Martial Online.

On the other side of the room.

Zadkiel laughed in amusement as he pushed Moriarty back with the fast and unstoppable strikes of his Sai's.

Moriarty barely stopped the attacks with the sturdy shaft of his spear, but his body had visible blood stains from the hits he had taken.

Meanwhile, Zadkiel looked clean—not a single dirt in his white robes.

"What's wrong, Moriarty?" Zadkiel moved fluidly, like he was dancing. "I thought you wanted to defeat me. Prove me wrong that you aren't the same loser as back then!"

Moriarty scoffed and stabbed his spear powerfully forward, but then Zadkiel easily sidestepped the attack and countered with a swift kick to Moriarty's chest.

The kick sent Moriarty flying across the room, crashing into the wall made out of black rock.

"Ptui!" Moriarty spat out blood from his mouth as he struggled to stand straight.

'Calm down, Moriarty!'

The soul shouted inside his mind.

'Zadkiel is only having the upperhand as his mind is on the right place. Do not let him provoke you or he will defeat you!'

Moriarty gritted his teeth angrily.

He knew more than anyone that if he let his emotions take over, he would again lose to Zadkiel. It had been a trick Zadkiel had used on him multiple times.

In one of the swimming tournaments in middle school, Moriarty was the fastest swimmer and was a clear candidate to win, and he would've won most likely.

However, on the day of the tournament, he found his childhood sweetheart cheating on him with Zadkiel behind the bleachers. It happened only an hour before the start of the tournament.

Of course, when the tournament started, his mind was completely distracted, and he ended up in second place. The winner was Zadkiel.

In the basketball tournament, they ended up on different teams as they were in different classes at that point in time.

They met again in the finals, and at first, Moriarty's team seemed stronger, but they lost 61-29. It was annihilation.

After the defeat, Moriarty saw his teammates talking fondly with Zadkiel, laughing and giggling. He believed that they allowed Zadkiel to win as they played incredibly poorly in the finals, but he had no way to prove that.

Crumble!

The room started shaking again as another potion of the black rock vanished.

Moriarty felt another sinking feeling in his stomach and struggled to defend against Zadkiel's strikes. He was forced to back off after each attack.

Zadkiel continued laughing and forced Moriarty onto his backfoot as he again backed off towards the wall. He was trapped once again.

'Moriarty, snap out of it. You're stronger than this!' The knight's soul shouted inwardly with panic.

Moriarty bit his upper lip and stopped moving as if he were frozen.

Zadkiel immediately plunged his Sai deep into his chest and twisted it for good measure.

"You haven't changed, huh?" Zadkiel smiled sadistically as he watched Moriarty fall down on his knees.

Moriarty silently looked at Zadkiel's shoes and lowered his head enough for his expression to stay hidden.

Zadkiel pulled out the Sai from his chest, cleaned it from the blood, and backed off a few steps with a victorious smile.

"Ngh…" Moriarty stood up slowly, his hand loosely holding the spear and his head slightly tilting downward.

"By the way, how's your family doing?" Zadkiel asked with a smile. "Are they still treating me like a son? Whenever I met them, I had the feeling that they liked me more than you. Strange, isn't it?"

"It's not strange, not really…" Moriarty put his hand on his face, moved his hair back, and showed his emotionless face.

"You're the master manipulator. I don't know what you did, but one day, after your visit to our home, neither my parents nor my siblings looked at me the same way.

"What did you say to them?"

"Haha, they didn't tell you?" Zadkiel rubbed his chin with a smile. "And they believed me? Wow, I half-cooked some lies, and they ate it up like it was the truth."

At that moment, Zadkiel looked up to the ceiling, where the golden camera was recording the scene, and showed a smile and a wave.

"A handsome smile and wave are all you need to manipulate the weak-willed. This camera, by the way, only records video, not audio.

"They probably are now thinking that I am just sending greetings to my fans or some shit. Instead, I'll say—fuck you all."

"What did you say to them?" Moriarty asked with a pained voice.

"Some bullshit." Zadkiel laughed. "I was already the favorite son of everyone in that shitty town. So, I just said that you ambushed me with your friends and beated me to a pulp because I beated you in that shitty chess tournament.

"They actually believed that.contemporary romance

"I wasn't hurt in any way; I didn't even have bruises on me. But I suppose they thought that someone like me couldn't possibly be lying!"

"I see now…" Moriarty sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. "That makes a lot of sense. What fools."

At that moment, Moriarty switched up gears, launched forward, and stabbed the spear forward.

Zadkiel deflected the spear narrowly and laughed in success as he believed that he had angered Moriarty even further.

However, without his knowledge, Moriarty was actually very calm and controlled by his emotions.

'Moriarty...?' The knight's soul inside him spoke with a strange tone.

It could feel that something had changed inside Moriarty.

'They believed him so easily because they already liked Zadkiel more than me. Now that I have discovered that, I shouldn't care about them or anyone else!'

Moriarty masterfully twirled the spear around him and lashed at Zadkiel, but he managed to sidestep and dodge the attacks.

In that instant, Moriarty dashed forward and started pushing Zadkiel with sharp and accurate spear strikes. Each strike was aiming for Zadkiel's vital points.

Zadkiel frowned and struggled slightly to deflect the strikes. It felt strange to him, as he felt like there was something wrong.

Moriarty didn't move very fast, but still, he managed to force Zadkiel to move defensively with each strike.

Zadkiel's brows creased, and he constantly backed backwards, trying to somehow move back to offensive, but couldn't.

At that moment, he felt rising heat behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed that the lava pit was nearing.

"Oh, how cute."

Zadkiel laughed, and he backflipped over the lava pit, landing on the other side.

At that moment, Moriarty threw the spear as if it were a javelin across the air.

Zadkiel tilted his body sideways, dodging the spear narrowly as it whizzed past him, missing his head by mere inches.

"Hmph."

Moriarty then reached out his open palm towards his spear, and it materialized back into his hand with a swift motion.

He twirled it in his right hand, spinning it with his fingers with practiced ease before launching it back towards his opponent.

Zadkiel swung his Sai's up and deflected the spear up towards the ceiling.

Again, Moriarty reached out his open palm towards the spear and made it materialize back into his hand.

"Enough!" Zadkiel jumped over the lava pit and smashed his weapons at the spear.

A loud clang sounded as two weapons released scarlet-red sparks.

"What were you even trying to achieve?" Zadkiel asked with a ridiculing smile.

Moriarty looked coldly at him, but then his lips curled into a giant smile as he revealed a scary, sinister-looking smile.

"I stopped caring about you."

"Huh?" Zadkiel frowned and didn't understand what he meant by that.

done.co