Chapter 154 Fistfight
Nial didn't show any signs of hesitation, let alone mercy as he emerged in front of the tallest soldier.
The seemingly simple attack he had executed was powerful enough to penetrate the defense of his opponent, providing Nial the momentum he needed to continue with his onslaught.
After the first punch that he shoved hard into the junior Soldier's abdomen, Nial shortened the gap and inched closer to issue a second attack.
His other fist fiercely punched out, reaching the junior Soldier's side in an instant.
Shrouded in dark energy, Nial's attack was strong enough to break a rib or two at once.
And that was exactly what Nial was out for.
Gritting his teeth, a cold expression appeared on his face as his second attack reached the junior Soldier.
However, that was not it. Nial was not yet done, which could be seen as he landed another three punches within a single second.
Nial had planned to overwhelm his opponent, and to give him no chance to retaliate in the slightest.
This was thoroughly achieved as the junior Soldier landed on the ground while groaning in pain.
While Nial's attack was fierce owing to his brute force, that was not everything! The remnants of his dark energy had been transferred to the junior Soldier the moment Nial's fist collided with his body and touched his skin.
Thus, the aftermath was only slowly unveiled. It would take a minute or two before the expressions of the junior Soldier were bound to turn even worse than the grimace that had already appeared on his face.
After seeing their leader on the ground, the other junior Soldiers didn't remain idle either.
In the first second, they had been too baffled but now that they had regained their senses and their expressions turned serious.
Based on the power-packed punches, Nial made use of the junior Soldiers and could immediately tell that Nial's strength was far above the number of enlargings his mana core had undergone and even rivaled their own combat strength.
While being at the 3rd Origin rank, Nial should never be able to exhibit such powerful punches.
As such, the others were more careful right now. Some of the junior Soldiers were even ready to unsheath their weapons.
But that was something they had been forbidden to do by the government. Their task was a different one, and only if their opponent were to point a weapon at them would they be allowed to unsheath their own.
However, Nial was standing there, his fists inches away from the soldier's face as if he was ready to continue fighting.
Saying that Nial was standing doing nothing. After all, there was no necessity for him to do so.
The only thing he had to ensure was that the other junior Soldiers would not attack him.
This was something Nial figured out after a mere second as his range of perception detected their battle intent, which was more than enough to tell that they had yet to give up.
Nial thus inserted mana in the Curse [Hodur's Heir], releasing black miasma in an explosive manner.
He didn't plan to shroud everyone with his black miasma, but he wished to use it more as a distraction for the junior Soldiers.
They were truly distracted for a moment but it didn't affect them much.
Because they were already fully focused and ready to fight, their mind and body had already entered a battle mode.
This allowed them to prevent being affected by most distractions. At the same time, the slightest changes in their surrounding area could be detected easily.
As such, the remaining nine junior Soldiers could clearly detect the sudden earth walls that emerged seemingly out of nowhere.
Not only Mathias but also Bella had been astonished that Nial resorted to such drastic action as to attack one of the junior Soldiers, who had been guarding the dungeon portal and the small base that had been built.
Even now, they were unsure what exactly Nial's plan was.
However, as they were a team, they would take the responsibility for his actions together, and based on their experience while interacting with Nial his two friends were also pretty sure that Nial was not someone to act rashly.
That meant there was something Bella and Mathias overlooked, while Nial had been able to detect it.
Thus, by making use of the black shroud that hid them from the junior Soldiers, Mathias was able to create several earth walls all around them without the need to fear getting attacked.
With one earthen wall, Mathias split up the junior Soldiers, only for the remaining walls to block off the Soldiers' path of retreat.
On the other hand, Bella had activated [Outburst] while releasing mana to shroud her hands and feet in a similar manner as the junior Soldiers were doing.
Bella shot through the black shroud and focused on attacking the five junior Soldiers. They were closer to her spot, while the remaining four junior Soldiers were on the left side of Nial.
A faint smile emerged on her face the moment she emerged from the black shroud and stood facing the junior Soldiers whose expression was extremely bad, to put it simply.
They had completely forgotten about the existence of Nial's teammates as the blind young man had been the only one to attack them.
Bell and Mathias had just been looking at the situation in confusion and were dumbfounded before.
As such, their intervention had been very unlikely.
But even then, some junior Soldiers had kept an eye on Bella and Mathias for some time, only for the black shroud to forcefully avert their attention to Nial.
The young Original had emerged from the black shroud first, catapulting his toned body at the closest junior Soldier.
This was more than enough distraction for Bella to gain a tremendous advantage in the fight against the five junior Soldiers.
She threw a mere glance to her left to see how Nial was faring before her own fight started.
However, when she saw that Nial's entire body radiated tiny traces of dark energy, her heart began to beat frantically while her hair began to gleam in a golden light.
Even without meaning to, she had activated her Innate ability [Celestial transformation] subconsciously.
