Battle conclusion

With the spike-haired man screaming intensely, the axman got confused and looked to the side, for at one moment, they combined their attacks and was about to finish their foe, while the next moment, his friend was screaming like he had received a death wound.

However, this single moment of distraction cost heavily to the axman because Nura did not let this chance miss. Nura saw the opening and made a frontal kick at the stomach of the axman, pushing him back two steps, creating room so that Nura could escape from his cornered position.

Despite Nura's open wounds, neither his will to fight nor his combat ability reduced. So he used the space he created by kicking the axman to move towards the spiky-haired man, who utterly lost his focus to hold his injured shoulder as he cried out in pain.

While Nura swung his club at the defenseless man, Ryu pushed past them, running towards the axman with a determination to finish him off as quickly as possible. It wasn't a matter of overconfidence nor that he looked down on his opponent, but rather a matter of weapons, as Ryu had a ranged weapon while the axman had an ax with half handle, this combination put Ryu at an enormous advantage in that clash.

As Ryu reached the axman, he already had his recomposed himself and had his ax ready to strike at Ryu. Thus, before Ryu made the first move, the axman leaped at him swinging his ax ahead in a desperate attempt to kill Ryu.

Instead of using his staff to block, Ryu just let his body react according to the martial skill, so with exquisite footwork, Ryu moved to the side, evading the ax easily. When the ax man landed on the ground, he quickly moved to the side, trying not to give room for Ryu.

In a furious outburst, axman launched a bash attack at Ryu, disregarding everything aside. But this attack came without any analysis over the distance and position, so Ryu easily dodged this attack by simply bending back. After the ax blade had passed by centimeter over Ryu's face, Ryu tightened the grip on his staff, preparing to make a counterattack.

In response to Ryu, the black smoke covered his staff to hide his skill when it started to move on his side, aiming a horizontal strike at the axman. But, before Ryu's attack could reach its destination, the axman advanced even further, using bash another time at Ryu, this time in a diagonal attack coming in a downward from his right to left.

Yet another time, Ryu dodged this attack easily by bending his knees to lower his stance and moving to his left, the ax passed above his head. But before Ryu could react, the ax man lunged forward to throw another bash, followed by another and even another, all of which Ryu effortlessly dodged.

At the conclusion of the alley skirmish, this burly man decided to completely disregard all of his defense and invest with everything he had in the attack, trying to at least take one man with him. Maybe if he tried to flee from the spot, he would succeed, but after seeing what happened with the first man that tried to ran, this man gave up on this idea. And besides, what could happen with him if he returns to the gang after such humiliating defeat would not be any good.

Thus his only option was to go all out and try to take one man with him, but with his mind focused only on the attack, his pattern became too obvious while his movements were broad and choreographed, with no chance to catch Ryu with his immortal-grade martial art style.

Although Ryu had no problem dodging those furious attacks, he couldn't find a gap and make a counterattack, proving that he still had a serious lack of combat experience. As Ryu kept struggling to find a counterattack opportunity, the man suddenly stopped his attack and arched back with pain inscribed on his face.

To put an end to that fight, Nura reached striking axman back with everything he had. Thus, while he arched back in pain, Ryu on the frond used his staff to hit the man's head in a downward move, throwing the man down unconscious. But this wasn't enough for Nura that made landed another blow at the downed man, just to make sure.

"Enough, Nu-, we have to get out of here quickly." said Ryu, realizing at the middle of his sentence that he almost said Nura's name loud.

When Nura looked up, he noticed several people looking in silence at them from the opened windows. "Take their rings, and let's go." said Nura crouching to pick the ring from the body at his foot.

"Seriously? we have no time for that." Ryu tried to protest, but when he saw that Nura would not give up on his reward, he went to help collect the rings.

As soon as they finished, Ryu heard a message from his system, but he quickly closed the tab notification because he had no time to waste reading the texts. So Ryu and Nura went running through the streets, going to the streets that they had selected previously.

Using the roofs was the initial escape plan, but that was in case the fight ended quickly, which wasn't the case, so escape by jumping over the roofs was out of the question, as they had already been seen and the roofs would leave them exposed.

Another problem they didn't expect was Nura's bleeding, which ran down his robes and dripped onto the floor, leaving a trail behind, even after consuming a healing pill. So they couldn't risk returning to the inn as they feared it would only be a matter of time before more gang members arrived at the fight scene and started hunting them all over town.

The great quest was if the residents would help the highvalle or if they would decide to stay neutral, which could cause a difference in the time that Ryu and Nura had to run and find a spot to hide.

As they walked away from the battle scene, Ryu and Nura found a small gap between the houses, and, one by one, they entered and exchanged their bloodstained clothes for clean ones. When they were done changing clothes, the whole city started to get noisy, and men flying with swords crossed the city from above.

With their hearts beating fast, Ryu and Nura resumed running, but this time trying to look innocent for the case that someone sees them from the top, so they continued to run to the outskirt of the city, doing their best to not go to the inn.

However, when they made a turn to go to one large street, they came face to face with something disturbing. There was a man in standing the middle of the street, his face displaying bad marks of age and his thin body revealing the toughness of his life.

Standing in the middle of the street with a clay jug of wine as he swayed drunkenly, Ryu and Nura recognized the man instantly, for the one time they saw this man left a deep impression on them.