Descendants of Gibbous-Chapter 74: lesson

"And he dodges all the loop attacks!"

Damien cursed under his breath when Rohan jumped away from the large portal that formed behind him just in time for his blood attacks to clash with the ground and send rubble flying all over the stadium.

BOOM!

"Ugh, won’t he just stand still," Eden hissed at the man’s little figure flipping mid-air and jumping around as he evaded the attacks being directed at him.

"That’d make him a loser," Ambrose replied balling her fists as she watched Alicia finally land after giving the students from Fangpeak’s Cardinal house heart attacks.

"Whose side are you on, damnit!" Yong fumed at her, glancing at Ambrose behind Damien’s back.

"Alicia’s, obviously. But if she can’t win this fight then how did she get a license before finishing school?"

The four students immediately went silent after her question, their eyes set on the two heroes fighting.

Back on the grounds, Rohan was still evading his attacks. He jumped, slashed, redirected some attacks, and pirouetted until the small portals surrounding him had nothing else in them.

’Good, now I can attack her with—’

"I’m not done with you yet!" Alicia appeared behind the caretaker before he could finish thinking.

"Fuck!"

THWAK!

She kicked his head with the heel of her foot, dizzying him for a moment as she placed a hand into one of the portals and withdrew the last thing Damien thought she would.

"Is...is that a gun?!"

No one replied to him. All their eyes were glued on Alicia and the victory she was about to secure against a man who looked stronger than her trifold.

"She won!" Yong finally yelled.

"Not yet," Ambrose cut him. "Look."

Everyone’s eyes widened in the direction she had pointed. Damien noticed it too—the thin blood sickle creeping behind Alicia’s back like a snake. It wasn’t as deadly looking as the others Rohan had produced before, but it could still poison her if she got cut.

"Behind you!"

"A blood sickle’s behind you!"

The students watching yelled at Alicia, but she didn’t hear them. She couldn’t. There was far too much noise filling the stadium for her to hear what they were saying.

And she was focused on an important task at the moment—impaling Rohan.

"Any last words before your defeat old man?" She asked, pointing her gun at his right shoulder. "Ah fuck it, I’m not in a soap opera."

BOOM!

SLASH!

The attacks were simultaneous. Alicia managed to pierce Rohan’s shoulder with a bullet, and he managed to cut hers with his blood sickle blade.

The stadium went silent as the two of them struggled to their feet. Damien bit his bottom lip, hands quivering at the sight before him. Both Alicia and Rohan looked as though they were on the verge of death but neither of them wanted to stop fighting.

"Aren’t they going to stop them—"

"I didn’t think the former Numen’s son would be this much of a sissy," Donald who was sitting right above them mocked. "Alicia had handled worse than a few poison-induced cuts from a vampire. Why don’t you just shut up and watch what happens next hmm? If you’re too scared to see this, then will you be able to handle a real fight against those demons?"

Damien could only bite his lip and watch. That’s right, if the enemies they were being trained to face were formidable, then this was but a test run, a simple example of what they might encounter in the future—just like their simulation classes.

Yong let out a bitter laugh. "I kept telling them but they wouldn’t listen. This isn’t something the faint-hearted can do. It needs people who can match those demons in their bloodlust—killing machines."

"At least this one admits he’s a sissy."

"That’s because he is," Eden mumbled just when a unified "ohh" escaped from the crowd, drawing their focus back to the fight.

Alicia and Rohan were now doing hand-to-hand combat. Kicks, jabs, slashes, you name it. It was all like a movie being played on fast forward to Damien’s eyes. He couldn’t keep up with them at all, but every now and then, a blood attack or a loud boom would announce their location and Damien’s eyes would go there.

’This is exactly what it looked like that night. Everyone was too fast,’ the boy noted, finally spotting Alicia after she jumped from the dust smoke covering them in the now desolate land below and landed right by the wolf statue and pointed her hand at the sky. Portals immediately opened all over before she yelled:

"Dagger rampage!"

At her command, daggers the size of an adult’s hand shot out of the portals and rained down to the ground.

BOOM! BANG!

Just like Rohan could do with blood, it seemed Alicia could control her small portals. Every second she’d flick her hands and have them hover around the stadium, destroying the ground until the audience covered their ears and dust was now but a fog around the stadium.

"I can’t—cough—see anything," Eden complained, waving her hand frantically to ward off the dust.

Damien too. He had pinched his nose but it wasn’t doing him any good.

"Let me sit between you two," Yong offered, already standing.

Damien immediately got what he was planning to do and pushed to the side, letting Yong sit between him and Eden. The prince immediately used his wind ability to clear the dust around them, and—Damien noted—his range was precisely around the four of them only.

"What about others?" Damien asked just when Ambrose took out what Damien figured to be a wand and chanted some spell before the entire dust fog surrounding the stadium vanished.

She was quick to hide her wand, obviously thinking no one had noticed her display of prowess.

As for Yong, he simply withdrew his wind, smugly smiling at Eden. "Much better now ey?" He wriggled his brows at her.

"Hmm. Thanks," Eden replied, her face turning red all of a sudden.

"That was quite something, Yong Kim," Ambrose beamed at the dragon who clasped his chest and turned back to look at Damien, obviously surprised she had finally smiled at him.

Damien had so many questions for her, for Yong and Eden, but he suppressed them for now. His teammates were finally showing some kind of unity after all this time.