There was no way for him to dodge the attacks, so he was focusing on defense, but it was a huge amount of damage to take.

“You won’t defeat me,” he shouted.

The shield slimes that covered his hands liquefied once more and began to cover his whole body.

“Hiding behind your shield slimes, eh?” muttered Sakura.

She manipulated her remaining slices, enlarging them into huge blades of energy, before slamming them down into Samuel.

Samuel’s body was almost entirely coated in shield slime now.

“You can’t hurt me,” he yelled. “My defense is too high with the shield slimes protecting me.”

Arrogant as always, thought Sakura. The fool!

One slice shot into Samuel and then another.

CRACK!!

The shield slime disintegrated around him.

“You idiot,” shouted Sakura. “You screwed up as soon as you covered yourself with the shield slimes.” Beforehand, Samuel could keep alternating between the two shield slime-covered fists as one recharged its energy shield, but combining them meant two hits were all that was required to break through the shield slime’s energy barrier.

“Let’s finish this, Samuel!” shouted Sakura, sending in her remaining slices into the man.

A barrage of blows shot into Samuel.

The man screamed in pain.

When all the attacks were done, the arena swirled with smoke.

Sakura collapsed onto her knees, out of breath.

Had she done it? Had she stopped the mad man from wreaking havoc on their city?

The smoke cleared.

She stared out in shock.

Samuel was still standing where he had been before. His clothes had been completely burned off, but his muscular skin was hardly damaged at all.

“If anyone’s running out of tricks, Sakura,” he grinned. “I think it’s you.”

104

A huge explosion emanated from the nearby tournament arena.

Max peered over as they rode atop the drake.

“I hope Sakura’s okay,” said Casey.

Me too, thought Max. Me too.

The wind swirled around them as they flew the drake towards a rooftop where one of Samuel’s buffers was out posted.

On the roof, there was a D-rank climber torturing an E-rank climber.

“The era of weaklings ruling over Zestiris is over,” said the buffer.

He carried an energy blade similar to the buffer they’d fought in the alleyway on the way to the control center.

He was making big gashes in the E-rank climber’s body, but not enough to kill him, just enough to put the man into incredible pain.

Suddenly, the evil buffer was surrounded by a swarm of paper cranes.

“What the—!?”

The man collapsed on the ground, unconscious and defeated.

Max and Casey stepped out from behind an air vent and hurried over to the cowering E-rank climber.

“Are you okay?” asked Max.

The man had cuts all over.

“Thank you,” said the man. He materialized a healing potion from his pouch and uncorked it and took a sip. The lighter wounds on his body began to fade away.