Rise of the Blood Prince: From Slave to Emperor

Fight time had arrived. For some reason, Liscal didn't say a word to Aslan. He just glanced once at the bottle in his hand.

And then the match began.

Whoosh!

At the entrance, Aslan downed an entire bottle of liquor in one gulp.

Then he threw the bottle toward the spectator stands. The crowd went wild.

"Yeah, this is what I came to see!"

"I bet on you today. Show us what tough really means!"

"This won't be easy though. This time it's Baskun's top student!"

"But he's smaller than Benjol, isn't he?"

"When has Baskun ever fought with size? The guy lives off his punching technique. If he's calling him his top student, there's gotta be something there."

Aslan emerged and sized up his opponent. His opponent was stepping lightly at the entrance, throwing light punches here and there.

Jabs and straights.

And hooks.

There were some rough parts, but it wasn't much different from modern boxing.

What was impressive was that he put absolutely no effort into performing the movements. The claim that he was Baskun's top student didn't seem to be empty talk.

'At least the good news is that his weight class is the lowest I've faced so far.'

Aslan thought this because Abei's build was smaller than Benjol's. He had a solid, muscular physique, but his frame wasn't that big. It meant his body was still developing.

If someone had properly learned technique AND had a huge size advantage, it would be a hopeless situation. But now the size difference was less than with his previous opponents.

If there was any chance at all, this was it.

"Jacques!"

The referee's shout rang out.

Abei had already heard from Baskun about his opponent's previous matches. So he came in with a customized strategy.

Conserve stamina.

Don't overextend at the desired range and gradually break him down.

These were the two things Baskun had ordered Abei to do.

So Abei established his distance—his favorite middle range.

The perfect distance where mid-range strikes could land properly.

But right from the start, something unexpected happened.

Thud!

Pain shot through the punch he'd thrown as a feint.

'His forehead?'

It had definitely been a punch aimed at the face. He hadn't doubted it would hit until the moment of impact, but his opponent had pulled his chin back and thrust his forehead forward.

'Did he aim for that?'

Abei didn't think it was intentional. If he had the skill to aim for something like that, there'd be no need to take the hard road.

It would mean he wouldn't need to get beaten up every match while aiming for a comeback.

Getting hit with a lot of punches naturally damages your body. And a damaged body doesn't recover easily. Every gladiator rolling around in the arena knew this.

So Abei didn't get as suspicious as Bebo or Benjol had.

There was no way the drunk, staggering opponent in front of him had better fighting skills than himself.

And that for some reason, he wasn't able to fully display those skills.

'Still, his movements are ordinary.'

He hadn't earned the title of Baskun's top student for nothing. A true genius that Baskun had personally coached from one to ten. When Aslan used the forehead-ramming tactic, he reacted immediately.

'A feint?'

He threw a fake jab for a moment, and when Aslan thrust his forehead forward, he threw an uppercut.

Thwack!

It was a sharp uppercut with perfect timing, speed, and angle.

Blood immediately started flowing from Aslan's nose.

He had definitely reacted. He'd even tried to slip it. But he couldn't slip it perfectly.

With Aslan's current physical abilities, he couldn't perfectly respond to Abei's attacks.

That's how skilled Abei was.

'This is almost professional boxer level...'

Actually, he might be even better than that.

In modern times they wear gloves, but here they don't. Landing pinpoint strikes with bare hands was no easy task.

But that last attack was a sharp pinpoint strike. Aslan instinctively knew he'd get hurt if he didn't fight properly.

'It's different. Definitely different from before.'

Aslan's expression hardened. Abei was such a skilled opponent that he had to be tense.

***

In the arena, staying quiet during matches is considered a virtue.

The gladiators' breathing.

The sound of weapons clashing.

And the screams.

They wanted to vividly enjoy all of it.

But right now, no such virtue existed in this arena. Cheering sounds kept coming from the spectator stands.

It meant a match so spectacular was unfolding that it made them forget about such virtues.

The match between Aslan and Abei was showing content worthy of being called a great match just based on what had happened so far—a bloody battle unprecedented in boxing history.

And as time passed, slugfests were breaking out here and there too.

It wasn't like arena boxing matches never had slugfests. But those slugfests usually ended within a minute. They'd trade power shots and it would be over quickly.

But this current match was different.

They'd been trading blows for almost 5 minutes now and it wasn't ending.

Abei was mixing backsteps and sidesteps appropriately while striking, and Aslan just kept moving forward. When Abei moved to the side, he'd turn and keep advancing.

