Calamity Upon This World

"Oh, you're still awake."

'This fucker is crazy; a normal person probably would've died from attacks like this,' William thought as he looked at the handsome blue-eyed man occupying his previous location.

He could still feel the pain in his head and abdomen from Michael's attack.

He wasn't even able to see him until it was too late.

The only reason he was still semi-conscious was because of the barriers he had erected around himself, which lessened the damage he took.

Before continuing to fight, he opened his shadow domain as a small purple ball launched from his shadow and landed in his hand, which he quickly consumed.

This was the healing power of his aspect; it allowed him to use the life force of others to heal himself. While it wasn't as efficient as having a healing skill or spell, it still did the job of healing.

As the purple ball entered his mouth, Williams teeth bit it down and broke it, releasing the purple liquid sealed inside, which healed his injuries.

"Oh, you even have a self-healing ability. How convenient," Michael muttered.

Hearing his words, William felt rage build inside him at being beaten like this.

But he was experienced enough to know not to let his emotions control him during a fight, so he calmed down as he cast another spell.

(Pincer Rock Swords)

This time, two giant brown magic circles materialised to the left and right of Michael.

From these circles emerged two crudely stone-made gigantic swords aiming to destroy Michael.

But their target didn't even flinch in their presence as he bent his knees and jumped high in the air , easily dodging the spell.

"Tch," William clicked his tongue, seeing another spell of his failing to do their intended job of defeating their target.

But before William could cast another spell, Michael bent his knees in the air and launched himself towards William with his hand outstretched, moving at breakneck speed.

It was too fast for William to even react, and before he knew it, he was in the sky with his neck being held by Michael's hand.

His legs flailed, trying to find solid ground to rest on, but to no avail.

William tried to cast a spell to help make some distance between himself and his opponent.

But before he could, Michael used his free hand to punch him in the face.

BAMM.

The noise generated from the punch was enough to tell everyone how monstrously powerful the punch was, but due to his neck still being grabbed by Michael's other hand, William wasn't sent flying.

He almost lost consciousness, but he managed to endure thanks to the effects of all the armour-type artifacts,  the dark slime that his current clothes were made of consumed in the past.

But William could tell that this was bad; if nothing changed, he wouldn't be able to last till the end of 5 minutes.

He wanted to use [Shadow Step], but he couldn't due to not being in contact with a shadow.

While William was thinking about possible ways to get out of his current predicament,.

BAMM!!

He was once again punched in the face.

At this point, William was almost on the verge of losing consciousness, but he regained focus thanks to the voices inside his head.

(This is bad.) Sera commented inside his head.

(Screw it, just use [Spirit Ascension] with me) Wiz suggested.

And she was right. William had only used [Spirit Ascension] with Agni and Sera during the livestream, so technically he could probably get away with using it with another spirit.

But before he could use it,.

BAMM!!

He was slammed into the ground.

This was it; William had now lost consciousness.

But due to his mask, no one could see this.

Michael just grabbed his leg, lifted him into the sky, and slammed him again.

BAMM!!

By this point, all the spectators were speechless, seeing the brutal beatdown of the masked guy.

While it made sense considering who his opponent was.

A wide majority of them still wanted him to win, especially considering his previous performance.

But now they just felt bad for him and wanted him to not get seriously injured.

While they felt that their guild leader was being excessive, they could do nothing but watch.

Feeling anxious for some reason, Jasmine asked Bella.

"How much time is still left?"

"50 seconds," she replied.

"Yeah, it's over." Jasmine sighed, disappointed by the masked man's failure to make the bet.

She wasn't sure why she felt this way.

At first, she was a bit annoyed by having her spotlight stolen by an unknown guy.

But it didn't really matter. Fame didn't matter; the only thing that mattered was money.

And she was even planning on potentially teaming up with him.

The abilities that Edge Lord had displayed were clearly above hers, so having someone that strong accompany her would've been reassuring.

Which is why she was getting annoyed seeing her potential teammate get beaten up one-sidedly.

**

'Did I expect too much from him?' Michael thought as he observed the knocked-out boy on the ground.

For most of the fight, he was having fun and playing around.

And when he got to experience the young man's spells firsthand, he could tell that he had made the right choice.

The man named John Sinner had the most talent in terms of magic he had ever seen.

Which is why he got so excited and decided to get a bit more serious.

But it seems he overestimated the boy, or maybe underestimated how much 20% of his stats actually are.

If he had to take a guess, his current battle force is probably around 80k, due to which he was simply able to tank attacks and spells that would've killed a normal person with just his bare body.

Michael was wearing a ring of suppression that limited his stats.

Artifacts capable of suppressing one's ability, while rare, were most certainly not that uncommon.

You can find such items in most artifact shops; the only problem is how expensive they can get.

Depending on how much strength they can suppress and what their upper limits are.

On paper, an artifact whose only purpose is to make someone weaker than they are ,might seem stupid, but it's actually very useful in real life.

For example, in things like training, sparring, tests, and most importantly, interacting with normal, unawakened people or even those significantly weaker than oneself,.

That's right, once someone's strength passes a certain threshold, they subconsciously release an invisible pressure of sorts that makes it hard to breathe for normal people.

For example, someone like Rex probably needs to wear multiple suppression artifacts just to keep people from passing out in his presence.

The same was true for Michael.

But he was getting sidetracked, and realising that his opponent was already knocked out, he started walking away.

However, just when he was about to announce the fight over, a voice called out.

"Who said we're done here?"