13 - Unfair fight

There were two other people there, both of which were also one star silver ranks. The two other men were wearing black robes with no identifying features on them, but Su Long was still wearing his silvery blue robes with a snowflake crest on them.

He figured that they were probably going to attack him once he was tired, and sure enough, they seemed to shift in excitement once he stopped.

He sighed to himself in annoyance. It seemed that this fight could not be avoided, and he might end up dying from it. He was stronger than before, but not by much. He had one hundred sixty five pounds of strength, five more than three days ago, but it was still not much compared to the silver rank warriors that were now coming to attack him.

After all, they had about two hundred pounds of strength each at the least, thirty five pounds more than him. On top of that, being that they had previously reached the third bronze star, this meant that they were more resistant to hits than him, meaning he would be knocked back and injured by them in one hit while even if he managed to hit them, he might not even be able to hurt them. On top of this, they were faster than him, although not by a lot due to his body being faster from his eyes' reaction speed.

As they started to move, Su Tao leaped towards the nearest bow station with lightning and picked up a bow, instantly nocking and firing an arrow without any hesitation. Then, not even a half second later, there was already another arrow flying after the first one.

In only a short moment, there was a seemingly continuous stream of arrows with deadly accuracy flying towards one specific spot in the bushes. Then, two black robed figures jumped out of the bushes, drawing knives. A slight red glow surrounded the arms and part of the blade of one of them while a blue glow covered the arm and blade of the other.

Before the arrows had even reached halfway to them, they were already running towards Su Tao at full speed, and would be there in only a moment. But before they could move too far, the volley of arrows reached them, like a flowing river of death.

They blocked every arrow that came their way with immense speed and skill, showing that they were extremely experienced and dangerous people. All around them were arrows sent astray from bouncing off of their inner energy barriers. They continued to charge forward, albeit slower than before.

While shooting this volley of arrows, Su Tao was calm, calmer than he should be with two silver rank warriors charging towards him trying to kill him. He was not worried about running out of arrows due to the fact that he was taking them from a container full of hundreds of arrows. He had long ago thought of what he would do when they attacked him.

He would first fire several volleys of arrows to see their strength and speed, then he would silently and stealthily merge the power of his wicked eye into a couple arrows and possibly pierce through their defense. After all, he had never used his wicked eye's power with a weapon before and therefore had no clue of the effect it would have on the target it hit.

Thinking about this, he silently used the power of his wicked right eye and merged it into his arrows, firing four arrows using his wicked eye's power. The tips of the arrows were glowing slightly green, wicked and evil to the core.

As these arrows flew through the air, they left a extremely light green trail behind that only Su Tao himself could see. Finally, when they collided with their targets, all four arrows hit exactly where he wanted them to. Instead of bouncing off of the inner energy barriers, they went through them by about an inch or two, piercing into the flesh of the people underneath.

Both men got one arrow in each arm, and all of them pierced through the barriers of inner energy. Such power astonished them, but they quickly moved on from it as the wound did not hurt them in any way. But what happened next astonished them. All at once, their sleeves started to burn, and wicked green lightning started to flash around the wounds, which no longer had arrows in them due to being pushed out by the inner energy barriers repairing themselves.

After a few seconds of their sleeves burning, their skin was exposed, and it started to burn, and their arms were being shocked by the green lightning, lightly spazzing and contracting. This did not affect their ability to block the arrows, but it messed up their distribution of inner energy in their arms, making flaws in the barrier, which Su Tao saw and shot at.

After a second, the first arrow pierced through the weakened barrier and about half an inch into the man's arm, followed by another. At this point, there was a light scorch mark on each arm of both men, and it was only getting worse with both of them having several arrows pierce into their arms.

Seeing this, the men were confused as to what was happening, but they were not inexperienced. Such things had happened to them before with poisoned arrows, so they quickly adapted and started blocking arrows exclusively with their weapons, which were made of metal and could easily block the arrows.

By now, they were only a couple tens of feet away from Su Tao, and as such, Su Tao put a bit more of his wicked right eye's power into his arrows and shot some specifically so that they could not block with their weapons.

Sure enough, they could not react fast enough, and there was another arrow in each arm for both of them, increasing the disruption of their inner energy and causing the inner energy on their arms to decrease to less than half of what it was originally.

At this time, Su Tao put down the bow and charged directly at them, surprising them both. But both of them laughed to themselves, thinking that he had accepted his death and only wanted to inflict some tiny bit of damage onto them before he died.

