The Warrior Mechanic

As the match started, Cael could hear the whirring of Zach’s rifles. They gave off a yellowish-green glow, not seen with rifles of lower tiers. This meant that the barrels were hotter, and would therefore be shooting off energy blasts with higher power.

Cael noticed this and ducked down as soon as the blasts were hurled in his direction. Just by luck, he managed to evade them and wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t be hit by those blasts once again.

However, how was he going to use his extreme heated blade if he couldn’t easily get into range. He had powered gauntlets that he could resort to using, along with stockier arms to work with, but to utilise his striking and slashing he’d have to get into range.

With such powerful energy blasts keeping him away, approaching Zach was a tall order.

Cael continued to teeter on the outer range of Zach, evading his blasts while achieving very little.

“Who even invited Cael here, he’s clearly not a talent. He can’t even hit him!” One of the Breckenridge members claimed, receiving intense laughter from some of the other individuals.

Kegan looked to be abnormally cracked up by his comment.

Cael just grunted under his breath upon seeing how difficult this altercation would be. For him to deal damage, he’d have to take some himself. His exosuit wasn’t exactly the tank type, where it could take on high-calibre energy blasts and damage.

He made his decision and stormed forward like a mindless warrior, on his last legs. Watching two energy blasts soar toward him, it was much harder for him to change direction when he was already moving at such a speed.

As a result, he forced himself to his left as much as he could, being forced to take the leftmost orange-yellow energy blast.

The collision shook up his whole body and caused alarming damage to the outer armour shells of his suit. The very outmost portions of metal had been turned to nothing but brittle slag, and receiving another attack to that same area would spell trouble for him.

Soon enough, though, he was in range. With his energy rifles still overheating from their massive outputs of heat, Zach would be forced into hand-to-hand combat. He wildly swung out his right fist after entering a suitable stance.

Cael had been in situations like this countless times before. As a result, he slipped his attack like it was second-nature to him. His fist didn’t come anywhere near close to his head, and now in a crouched position, he drove up his fist to land an upward gut punch.

Zacharias grunted in pain and slowly cowered back, but Cael was not done. His eyes opened as he disquietingly anticipated Cael’s next move. Even if Cael assumed he’d try to deny it, his body wouldn’t be able to constantly take punches of that strength.

As he lifted, he activated his gauntlet overdrive skill and felt the power in his right powered gauntlet increasing significantly. There was even a slight sting in his skin from the amount of heat being produced.

BAM!

Throwing a clean right punch straight to his helmet, Zacharias stumbled back and the crowd were now in shock.

The connection was loud and precise. As much as the wanted to subconsciously form excuses to rationalise this event in their minds, they couldn’t. Cael had simply gotten stronger and there was no way to look past that.

Shaking his head, he looked through his dark blue visor with eyes of fury and hatred. Being embarrassed in front of his fellow nobles against the likes of Cael wouldn’t be an option.

Energy blasts were swiftly shot toward Cael, and lacked power as a result. Even with this, they slammed into Cael’s stomach and it felt like he’d been struck by a cannonball. The force behind the dual blast launched him off his feet and seared the surface of his skin.

Hissing in pain, he was lucky that the burn was incredibly shallow. The pain was soon gone as his adrenaline masked it almost completely. There wasn’t even time to dwell on this, though, as another pair of blasts were shot in his direction.

More eager to evade this time, he managed to leap forward and dodge the blasts before he could be taken down.

As he continued to run around and evade these blasts, he got caught with them occasionally and saw that the outer layers of his suit were degrading heavily. He had some rather nasty burns on his abdomen, which was making it agonising to perform certain movements like rolls and leaps.

However, Zach lacked the same skill that he did when it came to close-quarter combat. He was also taller and stronger than him by a significant amount, which let every attack that he’d throw just hurt Zach more.

Seeing the opportunity, Cael thrusted himself forward and activated his power surge skill. His exosuit suddenly glowed more brightly, and vibrated in a more intense fashion.

In that same moment, he activated his gauntlet overdrive skill and closed the distance between him and his adversary in a flash.

Zach was totally flustered and didn’t even know how to properly react. He held his arms out to try and stop Cael’s assault, like a ball was being thrown at him.

This left him totally open to attack – exactly what Cael wanted.

POW!

A powerful haymaker straight to the jaw knocked Zach back several steps. The attack rattled him and in this retreat, his knees slightly buckled. He’d lost his footing.

Cael then swiftly continued with a barrage of punches and kicks that were surprisingly technical, but also extremely powerful.

He continuously beat down Zach and did receive some blasts and hits back on himself. However, the only thing that he had to worry about were his energy blasts. The punches and kicks he’d throw just felt like nudges to him.

After sparring Keagan and getting a taste of his raw power, these attacks were a piece of cake to tolerate.

Seeing the match was nearing its end, Cael decided to hide the use of his unique extreme-heated blade. He’d resort to it when he needed to.

With a powerful punch to the gut when Zacharias wasn’t prepared, it knocked the wind right out of him. This attack dropped him right to his knees, and made him cough out blood into his helmet. His energy rifles were currently overheated, and were still glowing.

It would take several seconds before they could cool down. Clouds of steam and smoke emitted off them, and Zach had also expended alarming amounts of energy on blasts that didn’t even hit the target.

Cael’s nimbleness made him waste far too much energy and abuse these rifles of his.

Struggling to raise back up to his feet, he simply looked up to meet Cael’s golden exosuit that brightly gleamed under the blazing sun. He powerfully stood over the fallen warrior, with his fists clenched tightly.

“Come on, Zacharias! What are you doing?! Get up and beat this clown!” His father exclaimed, standing up with rage.

The mediators at the edge of the ring were supposed to have stopped this fight a long time ago, but knew of Cael. Nobody wanted to lose to him. Even they were desperate to see him get pummelled somehow.

“Alright then. If you don’t wanna finish off this fight, I’ll do it myself!” Cael called out, clenching his right fist tightly.

Slowly cocking it back, he thrusted it straight into Zach’s helmet, folding him right over like a beach chair. His body lifelessly flopped to the ground, and he remained motionless for several seconds.

It was only after ten seconds before there were some slight movements in his body in the form of jitters and shakes.

There was nothing they could do now. Zacharias was no longer fit to continue, and the win was handed to Cael.

He’d succeeded in a spectacular fashion. After doing so, he just gave a piercing glare at Kegan who remained in the stands.

Even through his visor, the spectator could tell exactly who he was looking at.

Cael confidently strolled up to the edge of the arena, leaping into the stands with flair. Even with nobody to stand by his side, he didn’t feel intimidated by those that sat beside him now.

There was an aura of pressure and boldness exuding from him, and those around him were not as quick to scorn him.

The following round of 16 matches continued, and Cael wanted to give it a nice watch to see what he was up against. Even though he had put so much training in, he was still a member of a literal noble house.

The patriarch of his family was a major figure within the Soburg empire’s government. Some of the talents that he witnessed here had stellar performances, whilst even being several years younger than himself.

A fighter that stood out to him and everyone else was the prodigy of the Breckenridge family, Arthur Breckenridge. Younger brother of Leighton and the second-in-line to the position of patriarch, he possessed lush auburn hair along with clear skin and piercing blue eyes.

He was somewhat short for a person with so much mana, standing at 5’8. However, he was only 14 and was decently tall for his age. He was around Cael’s height at the same time too.

Even with a smaller figure, he wielded a heavy, powerful exosuit that caused significant damage to its opponents. His bottomless well of mana granted him the ability to completely overpower even grown men.

He easily arrived at the quarter finals and was matched up against Cael.