Way of the Knights

---

The hour of rest was over, before Raven left his parents' side, Eva gave him a kiss on his forehead, she said that it was a good luck charm. Raven chuckled and went back to the stage.

Shortly after the crew was reunited. Their moods were different from before, now they seemed to have a renewed vigor and passion.

"Since all of the participants are here. We will begin the fourth part of the event, the Coordination Test." As soon as Carl announced this, six people emerged and stood at different places inside the arena, they followed a hexagon formation and were all wearing white masks with only their eyes visible through and white robes.

"The test will be a game of dodgeball but with slightly different rules. The basics are the same, they will throw the ball and you guys have to dodge it or catch it, if you caught the ball then you can attack the masked people. You could work together to attack. An attack is registered as a hit when the ball makes contact to your body of you failed to block the attack. It's anyone's ball if it hits the ground so if you want to attack again, then pay attention. Teamwork is key so if anyone of you are eliminated then it impacts the whole team. You people are only allowed to get hit three times. Are there any questions?"

Anne raised her hand, Carl nodded towards her so she asked: "The three hit chances, does that apply for them as well?"

"No." Carl grinned and shook his head, "If you landed hit them then you have one less attacker."

"Understood."

"Any more questions?" Seeing none of them said anything, Carl raised his hand and made a quick chop before announcing: "Alright, game start!"

As soon as Carl signalled, one of the masked man summoned the ball out of nowhere and threw it to them. These movements were too sudden and no one actually asked about where the ball was so they had no idea had it before the game started. Fortunately…

"4th incoming." Raven said casually.

The crew's eyes lit up and they moved together as a unit, Paul immediately stepped forward and blocked the attack. The ball bounced upwards because of the angle and Mark nimbly caught the ball.

Forget the masked man who threw the attack, even Carl and the rest of the staff were extremely surprised with the results. It had to be known that these students didn't know who had the ball all this time yet they were able to defend against it and even caught the ball.

Of course this was all due to Raven's sharp instincts. As soon as the masked people came out, he was already wary of them. Due to habits, Raven always counted his targets in a clockwise manner, the crew also knew this fact that's why when Raven said the '4th' they could tell which one he was referring to.

"Ellie, Paul, Mark, you attack." Raven said once more, he crossed his arms around his chest and spread his awareness to the other people present.

"One!" Ellen shouted allowed, when Mark heard this, he cursed and hurriedly threw the ball mid-air, Ellen jumped and sent a sword wave towards the ball.

"Two!" Mark yelled next, he then made some quick calculations before performing a Cross Cut and sending towards the flying ball.

"Three!" Instead of attacking the ball, Paul slammed his shield on the ground and sent the earth quaking beneath their target.

The target of these three was the 2nd Masked Man, before he could even think of blocking the attack, he felt the ground shook beneath him causing him to lose his balance briefly. That short amount of time however, was enough for the screeching ball to land on his body causing him to completely topple over before he could even regain his balance.

Not even a minute has passed since the game started but the masked people already lost someone. Someone quickly filled in and got the ball and once again, it's the masked people's turn to attack.

The crowd erupted in cheers, they were astonished by the coordination that this kids showed. It wasn't everyday that they are able to witness such seamless teamwork, what's even more impressive is that it was kids who showed up such coordination. It truly makes them wonder how hard they must've trained to achieve this.

The masked men's formation adjusted a bit, from hexagon they now followed a pentagon formation. If they were underestimating these brats before, that mentality was not completely gone. They now treated this kids like someone at their level.

The 1st masked man had the ball, he threw it in an arc and passed it to the 4th, the 4th then passed it to the 3rd and the round robin began. Their goal on doing this was obvious, they want to fool the the perception of the kids and make them lower their guards. They continued passing the ball to each other for at least 25 times that the crowd was getting frustrated. Sadly, their plan was bound to fail…

Raven sneered and whispered: "5th will feint a pass and attack Luna."

And as soon as he said this, the 5th masked man truly feinted a pass before retracting his aim and throwing the ball towards Luna. Paul once again met the ball and blocked it in an angle.

"Anne, Luna, we go." Raven said the words and the team flowed into action. Raven started running, Luna started twirling her spear.

"One!" Anne jumped and shot the ball using the Fatal Shot. Time seemed to slow down and the crowd thought if Anne made a mistake since the ball was coming after the running Raven.

Raven knew that the ball was going his way but he didn't stop running towards the 1st masked man who was glaring at the ball fiercely, there was a determined expression on his face while his defences are up. When he looked at the ball earlier, he knew that it was pass, Raven would most likely going to either dodge the ball at the last second to catch him off-guard or he would attack the ball and boost it's power to attack him, as for whatever Luna was doing, he figured that that's just a distraction. Sadly…he was wrong.

Just as when he thought that the ball was about to hit him. He saw Raven grinned fiendishly and yelled: "Two."

He somersaulted backwards and hit the ball using his foot. He placed a decent amount of strength towards that attack which made the ball whistle towards the 2nd masked man who was completely caught unprepared. But things aren't done however…

"Three!" Luna similarly yelled and sent a energy wave on a shape of serpent towards the ball. The serpent opened it's mouth, placing the ball on it's jaws. The boosted attack landed on the 2nd masked man and caused him to fly backwards.

The 1st masked man was stunned and infuriated. 'These brats!' He can't accept that they made a fool out of him, but deep down in his heart, he also felt deep admiration towards them since their teamwork was truly impeccable.

When everyone thought that things were done, lo and behold, they were wrong once more. As the ball landed onto the ground, the masked men were surprised to see someone already picking it up with a fiendish expression on his face. It didn't take long before they heard another call.

"Girls!" As Raven yelled this he instantly threw the ball, Luna was the first to take action.

"One!" As the ball passed by her location, she sent a spear light after it which boosted it's flight speed.

"Two!" Ellen was already waiting for this, so she sent large horizontal sword wave after it which made it's flight speed even faster. And of course…

"Three!" How could Anne be left out? Another Fatal Shot was released and merged with the existing forces already present to the ball. The target of this attack was the 3rd masked man. He managed to block in time, but unfortunately the force behind the attack proven to be too powerful for him to handle, so his defence failed.

And just like that, only two of the masked men remained.

Not wanting for a second event like that to occur, the 4th masked man immediately hurried over to the ball. Just as when he was about to grab it, he saw figure blocking his way which made him extremely surprised.

"We're up guys!" Paul exclaimed loudly, he then thumped his chest loudly and yelled at the top of his lungs. "ONE!!!!!!"

The 4th masked man felt the burnt of the yell, his ear rang and his mind buzzed, he was caught completely unprepared for that causing his to be stunned on the spot. Being momentarily crippled, the tempo of the crew's attack increased.

Mark's silhouette appeared a like a phantom behind Paul, he picked up ball and threw it past Raven's location while yelling: "Two!!"

By this time, the 1st masked man thought that he was, without a doubt, the target of these kids. He summoned his entire energy and braced himself to defend the attack at all cost.

Raven grinned, he clenched his hand hard and poured a great amount of energy behind it. Just before the ball went over him, he slammed his bare fist on the ball and yelled: "Three!"

The crowd only held a sharp whistle at that point and the 1st masked man was seen lying down outside of the arena with the ball bouncing beside him.

There was nothing but absolute silence after that.

62d67767f92eb560e77c9100