But the moment they were about to collide, Su Tao dropped down to the ground and slid towards them. They were not expecting this, and went right above him, during which time he punched one of them as hard as he could right into their ankle. Such force of impact on such a vulnerable part of the body caused the man in black to stumble and fall, and because of how fast he was going, he tumbled on the ground for a good ten feet before he stopped.

While the other man was falling, the first man, the one with red inner energy, turned around to kick Su Tao, swinging his foot as fast and hard as he possibly could. Su Tao was out of the range of his knife since he was on the ground, and therefore he only had the option to kick him.

His leg swung wide and hard, covering any possible escape point for Su Tao, but at the last moment, Su Tao stopped his slide and jumped up, but he still got hit due to the sheer speed of the leg. Due to his momentum, however, he used this hit to help propel him away from the man and get steady footing.

By now, the man with blue inner energy had already recovered and was charging over to help kill Su Tao once again. But it was clear that the hit to his ankle had done some amount of damage, because he was visibly slower than before, and he was slightly limping at the same time.

Being closer to Su Tao, the man with red inner energy launched himself towards Su Tao, but this time, Su Tao charged directly at him, seeming to not value his own life. There was a slightly crazed look in Su Tao's eyes, but inside, he was actually fairly calm.

When they were only a couple feet away from each other, the black robed man swung his dagger straight for Su Tao's body, giving Su Tao almost no way to dodge. But unexpectedly, Su Tao did not try to dodge, and instead he put up his right arm to block the dagger. The man thought that he was crazy at first, but then he saw that there was a brace on his arm made of a metal rod, used to keep his bone in place while it healed.

The dagger collided with the brace with a *CLANG!* and Su Tao's arm shook violently and bent inward. After all, this man was much stronger than him and he was less resistant to damage than he was. But being this close, it gave Su Tao an opportunity to strike, which he did. He struck with his left hand, which happened to be stronger than his right due to him being able to train it for the past few days when he could not train his right arm.

But when the man's dagger struck his arm, it lightly burned his arm due to the heat of his fire type inner energy. This flame burned off some of the cloth surrounding his previously injured arm, revealing his perfectly healed skin before slightly singeing it.

He struck the man's abdomen before he had a chance to react, causing the man to lightly groan in pain. But it was at this time that the other black robed man reached Su Tao, after which he swung out with a bare fist. The fist was covered in a icy blue inner energy, and when it got near Su Tao, he could feel the air get colder.

At the same time, the other man with fiery inner energy swung his fist as well, which brought with it heat like a flame. Su Tao was glad that he had shot those arrows, which had interrupted their flow of inner energy and made it therefore weaker by a considerable amount. If not, he would probably be more than just singed on his arm, and he would have almost no chance of winning this fight.

At this point, both of them had their fists swinging at Su Tao full force, and they were extremely fast. The fiery man was on his right while the icy man was on his left. He raised up his arms and blocked both punches head on, while at the same time jumping back, once again using the momentum of the hits to escape out of range of his attackers.

He felt pain from both arms from not only the force of the impacts, but also the fiery and icy inner energies burning and freezing his arms.

He had blocked the fiery man's attack with his right arm and the icy man's attack with his left arm. Due to the metal brace on his right arm, it was not as badly hurt, but combined with the previous attack, it was still quite burned. His left arm, however, did not have anything to protect it and therefore it took the brunt of the cold head on. It felt like the blood in his arm was freezing, and that there was a block of ice being pressed into it.

"I must admit you put up quite a fight, but you'll still die in the end. Just accept it." Said the fiery man and he looked at Su Tao from under the hood.

But Su Tao did not respond and instead just stared at them with a creepy smile. In an instant, they felt like all their secrets had been exposed and they had been seen naked. They felt like they could hide nothing from this boy and it would be impossible to lie to him. It was exactly the same feeling that Su Xue got when she looked into his eyes.

At this point, they took some time to closely examine this boy, and they were slightly surprised when they looked at his arm, which was covered in bloody rags. At this time, Su Tao grabbed the burning bloody rags and ripped them off, revealing his arm perfectly fine. Even the burns and freeze marks he had previously sustained were already starting to heal.

On top of that, his sleeves were starting to burn as well, so he ripped them off as well, revealing his muscular arms. They were clearly full of power and precision. After all, no normal person would be able to do what he had just done without extreme precision.

On top of that, at his shoulder and going a fifth of the way down his arms were purple flower tattoos. And going from the tops of his shoulders down to the tips of his fingers were lightning scar tattoos, which were an extremely wicked green.

