Pompa's body began levitating in the air as his ruptured body began to regenerate at an extraordinary pace.
Pompa's body regained its usual appearance and brimmed with vitality in just a single breath.
Even Henry was taken aback by the revelation. At the same time, Pompa used that moment to his advantage and lunged at his opponent before once again wrapping his arms around the target.
Henry was too close and exhausted to evade Pompa. Once again, Pompa exerted every fibre of brute force and squeezed Henry with all he had.
Henry retaliated with several punches, but they amounted to nothing since all the stacked Blaze Pulses were expended through the 'Blaze Eruption'.
Henry once again began stacking up 'Blaze Pulses', but the time needed to gather 100 of them was a hundred long seconds.
Moreover, with Pompa squeezing his insides out, every single try to stack up Blaze Pulses was interrupted.
Just when Henry couldn't take it anymore, Felarial intervened and ended the Bout by announcing Pompa as the winner.
Only then did Pompa leave his death hold over Henry before swiping the sweat over his forehead.
Although he won, he couldn't jump around in excitement. After all, he had nearly died from Henry's one hell of a punch.
If it wasn't for his 3rd Innate Exclusive skill, , which activated by itself once all his Health crippled away in one go, he would have remained dead forever.
: Automatically activates when the user's Health hits '0' and recovers them to peak physical condition.
He never expected someone to deal such massive damage in one go that could deplete all his Health in one go.
His initial assumption of easily taking out Henry was a massive misfire. Even though no team dared to challenge the Earth team, Pompa did it.
He did it with a plan in mind, something that solely depended on Earth Team's overconfidence.
Pompa dared to challenge simply relying on that. He believed the Earth's team would be careless enough not to send their strongest individual right off the bat.
There was a chance what he anticipated might not happen, but he was willing to bet on it.
After all, even if the Polyphaga Team lost and gave away half their overall score, they would still be in the Top-10.
It was a bet Pompa was willing to take, and much to his luck, the Earth Team didn't send their strongest individual or even the next strongest ones in the line.
They sent someone from Tier-3 Low-Phase, but before Pompa could rejoice for giving him an easy win, his opponent overwhelmed him in terms of combat effectiveness.
Pompa's attempt to drag the fight out to grow stronger was met with a similar counter from the other party.
Even his most reliable Innate Exclusive skill, , wasn't able to save him against his opponent.
Pompa almost had to die before having the upper hand in the Bout and emerging as the victor.
Although that was a close fight, his gamble paid off, and all he needed to do in order to win the challenge was to carefully choose the weakest members of the Earth Team for the next two Bouts.
As Henry exited the Stage, Felarial asked Pompa who he would choose as his next opponent.
To which he began to carefully go through the Earth Team members one by one, starting with Olivia.
Choosing her as the opponent would be a no-brainer so he moved on to the others, like Sergei and Brandon.
Although they haven't fought against one of the top individuals in the Tournament, their performance in the 1st Segment was still nothing to scoff at.
His eyes next shifted to Kensei, who put up a great fight against the Owlite team leader, Seath.
Due to awakening a 'Sword Heart' and being able to tap into Sword Intent, Kensei grew even stronger than he was during his fight against Seath.
So, Pompa skipped him as well and glanced at the other Tier-3 Low-Phase individuals like Kasim, Andrea, Gabriel, and Min-soo.
He felt choosing Andrea would be a good option but decided to save her for the 3rd Bout as he latched his eyes on one of the two Tier-2 individuals among the Earth Team.
Pompa then raised his arm and pointed at whom he chose as the combatant for the 2nd Bout.
In the Earth team's seating area, everyone froze for a second. Dante was the first to respond as he pointed at himself and asked, "You mean me, right?"
While still pointing his finger, Pompa confidently shook his tiny head and replied, "No, not you. Do you think I am stupid enough to face you? Send the one beside you."
He completely left Dante out of it. After all, the abilities Dante displayed were the most unpredictable ones in the entire Tournament.
No one with a sane mind would challenge Dante after spectating his fight with Seath.
Dante didn't even look to his right and pointed at Kasim, who sat to his left as he once again asked, "You mean him, right?"
Visibly annoyed, Pompa mentioned specifics out loud on whom he picked as his opponent, "Noo! Not him. I am pointing at the one to your right, the one in the black and gold outfit. Come on, make it quick. Let's get it over with the Tournament."
As the one whom Pompa pointed at stood up and walked towards the Stage, everyone in the Earth team looked at Pompa as if he was dead meat.
Even Henry, who was walking back to the respective seating area, turned around and threw a look of pity at him.
The Atlans and the Lycanthropes were no different. They looked at Pompa with the utmost pity they could scoop out.
It wasn't just them; even the Tournament Manager, Felarial, who was beside Pompa, couldn't help but give a similar look.
"Did anyone ever say your sense of decision-making is really poor?" Felarial flat out said to Pompa.
Those words set a weird premonition within Pompa as he once again looked at the individual who had just stepped on the Stage.