Assessment- 2

(A little while earlier)

The leader of the group was carefully observing the fight as he only had information about their attributes and not their skills and fighting abilities.

"Leader they are holding on pretty well. What do you think?"

"Indeed, fighting two of my men when not even 16 is commendable but unfortunately I don't think they can handle more than three men."

"Why so?" the man didn't doubt his colleagues' skill in fighting some kids but he wanted to know what the leader thought of the fight till now.

"Firstly that Edmund boy, he has way too many injuries on his body to fight comfortably, although his opponent is also pretty roughed up, he had experience in fighting. Also with his lightning attribute, it will be difficult to use any attribute related skills without injuring himself further.

Secondly that other boy has been using his skills quite often and considering everything he has shown so far, his essence should be running low."

"But they should have their potions with them?"

"They should and I am pretty sure they will use them when the time comes but it will only prolong the battle leading to them getting more exhausted than they already are.

No matter what they do, they can't overcome the fatigue of the battle. They will definitely lose this battle."

"That.... " the man stopped mid-sentence when he felt several presences around them.

"Leader..." he turned around to look at his leader who gestured with his hand to stop.

"I'll take care of them." the leader closed his eyes, sensing the monsters around them and after locating everyone of them, snapped his fingers.

Several monsters were beheaded in an instant as invisible wind blades cut their heads without them even knowing.

The man was mesmerized by his leader's show of power as this was the first time he saw him in action and that too in such an awesome way.

"Stop fan boying and go back, make sure there are no more monsters around."

"Yes sir." the man went away and started killing everyone who dared to come near them whether intentionally or not.

"Get ready." the leader ordered another man who was holding a dagger in each hand. He nodded at the leader and after getting the confirmation, threw the daggers at Rey, who barely dodged them with some grazing on his cheeks.

The man was shocked, not believing that someone young and inexperienced can dodge his daggers. Quickly recovering from the shock, he took out two more daggers and dashed at Rey.

Rey saw the man approaching him from the forest and tried to dodge using shadow assimilation, when a screen telling him that he was low on essence flashed in front of him.

"Tsk... this is bad." Rey tried to step back instead to dodge the man's daggers but by that time, he had already reached him and slashed at him. Making two deep wounds on Rey's stomach and chest.

"Ugghh.....Ed, there are more of them. Be careful." Rey retreated a couple of steps back and warned Ed if there were anymore of them hiding in the forest.

'I need to regroup with Ed but I need to be careful of this new guy and the one I injured earlier.'

Rey tried dodging the man's daggers as he was having a hard time blocking them with his knuckles.

After waiting for the perfect opportunity, Rey caught the man's dagger between the spikes of his knuckles and kicked him in the stomach, creating some distance.

After that, he focused all his remaining essence and used darkness blast at the man, who had to take a few steps back to avoid getting hit by it.

Seeing that his opponent was still distracted, Rey made his way towards Ed who was parrying the spear strikes with the shortswords given by him.

Rey appeared next to the man and kicked him on the head. The man blocked the kick with his spear's handle but it left him open for Ed to close in and slash him with both the shortswords, making an X mark.

The man was already in a pretty rough shape and it didn't help when Rey also joined the fray.

Suddenly he got orders from his leader using sound transmission to retreat back to safety.

"Che.... I'll see you two later." the man was disappointed as he was forced to retreat against kids. He pushed them away and went into the forest acting as if he was seriously injured. He looped around the forest and met up with the rest of his group.

Rey and Ed didn't pursue him and let him go and instead drank some health potions quickly as the other two were making their way towards them.

"Ed buy me some time. I need to replenish my essence."

"Just don't take too long. I don't know for how long will I be able to hold on."

"I need just 15 minutes"

Ed gave Rey a menacing look, telling him that he didn't like the joke.

Ed discarded the shortswords as they were about to break and they turned back into essence.

"Those are some nice toys you got there." the rookie mocked Ed's hammers after recovering. His wounds started to heal but the damage done by decay was beyond the scope of a health potion and needed a healer for it to heal completely.

Ed was angry at his remark and headed towards him but unfortunately he was intercepted by the dagger guy.

For Ed, whose main stat was strength, a person who focused on agility was not a good match up.

"100 penetrating strikes" Ed was surprised as in the whole fight, this was the first time the enemies used their skill.

Ed tried to block the strikes, but the faster was moving faster than he could block and was cut in various places.

The rookie also joined the attack and used an overhead slash to make a deep cut on Ed's back.

"Agghhh..!" Ed pained out a moan as his clothes were tattered and blood was flowing out from a lot of wounds.

'I'll have to take the risk. I can't go on like this.'

[Please think again, Ed.] sys was worried about Ed getting reckless but Ed ignored his concern and went on.

"Electric Discharge: Max Output"

Lightning started dancing around his body and then spread out, hitting the rookie who could not retreat on time.