On the tops of his hands were more purple flowers, but these flowers had been torn through by the green lightning tattoos, making them seem weird.

All this paired with his wicked and holy eyes, his white hair, and his extremely odd behavior, they were extremely creeped out by his appearance. But no matter how creeped out they were, they still had a job to do, and if they did it, they would be rewarded handsomely.

Before they had the chance to charge at Su Tao once again, he leapt away from them and back towards the area with the pillars. He was already close to this area, so he reached there before the two black robed men could catch up to him.

They had followed him at full speed, but the icy man's ankle was still injured, so he was a lot slower than the fiery man. As such, the fiery man was the closest to Su Tao when he reached a pillar. Contrary to the black robed man's expectations, Su Tao jumped up onto the side of the pillar and pushed off of it, launching himself at the man as hard as he possibly could.

At this point, they were both heading towards each other extremely fast and would collide with each other in just a moment. The black robed man once again swung his dagger towards Su Tao and also twisted his body so he could swing upwards. But once again, Su Tao managed to dodge him by rolling on the ground and going underneath the man who had just jumped.

Remembering what happened to the icy man last time Su Tao did this, the man quickly moved his feet out of the way to avoid getting hit in the ankle. But this time, instead of going for the man's ankle, Su Tao slid past him and went for the icy man who was about ten feet behind him.

Using the momentum that he got from launching off the pillar, he was way too fast for the fiery man to catch up to. After all, the fiery man had to reverse his momentum before he could give chase to Su Tao.

A second later, the icy man and Su Tao reached each other, at which point the icy man jumped, launching his entire body at Su Tao after seeing how agile Su Tao was. But unexpectedly, Su Tao directly collided with his body, before slamming his fist into the man's side, but this time he used the power of his wicked eye.

The lightning scars on his arm glowed slightly, and when his fist impacted the man's side, the man instantly fell to the side and down onto the ground with a loud grunt of pain. There was a hole burned into his side where Su Tao's fist collided with his body, and there was green lightning flashing all around his body now.

The icy man then spat out a large mouthful of blood, and kept coughing for a few seconds. They were bone rattling coughs that caused his entire body to convulse all at once. But Su Tao was barely better off than him. After all, he had directly taken a hit from the icy man's entire body. His whole front was injured and he also spat out a large mouthful of blood, but he did not slow down in the slightest.

He then leaped back towards where the weapons were kept, and he picked up the bow, nocking an arrow. But at this point, the fiery man had already turned around and was coming towards Su Tao at an astonishing pace. The icy man was still on the ground, coughing up mouthfuls of blood in coughs that rattled his very soul.

Instead of aiming at the black robed icy man on the ground, Su Tao aimed towards the fiery man who was madly charging at him like a crazed lion. There was only about ten feet between them, and Su Tao only managed to get out two shots, which he placed the wicked power of his right eye into. The shots both went towards the man's feet, but only one of them managed to scrape his foot.

But a scrape was enough for the green lightning to cause his foot to spaz, causing him to trip and fall onto the ground. But the man managed to roll and get one hit in on Su Tao. The hit contained his fiery red inner energy, which went straight onto Su Tao's chest.

Su Tao felt a couple of his ribs break and his chest sear and burn. His whole body then went flying backwards into a container of arrows, of which a couple impaled an inch into his back. But he still flew another couple feet backwards and landed on the ground with several cuts from the tips of the arrows on his back and shoulders going a couple inches deep.

He rolled for another foot or so before he stopped, after which he stood up and ripped out an arrow that had gotten stuck in his shoulder. His robes were now on fire with a big hole in the center, so he ripped them off violently, leaving him with only pants on. His entire chest was now exposed, along with all the purple flower tattoos. At this point, the purple flower tattoos were all glowing slightly, healing his body.

He once again spat out a full mouthful of blood, and he coughed violently, more so than the icy man who was just starting to recover from the violent hit he had taken from Su Tao.

At this time, both men in black robes stood up, looking at Su Tao in astonishment. The only real injury either of them had sustained was the hit to the side on the icy man, but other than that, they only had their inner energy disrupted by half and had minor injuries to their ankles.

As opposed to Su Tao who had now had burns on his arm and chest, with one of his arms being frozen as well and having broken several ribs and his entire front side injured. He was not doing nearly as well as they were, and he was losing this fight, but he still was doing much better than he expected to.

