposed; if he covered his head, his front would be exposed. Everyone was watching to see what the Young Count would do.
Exactly one breath later, a completely unexpected event occurred; putting his weapon into his interspatial ring, Jashua met the incoming attack directly with his body.
"Is he dead?"
"This kid has lost his mind!"
Many similar screams rose; those sitting in the spectator rows couldn't make sense of this move Jashua made when everything was going his way.
The archer also stopped attacking, but the expression on his face was nothing like the others'; rather than astonishment, there was despair in his eyes.
"Really, the other one was much stronger than you!"
The Young Count exclaimed as if speaking to a corpse as he stepped forward; it was so obvious that he didn't doubt his absolute victory in the slightest.
Jashua, who looked as if he was wearing an armor of red blood energy tightly wrapping his body, found the enemy exhausted when he reached the archer. Even though the Young Count humiliated him, the man, who was understood to be technically superior to the other, was lacking in terms of energy.
Having multiplied his attacks and also focused on controlling them, he had completely lost himself. Now, he was no different from a precious vase waiting to be broken by the naughty child of the house, and the child was truly naughty.
He delivered a solid blow to his head with the back of his right fist. The archer, already drained inside, flew several meters forward like a leaf scattered in the wind and fell to the ground.
It was over; the winner of the four-on-one battle was clear. From the moment the Young Count stepped into the arena, the only person still conscious was the girl who had been bullied by the harassing boy.
"Am I dreaming, are they all defeated?"
Her psychology wasn't good either; with tears suddenly pouring from her eyes, she fled out of the arena. Maybe after some time passed, she would be able to digest what had happened, but for now, that seemed impossible.
Jashua didn't dwell on the girl; his eyes were on the only person among the Ten Lilies who was still capable of eating on their own.
"I won't say next!"
A huge murmur rose from the spectator rows; wasn't Jashua going to fight the leader of the group whose nine members he had beaten almost to death?
"Look, look at the guy you praised so much. Look how he chickened out when it came down to fighting the leader!"
"Don't talk trash, imbecile! You couldn't even clash with one of them, the man took down nine of them at once!"
Those arguing and fighting were intertwined; the admiration created by power and the hatred brought by its fear were clashing. The Young Count didn't listen to them; when the response he expected from the other side didn't come, he continued himself.
"Ten Lilies, what an interesting number you've chosen. I guess a large majority here assumes this is random, but we both know that's not the case, right?"
Jashua's words gathered the attention back on him; apart from whispers, no voice other than his could be heard.
"A ten-person combat formation consisting of four close-combat specialists, two archers, two assassins, and two energy specialists. The first to take the stage was the loser assassin; he thought he could finish me off quickly, but he was wrong. Then, assuming I was only good at energy, you sent an energy specialist along with the team's archer who focused on power.
Another wrong decision was to use two close-combatants at the same time, but none of them was worse than you being afraid to step onto the battlefield and sending your subordinates to me with a formation that had one broken wing.
You, the person who is the second energy specialist of the Ten Lilies Formation, I know as well as my own name that you don't have the courage to set foot here!"