It was only for a short moment but Bella noticed once again that her innate ability wanted to tell her something about Nial.
To her misfortune, this was certainly not good. Bella was not sure what exactly was going on but she felt that the moment she was to unveil the truth behind her Innate ability's weird reaction, things would change…drastically.
As such, she was grateful that her Innate ability didn't reveal anything to her. This was the best that could happen.
Just at this moment, Bella sensed that someone rushed toward her. A fist burst forward, barely reaching her.
Only due to her instincts and fast reflexes was it possible for Bella to lean backward and evade it.
Simultaneously, as she leaned backward her leg kicked out, hitting the soldier.
With a loud thump sound, the junior Soldier fell to the side.
As her Innate ability had been activated for a short moment, the combined force Bella's mana created with the [Outburst] ability fully unleashed was more than enough to fling the Soldier against the earthen wall to their left.
Moving rapidly, Bella made use of her momentum to regain her balance. Afterward, she pushed ahead, advancing to the other junior Soldiers.
As both her Innate ability and the [Outburst] ability were activated, her strength was simply unparalleled in the face of the opponents she was fighting with.
Meanwhile, Nial was also giving his best. The four junior Soldiers he faced were a lot weaker than the tall junior Soldier he had already defeated.
But that was not important as he was fighting four opponents at the same time right now.
This made things far more difficult but he loved the challenge. Thus, he quickly circulated mana through his body, and his strength increased considerably.
Simultaneously, the dark energy that shrouded his hands was slowly moving alongside his arms, covering parts of his forearm.
At the first glance, this didn't make much of a difference, but that was only the case until Nial blocked the punch of the Soldier, who was the closest to him.
He lifted his arms to block the attack, and the Soldier's fist impacted on his forearms.
At that moment, the junior Soldiers expected Nial to cry out in pain and to hear a cracking noise.
But in the end, none of that happened.
Instead, it was the expression of their own comrade that turned sour and was filled with pain.
'So fucking hard!'
Not only was dark energy extremely powerful to enhance attacks, and weaken his opponents severely but its capabilities to defend and to enhance Nial's defensive traits were quite high as well.
Dark energy was mostly used for the purpose of attacking and killing as it was the best weapon to make use of in such situations, however, its versatility should never be underestimated.
Being of less use in specific situations didn't actually mean that something was weak let alone entirely useless.
That was something Nial had figured out not too long ago.
He gained a deeper understanding of the dark energy within the darkness domain.
While he faced the primary Trials of the Gods, Nial had already gained little understanding of the dark energy.
There was still a lot to learn, but this was perfectly fine. After all, this only indicated that he was still able to improve a lot.
He could continue to become stronger as long as he comprehended more about his dark energy. This was perfect, and something Nial would love to focus on.
But his rank at the 3rd Origin rank was simply too low to utilize dark energy or the black miasma in the ways he wanted to.
Too little mana resided in his mana core despite it having been enlarged after absorbing the Lesser Titan youngling's heart!
Fortunately, that was of no concern in the current fight as his steel-like forearms were more than enough to block off the attacks that tried to hit him.
The initial shock of the closest junior Soldier was used to his advantage as Nial initiated a counterattack right off the bat.
Instead of punching him, Nial's flat hand shot out at a rapid speed, reaching the Soldier's neck.
Hitting one of the major arteries at the junior Soldier's neck, Nial was able to knock out the Soldier at once.
Nial didn't even have the time to catch his breath after he knocked out the Soldier as his range of perception sensed the approach of another junior Soldier to his left.
He ducked, evading the fist that was supposed to knock him out, just to shoot upward a moment later.
With a clean uppercut, Nial's next attack knocked out one more opponent.
Afterward, only two junior Soldiers were left conscious.
But they were no problem for Nial to tackle because his strength was more than enough to inflict fear in the hearts of the junior Soldiers.
And the moment one was afraid to face an opponent, losing the battle was only a matter of time.
This was exactly what happened to the junior Soldiers.
They might have gained tremendous combat experience and powerful combat techniques to overwhelm their opponents, but there were still limits to both.
And despite being able to release and endure mental pressure, Nial's ice-cold expression and his terrific presence that easily overwhelmed their comrades, who were, in fact, stronger than them, was more than enough to deprive them of their fully focused state and calm demeanor.
Thus, Nial faced no problems in defeating his opponents. After he finished his fight, Nial used his range of perception to take a look at how Bella was faring.
Everything seemed to be fine and Bella defeated the remaining opponents less than a minute later.
In the end, a total of ten junior Soldiers had been defeated by a small team of three young Originals, with only two fighting actively while Mathias was their support on stand-by.
Nial took a few steps backward before a faint smile emerged on his face.
"I guess I can pass through the entrance without paying anything. Please ask your senior to give me a good score, thanks." Nial said in a rather nonchalant manner while looking at the still groaning tall junior Soldier, whom he had defeated at first.
"What do you mean by 'score'?"