His next match had arrived before he even realized it. Since he was in the Top 8, there was a lot more ceremony and other stuff. He was forced to suffer through an hour-long speech and stand there as various exhibitions entertained the crowd.

  The Top 8 were pretty much what he had expected from what he had seen so far. He spotted Riven, Isaac, Eren, and Eva all beside him. He also saw Garrett standing at the far end as well. The other boy had glared darkly at Julius a single time before not bothering to look over for the rest of the ceremony.

  The only person that Julius didn’t recognize was the young man standing beside Eren.

  Julius remembered that Riven had said something about him while they were in the secret realm, but his memory was hazy. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name.

  Luckily for Julius, Riven shuffled over to him and Derek not too long after he thought of this. Julius discreetly popped another piece of toffee into his mouth as he watched Riven approach, stifling the moan of pleasure that threatened to come out of his mouth.

  “Those look awfully tasty. Do you mind sharing a piece?” Riven asked with a bright smile.

  “Your master won’t care?” Julius asked with a look at the stands.

  He asked that because Derek had already rejected Julius’s offer, stating that he couldn’t be seen eating snacks and candy during an important event, since he was the son of Duke Zenith. However, Julius had already seen the other teen gorge himself this morning when he heard that Julius and his mother had made some toffee.

  Apparently, it was one of Derek’s favorites, and that was the reason why Aliyah had been making it so late at night. She wanted a treat to give to her son.

  “Eh, my master doesn’t worry about that stuff. I doubt he is even here at the moment. He might be taking a nap or something,” Riven muttered.

  Julius shrugged and snuck Riven over a handful of the toffees he had been enjoying. Riven didn’t bother to hide it and boldly threw one into his mouth, chewing animately.

  “Hmm. This is really good stuff,” Riven commented with a happy grunt. “Where did you get it?”

  “Thanks, I made it myself last night with the help of Lady Zenith,” Julius said with a grin. He didn’t mention that he absolutely destroyed several bowls of sugar in the process. Nobody needed to know that rather than sparkling like little diamonds, his attempts had turned the sugar into a pile of black sludge.

  The little technique she had shown him last night had been really difficult, and despite repeated attempts, he had barely managed to get it to work. Even his final and best attempt was a poor replication of what she had done. It barely sparkled, looking more like someone had sprinkled shitty glitter into the sugar.

  She still seemed impressed by his attempts either way. Which made him feel a little better. Plus, tasting the toffee when it was done made it completely worth it. There was some special element to it. He didn’t know if it was the ingredients, such as the fancy butter. Or if it was because of the mana infusion, but it was the best toffee he ever had in his life.

  It was perfectly rich and sweet with a slight bitterness from the dark chocolate on top. The nuts provided a wonderful crunch and a roasted flavor that accentuated the sweet caramel. He needed to make more of this another time.

  While Riven and Julius were enjoying the toffee, he spotted Derek giving him envious looks from time to time.

  “You know if you really want to, you should just eat some. Nobody is stopping you, and I can’t imagine your family getting that upset if you ate some candy,” Julius whispered to Derek.

  He could see that Derek’s stubbornness was wearing down.

  While Derek was contemplating this major decision, Julius spotted Isaac shuffling over discreetly. Well, as discreetly as a six and a half foot tall teenager could be.

  “Can I have some?” Isaac asked with pleading eyes.

  Julius didn’t hesitate and handed over a nice handful of toffee to him. Then, suddenly, Eva was there beside him as well. He didn’t even look back and silently handed over a portion to her as well.

  It would appear that this was the final straw, and Julius heard Derek sigh before reaching out a hand. Julius gladly gave him some and smiled when he saw Derek groan happily while he ate the toffee.

  The five of them spent the rest of the time eating and licking the sugar off their fingers until they were able to leave the stadium in order to prepare for their matches later today.

  ***

  Julius stared across the field at Garrett. The Greyson Scion hadn’t stopped giving Julius the most hateful glare imaginable since he stepped onto the field. One might have thought Julius killed Garrett’s dog or something with how angrily he was looking at him.

  The official gave the usual introductions, and when it had finally begun, neither of them moved from their spots.

  “I’m going to bury you,” Garrett suddenly said to Julius from across the field.

  “What did I do to you?” Julius asked with a frown. Honestly, if anyone should have a gripe, it should be him. After all, it was Garrett’s father who had orchestrated the attack on Julius’s home.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just know that I am going to humiliate you in front of everyone, you filthy commoner,” the other teen said with a snarl.

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  Julius was left even more confused and barely reacted in time when Garrett vanished from his sight. He leaned to the left when he sensed a spatial tear appear just behind his skull. A rapier made of black metal passed by his ear, missing his head by inches.

  He sensed something else attached to the rapier, something a little dangerous. He knew immediately that letting it hit him would be a bad idea. He avoided the rapier with a small blast of kinetic energy.

  But then something else extended from the blade. A condensed orb of black energy floated by his face. It looked benign, but Julius could sense the orb fluctuating rapidly on the inside. He knew an explosion was waiting to happen when he saw one.

  Before it could detonate next to his face, he used a lot of aura to rip it apart. He also used [Kinetic Shell] on top of [Graveforce Impact] to blow away any remnant of the attack. The attack went off, and while it didn’t look like it was very strong, Julius knew that wasn’t the case.

  If it had made contact with Julius, it would have caused significant damage. Realizing that he needed to take it seriously, Julius swung backward, trying to swat Garrett away with his hand, but hit thin air.

