With a lunge, Ryan kept landing punches at Isaiah's unbreakable body. It felt like he was trying to strike a boulder!
"Heh!" Isaiah straight punched ahead.
Ryan side-stepped to dodge the punch and immediately low-kicked Isaiah in the thigh.
While the kick sounded dangerously damaging, Isaiah just grinned and stormed forward.
Isaiah slammed his right arm at Ryan and sent him flying like a cannonball.
Ryan tumbled and rolled across the ground, but before flying off the ring, he smashed his feet on the ground and rolled to the side to forcefully stop his momentum.
Again, it was an amazing show of natural athleticism from him!
"Some people sure are blessed with natural talent!" Isaiah said with a grin and punched straight at Ryan.
Ryan rolled out of the way and saw Isaiah slam his fist at the concrete ground.
The ring cracked slightly.
"However, how come you're so weak?" Isaiah asked. "You've wasted your talent, haven't you?"
With a lunge, he crossed the distance to Ryan and started raining his punches down.
Ryan raised his arms to block the blows, feeling the impact reverberate through his body.
"Are you feeling regret?" Isaiah asked. "Your team's last fighter, Kiernan, sure is amazing. He carried all of you this far, and now that you need to help him, you're dragging your feet.
"Are you feeling regret for not training harder?"
"Heh…" Ryan laughed in pain. "Maybe."
With the moon high in the sky, it was quite late in the night.
Within Lee residence, inside a dimly lit room with the only light coming from a computer screen, Ryan's fingers were flying across the keyboard.
At the computer screen, a shooting game was in full swing, and Ryan's intense focus was evident in his furrowed brow and narrowed eyes.
Someone knocked on the door, and as the door opened, a middle-aged woman peeked inside.
"Ryan, shouldn't you be at bed?" She asked with a concerned look on her face.
She was Ryan's mother, Ruby Lee.
"After this game," Ryan said, his eyes still glued to the screen.
"You have training early tomorrow, don't you?" Ruby asked. "The representation match is not too far away."
Ryan, barely responding, pressed hard on the mouse and emptied a whole magazine in the enemy player.
"You need to work hard." Ruby said fondly. "I know you can reach the nationals."
"Eh, who cares, honestly?" Ryan said. "We can't win the representation match. Even if we do, we will lose in the first round at the nationals. A waste of time."
"Don't say that." Ruby crossed her arms angrily. "You just have to believe in yourself and put in the effort."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Ryan waved his hand lazily. "I'm not going to waste my time on something that's doomed from the start."
Ruby shook her head and left the room with the door closing behind her.
At the present time, Lee Residence.
Ruby and her husband, Louie, watched the fight happening on television while sitting on their cozy couch.
Below the couch, sitting on the carpet, Ryan's little sister, Mia, kept fidgeting her toes while staring intensely at the television.
"Cmon, son!" Louie kept moving his body reflexively, as if that was going to help his son dodge his opponent's punches.
Ruby kept flinching whenever a punch landed on his son's body.
"Boom…" Mia quietly whispered under her breath and punched forward. "Brother…"
Ryan kicked his leg up and threw a high kick, but Isaiah jumped backwards to avoid it.
The stadium was so loud.
There was shouting coming from the crowd, from both benches, and Ryan could barely understand a single word.
'Ah, I hate this.' Ryan thought in pain. 'I hate fighting. It is so painful. Why would anyone ? Playing video games is so much better…'
At that moment, he side-glanced in Kiernan's direction and saw him staring right at him.
'Don't look at me like that, bro.' Ryan sighed heavily. 'You're making me push past my limits. I'm already exhausted enough as it is. I just want to go home and play games.'
Isaiah, with a grin on his face, started running back at Ryan.
Ryan crouched down on the ground and moved into his sprinting stance.
At that moment, his leg muscles started twisting and cramping as if his body were rebelling against him.
The eyes of the nearby onlookers widened as they all realized what he was about to do.
This time, it wasn't a trap!
"You can do it!" Jin screamed.
Klaus and Timothy screamed as well.
Nathaniel clenched his fists hard.
'Super Acceleration!' Isaiah stopped moving and went into his horse-standing stance.
"Morning Sun Art, Pain of the Morning!"
Below Ryan's feet, the concrete ground started cracking.
Ryan gritted his teeth hard enough to crack them, and then with a lunge, he vanished from everyone's eyes as he moved so fast that only a handful of people were able to see him in the arena!
Only those who've reached a state of heightened awareness were able to catch a glimpse of his lightning-fast movements.
'Jump or running?' Jin wondered.
That's what everyone was thinking.
What would Ryan choose?!
'Where is he?' Isaiah wondered.
At that moment, below his field of vision, someone slammed into his waist and pushed him back with incredible force!
"?!" Isaiah looked down and saw that Ryan was pushing him back!
Because of that strong push, Isaiah inched closer to the edge of the ring, only one short step away from falling.
"Super Tackle!" Ryan screamed and tackled at Isaiah's chest, trying to make him fall!
"He didn't use Super Acceleration or Super Jump!" Jin cried out. "He had created the third technique, Super Tackle!"
'Instead of punching, he intentionally stayed under Isaiah's field of vision so he wouldn't be able to see him before it was too late.'
Kiernan thought to himself.
'This is a very desperate move.'
Isaiah firmly rooted his feet on the ground and screamed. "That won't work!"
Within that instant, Isaiah stopped moving.
"Shit!" Ryan screamed.
It felt like he was trying to push a tree!
No matter what, Isaiah wasn't budging an inch!