Air Hero

Jhonny vs Iki

When Max opened his eyes again, he already found himself inside the medical pod. It seemed that he immediately passed out after finished the match earlier. Two minutes later, the medication administering finished, and he comes out from the medical pod.

“Puah, it feels so good to be alive!”

Max feels very refreshed after coming out of the medical pod. He has secured a place in the top 50 with the win. Not to mention that he wins his battle against one of the favourites and it makes him very happy too.

“Do you have to act like that? It makes me very embarrassed to have lost to you.”

Max turned his head towards the direction of the voice and found Heinrich staring at him. It seemed that he has just come out from the medical pods too, and heard him saying that.

“Anyway, nice fight earlier. I never thought that I would lose to you.”

Heinrich offered his hand, and Max shake hands with him. Heinrich has accepted his loss and showed his big heart.

“I was just lucky. But, to be honest, if that move isn’t working, you will be the winner.”

“A lost is lost. Anyway, good luck out there. I hope you can grab the third place at least.”

“Wow, you have such a high hope for me?”

“Well, it will just be embarrassing if you got eliminated in the next round. It will mean that my ability also only reach that far.”

Max heard what Heinrich said, and it makes sense. If Max is eliminated in the next round, it means that Heinrich’s ability also amounted to that since he lost to Max, that is lost in the top 50.

“Haha. I hope I could get the first place, but we know there are a lot  of monsters this year.”

“You’re a monster yourself. After all, you’ve defeated Hyacinth and me. But, I also have a feeling that you’re still hiding a special move that you haven’t perform. So, who knows if you’ll be the biggest dark horse in this competition? I think people should have noticed you too.”

Max defeated Hyacinth in a team battle, so not many people put their attention on him. Because at the team battle, the one who shined the most is Linda, who eliminated four people by herself. Right now, it is a one on one match, and Max clearly shows his ability in defeating Heinrich.

Not to mention that the moves that Max used are unique. The gauntlets, armour, and the last wind explosion move, it was something rare. Most of the time, wind ability users will use wind bullet, cannon, or wind blade that they hurl like a projectile. They didn’t engage in close combat like Max. even if they did, they would use the wind as a support to boost their movement speed and battle using a dagger or equipped weapons.

After saying some more things with Heinrich, Max bid his goodbye as he is now going to look at his opponent for the top 50 round and the result of his former teammates, Jhonny, Norton, Linda and Chloe. Although they have only met recently, he thinks that they are good people to be friends with.

Getting out of the treatment place, Max headed to the waiting area and looked at the screen. Most of the battle has finished, and the rest is only a matter of time. Giovanni comes out victorious from his match, and it should be a relatively easy one too. With his S-rank speed, he could dominate the competition.

With Hyacinth and Heinrich got eliminated, there are only a few top contenders left. Kieran Sonus and Elica Rosebud, both of them managed to secure a win too. People have put them as the favourites, and if there are no changes, the top three spots will have their names on it along with Giovanni.

As for Iki, Max looked at the screen and found that he is still locked in a heated battle with Jhonny. At first, Max thinks that Iki uses body manipulation like Jhonny, but he is wrong. Iki is a close combat expert, and the ability that he is using is similar to Max. His fist is covered in blazing flame, just like Max’s wind gauntlet.

Iki with his fire element is a bad matchup for Max. If they met in a battle, Max’s wind gauntlet would be devoured by his blazing fist, and it will further increase the burning fist power instead. Just like combination move or wind and fire, although Max is Iki’s enemy, the nature of wind enhances fire still works.

Although strong wind could put up the fire, the power of the wind needs to be several times stronger than the fire, and it wasn’t something that is possible between the same rank hero. Not to mention that Iki also have enormous strength at B-rank. Max will need A-rank strength of wind if he wants to put out the fire he emits. He can only hope that he won’t meet with Iki early on in the competition.

Jhonny has done so much to hang on to the match. Max can see the willpower that enabled him to keep battling for so long, but he already runs out of juice. Iki’s punch is like a small grenade. There’s a crater made on the ground with every punch as the arena is now in a mess. On the other hand, Jhonny managed to keep dodging the attack by a hair’s breadth due to his 5x strengthening. It can also be used to increase his speed, although it wasn’t as powerful when he used it to enhance his attack.

Iki’s attack still missed Jhonny, but the explosion created as Iki aimed the punch at the ground managed to sends rock shrapnels to Jhonny. He dodged to the back, but he got caught on a crater that has already been made earlier. Since the arena is not flat ground anymore, Jhonny finally makes a mistake as his foot caught in Iki’s arena deforming trap.

Looking at the arriving punch, Jhonny immediately raised the white flag while letting out a bitter smile.

“I surrender.”

Jhonny has hung on until the time is almost up and put up a good fight. Sadly, he is still not strong enough to win over Iki.

“Jhonny vs Iki. Iki won.”

The announcement is made, and Jhonny can only raise his head to look up at the sky. This will be the end of his participation in the tournament. He should be happy with the top 100 spots as he lost to Iki, and he thinks it is already a good result.

Iki immediately stopped his attack when Jhonny surrendered, and right now, he is reaching out his hand to Jhonny. Iki wanted to help him stand up as Jhonny is sitting on the ground with one foot in the crater.

Jhonny realized the outstretched hands and took up the help.

“Nice fight there.”

“You’re just too strong. I hope you could get the top spots.”

“I hope for that too. But there’s still Giovanni.”

It seemed that everyone acknowledges that Giovanni is the strongest contender to win first place. With that, Jhonny and Iki walked out of the arena shoulder to shoulder. It seemed that the saying trading fist makes a good brother is true.