Martial Arts Worlds

Kiernan stretched his body to the side, and something swooshed past him like a fast bullet. It nearly landed on his shoulder, and based on that speed, it would've pierced through his skin like a knife through paper.

'Lucky?'

He thought to himself.

When he heard the sound, he just moved out of the way instinctively. He didn't know what was going to happen, but he just reacted with the help of his immense experience.

'Was that a bullet? It seemed like one.'

He looked ahead towards the glowing exit of the cave—there was nothing there, but on top of the exit, there was a hole, a barrel peeking through it, and it was smoking.

'A gun or what?'

Kiernan stood up and started to walk towards the exit, but then he heard a strange clicking sound.

'Something is wrong.'

He sidestepped.

BANG!

The bullet swooshed past him.

'This is the last challenge? Heh, this is easy.'

Kiernan smirked and started walking towards the exit, flexing his hands and cracking his knuckles.

Most would cower in fear of the gun, but this was laughably easy for Kiernan.

Bang, bang, bang!

The gun started rapid-firing bullets.

"Rendering Edge!"

His only remaining hand swished through the air, smacking the bullets out of the air and sending them crashing into the ground.

'Rendering Edge was created to deal with guns. Afterwards, I modified the technique to work against humans as well.'

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With anger, the bullets exploded off the barrel of the gun.

Kiernan walked forward, using Rendering Edge, and as the bullets made contact, they got flung to the sides of the rock walls.

With the final step, he walked into the glowing exit, and as the light assaulted his eyes, he appeared back at the start of the cave.

It was as if he walked circles around the mysterious cave.

When the bright light left his eyes, he saw the students looking over to him. They had been waiting for him.

"Yo, how was it?" Julian walked over to him with his hands inside his pockets. "Took longer than expected.

Kiernan turned to look at his final time.

[FINAL TIME]

[31:11.156]

'31 minutes.' Kiernan scoffed. "I did that bad, huh?"

"Bad? It isn't bad," the cold-faced young man walked over to them. "Some take over an hour for their first try; that's why I didn't want you to go at first because I didn't want to wait for that fucking long.

"However, after you defeated that girl back then, I thought you could do it faster than that."

"Really? An hour…" Kiernan frowned. "I met someone who said that I might be able to do it in under twenty minutes. He was bullshitting?"

"Probably being nice, I don't know. I only know that Abracadabra children have done it under twenty minutes in their first run."

"How was it?" Julian asked. "What kind of challenges were there?"

"We have a rule here," the cold-faced young man said. "No one can help you on your first run. You must experience it by yourself."

"I see." Julian said and looked at Kiernan. "At least you don't look injured. Not that bad, right?"

'I don't look injured?' Enjoy more content from empire

Kiernan frowned and looked at his right arm—it wasn't broken anymore!

'My body got healed? What the hell is that place?'

"If you happen to die in that place, what will happen?"

Kiernan asked out of curiosity.

"They 'respawn' like in those video games. You don't die there, per se. Once you respawn, your run will be considered a disqualification."

Kiernan nodded and turned back to the cave—it wasn't glowing anymore.

It was as if he was in a completely different dimension over there.

'Weird.'

"I guess it is my turn now!" Julian excitedly cracked his knuckles and approached the cave.

He moved into a sprinting stance, brought all his strength into his legs, and then sprang off, running into the cave, and vanished from sight shortly after.

The time started counting up.

Kiernan found one of the empty tree logs and sat down to catch his breath finally.

Crack, crack, crack!

A sound of twigs breaking sounded from the direction of the forest.

The students glanced over and looked surprised.

A group of people walked over—students, all of them—but they had piercings, some had tattoos, and few had dyed their hair shades of blue and purple.

"Shit, it is them," the cold-faced young man sat beside Kiernan. "The famous delinquent four."

"Who?"

"That blue-haired young man at the front is named Gardner Delatour."

Kiernan looked over.

Gardner had dark blue hair and piercings on his ear, and he looked quite handsome, but his eyes were cold and distant-looking.

He had a handsome-looking smile, but it didn't reach his eyes, as if it was all fake.

With him, his girlfriend—Fae Gallois—had long purple hair and a matching cold gaze, looking at everyone with the same coldness as her boyfriend did.

Drago Rouch and his girlfriend, Roesia Remy, were with them, both having matching red hair as if they dyed it together.

"Those guys are infamous at school—infamous bullies—but unfortunately, they're also strong as fuck."

A few students, when they saw them, sighed in frustration, picked up their backpacks, and started heading away.

"Hey, no need to leave." Gardner said with a mocking smile. "We'll be done here shortly."

"There is a gentleman's agreement that whoever came here first gets to choose whenever they want to do their run. However, those four don't care and just go straight to the front of the line, intimidating others to leave."

"Okay." Kiernan said, and rubbed the back of his head. "I kind of wanted to do a second run."

"Give up on that idea," the cold-faced young man slung his backpack over his shoulder. "I am heading home, peace."

With that, he turned and walked away.

'I am not satisfied with my time.' Kiernan thought. 'Ah right, that driver is still waiting. No, it's probably been an hour already since we've been here, so I guess we walk back to the city.

'Since I don't need to hurry, I might do a second run.'