Alfonso Dirac was very bothered by the sight of the man wearing the pink flatfish mask in front of him.
He had never faced such an opponent.
It was clear that the man wasn’t buffed by sacred arts, nor did the power of elemental elves or demons surround his body, let alone the bloodline potential of supernatural races. All he had was remarkable physicality, and was no more than a mortal with unmatched agility.
After all, in contrast to Earth, humans possessed much better physical potential in a fantasy realm such as this-supreme physical strength was mere foundation with sufficient food and training, and knocking out cows with a single punch was nothing but the passing mark of physical prowess. On the other hand, while lifting 300 kilograms was a world record back on Earth, it was only the required standard for street performers for this world.
As the first batch of Players were stricken refugees who never had a full meal and couldn’t even afford to keep themselves warm, their basic physical aspects were hardly impressive.
Therefore, even if a born refugee like Mufasa had reached Level 40, he was more or less the same as the monk in stats, and might lose out if it had been an elite monk such as Alfonso Dirac who made it into the final like him.
After the Night Tide Dragon had slurped the leading monk of the Brilliant White Church down its throat as if he was a cuttlefish, Alfonso was elected unanimously as their temporary leader since he was strong in both spirit and ability.
ers
But ultimately, Lyante, the God of Light was one of the Seven Divine Fathers. Even if Xi Wei would empty his vault to groom his believers (why does it feel like it should be the other way round?), he could barely match the God of Light in improving his believers’ stats even though Lyante was merely giving his own believers scraps. Still, it had to be said that thanks to the brand-new doctrinal module that Xi Wei had founded, his believers were granted immense freedom instead of stiff rules and commandments, pumping his believers full of motivation to improve-even the weakest Players were diligently carrying out side quests to develop their Life Skills.
And with their activeness-or indeed their ability to find trouble that far surpassed the believers of other churches, the Players didn’t let Xi Wei down in the Twin City Cup and handed in their exam papers which satisfied him. Not only had their average standard surpassed your usual believer of any church, their elite could match the intermediate forces of the Brilliant White Church!
While that comparison might make the Church of Games appear lacking, the Brilliant White Church remained the top religion as acknowledged by the entire continent, and one of the few factions with confirmed legendary beings.
In fact, they were brimming with such strength and depth that they were an equally match against the third to tenth in the list of top ten religions. The second was only an exception because the Temple of Glory had confirmed legendary beings as well…
But that was digressing. Either way, even though Alfonso stood as one of the stronger middling forces of the Brilliant White Church, he would hold a place amongst the champions of the continent.
Even so, he found himself extremely bothered against the pink flatfish.
It was not as if he couldn’t match his opponent in sheer brute strength-monks had refined themselves through ascetic training and empowered their will through traditional arts, meaning that Alfonso would neither feel pain nor suffer even if he was being handed a single-sided spanking, and might even get excited about it…
The reason he was bothered, however, was because his opponent wasn’t strong at all.
In fact, he was weaker than Alfonso himself in every possible aspect, and yet he proved peerlessly sharp and agile as if he could foresee every one of Alfonso’s blows-no matter how he tried, the pink flatfish would perfectly parry or evade his attacks.
It was not as if Pink Flatfish was using some extraordinary sword art or footwork. In fact, anyone looking closely could tell that his moves were extremely basic and limited: he would rapidly charge at Alfonso with a sliding step that prevents the monk from pulling away, parry any armed strike or sacred arts, slashing out or stabbing out in a straight line as if he was a meteor. Then, whenever he anticipated a counterblow, he would sidestep in evasion, and actually keep his upper body on an attack posture while his legs moved…
In other words, the monk couldn’t reach the Pink Flatfish no matter how he tried, leaving him feeling frustrated as he punched out again and again only to hit thin air, let alone reach his target.
It was even more irritating that the pink flatfish head kept flopping around flaccidly whenever Alfonso traded blows with his opponent. The taunt on that cartoonish fish face was simply overflowing with such mockery that increased Alfonso’s blood pressure, his serene monk mink utterly ruffled.
‘Don’t get anxious… don’t get angry… you mustn’t let your opponent disturb the rhythm of the battle…’
Alfonso warned himself again and again, assured that once his opponent would end the fight with a lightning-quick blow once he exposed an opening in Alfonso’s own rhythm.
Even so, Alfonso would only fail whenever he tried to feign an opening to trick his opponent.
As such, he could only fight patiently and must not get anxious at all.
‘I’m. Very. Calm.’ Alfonso told himself. ‘The skies are ever clear, the air ever refreshing. There is no need for anger.’
The Pink Flatfish’s face: Heh.
IL
1
Alfonso: Die right now flatfish—!
***
“And here I was expecting the monk would be shouting stuff like ‘stand and fight like a man’ or ‘let’s have an honorable match’.” Joe said, bemused by the sight of the monk’s hateful face.
Amongst Edward’s party, Joe and Gou Dan had been eliminated from the Third Round when they failed to get through to the last sixteen, whereas Jessica didn’t make it into the Third Round at all because she wasn’t allowed to use Sefarim in the tourney and was eliminated in the Second Round since her points were too low.
Meanwhile, Eleena, the Church of Games’ own saintess was taking a break as ordered from the very start. Xi Wei himself had issued the decree to keep the girl from revealing herself, since it was best for every other church to be unaware of her existence before she could reach a certain threshold in power, and was disqualified alongside Jessica in the second round due to lacking points. “Did you think everyone else is a big oaf like you?” Gou Dan rolled his eyes at Joe even as he thought of a new post. “Would you ask for magical beasts to retract their claws, extract their teeth, seal their skills to fight fairly with you in the wild?”
“Of course not,” Joe replied, jiggling his massive pecs as if he were using it to think. “Claws, teeth and skills are a magical beast.” “And that’s the same thing with Mufasa: judgement and evasion is a part of him, so why should he give up on his advantage in a fight?” Gou Dan said as if it only made sense. “By the way, what do you think about the title: ‘Shocking! The Brilliant White Church monk is outmatched by the Pink Flatfish!’?”
“No impact Better change it to ‘Shock! You’ll never believe what the Brilliant White Church monk did against the Pink Flatfish!’.”
“…Well, it’s you.” Gou Dan murmured with deeper meaning even as he stared at Joe.
But even as everyone focused on the match, there was a distant rumble reverberating from inside the city, with a dark mushroom cloud rising from within…
