Chapter 21: TWENTY-ONE...

Looking at eachother before turning back to look at the youngest master, the Knights had expected something like this...

The cub of a lion was still a lion, they thought as they got into positions away from eachother as they were their own competitions...distance mattered alot.

Gates called for a nearby maid to bring him a seat, as he sat cross legged with a lack of interest in how they were not even attacking yet.

Getting bored of the standstill, an idea crept into his mind...

"Don't worry, even for those that fail you'll still walk out of here with 200 gold coins and if you die, well, 500 gold coins to your families. Hm?" Gates announced as he wanted to sow more dicord, he didn't really care about any of these knights but he wanted to see how each professions fought to know what he was going to do to rise his stats...he could as well become a magic Warrior as well as being a mage, a warrior had its perks that mages could not hope to have..

One would be their strong bodies compared to the weak ones of a mage. His father, Theodore was an exception ... He grew up in the wild lands, a jungle west of the kingdom which were inhabited by Barbarians..

Being raised by Barbarians, Theodore earned the name Lion King even before he could harness the full might of his magic...

HaAA

A Knight had launched the first attack at the middle aged Knight whom questioned Gates about whether they were to fight to kill or win, slashing diagonally as he moved with great speed,

The middle aged Knight carried a mace, holding onto it with a hand on its base and the other just below the Mace's pointy sharp needles, forming a defensive stance as the sword struck the metal and bounced off...The mace welding Knight did mot let the opportunity pass as he swung his mace at the head of the sword weilding Knight whom dodged it by ducking down before throwing himself backwards, seeing his attack had failed and even allowed the opponent to counter attack.

Yusuf joined as he attacked a Knight weilding a sword like himself, putting his all except his magic into every strike against that Knight all the while watching out fir the last Knight whom hadn't attacked and just stood there waiting,

Gates started to love the battle, his eyes darting from one fight to another and yet rested on a particular Knight that stood, fully covered with armor from head to toe waiting without making a single move...

Their weapon however was one that was very unsuitable to combat unless you possessed very well developed strength...A greatsword.

Now intrigued by this Knight, Gates tried to remember a Knight with memorable skills with the greatsword, it was something that tankers or berserkers used. However, the more he thought about it, he couldn't come up with a name for such a man...did they die? Or was their skills just not good enough?

He shook his head, The uproar from the Knight association couldn't be resolved by words and only abilities, the very strong and promising knights had already been scouted, so the ones that hadn't been scouted or didn't want to join a family or faction are the ones taking missions to earn a living....amongst those, for these people to come here holding the pass, they could only be considered those that were interested and were the strongest amongst those interested...

However he was still in the dark about this character, making a mental note to find out more about this person, he put his attention back on the battle...unbeknownst to him, the Knight in question turned to look at Gates who was now watching he battle between Yusuf and another Knight weilding a sword.

Following his Gaze, the Knight also watched the fight between Yusuf and the Knight. The two exchanged hundreds of sword moves in the space of minutes, cuts appearing on either one of their armor, sparks flying from their two swords colliding.

The other Knight knew the longer this stalemate lasted, the uncertain it was who would come out on top, it would turn to a game of stamina, one that was uncertain as he did not know his opponent.

Giving his all in a strike, he targeted Yusuf's genitals as Yusuf swung his sword downwards in a curvature to defend the strike and turn the sword movement unable to attack him again, however he failed to account for the cunningness and deceit of the human mind...

His opponent dropped to the ground and picked up a handful of sand, tossing it into Yusuf's field of view, blinding him temporarily as he struck once more...this time aiming to finish him off once and for all.

However, before he could Yusuf jumped to the side raising his sword and swinging down on his opponent, whom was too shook to realise that the sword swing was coming from a man without his eyes so he had no idea where he was going to strike...which happened to be his wrist..

"Ohohoo " A melodic laugh came from Gates whom absorbed the scene with joy, now this was a fight...a dog-fight but a fight nonetheless.

"AHHH!!" A scream of horror came from the man whom had his wrist cut, kneeling to the ground holding the stump with his other hand, he hadn't noticed when Yusuf swung horizontally at his head, cleaving it in half.

The blood splattered on Yusuf's face as he used it to wash off some of the sand on his face...

Snap snap snap...three snaps of a finger was heard before the maids cane with a fresh bowl of water for yusuf to use and rinse off his face ad Gates looked at him amused by his feat.

Looking down at the body of the man, he called for some guards watching at a distance to come carry up the body and drop it somewhere, it was killing his vibe of the entire battle.

As Yusuf finalised his facial wash, he picked up his sword and turned to see the Knight that was covered up in armor approaching him...