Naturally, Abei had way more successful attacks.

Since he was getting hit while charging in, Aslan's face was already covered in blood.

There were many torn spots too. When bare flesh hit bare flesh, skin tearing was inevitable.

Looking at the fight content, it was one-sided.

Not a match that looked one-sided like Aslan's previous fights, but a match where Abei was truly dominating one-sidedly.

If this were modern boxing or mixed martial arts, there would have been several moments where a TKO wouldn't have been surprising.

Even so, Aslan kept advancing like a bull.

It was a fighting style that damaged his body to an extent that made the phrase "give flesh to take bone" seem wasteful. His only option was to stubbornly advance and drain his opponent's energy.

Since Abei had the advantage at mid-range and long-range.

About 20 minutes into the match.

You could guess the flow of the fight from the fact that one had a clean face while the other's face was mangled beyond recognition.

There were no breaks, but both still had plenty of stamina.

For Abei, it was the result of brutal training, and for Aslan, it was the power of his internal energy.

There was another reason why Aslan kept pressing forward.

Currently, Abei was just countering the advancing Aslan with sidesteps and backsteps.

There was no need to rush in first. When he was stupidly charging in to get hit, why would he need to overextend?

But Aslan's intention was to stupidly push forward and actually take control of the battle's pace.

That way he could make maximum use of his recovery ability using internal energy.

It was weak internal energy, but internal energy was still internal energy.

If given time to rest, he could recover stamina faster than ordinary people.

More importantly, hadn't Aslan drunk a ton of alcohol before entering the arena to raise his Drunken Immortal Method's internal energy?

Not knowing about internal energy, Abei thought he was conducting the match well as instructed.

And he also knew the end was slowly approaching.

No matter how tough someone was, there were limits to stamina.

Abei, who had learned from Baskun that there were definitely areas that willpower couldn't cover, was thinking with calm eyes that he should finish this.

But there was one strange thing.

The match was beyond one-sided—it was overwhelming.

If he could just exhaust his stamina at the end, there would be absolutely no comeback.

But what was that look in the eyes of that ruined kingdom's crown prince?

It wasn't simply the look of someone swallowing his anger.

It was like... a look that was convinced there was still a possibility of a comeback.

Abei didn't like that. Not one bit.

'Still not giving up? How arrogant.'

So he clenched his fist. With the intention of completely eliminating any hope.

Thud thud thud!

Attacks that landed on both sides of the body.

And an uppercut that lifted the chin.

'This is the end.'

Aslan went down.

'He can't get up from that.'

Abei was certain. No matter how good his chin was, he wouldn't be able to get up. It had really landed solidly.

And hadn't considerable damage been accumulating throughout the fight?

Abei thought the match was over. But after just a few seconds, his brow furrowed again.

Because Aslan was getting up again without delay.

So the referee didn't stop the match either. Here, as long as you showed the will to fight, you could keep fighting.

More importantly, if they stopped the match with all this incredible cheering pouring out, they couldn't handle the backlash.

'He's getting up even after taking that?'

There had definitely been a solid feeling in his hand.

But still, Aslan got up again and took his stance.

There had been shock, but not enough that he couldn't handle it.

He even deliberately panted a bit.

Hoping that by now, more force would go into Abei's movements.

His internal energy hadn't run out yet.

Still, it was a crisis. Internal energy wasn't almighty.

No matter how solid his chin was, no matter how much he raised his internal energy to minimize his brain getting rattled, there was still impact. He didn't know when or how his consciousness might cut out.

Thud!

Thwack!

Abei turned his body to the left and threw an uppercut.

Aslan deflected it appropriately with an elbow guard and then aimed for Abei's nose.

Aslan gained the advantage in that exchange.

Abei staggered briefly, and Aslan charged in again.

Thanks to all his training, even though he'd taken a solid hit to the nose, Abei nimbly stepped and established mid-range again, throwing a jab.

Then, as if he'd been waiting for it, Aslan took a forward step faster than before and ducked low.

He went in and threw a punch to the abdomen. When he saw Abei flinch, the crowd cheered again.

It was still clearly a one-sided match.

Abei had landed over 200 strikes successfully, and honestly, if you counted clean hits, it was hard to give Aslan even 10.

If this were a modern match, they would have called for a doctor stoppage ten times over.

The blood loss was also substantial—a situation where the fighter's career could be in danger.

But still, Aslan kept moving until the end. Like a flame burning his very life to fight.

That flame was moving people's hearts.