Chapter 222 - Fighting Glen - II (1/2)

When his fist, felt something hard contacting it, instead of soft tissue of the face, he knew that he had missed. He immediately felt Glen crashing into his body and pushing him towards the wall. With hardly any distance between him and the wall, Balthazar was sure it was going to hurt him.

He was slammed into the wall by Glen, but he managed to reduce the impact by pulling up his legs and using his right hand to brace the impact. Moreover, Glen's right hand was sandwiched between him and the wall and took the brunt of the collision as Balthazar lifted his leg in time for his knee to poke into Glen's wrist.

The collision was more hurting to Glen as it almost broke his right arm. Balthazar managed to use Glen's own momentum against him and Glen's wrist would be hurting for him to properly use it. Still, Balthazar knew that he was at a disadvantage. Glen had a good view of him and was close to him while he had his back to Glen.

With his usual weapons, he had a couple of tricks he could use to escape, but barehanded, he was in a fix. Even if he didn't feel like accepting it, he knew that Glen managed to trick him in the fight at the beginning itself and gain the advantage.

He tried to kick back and found nothing hitting his leg. He was sure it was a faint, but he needed to look at Glen. He was too silent for Balthazar to guess anything. He jumped back a step and turned around swinging his right arm but found a hand on his face obstructing his view as it pushed him back towards the wall.

Balthazar was ready too. Even if he still didn't have a view, he now had Glen's arm on his face and both arms free. While Glen was pushing him back, he wouldn't be able to use his legs to block as he was pushing him towards the wall. His right wrist would be weak for a few moments and he wouldn't be able to use it effectively.

This was his chance to retaliate. While he was an assassin and thief, climbing ropes and poles and grappling were vital for him to save his life. He ended up being quite proficient in a number of grappling techniques due to it. He caught Glen's hand with his own managed to push his face to the side and caught onto Glen's body with his legs.

It left him hanging off Glen in an awkward pose, but neither of them cared about it. In a fight, all such trivial things were inconsequential and much so when they have no spectators. After that, he swung his body around to get to Glen's back, but Glen simply jumped and decided to land on the ground on his back.

This forced Balthazar to push off from Glen, even though he managed to catch and was about to go for a choke hold. It was a good chance that he had lost, but Balthazar was glad that he managed to escape from Glen's reach. He was pushed against a wall before and it was a horrible position to be in a fight.

”Got away from situation with some small injuries on my limbs and managed to hurt his right wrist,” thought Balthazar. ”Not a bad outcome, I should attack him quickly before he gets used to his wrist hurting him.”

Balthazar quickly rolled away from Glen and stood up while Glen did the same. He knew he couldn't repeat the same trick again. For that to work he needed his back close to the wall and he was sure that Glen wouldn't let him do it again. Apart from that, he got a basic idea of Glen's strength from the previous tussle. Glen as expected clearly had thicker muscles and good reflexes. He was sure that he would suffer if he got close to Glen.

He put some distance between him and Glen. He needed to know more about Glen's fight style, and he started to consider winning essential. He felt that it would be a good experience for him too. Though he had his specializations, he always felt it to be best to prepare for other scenarios. Through his experiences over the past month, he began to feel like he was given the second chance to better prepare and it would be a waste if he didn't.

He quickly ran towards Glen to overcome him by rapidly hitting a few weak spots like his joints or head. From the previous tussle, he realized that Glen was too sturdily built for him to get any advantage by hitting him repeatedly on his torso or other parts of his limbs. Glen was too strongly built for that to work.

Getting stronger than Glen was impossible but he was sure he could have an advantage with speed. The previous exchange between them proved it. The only problem, he had was the lack of a weapon. With a weapon, it wouldn't take much time in taking down Glen even at close combat. Still some weak spots didn't need a weapon to injure a person, but Balthazar could see that he had his guard up. Luckily, there is a limit to the number of places that Glen could guard on his body. This was his advantage, but he realized it was not of much use when he came close to Glen and tried to attack.

He started with a quick combo of punches. Strength was never his strong point. So, Glen could block them with relative ease. Balthazar had expected that, and his punches were merely a form of distraction. His actually attacks started in the middle of the combo as he swung his right foot into the back of Glen's knee to disrupt his foot work and make him fall onto his knees.

Balthazar hoped that when Glen fell down, his quick punches which were currently aimed at Glen's chest would fall onto his face and he could discombobulate him with a few hits on his head. Once, Glen would be in such a state, Balthazar expected him to be easy to defeat. At the very most, even if he failed, he expected that it would be much harm to him as he felt Glen to be relatively slow and he would be able to escape any counter attacks.

As he swung his foot, he found Glen's upper half lower as he expected when a person's knees would buckle and thus, continued with punching. But to his surprise, it stopped midway and he found his foot to be caught by Glen between his thigh and calf muscles.

”Not bad, but not strong enough,” said Glen with a smile. With one foot struck, Balthazar's movements were restricted. His punches were already countered by Glen's hands. He quickly tried to rotate his body by jumping on one leg and swinging his other leg at Glen's head, but Glen expected that too.

With both legs off ground, Balthazar couldn't get away and both of them knew that it was Balthazar's loss at that moment. Glen let Balthazar's punches hit him and at the same time hit Balthazar on his face exchanging blows with each other on their heads. Balthazar's fist struck Glen on his nose and Glen struck him with an open palm on his neck and immediately grabbed onto his neck.