Ascension of the elder

"Careful Raith, Willem can't use his dominant hand to help you out."

Raith almost fell over when he heard this and turned to Kyle with a furious look as if he wanted to eat him alive. Willem didn't seem to know what to do or where to look and ended up seemingly staring into space while wishing he could be on a beach somewhere.

The whole crowd on hearing this further exchange between these youths burst out laughing once again and thought that even if they had to pay to come and see this it would have been worth it, at the high table Leonard, Landon and the head of the Tor family had given up and were laughing uproariously while Maria and Gemma had red faces.

Maria was far redder than Gemma as it was her son who had said these things and with how stuck up the nobility could be in this world she found it shameful. Edith and the imperial overseer both had red faces again one due to anger and the other due to containing his own laughter.

Kyle's girls were also having different reactions, Clara was holding in her laughter while Miranda looked confused and Elena was well Elena. Wondering why everyone was laughing so much Miranda decided to ask in her own innocent way.

"Clara why is everyone laughing like that and why does Raith look so angry?"

Unfortunately it was Elena who responded to this as Clara was still trying to get herself under control.

"Well Miranda if you understand what is meant by innuendo Kyle has double layered this insult, in the first place he could mean that Willem can't help Raith with his day to day as his arm is injured but the secondary meaning is that Willem can't help Raith jacko..Ouch why did you hit me on the back of the head Clara?"

Clara who couldn't control her laughter did hear the clinical way Elena was explaining what Kyle had intended to Miranda but even though Miranda had more information about sexual dealings there were some things that Clara thought she wasn't ready to be corrupted by yet.

"This isn't a proper thing for ladies to discuss in public okay?"

"Oh okay then I'll explain it when we get home later then Miranda."

Hearing Elena's response Clara could only sigh and lament her place in life, she felt she was becoming Elena's keeper but the only one who could truly control her was Kyle.

For his part Kyle could see what was happening with his girls and found this hilarious, just imagine if everyone knew that Elena's true form was something stronger than a god which has existed since before the creation of this universe and there she was being berated by a twelve year old girl.

Kyle began laughing when he thought of this and Raith on seeing Kyle laughing became further enraged before he shouted at him.

"I'll kill you!"

With that he moved to strike Kyle but was immediately stopped by the referee who was standing nearby because he was expecting something to kick off. Raith shook off the ref before turning in a huff and left the area. Willem looked at Kyle with a complicated gaze before he left with his brother.

Neil who had calmed down when he saw Raith get pwned by Kyle patted his shoulder in gratitude before he returned to his seat with a wide smile on his face with Clyde and Archie also sporting wide grins making it look like three Cheshire cats were sitting there.

After this debacle the matches continued until it came to the final of the intermediate, once again Kyle and Bruno were facing each other but this time Kyle stepped out before Bruno could quit. When they sat back down Bruno looked towards Kyle and asked him.

"Why did you back out you can beat me without any problem?"

"Simple we ride together and die together."

Kyle said this with a fully straight face while hoping he wouldn't get in trouble from some higher power for plagiarism. When Bruno heard this he felt a lump in his throat and quickly looked away so no one could see the tear in his eye. It looked like the bromance had levelled up once again.

Finally it was time for the senior bracket to begin, in this round Archie and Neil could finally show their strengths. The major difference in this round would be the increased number of fights which involved weapons as these contenders with stronger cultivation bases could use skills involving their weapons more easily than those younger than them could.

Kyle knowing this had his smiths prepare blunted weapons of their preference which had been dispatched to the overseer's mansion prior to the tournament so they could be inspected before they could take them up for this round of battle.

Kyle obviously had queued up his favourite katana while Bruno being the beast of his team had a double headed war hammer and like in their previous training Neil had a pole axe and Archie had a great axe. All of these weapons were unusual but to everyone's eye Kyle's was by far the strangest as it was the smallest.

They had their respective weapons brought out in preparation for this round and received several strange looks but they just dismissed them. The other members of the Black and Powell families who would be taking part in this round also had weapons but they had stuck with the boring great swords.

Archie was first up and his battle would use weapons, Kyle wanted to see how Archie would do in this fight because they had been working together to create his axe fighting style. Kyle wasn't aware of any axe fighting arts in his previous world so he had altered a stick fighting technique to suit. The major difference in fighting with an axe in this style was that the shaft was used far more than you would expect it to be so the shaft was made from an alloy of adamantine, iron and zinc which made it incredibly tough but also had some shock absorbing qualities.

Stepping to their starting positions Archie looked at his opponent who was using the pro rata great sword. At the go from the referee Archie and his opponent rushed to each other, the enemy raised his sword above his head and delivered a crushing downward blow.

Archie shifted his hold on his axe and swung around with the weighted end of his axe hitting the side of the blade directing it to his right side. With his left arm holding the shaft and being higher than his right arm he was in prime position to return a diagonal strike to his opponent, so pulling his left hand down and across his body while bringing his right arm over he swung his axe with massive speed and force.

His enemy on seeing the axe head coming towards him dropped all pretence of defence and immediately disengaged and moved clear. As the axe was swung the wind noise showed just how much force was behind that strike.

Rushing forward Archie swung a wide lateral strike forcing his enemy to move further back before he tried to retaliate with a rising strike. Archie simply used his foot to kick the side of the blade turning it aside again and used the end of the shaft to slam into his enemy's chest.

The crowd were shocked seeing the strength and speed of this axe and the style of fighting were far more fluid than what they had been aware of. The changes of strike from the blade to the base were shocking but this was still a heavy and brutal weapon so there was a limit to what could be done with it.

Kyle was thinking that it would be an interesting fight between Archie and Neil as they hadn't fought against each other using weapons during their training as Kyle wanted to pressure them so they could develop a style of their own.

Archie's opponent didn't give up even though that strike had hurt him and instead drew his sword up and charged mana into it before swinging the blade down releasing what appeared to be a sword wave from the apex of the swing.

As the wave moved forward it increased in size and by the time it reached Archie it was over eight feet in length and scored the ground as it passed over it.

Archie didn't panic as this wave approached and instead used a skill Kyle had taught all of them, pushing his mana into the axe blade Archie controlled it to form a skin of mana over the blade and when the sword wave was on him he waved his axe in another lateral swing but this time the mana was released at the apex.

Unlike the sword wave Archie's strike was much smaller. Everyone who saw this thought it would be overpowered by the sword wave but when they made contact the sword wave was broken with a bang and Archie's axe pulse continued on at a much faster speed than the sword wave.

His opponent didn't have time to do anything other than to place his sword in front of him in an attempt to defend against this attack. When the axe pulse hit the sword blade the enemy couldn't stop the force and ended up getting blasted away with the axe pulse.

When the pulse reached the edge of the ring the opponent carried on through while the mana was halted by the barrier although it did make an almighty crash when it hit. This axe pulse was very similar to the sword wave except the mana was far more condensed allowing it to travel faster and if it hit it would be far stronger.

The opponent slid across the floor of the arena before sliding to a stop in front of Kyle and Bruno who ended up looking down at him. As he recovered his consciousness he couldn't help but ask.

"What happened?"

Bruno responded to this with his usual aplomb.

"You got knocked the hell out."