Air Hero

Max vs Linda

Rocky is using his hand as a shield, and Iki’s kick landed squarely on it.

*Bam*

A small explosion occurred as it was the same move that Iki has shown throughout the competition. It is the move that he used to gather his teammates back in the beginning and created a hole where Jhonny stumbled and fall, which cost him the match.

The boulder on Rocky’s left hand that he used as a shield disintegrates, and the force of the attack pushed his body backwards by two-meter.

While Rocky is still recovering, Iki sends out another punch. Looking at the approaching blazing fist, Rocky uses his left hand to help lift his right hand. As his right hand hit by Iki’s kick earlier, he still couldn’t move it freely and needed his other arm to support it.

*Bam*

Another explosion breaks Rocky’s boulder fist and sends him staggered backwards. This time, before giving Iki a chance to launch another attack and make him disadvantaged, Rocky stomped his foot on the ground.

In front of the place where he stomped his foot, a stone spike comes out and heading towards Iki like a lance. Stopping him from attacking and Iki quickly uses his fist to destroy the incoming skill. It can be seen that both Iki and Rocky have a lot of experience battling as each of their attack and defence comes out flawlessly, one after another.

They are calm, not easily surprised and responded to each other attack very well.

*Bam*

Iki’s flaming fist managed to pulverize the stone spike, and he continues to pursue Rocky. But, to his surprise, Rocky is already a few meters away from him. The moment Rocky used his foot to stomp on the ground as if he is on a moving escalator, the earth moved Rocky’s position a few meters away.

Rocky is shaking his arm to shake off the numb feeling he has as his gaze never left Iki. This time, Iki immediately moves forward again as he launches small fireballs from his fist to find an opening from Rocky.

Rocky didn’t decide to block the fireball as he easily dodges it while moving his body. Once again, the depth of their battle experience is showing off. Realizing that he can’t use small tricks against Rocky, Iki decided to do it big.

If earlier the fire is covering his fist, right now, Iki’s right arm is completely surrounded by the fire from the tip of his fingers to his shoulder. The temperature on the arena also rose as Rocky could feel his lips becoming dry.

Rocky can also feel the enormous amount of energy that Iki is gathering on his right fist and raises his defence to counter it. Rocky put his arms together, and a huge stone shield is formed in front of him.

This is like a showdown of the strongest offence against the strongest defence. While Iki is using all of his might to attack, Rocky tried his best to defend it.

*Bang*

This time, the sound is way louder compared to their earlier confrontation. More dust clouds are rising on the arena and blocking the view.

When it is gone, finally the audience can see the winner of this match. Iki is standing there in the middle of the arena while the embers on his fist are wavering, and finally, it is blown by the wind and set off.

Rocky, on the other hand, is in a worse condition. His body is half-buried in the middle of the rubbles that is created from the earlier explosion. So no matter how strong your defence is, you won’t win if you didn’t attack. At least that is the case for this match.

“Fifteenth match, Flamefist Iki versus Rocky Road. Flamefist Iki wins.”

Max knows that even if he wins against Linda in the next match, he will have an even tougher opponent ahead of him. One of them is Iki that he will face next in the top 16 rounds if he wins against Linda.

Turning off the screen, Max closes his eye. He is preparing his mentality and prepares himself. He will be stepping on the stage next and faces Linda. On the team battle, she managed to defeat four opponents by herself, so she isn’t someone that Max could beat easily.

This is already the top 32 of D-rank heroes this year, and none of them is weak, including Linda.

“Sixteenth match, Air hero versus Shadow Dancer.”

When he hears his name called, Max immediately headed towards the stage. His gaze met with Linda, and he nods his head. Linda also made the same gesture in acknowledgement.

“Match start in 3…2…1.”

The moment the announcement is made, Max and Linda didn’t make any big moves as they stared at each other. They are a former teammate, so this situation is a bit awkward for them. Linda already knows some of Max’s moves, so does he know some of Linda’s move. However, everyone always keeps a secret move to themselves, and Max knows that Linda still has a few tricks up her sleeve.

In this battle, Linda is the one who made her move. Then, just like a mirage, her silhouette disappeared from Max’s view. Max knows that Linda uses shadow as the base of her ability, so he looked at his surroundings and looked out at places with shades and shadows on the ground.

“Where could she be?”

Max is wondering where he suddenly got a bad premonition. Like a spider sensing danger from the air vibration that is perceived by their hairs, Max can sense the movement in the air.

“Not good!”

Just like a cat got its tail stepped on, Max turned his body and back away. From the spot where he is standing before, his shadow was split into two. One followed his body and moved alone while the other one is staying still on the original spot. Linda’s body suddenly emerges from the shadows as Max’s former shadow disappear.

“I didn’t think that you could guess that it was a shadow-copy move that I used.”

“I don’t know. I feel a chill on my back, so I moved. Intuition or just luck.”

“From the start, I know that you’re different and seemed to be hiding something. I know that you are strong, but I won’t go down without a fight.”

“I know. So let’s give it our best and no hard feelings to the winner.”

“Agree.”

Immediately Linda’s body disappeared once more.