(Brendan POV)
Of course, despite Master’s assurances that I was not weak, I am not delusional enough to think I could win against a cosmic being in a normal fight.
Thus, I played on his attachment to Iris and the limitations of this game to level the playing field.
The rules we agreed on were pretty much the same as the previous volleyball game that my sisters had played with some alterations.
To score, you just need to physically hit the ball to the other side of the net and if it hits the ground, it will be counted as a point. There was emphasis on the fact that the ball can only be physically touched by the player and nothing else, otherwise teleporting the ball to the other side would have been fair game.
The game ends when either side reaches the winning number of points but in the event that the ball was destroyed, a five point penalty will be levied on the side who destroyed the ball and the game would also end.
Naturally, there’s the issue of him deciding not to honour our agreement but I have contingencies in place for if that happens.
In all honesty, I was not expecting to be able to win this game normally either, so one of the first things I did was to drink several enhancement potions that would increase my strength and speed of perception temporarily before the game started.
I also have several other different enhancement potions prepared in case they were necessary.
My senior sisters quickly had the court setup for us so that the match could start with that arrogant idiot on one side and myself on the other.
Master was still occupied with building sandcastles with Cai Hong, Lilith had joined them while I was occupied with talking to the pitiful trash. The three of them were currently building one that was the size of a building with great enthusiasm.
As expected of Master.
Oops, I shouldn’t be distracted now, the match is about to begin and there’s no way I will allow myself to fail.
The first serve goes to him and he throws it high up into the air before leaping upwards to smash the ball towards me.
Elaria had already informed us beforehand that the ball had been upgraded considerably and thus, able to take much more punishment than last time.
But most likely because he was not sure how sturdy the ball was exactly, he had started the match by using a normal mortal’s amount of strength.
I was thus able to capitalise on that by receiving it and instantly smacking it down on the other side of the net even before he landed back down on the sand from his jump.
“Zero, one,” Senior sister Lian Li called out, obviously unhappy I scored the first point.
He watched the ball that was rolling towards him with a raised eyebrow, “Interesting… Did you all come up with this game?”
“No, Onii-sama did,” Elaria answered, though her voice was bereft of her usual enthusiasm when talking about Master.
“Is that so? Interesting indeed… So as long as the ball goes over the net and lands, it’s considered a point?”
“Yes,” All of my senior sisters answered at once.
He nodded and returned the ball to me, allowing me to serve for the next round since we were using alternating serves.
I threw the ball up and smacked it at him, aiming towards the far right where there was empty space.
The moment the ball passed the net however, the trash had disappeared from where he was standing and reappeared in front of the net, the Demon immediately slapping the ball into the sand on my side of the beach.
“My point,” he smirked, moving to pick up the ball so that he could begin the next round.
“One all!” Lian Li exclaimed while clapping her hands.
My senior sisters cheered enthusiastically at his win, something that I really have trouble getting used to.
At least Master was too focused on His sandcastle to pay attention to us. Or rather, Cai Hong and Lilith cheering Master’s sculpting of a dragon curling around one of the castle’s turrets might have captured more of His focus.
It actually looks really impressive.
Whoops, shouldn’t get distracted again, that piece of trash just threw the ball into the air to serve it.
He’s still keeping to the mortal boundaries of strength so his service was easily received by me. I set it up so that I could smash the ball towards the far left of where he was currently standing.
Again, he made use of his teleportation powers and tried to slam it straight down on my side of the net, something I had already anticipated happening so I was already in front of him when he was trying to slam it down.
So surprised by my appearance he was that I managed to deflect the ball back over the net to his side of the beach before he realised I had won the point.
He blinked at me, “How did you… That was not teleportation… How did you move that fast?”
I’m surprised he did not notice this yet, but I have made several potions into tablet form and hid them in my mouth. I had bit down on a speed enhancing tablet right as he was serving which allowed me to move extraordinarily fast for a short period of time.
Guess he doesn’t possess the power of omniscience.
Then again, I suppose none of his siblings do since they would have realised Master was here and wouldn’t need Lilith to go tell them if they did.
I picked the ball up from the ground and simply gave him the same smirk he had given me earlier, “My point.”
“One, two,” Lian Li sighed dejectedly.
I started the next round by serving the ball normally, to which he returned by sending it high into the air before trying to blast it as far away from me as possible.
I reacted by biting down on another tablet in my mouth, this one enhancing my leg strength in particular. Jumping high up into the air. I coated my leg with a layer of water before delivering a bicycle kick to send it back down towards the ground.
The piece of trash barked out a laugh at me before teleporting back towards the ground to receive it, no doubt thinking that he would easily score this point since I would be stuck up here in the air.
He waited near the ground where the ball was falling and even leisurely leapt up to try and spike it.
But right as he was about to come in contact with the ball, the layer of water that I had transferred to the ball’s surface after I kicked it shifted towards the top of the ball and propelled it, blasting it straight into the sand before he could intercept it.
I landed just as Lian Li called out the score, “One, three.”
“So this is how the game is meant to be played?” Cain eyed me with narrowed eyes.
I simply shrugged at him.
“Very well then…”
He picked up the ball and moved to the back to serve again.
As I got ready to receive, there was a shift in the area on his side of the beach.
All of a sudden, his side of the beach was flooded with multiple copies of himself, filling up every single part of the beach as far as the eye could see.
“Let’s continue, shall we?” He grinned.
Oh great…
