Air Hero

Top 4 battle

After he finished doing that, time flowed normally again. At that moment, Max can feel his ear going numb as his eardrum hurting. He feels a large amount of force moving past his body from left and right.

Kieran is already wearing a happy expression on his face as he didn’t think Max could defend against his attack. As there is no way for a wind element hero to avoid his attack. Kieran has tried it before. His sound ability can move through wind, water, and even rock. So when a hero tried to block it with a shield made of wind or water, the sound could move through it and hit the target. Rocks could cope better, but it only reduced the power, not mitigates it completely.

Dust clouds are created on the arena as the attack moved forward with such power. Kieran is shocked to see Max still standing there without any injury when the cloud dust cleared up.

“You! How is that possible?”

Kieran didn’t believe that Max could come out from that unscathed.

“Is your real power perhaps controlling other’s hero power?”

That unbelievable thought is running on Kieran’s mind. If there’s a hero that could control other hero’s power, won’t he be invincible? It could explain how Max managed to cancel out Iki’s fire and how he returned Kieran’s attack earlier. Just now, he should control his attack, too, so it didn’t hit him.

Kieran is actually very close to the truth. However, Max himself still doesn’t understand fully. He just understands that he could control the white particle whenever he entered the grey world, saving him several times.

During his very first battle against Bonio, when he is in a deadlock against Crawley, on his battle with Iki, he seemed to have unlocked something, but he still isn’t clear about it. Just now, his ability manifested once again and saved him from a pinch.

“I’m out of energy right now. If you want, you could attack me from the distance since I couldn’t dodge it anymore.”

Just like when he is facing Iki, Max didn’t take the easy route and move forward to fight against Kieran in close combat. Max thinks of this as a good experience to spar. After all, during his battle with Iki, he learned how Iki is executing his move. Iki’s move is like a boxer since he is mainly focusing on his fist. Iki’s hero name, after all, is the Flamefist.

As for Kieran, his martial arts is more like Karate, where he mixes punch and kicks. Max himself doesn’t understand his own martial arts style. After all, he just followed what Kalina taught him. So Max doesn’t have any advantage, yet he isn’t disadvantaged until the referee decided that it is time to call the winner since it has been going on for so long.

“Air Hero versus Howling Lion. Air Hero wins due to Howling Lion runs out of energy.”

Hearing the announcement, the crowd goes wild. Another upsetting result happened as nobody thinks that Max could proceed to the top 4. However, they all know that this is as far as he could go since the next match will pair him up against Elica. There is no way that he will make another comeback since Elica is a C-rank adventurer on stats. The thing that is limiting her advance is the advancement test, as she has collected enough achievements.

Max entered the medical pods as he needs to recover before his next match. Along with that, the competition entered break time. Therefore, there are only two matches left for today.

On the left bracket, it’s Giovanni facing a D-rank hero called Beastboy. While on the right bracket, it will be Max facing against Elica.

“Top 4 battle, Child of Light versus Beastboy. The match starts in 3…2…1.”

Giovanni is still standing calmly in the arena as he is confident in his ability. As for his opponent, he is nothing that could be looked down upon. On the contrary, for someone to have reached this far in the competition, they should have something special within them.

Max is curious as to why the D-rank hero is called Beastboy. He didn’t know why he didn’t pay any attention to Beastboy before. Only when the match started, he knows why. At first, Beastboy looked just like an ordinary teenager. But then, something amazing happened. Beastboy's body is covered in fur, and his face becomes longer like a wolf.

Max has heard about it before, but this is the first time he saw it in person. If there are four common elements and rare elements beside them, the ability that Beastboy performed can be considered rare elements for body manipulation heroes.

Body manipulation heroes commonly strengthen their bodies, and there won’t be any distinct changes to their outside appearance. As for Beastboy, his ability can be considered a rare path where the changes are even shown on his external appearance.

As for some other variations of body manipulation, heroes are healers that could manipulate someone else’s body potential and help it heal faster. Buffers that could enhance someone else’s speed or strength that is searched for in a sidekick.

Returning back to the match, Giovanni is also looking at Beastboy closely. For body manipulation that could affect their external appearance, they will usually inherit some special skill. For example, a hero that could transform into a turtle will have turtleback traits that are very hard and impervious to weapons.

As for Beastboy that looked like a werewolf, Max suspected that his trait has something to do with a wolf's keen senses. There is also a rare chance where the heroes will inherit something called animal instinct. When it happened, their battle capabilities will rose unimaginably.

Giovanni tried to make a probing attack as he launches a ray of light towards Beastboy. Beastboy saw it and moved to dodge it. Just from that movement, Max can predict that Beastboy speed has increased at least eight times than normal.