Code Collector

To say that everyone was surprised was an understatement. Every single person that wasn't part of the Barandilla were shocked. 

"This is not over!" Fantasia screamed. She stood back up and conjured a staff, pointing it at Allen's direction. "We're not over yet, so fight me!"

Allen sighed. He raised his sword and glaive, crossing it as he waited for the woman to launch her attack. "Then come and get some."

"Hah!" Fantasia screamed. The head of her staff glowed with a dark purple color and flame-like aura seeped out from it. "Mamba Strike!"

The woman took one step forward and spun, slashing her staff and firing the attack towards Allen. The boy sighed and slammed the blade of his glaive to the ground, raising his sword right if front of him and slashed from over his head.

"Skill Spam!" Allen looked like he multiplied a lot of times. There were six astral-looking apparitions around his body as he struck his sword on the attack. His blade and the flames clashed, creating a giant force.

"Stop this, now," Gwen said to Matthew. "That woman is a Hunter that is a world above Allen. Stop this now! Argh!"

Gwen stood and was about to get into the fight when Matthew appeared in front of her, blocking her path. He shook his head. "My true role here is not because of a request from you, but a request from him. This is my role, to stop you from going in."

"What?!" Gwen growled. "But he'll die!"

"Trust him," Jeremy said, making Gwen look at him and scrunch her face. "What do you mean? You saw Fantasia's practice match with another Hunter before. She almost killed him. The Hunter wasn't able to hunt after he lost the will to survive."

"But that man wasn't our friend, is he?" Jeremy asked. This made Gwen slightly calm down. She sighed and shook her head. "Trust. Him."

"I–" Gwen sat back down and nodded. "Okay. I'll trust him. But the moment I see danger, I'll pull you three with me."

As his friends understood his request, Allen just finished cancelling out all of Fantasia's attack. He was panting, admitting to himself that the woman did indeed have the highest damage output in all the Hunters.

"Impossible!" Fantasia gasped after she saw her opponent still standing after receiving her attack. "But you should've been pulverized by now. How is this even possible?!"

"Are you done?" Allen smirked. "Because I think it should be my turn."

Allen launched himsel straight to Fantasia. On his way to her, he snatched his glaive that was still on the ground and leaped, spinning and creating a whirlpool of aura that he shot toward the woman.

Fantasia countered this with a tap on her staff, creating a dome that protected her. Allen landed right in front of the doom and just like before where there was six apparitions of Allen, he slashed his weapons on the dome.

"That's her strongest shield. It's impossible for him to break such Code."

"Fantasia is only warming up. He will die now."

"Why are we even nervous? Fantasia got this."

…

The crowd relieved their fears with their words as they continued to bash on Allen. They knew that they were lying to themselves and they only wanted to comfort each other with words that they wanted to hear.

Crack.

It was inevitable. Seven Hunters that were as fast as an assassin with the damage output of a warrior slashing on a shield in a couple of minutes straight. Any shield would give up.

Crack. Crack. Break.

Fantasia's eyes widen as she watched her dome fall apart. Allen took a second to breath before he launched himself towards the woman a again, now he was ready to fight.

"Don't you dare underestimate me!" Fantasia yelled. She slashed her staff and fired multiple balls of fire to Allen. The boy merely dodged the attacks even when there raining on him from the front.

"Miss Fantasia," Allen said. "Your mistake is that you substituted your henchman in the middle of the fight. That's number one."

Allen used the pommel of his sword and slammed it in the woman's stomach. "Mistake number two is when you used a lot of your energy into that one attack. You do have the highest damage output in all the Hunters, but your secret is that you lack stamina."

Allen then used his glaive to dance with the woman's staff before he slashed it away, disarming the woman who was now falling on her knees. "And finally, your last mistake is when you tried to go up against me."

The boy leaned in and showed Fantasia his menacing and ominous arua, making it as black as he could. "You don't win an unfair fight against me, got that?"

Allen's hands were swift. In a blink of an eye, he used the side of his sword as a paddle to fire Fantasia away. The woman coughed at the impact, feeling the strength of the gem sword on his stomach. "Blargh!"

Fantasia's body rolled to the ground a couple of times. Each time, giving her scratches, bruises and even cuts. That was how powerful the impact of Allen's attack was on her.

Then, right when Fantasia was about to roll out of the platform. Allen conjured a chain and threw it on her. The chain was wrapped around the woman's feet and Allen used this to pull her back into the stone platform.

The crowd was now silent. They watched one of the top Hunters get beaten by a mere D ranker. This was an impossible feat in all and every angle there is.

Allen walked towards Fantasia and pointed his sword at the almost unconscious woman's neck. "You're petty."

He kept his weapons back in his inventory and raised his arm. The crowd wasn't able to cheer yet. They looked at the referee who was still stunned by everything.

"She's not unconscious," Allen said. "I'm still not the winner, right?"

The referee woke up from the trance and nodded vigorously. "Y-Yes. You have to knock her unconscious for you to win."

"Okay," Allen said. He walked on the edge of the platform and with one last look at Fantasia, he spoke. "Keep your everything, I'll only take your pride."

Allen stepped out of the stone platform, shocking everyone even more. They were speechless, clueless, and lost in the middle of it all. No one could utter a single thing.

"A-As the challenged has forfeited his match by exiting the ring," the referee took as much courage as he could to speak. "The winner of this match is Bryant– I mean, Fantasia!"

"You little rat!" Gwen ran towards Allen and wrapped her arms around him. "How come you knew this would happen? You even hired a bodyguard for us to not go there."

Allen laughed and returned the hug. "I know these guys would never fight fair. I just used fire against fire. But my fire was stronger, so it's not my fault that this happened."

He then glanced at Jeremy who was pale. "You okay?"

"Just nervous," Jeremy replied. Allen grinned and open his arms. "No, I am not going to hug you– hey!"

"Hugs!" Gary cheered and pushed Jeremy towards Allen and Gwen. The four of them shared a hug as they laughed at each other, proud of what their friend had made.

Slam.

Meanwhile, in a tower near the arena, a metal desk was split in half. A man was seething in anger as he watched a screen that showed Allen and Fantasia's match. "How could she lose like that?!"

"Sir, we're still investigating the identity of these D rankers," another man, a shorter one, said. "They are D rankers but seemed to be strong."

"Everyone can see that!" the man growled. "You saw how that boy tarnished the reputation of Barandilla and beat Fantasia like a pulp. Do you think I'm blind, Alvin?!"

"No, sir–"

"Then show me their files!" the man yelled. "Don't come back until I saw every single thing that these cockroaches are hiding. If I see you here in this building, I will kill you myself."

"Yes sir," Alvin bowed and ran outside as fast as he could, leaving the man alone in the dark room.

He took a deep breath and fixed his hair. "Everything is fine, everything is okay."

He was inside a room that was vast but empty. The only furniture was the metal desk that he split in half and his dark wooden chair. The desk faced away from the window that had the glass from the floor to ceiling.

"You already killed Drake Nelson," the man whispered. "This boy isn't a threat to you."

The screen was paused and it showed the panel where Allen spoke to Fantasia for the last time, right when he released his aura. The man smirked as he zoomed in close to Allen's face. "There you are."

Allen's eyes had morphed, they looked like they were eyes of a snake.