Air Hero

Max vs Kieran II

As it was Max’s first time trying this technique, he isn’t familiar with it, and he almost failed to redirect the attack. Thankfully, he managed to shift the direction slightly as it grazed past his cheek and missed the original target.

Kieran, who watched that, squinted his eyes. He didn’t see Max tilted his head to evade his attack. There’s a clear difference between Max dodges his attack with Max directed his attack in another direction. Max clearly did something as he just stayed in place, but the attack missed him.

“It is not wrong to call you as a dark horse in the competition. At first, I am sure that my attack earlier will be able to take you out, but somehow you managed to avoid it. I hope that you could continue to give me more surprise.”

Even though Max managed to avoid his attack, Kieran isn’t panic at all. Instead, if he could understand how Max did that, he could work on this weakness and come out even stronger later.

Aside from continuing to improve your own ability, fixing your weakness is one of the most important factors. What if you have amazing power that could decimate a mountain in one punch, but you walk like a snail? It is better to have less power and increase your speed to make sure that you could chase and hit the enemy. That’s the principle of fixing weakness in order to improve and become the best. In the end, if the person could move very fast and hit with a mountain-decimating punch, no one could pick on his weakness anymore.

Kieran tried to launch another sound wave attack towards Max to prove his suspicion, and this time, Max managed to defend against it again. Max, on the other hand, feels like he is being buried under a huge boulder. When he ordered the wind to direct the sound vibration to another direction, the wind is very heavy. Unlike the usual wind manipulation that he is done, it was as if something is weighing down on it.

Although it was heavy, Max still managed to direct it away even if it cost more energy.

“I didn’t know what you do earlier. Can you tell me?”

“Well, I can tell you if you could defeat me.”

Max didn’t stand on ceremony with Kieran as they are neither friends nor acquaintances. Max now has recovered a bit from his earlier internal injury and able to stand up. Max is also thinking about how to defeat Kieran.

His condition isn’t good, and he will need to spend a lot of energy directing Kieran’s attack away. Suddenly, he thinks of an idea. Since if he launches his own attack, it will eat more of his energy. How about he uses Kieran’s attack and sends it back to him?

Although he will spend some more energy, it is more efficient than defending and attacking at the same time using his own energy.

When Kieran launched another attack, Max then tried his strategy. Kieran, who is oblivious to all of this, suddenly felt his ear ringing, and his body shook. Just like what happened to Max earlier, he staggered and fell to his knees. He also coughed out blood because of internal injury.

“You! How can you’re able to do this!”

Kieran never imagined that Max could return his attack back to him. Was Max's ability has something to do with skill reflecting? Or is it something rarer like ability copycat?

There is a famous villain with the ability to copy anyone else ability and use it freely. That is the conclusion that Kieran reached since he knows that his sound ability is unique, and what Max showed so far is his wind manipulation ability. What if Max's wind manipulation ability is something that he copied from someone else? That will explain how Max is able to use sound attacks just now.

It is already strange when he saw Max able to defeat Iki in the previous round. However, if Max's ability has something to do with copying another person's ability, there is a chance that he could cancel out Iki’s ability somehow.

Kieran knows that if he stayed like this, he would lose. He will need to defeat Max in close range or using another means. He knows from Max’s battle with Iki that close range isn’t Max's weakness either. Although he can’t be called proficient, he can put up a fight.

“I was saving this for when I face Elica or Giovanni. Who knows that the first time I’m using it is against you.”

After he said that, Max become alerted. He knows that the match is entering the deciding phase. Whether he could defend against Kieran's attack or not will determine the result of this match.

Kieran then takes a deep breath as he inhaled a lot of air. Max can also feel that he is gathering all of his energy onto the attack. Max couldn’t decide on anything yet. He doesn’t know whether he should dodge or tried to defend against it. What he knows is that the power of this move has exceeded D-rank.

Kieran opened his mouth, and an explosion sound, almost similar to a thunderclap can be heard. Kieran’s attack created a sonic boom that only occurred when something has gone past the speed of sound.

It wasn’t wrong for him to say this is his ultimate move as it exceeded his limit. Probably only Giovanni, with his light element ability that could escape from this attack.

Max could feel that something is moving through the air. Kieran’s attack at the speed of 350 m/s could reach Max in a fraction of seconds. Max, however, can feel as if time moved slower, and he is now inside the grey world once more.

He can see Kieran’s attack moving towards him, but he can’t move his body since his body can’t move at the speed of 350 m/s. Right now, he also sees white particles in the air, and strangely enough, Kieran’s attack is moving using the white particles as the medium. Max knows that this is his only chance to get out of this situation.

He tried to split the white particles into two separate paths to his left and right with a command inside his head. Leaving him in the middle without any white particle nears him.