Mangose dashed through the field with incredible speed, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
He was easily the fastest person on their team, and he was usually the person who took the ball deep into the opponent's side.
It was hard to defend against him as he was usually able to blitz through his opponent's defenses with ease.
'This little girl is my opponent?'
Mangone thought as he looked at the sweet-looking Julia, whose ponytail-tied black hair swayed behind her like a black ribbon in the wind.
"You cannot stop me, little girl!"
Mangose shouted, then stepped to her right side, but as soon as Julia followed his movements, he quickly stepped over to the left and dashed past her before she could react.
Julia exclaimed and turned around to race after him, but she was quickly left in his dust.
'Little kids, my friend here, Mangose, is a professional track athlete.' SwiftStriker23 smirked. 'He isn't a martial artist, he's a runner!'
Julian stepped forward.
It was as if the surrounding atmosphere suddenly changed. The air grew heavy with tension, as if the ground beneath them was about to crack.
With arrogance fueling his legs, Mangose rushed straight at Julian, not believing that he had any chance in hell to stop him.
'Once I pass this brat, I can make an easy passing play for scoring!'
Mangose side-glanced to the right field.
His friends, SwiftStriker23 and SmokerBoy, were heading towards the goal. They were being only defended by Jonathan and Dominic, who were barely able to keep up with them.
SwiftStriker23 turned around his shoulder, and to his surprise, he saw that Kiernan was just standing in the middle of the field.
He had no intention of trying to defend.
'Does he not care that we will score? Does he believe that after we score, they will get possession, and with him as an attacker, we won't be able to stop him?
'Arrogant brat. As long as we stop any passes from coming to you, we will win!'
SwiftStriker23 turned his gaze back to the goal and raised his arm, awaiting a pass.
Mangose arrived within Julian's defensive zone.
'I'll do the same as I did with that little girl. My specialty—Two Step Feint!'
Mangose headed to the left side of Julian with one step. Julian moved to intercept him. Mangose then made a quick feint to the right and rushed past him with swift acceleration.
He thought, but then his body collided with something hard—it was as if he hit a solid brick wall.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Julian stood in his way, using his body to stop Mangose's attempt to run past him.
There was a big weakness with Mangose's speed. He was using the momentum that he gathered by running to easily pass his opponents.
However, if he was suddenly stopped like Julian just did with him, his speed wouldn't mean anything, as it takes him some time to gain the same momentum.
"You…" Mangose's eyes widened in surprise.
Julian quickly slapped the ball out of his hands, and as it bounced on the ground, he grabbed it, and with a smile on his face, hurled it over to his friend, Kiernan.
"No!" SwiftStriker23 screamed.
"Shit!" Mangose started running after Kiernan.
He left everyone in the dust with his insane speed.
Kiernan caught the flying ball and then began racing towards the goal. The defensive structure was broken as they were also on the offensive side.
In games like football, this would be an offside, but there was no such thing in Punch Ball. Therefore, it was usually wise to leave the defensive players behind to make sure that breakaways wouldn't happen.
However, they made a mistake.
CrimsonGlitch and SteelPhantom also joined them on the attack as there would be more options to pass. It was what they usually did to increase their attacking prowess.
Now it backfired heavily.
Mangose quickly caught up with Kiernan. He was panting heavily like a tired dog after chasing a rabbit.
Mangose jumped down to the ground and did a sliding tackle towards Kiernan's legs.
With his sliding tackle nearing him, Kiernan quickly jumped over him, making Mangose miss him pathetically and fall face-first into the grass.
"No!" Mangose realized that he wouldn't be able to catch up to him anymore. "Champion, it's all on you!"
XxxChampionxxX screamed and moved to a lunging position. The cold sweat made him shiver as he watched the dangerous-looking Kiernan approach the goal.
'Come on. I almost blocked his shot. I can do this, and I will be the hero of this team!'
Kiernan grabbed the striped ball hard. He closed the goal. However, then, perfect clones of himself appeared out of thin air, running towards the goal in perfect synchronization with him.
"Iron Style, Ghost Spring!"
When others saw that, they couldn't believe their eyes.
Those fake clones looked exactly like Kiernan, even down to his facial expressions and movements. They were all carrying the same striped ball with the same grip, and even the way they breathed was identical.
'What the hell is that?!'
XxxChampionxxX kept blinking, thinking he was seeing double.
'Is that martial ability? No, that's foolishness; you can't use martial abilities in Infinite Dojo. Also, there is no way that this brat has already become Martial King!'
At that moment, every Kiernan reeled back their throwing arms, and then simultaneously threw about dozen striped balls towards the goals.
All the balls were spinning at the same speed.
"Haha, what the hell can I do against that?"
He just watched as the dozen balls swooshed past him, and smashed into the net of the goal.
[CoachJin Team 2 - 0 SwiftStriker23 Team]
'I didn't expect my martial arts to be so good at Punch Ball.'
Kiernan thought with a smile.
"Ahahaha…" Coach Jin awkwardly laughed from his goal. "I think we need to put Kiernan as goalie next time. This is just unfair."
'How did he make those clones?' Julian frowned. 'And why hasn't he done that technique beforehand? It's really powerful, as even I couldn't tell which one was real.'
With dispirited looks, SwiftStriker23 went back to his goal, grabbed the ball, and saw that all of his friends also looked like they had given up.
While they were far from being the strongest team in Punch Ball, they have had a decent track record in their matches.
They had won 55 matches before, and have lost 62.
While they had lost 3-0 before against some very strong teams, they had never been this utterly defeated on their defensive side before.
Nothing they did seemed to work.
"Come on, we must at least score once against these brats!"
SwiftStriker23 shouted.
"Their right side seems to be the weakest. SmokerBoy, it's all on you."
"Yeah, give me that ball."
The ball appeared on SmokerBoy's hand. He then turned around, and with a burst of speed, he began making his way through the right field.
In the right field, Dominic and Jonathan waited.