"Rey you done? This is painful." this move was a double edged sword and showed Ed's desperation. The lightning was not only damaging the rookie but also deepening Ed's wounds.

"I'm done." Rey made his way towards the rookie and hit him with a darkness blast. The rookie was caught in Ed's attack and was unable to dodge the ball of essence coming his way.

His other teammate wanted to help but because of the lightning field, he could only see his teammate getting hit by darkness blasts.

Because of the restriction on their use of essence, the rookie couldn't get out of the lightning which otherwise would have been and easy task to do.

Rey used darkness blast a couple more times till his essence was almost depleted again, injuring the rookie severely.

The leader after seeing the rookie's condition, instructed him to retreat and not engage in further combat.

To make it look natural, the rookie fell on his knees exhausted and when Ed retracted the lightning thinking that his opponent was on his last leg, he used 'swift movement' to escape from them.

With his speed, the two boys were unable to react to his escape and focused back on the remaining one.

"Leader who are you not sending another to fight them?"

"There is no need to exhaust yourself unnecessarily. They are already tired and would soon retreat."

"So does this mean they passed?"

"Yes. Although they are lacking in many areas, they fought three of my men nonetheless, that is enough to prove themselves."

"Ed, I think we can leave now if we time it correctly. But for that, I need your special skill."

"*sigh* Not making it easy on me, huh? Just buy me some time to.... ughh! I just need to rest a little."

Ed's injuries were not at the point of being serious but because of his previous attack, fighting any longer can be dangerous.

"I got it." Rey put back his knuckles as they were ineffective against the opponent's daggers and borrowed Ed's battle axes and charged at him.

He closed in the gap and slashed at the man, who blocked them with his daggers. Instead of falling back, Rey decided to continue his charge and started to push back the other guy purely because of the adrenaline which managed to overcome his fatigue.

But it couldn't overcome the fact that Rey was making large and unnecessary movements and leaving many openings.

On the other hand, his opponent showed his experience as his movements were refined and precise and he also took advantage of the openings.

"*huff* *huff* Ed how long?" Rey was exhausted fighting for so long and against enemies stronger than him.

"Just a bit more." Ed was trying to recover, covering his wound with the bandages his had brought but unfortunately, the bandages were not enough and he could only cover his large wounds.

Thankfully for Rey, he just had to stall for time so he could focus his efforts on defending rather than attacking.

"You are pretty resilient for a kid, you know." the man was relentless in his attack and kept on pressuring Rey whose defence was not doing a good job of protecting him.

"I am ready!" Ed's voice gave hope to Rey as he pushed away the man.

Ed slammed his sledgehammer on the ground, attracting everyone's attention and then turned around and bent down slowly, his hands on his thighs.

Everyone including the leader were intrigued by his actions as he started raising his hips and then bringing them down.

"Secret move, movement style: Ass twerking"

He slowly gained rhythm amongst the pain and slowly started to get into the groove as his twerks became smoother and smoother.

Simultaneously except for Rey who knew about it, a system window informing them that they have been stunned appeared.

[Suck it suckers! Ed's ass is a deadly weapon. Haha!] sys was ecstatic by this as he could not do anything during the whole fight and was pretty anxious about it.

'Should I be offended by that?'

"Come on Ed, this is our chance."

Rey threw the battle axes to Ed who put them in his inventory and ran away from the spot leaving their bags behind which were mostly empty.

The leader stopped the man from pursuing the boys and after they had gone far enough, appeared at the scene of the fight.

"Elder, the job is done."

"Oh! So what is your verdict?"

"They can be useful if given time and guidance."

"If you say so. Return back at once, there is another job for you guys."

"Before that elder, could you dispatch some healers for us. My guys need to be healed quickly."

"Hmm... I'll send someone."

Elder Yan hung up the call and the leader after giving the orders went away, not saying anything else.

"L... leader, did we do anything wrong?" the rookie mustered up the courage to talk to the leader as he couldn't bear the tense atmosphere.

"No, is my fault. If you guys can't even handle two boys without getting injured, it shows my incompetence."

"But you restr-"

" Enough excuses, I'll increase your training by threefold once we get back."

" B.. but.."

" Fourfold it is."

The rookie shut his mouth as the others were giving him death states for making their already hellish training more difficult. Meanwhile, Rey and Ed were running away thinking that the enemies were still pursuing them. They ran with all the strength their injured bodies could gather and didn't stop until they were only since distance away from Rosewood, when Ed collapsed out of nowhere.

Though it was not visible, Ed was more injured than he looked, largely because of the man's skill earlier.

One of the specialities of that skill was that if trained to perfection, the penetrating strikes can injure a person from the inside and not leave a mark. Giving the image of the attack being blocked.

This is what happened with Ed as most of the strikes injured him internally, without him even knowing. Though the man was not perfect as it left many marks on Ed's body.

"Ed!!" Rey realised a little late when he didn't get a response from Ed and turned around, seeing Ed lying on the ground with blood coming out of his mouth, forming a puddle.