  He pressed his lips together. He had done a little research of his own, something that was quite rare for him to do at all. During his investigation into Garrett, he learned that the Greyson Scion was a speed-focused fighter who used a rapier as his primary weapon.

  He also had a perfect wind affinity, which he used to dramatically increase his speed. Most of Garrett’s opponents hadn’t even been able to see Garrett before they lost. The other boy was just that quick.

  However, he didn’t find anything that mentioned Garrett having a spatial skill. The other teen must have been saving this as a surprise for times like this. That, or it had something to do with that rapier the boy was clutching tightly. Julius felt ominous waves of energy radiating from the skinny sword, so perhaps it was the latter.

  Fortunately, Julius had some pretty good spatial senses and detected the attack before it speared him in the head.

  He glanced over at the other side of the field, where Garrett had retreated after his unsuccessful attack. However, if the sword was the source of this dangerous aura, then it must have been a powerful item. How had Garrett managed to bring it into the tournament?

  There were limitations on what items people could bring into a match. The only exception was people’s soul-bound items. However, that was a reasonable exception considering that soul-bound items were quite literally part of someone’s soul.

  Garrett looked somewhat startled that his attack didn’t do any damage to Julius. But there was still that anger and hatred in his eyes as he stared at Julius.

  On the other side of the field, Julius came to a decision. He wasn’t going to draw this out. He didn’t need another training partner at the moment and would rather not get hit by whatever that rapier was.

  The fact that he didn’t particularly feel very positive toward Garrett might have also influenced his decision.

  All that was left was for him to actually implement it. So he waited for Garrett to make his next move. It didn’t take long. After about fifteen seconds, Garrett grew impatient and decided to attack Julius once again.

  This time around, Julius was much more prepared. He had already detected the slight shift of space from where Garrett was attacking him. Instead of waiting for the attack to come through the spatial tear, he decided to send an attack through himself.

  This clearly wasn’t something his opponent was expecting, and Garrett panicked when a spike of Julius’s mana ripped through his own spatial portal that he was going to stab his rapier through.

  The spike detonated right in Garrett’s face; the explosion’s light shrouded Garrett’s figure. But Julius was able to keep track of him. Unlike his expectations, Garrett survived the attack. A strong barrier had formed around his body, blocking the attack.

  Some damage still made it through, but it wasn’t anywhere near close enough to put Garrett out of commission. Slightly red skin was the only evidence that he had been attacked.

  Garrett jumped backwards, using a cloud of wind mana to fly away. Julius didn’t hold back and was already blitzing out another volley of spikes, tracking the other teen’s movements. He wasn’t about to let Garrett have time to recover.

  As Garrett was dealing with these attacks, Julius had already teleported in front of the flying Garrett. His fist crashed into Garrett’s face with a satisfying crunch before Garrett used a gust of wind to blow himself far away.

  He looked down at the slight signs of blood on his knuckles and back at the teen who was holding his nose, yelling something at Julius. His voice was muffled since he had a broken nose, but Julius didn’t really care all that much and was about to drive a knee into Garrett’s undefended face.

  However, just before he could do that, the black rapier exploded with power. It was like someone had doused him in darkness, and he couldn’t see or sense anything. It was very unusual, but he remained calm and let his aura flare outward without restraint. He controlled his aura to target the rapier and the technique it was using to hit him.

  The black darkness surrounding him cracked like a pane of colored glass. And Julius returned to the normal world just in time to grab the rapier with his bare hand before it poked a hole in his eye.

  He didn’t wait to see what else it could do to him and immediately went to end the fight. Large swaths of blue flame flooded from his body, destroying the blasts of wind magic Garrett tried to hit him with. The heat was intense, even for Julius.

  He kept up the pressure and held back when he felt something foreign enter his system, originating from his hand that had touched the rapier. He could have used some life mana to clear it out, but there were a lot of eyes, and he didn’t need to show his healing skill quite yet. He also felt confident enough that he could handle this poison without his healing skill.

  A nice, healthy amount of ruinous aura tore the poison apart before it could infect him anymore. He shook his head as the black spiderweb markings faded from his skin.

  Then he glared at Garrett for several brief moments. He then gave a small smirk before his body vanished from sight. He didn’t even use his teleportation skill; he used pure kinetic energy.

  Garrett tried to get away, but Julius interrupted his attempt with a merciless squeeze of his aura. A hurricane of sharpened blades of wind tore at Julius, but he used his shell to protect himself.

  He closed the distance and was just about to smash his fist into Garrett’s unprotected head when something happened. Garrett’s body suddenly flared with a newfound source of power. Julius’s advance was halted, and he had to back away to avoid getting hit with it.

  He had to watch as Garrett’s body underwent drastic changes, as if fueled by several powerful skills and more mana than he could handle. Even Garrett's broken nose was healed before his eyes.

  It would appear that the rapier wasn’t the only thing that he had prepared for Julius. Garrett had shown his trump card.

  Julius waited patiently for the fluctuating energy to calm down. There was so much mana and aura radiating from Garrett’s body. He didn’t know what kind of technique or skill this was, but felt similar to what Julius would do to himself.

  However, he also knew several things. For one, there was no way Garrett could handle this much energy for long. Secondly, it was doubtful whether or not Garrett could control this amount of power. This quantity of mana wasn’t something a Tier 3 should be capable of handling.

  Thirdly, and more importantly, it didn’t matter at the end of the day. Because Garrett was going down all the same.

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