"I'll admit that you've got quite a bit of fight in you, but you'll still lose. In fact, it's been a while since I've had this much fun with someone that wasn't at the silver rank," The fiery man spoke with a light laugh.

Su Tao was at a very dangerous position right now. Not only was he losing the fight and was seriously injured, he was also running out of wicked power from his right eye. This meant that the only thing that could legitimately hurt the two men was running out and would not last very much longer.

Finally, for the first time, he spoke. "I can't feel pain, but it looks like he can," he said with a wicked and evil grin that brought with it an immense uncomfortable feeling.

After hearing this, the fiery man seemed to remember something and looked at the icy man. At this point, the icy man was on his knees clutching his stomach and chest in agonizing pain. He had just previously recovered from the pain and damage of the hit to his side, but now the lightning was burning his whole torso and causing all his muscles to contract and cramp, rendering him incapable of moving. Half of his robes had already burned off at this point.

At this point, all the energy from the previous arrows was gone and the fiery man's inner energy was no longer disturbed. As such, the inner energy barrier once again appeared on his arm and formed perfectly with no flaws.

As for the icy man though, he had been hit with Su Tao's fist, which contained much more wicked power than all his arrows combined, and had almost used all of the wicked power from his right eye. But this managed to temporarily completely incapacitate him.

At this point, the icy man was down for the rest of the fight, but the fiery man had fully recovered back to one hundred percent of his fighting capability and mostly recovered his ankle as well, about ninety percent of his speed was back.

At this point, Su Tao had already picked up another bow and nocked five arrows on the string all at once. "I wonder if you can defend yourself and him at the same time?" he asked with the same creepy grin.

"He is your brother, after all, isn't he? Will you just let him die to help someone court a woman who will never have him?" He said this especially loud so that everyone in the surrounding area could hear him. Previously, the people in the training area watching the fight were extremely confused, but now, when they heard this, they finally realized why these people were attacking him.

They quickly figured out that the woman he was talking about was Su Xue, and that it must be Su Long who hired these people to kill him to please Su Xue and help to court her. After all, everyone thought that Su Tao being dead would please Su Xue, and that it could only be Su Long since he was the only one so obsessed with her.

"You can either fight with me for an unbelievably stupid reason and have your brother die for no reason, or you can drop it here and live in peace. You're hired help, so I have no quarrel with you; if you decide to drop it, I will not trouble you again.

But let me warn you right now, if you think so lowly of your brother to sacrifice him for some benefit to yourself, let me tell you that you are the worst kind of person and I won't rest until I hunt you down and torture you for the rest of your miserable life!"

Su Tao's voice was cold and vicious as he yelled the last part out with a hint of killing intent.

At this point, the fiery man had an extremely ugly face. "GODDAMN IT!!!!!" he yelled, as he turned away from Su Tao and picked his brother up, before leaping away, carrying him.

Then Su Tao looked towards Su Long, who was still hiding in the bushes. "As for you, I won't have to deal with you. That's her job."

Suddenly, a figure in silvery blue robes jumped down from a far wall into the training area. It was Su Xue, who had just arrived moments before the end of the fight. She held a silver bow in her hands with an arrow already nocked.

"I don't appreciate you speaking as if you know me and my thoughts, but you're correct. Especially after this, I will never be with you, Su Long!!! If you don't back off, I will kill you myself!!!"

Hearing this, Su Long quickly and silently left the training area, trying to hide his shame. Not many people saw him, but those who did could clearly see that he was extremely angry from this comment.

Only after he was gone did Su Xue properly look at Su Tao. His chest was caved in and there was blood leaking from his mouth. Along with that, there were burn marks on his arm and chest, and a patch of frostbite on his other arm. There were several slices on his back and shoulders from being impaled by arrows, and his entire front side was battered and bruised.

She was completely astonished that he was even still standing after all that, let alone having a straight face. Then, she remembered one of the last things he said. 'I can't feel pain, but it looks like he can,' She finally realized how he was able to take that arrow she shot to his arm and not even flinch, then fire back without a single expression.

But then, he suddenly spat out a huge gush of blood and fell to his knees. Not only was his mouth leaking blood, it was even coming out of his nose. He then violently coughed again and again, with his body violently shaking every single time. Each time a giant gush of blood would fly out of his mouth, after which he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Su Xue saw this and gasped in shock, after which she ran over and shoved a pill into his mouth, which was still leaking blood. She then picked him up and leaped away with his unconscious body, leaving everybody there shocked and confused as to what had just transpired.