Chapter 48: Fight To The Death?
"Out of interest what did he tell you to get you to come here?" As James said this, he gestured to Eamon with his chin.
"We know what you said about us; you think you can say we're useless and nothing will come of it, no. We won't allow it to happen; you will learn to either respect us or fear us. Now stop talking and fight!" The rest of the boys moved in to start attacking James at this point; it seemed they had forgotten his warning from earlier and they went for it.
"Just leave them to me, don't worry about it" After hearing that the boys looked around confused and saw James' guards all around them with their swords drawn ready to swing down on their necks.
"Holy shit, you weren't lying. You were really going to kill us! Fuck you, let's see who dies now!"
It seemed that one of the boys had lost it, he saw James as a commoner and to have his life threatened by a commoner was the biggest disgrace he had ever received.
He drew his sword and swung it down towards James; intent on finishing the fight instantly.
James simply sidestepped the sword and watched it fall towards the other young man who was currently fighting James, the sword connected and took off the boys arm from below the elbow. After he took his friend's arm off the boy dropped his sword like it was burning through his hand and fell the ground distraught.
"I didn't mean it; I didn't, I didn't mean to hit you! Why? NO!"
The boy was undergoing a complete mental breakdown after cutting off his friends arm. Apparently, he wasn't prepared to face the consequences of his actions.
"Idiot, why the hell did you get your sword out!" The largest of them watched the whole thing unfold and was now panicking trying to help the boy whose arm had been cut off.
"Shh, It's going to be okay. We're going to get it healed."
The boy was currently flailing around on the ground in pain, he was losing a lot of blood and looked extremely pale, it seemed that he would soon pass out and leave his life behind.
"Move aside, I guess I'll have to do this, there is no way to reattach the arm after all."
James strode forwards and took the boys bloody stump in his hand and using his power of fire conjured a flame to cauterise the boy's arm evenly, the blood instantly stopped flowing, and a putrid smell filled the air. Thankfully, James had the best control over his fire element, so he was able to minimise the damage to the arm.
After evaporating the blood from his hands, James stood up and looked at the group of boys looking like a ruler from on high.
"You will fight me for your lives, I won't use my powers and will only use martial arts, not any weapons. I win you all die; you win I die, deal?"
"Why the hell would we want to fight you now, you've already done enough. Just let us go!" Eamon had finally recovered from the shock and now tried his best to leave but was blocked by the guards.
"I'll fight you; I expect you to keep your word though."
"Let's go then, less talking more fighting."
For the next twenty minutes James and the large boy threw vicious attacks at each other, they were fighting for their lives, so they held nothing back.
While fighting, James began to refine his martial art and was gradually suppressing the young man the longer they fought. After they had been fighting for a while, the young man pulled out a small ball that looked like dirt and placed it in his mouth.
After ingesting it, he suddenly came to life again and began fighting with even more vigour than before, with James also being tired he started to get suppressed in return, the young man had flipped the table on him, and now James was in a serious situation.
With the new level of suppression, James found that his understanding of his martial arts was skyrocketing forward and that he was gaining massive benefits from the fight. After a few minutes of James only being able to focus on defensive moves with the occasional Jab the effects of the pill seemed to begin to wear off, during this time James had reached a new level in his martial arts.
With being forced to defend constantly, all he could really do was analyse the enemies martial art, he had significantly deepened all of his understanding, and it felt like a lot of the puzzle pieces had fallen into place.
Now that the young man was losing his energy James began to fight back, each of his moves held enormous power and hit on a vital point. James quickly swept up his opponent after that and after finishing he was utterly exhausted.
"Okay, I win. I won't kill you, so all you have to do is not mention a single thing that happened here to anyone. Each of you can sign one of these then give it back to me."
James threw out five Spirit contracts he had already prepared for a situation where he would have to keep someone quiet; he already had contracts for quite a few conditions prepared, and with his meticulous mind he was able to make them reasonably ironclad and binding.
Four of the five men all scrambled towards the contracts like they had seen their life ending if they were a half second slower. Once they had signed, they realised that the boy with the severed arm was stuck unable to move at the back of the yard.
They took a contract over to him, and once he had also signed all of the youths left carrying the wounded man with them.
They seemed ecstatic with a new lease on life after being brought back from the grave they felt they had been put in. Little did they know James never had any plans to kill them as it would cause far too much hassle dealing with the boys' families.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
keyboardcoronary
keyboardcoronary Almost finished, need to wrap up a few things then we can start the bit I've been looking forward to.
In the second volume, you can expect school life, mage battles, machine building, and depending on how I'm feeling maybe even a love interest or two!
But for now, its 1 am so I'm going to bed.
As always any reviews, votes, or whatever else is much appreciated!
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