章 12: Another Player

A loud thud could be heard as Claude dropped the sword he was holding and waved to the mysterious man called Ben. The surrounding villagers continued to scream out Ben's name in hopes that he would be able to stop Claude.

After a few more moments, Ben put his hands behind his head as he started to speak, "So, you are another player, aren't cha? And from the looks of it, you aren't a part of any party since I don't see an emblem when I look at you." Ben leisurely walked towards Claude while the latter did the same while narrowing his eyes to focus on what Ben might do.

Ben lightly chuckled as he stopped walking towards Claude and stretched out his muscles. "Well, newbie, there are obviously a lot of things you don't know about this world so I'll forget this little incident if you party with me since you--" Ben's words got interrupted as Claude spoke up.

"Don't worry about it! I don't need anyone, all I need to win is me." Claude boastfully exclaimed as he finally might be able to 'play' with someone that might be 1/10th qualified to fight him. Claude's standards were extremely absurd as his abilities were superhuman even without the abilities that the system gave them.

"Heh, well I expected that answer anyways since everyone that is a player is the apex of their community with abilities to back up their words. Tell you what, let's play a game. If I win you become my subordinate and if you win--" Ben got cut off by Claude once again.

"-- you tell me everything you know about this world without leaving anything behind and owe me a favor. This is fair right?" Claude nonchalantly blabbered. Of course, the majority of information Claude expected he would get would come from basic information that the system gave them but his childish character decided that he wouldn't do so. "The struggle is what makes it fun." This was one of Claude's mottos, quite an S & M saying.

"Fair enough, seeing your abilities from the short exchange from earlier made me fired up. Plus, the crowd wants me to teach you a lesson."

"Fine. The rules of this duel would be: whoever surrenders or loses the ability to fight loses, killing is not allowed. I already know you asked for an improved body from the system and you know that I asked for Creation Magic. This will be fun..." Claude sinisterly spoke up and Ben nodded to it.

A sudden bright light illuminated the sky that descended upon the village as everyone tried to look away, except for Claude who wore sunglasses and saw a faint body outline. The light when a game starts signifies this time was much grander than the 'games' Claude played before. This was all due to a special condition within the divine laws which govern the world of Etherea.

As soon as the light faded, Ben instantly ran towards Claude while the latter was creating a stun gun in his hand. As soon as Ben was in front of Claude, Claude immediately with a flash of movement used the stun gun the aimed for Ben's gigantic body.

Ben laughed as Claude's aim was extremely off, it was as if he wasn't trying to hit him at all. This confused Claude since it was basically point blank range yet he managed to miss terribly. Right after missing the first strike, Ben rose his knee and kicked Claude in the stomach causing the latter to be sent back flying.

Before Claude hit the ground, he created a mattress behind him as to prevent him from getting injured from falling to the ground hard. "What attack power!"

Right after Claude landed did he understood that something was off. With a sleight of hand, a flashbang appeared and a tranquilizer gun was held, each held by one of Claude's hands. He threw the flashbang which once again lit up the whole area, blinding everyone present excluding Claude.

Ben tried to block the light by using his arm to cover his eyes but this action enabled Claude to shoot him without any issue. As soon as the dart was flying towards Ben its trajectory shifted from directly hitting him to just barely missing his body.

Claude immediately realized what just happened since he could actually see how the dart shifted its trajectory. After being stunned for a moment for such an absurd thing to happen, he once again tried to create another flashbang to stun Ben once again.

However, that moment's hesitation let Ben get close enough to Claude to prevent him from making another flashbang. Ben was winding up for another hit while Claude tried to jump back but he was too late. The punch appeared as fast as lightning as it approached Claude's stomach once again.

After the hit connected a loud scream could be heard, Claude was once again sent back flying but the one who screamed was actually Ben. "*Hiss* You actually have a good reaction time in the scheme of things, hehe. I actually underestimated your ability." Blood was dripping down on Ben's hand as he tried to tend to the wound.

A blood mark appeared on Claude's clothes in the stomach area as he stood up the raised his shirt. A metal plate with spikes covered his stomach but the mark of a fist was embedded on it. This showed how much force was put into that one punch. "It looks like I have to strengthen my body, huh?" Claude sighed in exhaustion from the toll of the extremely heavy punches of Ben.

"Well 1 down, 3 to go! It's only going to get easier from now on since you can't use your hand anymore." Claude looked as if he eased up and let his guard down but in actuality, he was preparing for the next attack as well as his enemy's hidden ability.

"I tried to knock you out but it seems this is getting a little bit more interesting! How about we add 1 point from the system to the wager."

"Deal."

The space distorted for a bit but other than that the tense atmosphere from before nothing actually changed but if one were to once again look at the wager, the 1 point was added from both sides.

Claude was already up and was planning for his next move against his enemy but while he was doing so Ben actually put his hands down as his hair started to slowly rise. The surrounding debris from the fight was starting to levitate and started to merge behind Ben.

From the early soft and slow movement of the debris turned into violent, unrelenting waves of concrete, tree bark, sand, soil and, literal houses to merge behind Ben. The congregation of all these materials started to heat up as if there was enough force to create heat. Even the ground where Claude was standing on started to break apart.

"Oh damn... this is bad." Claude softly chuckled as he realized just what situation he was in.