456 Tournament 1.7 (2/2)

As soon as the two of them stepped onto the arena, the referee did the usual ceremony of reminding them about the rules and so. After that, he started counting down.

”Three! Two! One! Begin!”

As soon as the referee signaled the match to begin. Ryan clenched his hand into a claw, he then brought it up as if he was swiping Floyd into pieces.

In a blink of an eye, a tall glacier appeared on the arena, encasing a large portion of it as well as sealing Madman Floyd within.

White mist escaped through Ryan's lips. The whole stadium was stunned into silence. The chill that being released by the enormous glacier added to the chill everyone felt on their spine with how quick and decisive Ryan was in this battle.

Amidst the silence, Ryan stood calmly. He stared at the glacier formed by his Ice Laws and pondered about something.

However, due to the pin-drop silence of the stadium. What's supposed to be a minuscule sound of cracking was amplified, causing many to be startled. They all watched curiously, and all of a sudden, the enormous glacier shattered into large chunks, falling into the ground and causing the whole stadium to tremble.

Within the falling remains of the enormous glacier, the tiny silhouette of Madman Floyd could be seen stretching his neck left and right while holding an unreasonably large cleaver.

Madman Floyd's cleaver had no proper handle, it was only covered by some cloth/bandage. The edge of the cleaver was chipped in many areas, and it was as wide as two people. The cleaver's tip wasn't sharp, its overall shape was rectangular.

Floyd holding his cleaver by his shoulder made a striking impression on those who sees it. Specially in addition to the steam surrounding his body, his sharp gaze and his devious smile.

”Yo! Freezing people without any warning is rude you know?”

Although Floyd said it this way, no one could tell if he's actually upset or not due to his fiendish grin.

A cold smirk appeared on Ryan's face as he mumbled: ”I wasn't expecting this to be easy anyway.”

Upon saying that, a thin and pristine looking white sword appeared on his hand. He then assumed as stance and prepared for the clash that was about to ensue.

The fiendish grin on Floyd's face widened. He lifted his cleaver, tightened his grip and snarled as he struck down with an incredible momentum.

The force behind Floyd's strike could be felt within the whole stadium. Winds howled and the reinforced arena was almost cleaved in half.

Ryan was relatively calm as he faced Floyd's attack head on. He simply lifted his sword and started gathering his energy. As the attack closed in on him, Ryan's sword hummed and released a milky white glow.

”White Emperor's Stance - Winter's Embrace.”

A dense white mist suddenly appeared out of Ryan's sword, the mist moved fast and engulfed Floyd's attack in no time. Whatever the white mist touched, was frozen. This includes the force behind Floyd's attack, causing an enormous fin-line glacier to appear within the arena.

But Ryan was done yet…

After freezing the attack, he brandished his sword and retracted horizontally.

”White Emperor's Stance - The Winter Gathers…”

The fin-like glacier was gathered through Ryan's sword, the chill it possess intensified and could felt by everyone who's watching. Then, Ryan unceremoniously performed a thrust to finish the move.

”..and Hails!”

Ryan displayed his mastery of Ice Laws using this move. The temperature within the stadium dropped at an alarming pace. The whole arena wasn't simply frozen, instead Ryan legitimately caused winter and used his authority to make the winter hail.

Compared to a normal hail however, Ryan's hail caused literal blocks of ice to condense and fly towards Madman Floyd without any mercy. Additionally, given how excellent Ryan's control over his Ice Laws, he could also condense spears made out ice and haul it towards Floyd.

What shocking is that, Floyd didn't even had any desire to defend himself. He simply stood there with a fiendish smile in his face and allowed whatever's coming his way to hit his body. Everyone was expecting him to be wounded and bleed but nothing happened to him at all.

In fact, Floyd's fiendish grin became even more pronounced as he said:

”Good! Keep it up! Haven't had a nice massage recently!”