Chapter 26: I Mean No Harm

The young girl stared at Calian. It was because the money that Calian put on the bet was just too big.

What Calian just put down on the plate was the betting win certificate. He had betted 1500 florens. The winner he was betting on was of course, Kyrie.

A man that was standing by butted in.

“Oy, that’s a lot of money ya know. Don’t need to throw it away like that. That bastard over there never won even once. You should bet on white instead, though the fight will be still entertaining.”

But then, the person next to him disagreed. It seemed like he was betting the same result as Calian was.

“No way! He’s definitely going to win today! He could have easily won if he was just one second faster yesterday.”

Calian then realized that there were quite a number of people who were betting for the black headband even though the announcer said he never won a fight upto now. The young girl who was holding the plate stopped hesitating, write on the certificate paper and then went back up to the counter.

As the fight had just begun, massive silence covered the crowd as they all watched.

Kyrie was also quite tall for a boy of seventeen age, but in front of Shawn he was no different than a kid in comparison. Shawn, who was easily over two meters in height and massive in muscle size, swung his hands at Kyrie. Carlian saw Shawn’s arm muscles bulge and expand, looking just like how Raven’s legs were.

– Woosh!

As the arm swung, sound of air being cut was even heard, and Kyrie tilted his body a bit to avoid it. But then, Shawn followed it up with his left arm swinging up from below. Kyrie took a step backwards.

As he completely avoided both attacks, Shawn quickly retracted his hands and then stuck out his leg. As the speed of the kick was just too fast, it seemed like there was no time for him to avoid it. Just as if Kyrie thought the same thing, he lifted both his arms to block the attack.

– Slam!

Even though he was prepared to block the attack, a massive sound of thud was heard as Kyrie’s upper torso tilted by the force. As Kyrie took another step back from the attack, Shawn stepped in and once again kicked at him.

Quickly, Kyrie grabbed Shawn’s leg that was coming towards him. Even thought he did so to make Shawn’s balance become toppled, it was impossible to do so due to the difference in body size. Instead of being toppled, Shawn swung his fist at Kyrie’s hip who was still holding onto his leg.

Kyrie quickly let go of Shawn’s leg and stepped away from him, creating some space between them. He then dodged Shawn’s fist that was coming lightning fast, and countered by spinning his body once and landing the back of his feet to Shawn’s chin. Shawn’s chin swung to the opposite direction, and a cracking noise was heard.

Shawn stepped back a bit to grab a hold of his head and regain balance, then charged at Kyrie again, this time grabbing Kyrie’s hips and slamming it against the chain link wall.

– Slam!

Kyrie’s body made a loud thud sound as it was slammed against the chain link wall. Shawn then swung his fist hard into Kyrie’s stomach. Kyrie also retaliated by punching upwards at Shawn’s chin that was kicked by Kyrie previously.

Around twenty exchanges of blows and attacks happened between them.

Shawn was nose was bleeding due to the number of kicks from Kyrie’s nose. Shawn’s left hand was also shaking lightly, looking like it was damaged when Kyrie locked his arm and bent it.

However, Kyrie was not in a normal state as well. Kyrie stepped forward towards Shawn, but his balance wobbled a bit. It seemed that the pain of getting the back of his neck hit from Shawn a moment ago was affecting him. His eye was completely swollen from punches, and his lips had ripped wounds as well.

“Looks like he’s completely weak without his sword.”

Calian smirked and mumbled to himself. He spoke as if he was taking this lightheartedly, but his real thoughts were different. Seeing the famous sword master Kyrie fighting barehanded like that made him feel too annoyed.

As he thought that, Shawn cut through the air and charged to the front of Kyrie. His right hand swung out towards Kyrie’s face. Kyrie quickly lifted his arm to block is, but at the same time Shawn’s left hand slammed into Kyrie’s hip.

“Kgh!!”

Kyrie coughed loudly, leaning his body against the chain link wall. His shoulder was shaking, indicating that he was definitely hit directly at the vital point of his body. Calian was barely able to stop himself from standing up from his seat immediately.

Shawn charged in. Kyrie lifted his foot, giving a powerful kick to Shawn, and then charged in to Shawn as he staggered from the kick. Right afterwards, he landed a punch right on Shawn’s solar plexus, but it didn’t seem like Shawn was hurt that much from the hit.

– Slam!

Shawn tightened his fist and also slammed it into Kyrie’s abdomen just like Kyrie did to Shawn, as if to make fun of how weak Kyrie’s punch is and to show the difference in strength. Kyrie once again staggered his body, perhaps due to the fact that the punch was near the area that Shawn landed a punch just before.

Shawn smirked, and tightened his fist again. Kyrie was barely able to right himself to keep his body standing. Shawn charged in, and instantly started raining a dozen punches at Kyrie. At first, Kyrie was able to block the first few, but afterwards he wasn’t able to hold up the defence and was mercilessly bashed over and over. Although he was able to barely get a hit back at Shawn once or twice in the middle of the attacks, it didn’t affect Shawn too much. Soon, blood started coming out of Kyrie’s mouth.

Calian couldn’t stand it any longer, and he let out a shout towards Kyrie.

“Kyrie! You have the habit of lowering your shoulders before attacking!”

Calian’s voice cut through the crowd, making Kyrie flinch his shoulders in surprise for a moment.

Kyrie let down his arm that was blocking Shawn’s fist. Then, he put strength at the tip of his hand and balled it up to a fist. The muscles in his arms tightened and bulged from the back of his hand all the way to the top of his shoulder.

Kyrie launched his fist straight at Shawn’s stomach. Even though all he did was hear one sentence, but this time his shoulders moved properly as he attacked.

– Slam!

Shawn’s feet took a step back. He wrapped his hands around his stomach unconciously, as if the shock was quite powerful. As Kyrie’s counter was shown to be effective, the crowd’s cheer inside the gambling den rocked the house.

Taking advantage of this sudden surge of energy in him, this time it was Kyrie that landed multiple quick attacks onto Shawn. Landing straight hooks, uppercutting his chin, roundhouse kicking his face and so on, his endless amount of attacks that saw no end kept continuing.

Then in the end,

– Thud!

Shawn took a few steps backwards, his eyes upturned, and collapsed onto the ground with his arms and legs stretched out. The announcer quickly counted down the numbers, but Shawn didn’t get back up as he seemed to have fainted.

“W-What a shocking result!”

The announcer hesitated his words as if he couldn’t believe it, but soon regained his composure and yelled again in an excited manner, seeing Kyrie win for the very first time.

“Finally! Kyrie has won!”

The crowd roared. The number of happy cheers from people who won by betting on Kyrie today was endless.

“Our final winner of today’s matches are! Monster Eye Kyrie!”

Kyrie let out a big sigh of relief, then turned his head. Towards the direction where he heard the young man’s voice. Although he couldn’t see properly because his hood was covered, but he felt like he was meeting his gaze with him even still.

‘I wonder who it is.’

Just as Kyrie suspected, Calian was staring at Kyrie from under the hood as well. Calian chuckled to himself.

“Blood red eyes, and now Monster Eye, huh.”

He then looked around for a bit. He was waiting for someone.

“Should be here any moment now.”

Just as he suspected.

The young girl that was supposed to bring forth the certificate of payment for the winnings of his bet didn’t arrive. Instead of the young girl, a large man as big as Shawn came next to him instead. Rather than giving him the certificate, he delivered a message to him.

“There is someone who wishes to see you. Please come with me.”

As things progressed just as he thought, Calian stood up from his seat without any sign of worry or hesitation. He then followed the large man.