And with that, the three of them prepared to fight, just waiting for the first person to make a move.
Ren decided he was going to be the one to move first. He summoned a shade from his arm and went for a whip attack. He didn't know what John could do, so he put all his strength behind it and made the whip as strong as possible, so John couldn't possibly dodge it or block it at all.
But John didn't try to do either.
In fact, he struck the whip with his wooden sword in midair while it was coming toward him. For a second, Ren thought that was it John tried to deflect his attack with another attack, but that's not what happened.
The whip—once it struck the wooden longsword—didn't deflect. It wrapped around it.
John hit it at a precise spot so it would do that, and once the shade successfully wrapped around his sword, he dragged the sword back naturally without breaking his momentum. It was a natural part of his movement.
That sudden pull from the shade sent Ren flying toward John, and John kicked him with a roundhouse kick, sending him flying to the side again.
And just like that, in a couple of seconds, John nearly took Ren down.
Kai, still in his position, was absolutely shocked. He expected John to be stronger than them, but not by this big of a difference.
Before Kai could think about it any deeper, John dashed toward him, ready for a strike.
Kai somehow managed to block John's strike with his fire sword. The strike was hard—so hard it almost knocked Kai back, something that never happened when he blocked with his fire sword.
"Impressive," John said. "I guess you were right. Your sword can block way more than you can handle."
This hit should have sent you flying.
The two clashed for a bit, their swords crossing, but John broke the clash and started swinging at Kai from multiple different directions.
Kai was really struggling with this. John's strikes were nearly unpredictable. Kai was putting all of his focus into blocking—he couldn't hear or see anything else.
And the worst part about this… was that John might still be holding back.
The clash continued for a while until Ren finally got up. John's kick made him dazed for a while, and the pain didn't help at all, but thankfully he finally got his senses back. He got up, saw Kai struggling, and decided to help him quickly.
Ren quickly rushed toward them both. This time, he didn't plan on attacking with the whip again, since John had just demonstrated that this move was extremely lethal to the user when fighting someone more skilled than you.
John noticed Ren running toward him, and after two more clashes with Kai, he kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying back. Then he focused on Ren and got into a stance, ready for him.
And once Ren got close enough, John tried to go at him—but then Ren summoned two shades: one from under John using the shadow of his sword, and one from above, trying to break his posture or make him trip. But somehow, even though the shades were coming from those angles, John managed to dodge them pretty successfully and attack at the same time.
Ren managed to react to his movements thanks to the fact John had to make some unnecessary movements to dodge so ren decided to block with both his arms, but that was a terrible idea, because once the wooden sword hit his arm, it almost broke. Because his arms don't have the same property as Kai sword, they can't handle John's extremely powerful strike.
But even with his arms damaged like this, Ren managed to think and pull off a counterattack. He launched two shadow jabs from his elbows, and they hit John on the chest, sending him flying this time.
And that was the first hit they managed to land on John the whole fight.
Kai, who saw that, decided now was the time to go all out, and immediately launched an Arrow. There are safety features in this training area that are always active to protect all the people that are practicing, and since Kai knows that, he decided to launch that Arrow with full power. The heat and flames were blazing.
John, who was on his knees, sensed the heat coming from the Arrow. As soon as he saw it, he shifted into a slashing stance—his wooden longsword began to glow and spark yellow. When the Arrow got close enough, he launched his attack, the glowing blade cutting an arc through the air.
And John cut through the Arrow.
Ren and Kai were absolutely dumbfounded, because John just cut through Kai's Arrow—something the two of them didn't know was even possible. Because until now, his Arrow was practically their trump card. They always knew they could rely on it to finish the fight somehow.
Mark couldn't have survived it. Iris wouldn't have survived it. The gunshot leader survived it with no problem—but it rescued them.
And what did he do with his blade? Was that his species' ability or something?
Some alien races in the universe are like humans: completely powerless. But some species were born with tough bodies that can destroy boulders and stuff like that. You can count those as exceptional species.
Exceptional species have powers. If they are like humans—meaning they don't know where their powers come from, and there powers can't be explained by science—then we don't know whether they understand the true origin of those abilities or not. That knowledge is exclusive to the higher-ups of Star Island.
However, what we do know is that exceptional species usually have powers that are similar across members of their species. That can help you differentiate them from a normal species where certain individuals develop powers on their own since their powers tend to be unique to the individual. In contrast, exceptional species have similar powers by default.
There are also humans with alien blood. Because Earth has made unofficial contact with aliens for a long time, there are people walking around with alien ancestry, and depending on the alien species, that could give them powers.
That is one of the five paths to power in the world: the normal path, the superpowered path, and the alien path. The alien and superpowered paths are similar because they both give you superpowers, but the way you obtain them is different enough to make them separate categories.
Anyways, Karnai are one of these exceptional species.
Ren and Kai got up and looked at John, prepared to continue the fight even though their trump card was stopped so easily, but they won't give up so easily as well.
"I think this is enough," John said.
And that made Ren and Kai release their guard a little.
"I know I need to train both of you to get my experience up eventually, so that's exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna focus on Kai."
Once he mentioned his name, John looked at Kai.
"You are a swordsman just like me so I'm gonna teach you what I know about swordsmanship as much as I can. And that's why I'm gonna be focusing on you."
Then he looked at Ren.
"I'm not a martial artist, so I can't help you with that as much, but I will still help you become stronger."
"So from now on, the two of you will listen to whatever I'm gonna say. Got it?"