BAM!
The sound was like a bomb detonating inside a closed vault.
The force of a two-hundred-kilogram slab of steel colliding with a solid object displaced the air in the room.
A massive shockwave ripped outward from the centre of the arena.
Mira shrieked, throwing her arms over her face as the force wind pushed her and her cara guy a full step backwards.
Kyle smirked, fully expecting his sword to slam straight through the poor rookie and leave nothing but a ruined ss on the floorboards.
But the steel stopped moving.
Chris had thrown his hands up at the very last second, catching the flat surface of the massive blade against his armoured forearms.
His boots dug deep trenches into the marble floor as he was pushed back, and his knees buckled slightly under the absurd pressure, but his bones didn’t break.
His flesh, heavily fortified and dense from the C-Rank Iron Skin potion, held firm against the ridiculous weight.
He was kneeling slightly, gritting his teeth, but he was blocking the attack.
Kyle’s eyes widened in pure shock.
"What?" the giant breathed.
Realising his downward swing was stalled, Kyle didn’t hesitate.
The A-Rank hunter imdiately dropped the sword’s mass back to five kilograms. It was a sudden, jarring loss of resistance that made Chris stumble forward, his balance entirely thrown off.
Kyle pivoted on his heel, bringing the now-lightweight blade back in a flash, before swinging it in a brutal horizontal arc like a baseball bat aid right at Chris’s exposed ribs.
Just a fraction of a second before the blade made contact, Kyle’s mana flared.
The mass spiked right back to two hundred kilos.
Chris tried to bring his arms down to guard his side, but the speed shift was just too fast.
The greatsword slamd into him.
This ti, the force had nowhere to go but directly through his body.
Chris was launched off his feet, flying sideways through the air like a discarded doll. He crashed hard into the blast-proof arena wall.
The reinforced concrete cracked, spiderwebbing out from the small crater his body left behind.
Chris slumped to the floor, a motionless pile of dented silver armor and settling drywall cracks.
Mira tsked, shaking her head.
Julien, however, remained leaning against the side of the arena, his arms casually crossed, looking entirely unbothered.
"Well, I guess that is to be expected," Mira sighed, turning to face Toby’s floating cara lens.
She ran a hand through her bright orange hair, fixing her posture.
"Guys, sorry for the short duel, but he won’t wake up from that hit. The Association dics are on standby, so we will cut the feed here and-"
Toby reached out and poked Mira’s shoulder, pointing frantically at the floating chat screen beside the lens.
The chat was scrolling so fast it was just a blur of white text.
The viewer counter in the top right corner was multiplying rapidly, ticking from fifty thousand to over two hundred thousand in a matter of seconds.
[DihSlayer99]: HOLY SHIT LOOK BEHIND YOU!
[Mana_Addict]: HE IS GETTING UP. THE TANK IS GETTING UP.
[xX_Hunter_Xx]: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT POTION?!
[Healer_Girl_01]: That guy just took a boss hit to the ribs wtf
[Sword_Saint_Fan]: RIP my 500 coins.
Mira spun around, her mouth dropping open.
Kyle was standing in the centre of the ring, his monstrous sword resting on the floor.
He hadn’t taken his eyes off the wall.
Through the settling dust, a boot scraped against the floorboards.
Chris let out a long, pained groan and pushed himself off the cracked concrete.
His expensive chest plate was heavily dented, the silver surface scratched and warped, but as he stood up, there were no broken limbs.
No fatal injuries.
His skin still held that faint, tough blue hue.
He was battered, and he looked like he wanted to go ho, but he was still standing.
Julien smoothly slid into the cara fra, bumping Mira out of the way to take centre stage.
"As you can see, ladies and gentlen!" Julien announced, projecting his voice with the practised enthusiasm of a late-night seller.
"That was a massive, mass-enhanced strike equal to the raw physical damage of a dungeon boss. And my goat is still standing effortlessly!"
Behind the cara, Kiara peered around her datapad, looking at Chris, who was currently coughing up a small cloud of dust and holding his ribs.
She leaned over to Alice.
"Effortlessly?" Kiara whispered, raising a highly sceptical eyebrow.
Alice just blinked, watching the blonde tank wheeze.
"That," Julien continued, pointing a dramatic finger at Chris,
"is exactly what our hand-crafted, C-Rank Iron Skin potion is capable of! Please note that our brave volunteer didn’t even use a shield. He took a direct, unmitigated A-Rank skill to the ribs and walked it off."
Julien reached into his jacket.
"But what happens when your armor dents and you do take a little scratch? For that, we present product number two."
He pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a glowing green liquid and tossed it across the room.
Chris caught it clumsily with his gloves.
He didn’t even ask what it was this ti.
After surviving a baseball swing from a literal giant, he opened the cork with his thumb and downed the green liquid in one massive gulp.
The effects hit his system right away.
A warm, soothing energy flooded his veins, rushing straight toward the bruised areas under his armor.
The dull throbbing in his side vanished, and his heavy, laboured breathing levelled out.
His stamina bar maxed out in re seconds, washing away the fatigue of the brutal hit.
Feeling a sudden, surprising rush of energy, Chris let out a loud shout, slapped his own chest plate, and jogged right back to the centre of the arena, dropping back into a fighting stance in front of a very confused Kyle.
"Our premium Healing Draft," Julien pitched to the cara, holding up an identical green vial for a close-up.
"It restores stamina, patches up minor internal damage, and gets you back in the fight without delay. Unless you have a missing limb or a fatal wound, this beauty will keep your raid party moving."
The chat feed was reaching critical mass.
By now, practically every active hunter in District 5 was tuning into the stream.
Kyle was notorious in these training halls; he never held back, and he usually left his sparring partners unconscious on a stretcher.
Seeing a random, unnad rookie take his best hit and literally jog back for more was breaking the local internet.
Julien checked his peripheral vision.
The imaginary pre-orders in his head were going to be astronomical.
He smiled, pulling one last bottle from his pocket.
This one was a deep, swirling red colour that bubbled slightly against the glass.
"Now," Julien said, his grin turning wicked as the true rchant greed took over.
He tossed the red vial to Chris, who caught it with a solid smack.
"Now for our offence. Drink up, Chris." Julien pointed right at the giant A-Rank hunter, looking directly into the cara lens.
"Go punch the shit out of him."
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