In fear of its death, the tiger beasts chose to retreat to its summoner's mindscape. However, before it even attempted to disappear, Azzy was already before the beast and planted a powerful kick on its face, causing it to burst into a bloody pulp.
"Auburn" The tiger beast's summoner screamed before going into disbelief. The summoner of the lioness is also in the same state. Both of them didn't expect their beasts will die without even fighting back.
Wiping the blood on his face, Azzy turned his head and focused on the captain who was slowly standing up.
It looked like he was the only one in the team that was prepared for this kind of scenario as he seemed calm on the surface.
"Vernie, we are changing our strategy." Cobalt said to his swordsman partner who was standing behind him upon developing a fear of Azzy. If those beasts with tough skin couldn't handle his punch, how would a skinny human like him be able to stay alive?
So, He was hesitating to go and attack the opponent alone as it is akin to suicide.
With the two of their Arcana spirits were killed, the summoners on the flying card were in a stupefied state. As for the healer, she was hoping that their captain would just forfeit this pointless match and save their strength for other battles.
After all, they don't have any ambitions to win the tournament since everyone on the team knew that they weren't a match for the top academies. All they want to give a nice performance to get scouted in first-rate academies for advanced studies.
However, to their disappointment, the captain didn't lose the will to admit defeat. He was prepared to use his trump card, instead of getting humiliated.
"Everyone, we are going with plan-C." Cobalt passed the orders to everyone while summoning his storage before taking out a blood-red colored pill.
Observing the situation, Neo Academy's representative instructor frowned. He shouted to the team members, "Seven minutes, everyone."
Long before the match, this peak-rank-6 representative instructor strictly warned the students while providing a set of red and blue pills to them that they need to take the blue pills within seven minutes of taking red pills so that they don't lose control over their soul energy.
The academy provided those pills to the representative team so that they could use them during a crucial match. However, their representative instructor didn't expect the team would be forced to use this.
He knew that Azzy isn't someone that can be lightly taken off. The peak-rank-4 beasts getting blown up like a balloon with just his punch is the perfect example for it.
Back to the match, while Azzy is wiping the blood from his face, Cobalt swallowed the pill. The rest followed the suit.
Suddenly, Azzy stopped his movements and raised his head. Everyone from the Neo Academy was releasing a red aura while their soul power was increased to the next level while they rapidly absorb the natural energy from the surroundings.
Now, they are no longer rank-4. Except for their captain, not only the rest of the teammates made a breakthrough to rank-5, but their soul power even reached mid-rank-5, although temporarily.
At the same time, they used revival cards on their Arcana spirits and brought them back to the real world. Like their masters, their strength too increased tremendously. However, the two big cats appeared to be afraid of going forward.
On the other hand, Cobalt's soul power increased from 230 thousand to 900 thousand, making him a temporary peak-rank-5 expert.
Looking at the opponents brimming with a huge amount of soul power, Mia and Snivy got worried for a moment and wondered whether it will be too much for Azzy to death with them even with the help of his platinum grade beast.
Just as they stepped forward, Claire stopped them. "Don't. Azrael is strong enough to deal with the group. Did you forget that he hadn't summoned any of his Arcana yet?"
Hearing her words made the two girls stop and hoped Azzy would fend off their attacks.
But, what they saw was that not only Azzy didn't summon his Arcana but he even restricted himself to peak-rank-4.
Even his opponents were surprised to see that instead of raising his strength, Azzy suppressed his strength instead. They couldn't help but think that he was still looking down on them. Meanwhile, a part of the audience too thought that the kid is getting too full of himself.
"Charge…"
Cobalt dashed forward while his teammates followed him from behind.
Except for the healer, all the team members charged forward, spilling an enormous amount of sand in the air. The summoners mounted on their beasts to assure that they were with them.
Right then, Azzy got into a strange stance.
His body faced to the side, with front foot facing forward, front leg bent. The back leg is bent slightly, and the foot is turned outwards perpendicular to the front foot.
Apart from a few spectators, only Claire who regularly sparred with Azzy knew of this stance. She knew what kind of moves he would be using.
After applying two seals on his soul orb, restricting his soul power to 99999, Azzy emptied his soul orb while strengthening his physical body.
In such a state, he doesn't lack control anymore. The beasts turning into bloody pulp despite him trying to control his strength made him decided to go with this.
After all, they were beasts. He could afford to kill them. On the other hand, these were humans who have no personal enmity. Why must he kill them when he could defeat them using a different approach?
To defeat the opponents, Azzy opted for a different strategy, taught by his temporary combat instructor back at the Death clan.
As he was ready with his stance, his opponents arrived before him. Cobalt was the first to strike once again.
To not make the same mistake as before, he jumped up in the air and swung the steel bat at Azzy, to which the latter retreated his front foot, making the sword miss him, then, he threw out a punch towards Cobalt's torso as he was landing on the ground.
The punch with the strength of a peak-rank-5 hit the chest of Cobalt very hard and he was blown away and crashed onto his swordsman teammate as he wasn't able to dodge in time.
Both of them fell a dozen meters away, making the other two summoners halt their movements and turn to look at their captain.
After forcing himself to stand on his feet, Cobalt spits out the blood placing a hand on his chest. He felt like a couple of ribs have been broken. Thankfully, the healer is nearby because of the flying card's slow speed.
She raised the staff and performed basic healing on him. Due to the effect of the berserk pill, Cobalt's external and internal injuries quickly healed.
Meanwhile, the captain who was covered by the light aura looked at Azzy with his eyes shaking in fear. Just like the tiger, he too saw an illusion of a reaper standing behind Azzy. "What if he hadn't suppressed himself? Would I have died just now? It's just his normal punch filled with soul energy. He isn't a guy who we can contend against. Still, we cannot give up without giving a fight."
His fear was replaced by seriousness upon reminding himself of the precious berserk pill they have taken for this match.
Brandishing his sword, he shouted, "Everyone, we're going all out. Howell, Jerry, use merge. Shea, apply a shield on me. Vernie, use your strongest combo."
Listening to their captain, everyone unleashed their soul skills. The healer applied a rank-5 shield to Cobalt to reduce the damage.
The two summoners stepped down from the beasts before one of them took out a skill card and unleashed it.
The beasts glow like a ball of light for a few seconds before merging into a peak-rank-5 platinum grade Tigon.
*roar*
With the temporary newly found extraordinary power, the merged beast roared at Azzy as it no longer fears him.
The audience was surprised to see such a skill from a second-rated academy like Neo.
Meanwhile, the summoners were picked up by the healer on her flying card.
In the meantime, the swordsman Vernie applied a couple of skill cards, first, a speed card that makes his legs run faster, then, unleashing a soul skill, which made his sword as big as twenty meters with fire dancing all over the blade. After that, he further kept a skill card in his hand to use at the perfect time.
As for cobalt, he used a heaviness card, which is a variant of gravity card on his Arcana that lets the steel bat becomes 100 times heavier for a couple of minutes.
Not wasting the time any longer, team harmony charged forward once again.
This time, the Tigon beast was the first to launch the attack, unleashing one of its eight soul skills, gaining four from the lioness and four from the tiger.
Upon unleashing the soul skill, its size increased to two-meter big and four meters long while increasing the raw power to the next level.
As for Azzy, he reverted to the original L stance and just waited for the enemy to reach him.
As the Tigon beast reached its enemy, it raised its giant paw to smash Azzy to death.
Just then, rotating his body a bit, he countered with a high kick and struck its cheek, throwing its entire body up to a few meters into the air before crashing onto the sand.
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