SmokerBoy made his way through the right field, a cold gaze in his eyes.
The corners of his lips were twitching, and his arms seemed to shake. It didn't seem like everything was alright with him.
It was because he was a heavy smoker back in the real world. So heavy that he had to smoke at least one cigarette in an hour to avoid the shakes.
It had been about an hour since he last smoked a cigarette, and thus, he was starting to get shakes. During this state of his, he was becoming quite mentally unstable.
It has cost him three marriages already.
SmokerBoy smashed bodies with Dominic.
"Ugh!" Dominic's face turned pale, and he got shoved out of the way. 'What the hell? He is strong!'
SmokerBoy lunged past him and headed towards the last line of defense, Jonathan.
"Watch out, Jonathan, something is wrong with this dude!" Dominic shouted.
'Is he on drugs?' Jonathan frowned, steeling himself.
With his right arm, SmokerBoy is shielding the striped ball. Therefore, it was very hard to slap it away like Julian did with Mangose.
He reached out his left arm towards Jonathan and wanted to shove him out of the way.
However, Jonathan quickly grabbed the arm, put his leg behind SmokerBoy's leg, swept his legs from under him, and brought him down to the ground.
SmokerBoy smashed the striped ball across Jonathan's face and pushed him back slightly. He immediately jumped back to his feet and tried to push past the young man.
Jonathan wrapped his arms around SmokerBoy's waist, and with his great arm strength, he threw him down to the ground.
He was using his specialty, throws, and locks, which made him famous in the first place.
'A thrower? Fucking great!'
SmokerBoy gritted his teeth hatefully and jumped back to his feet.
"Watch out, Smokey!" SwiftStriker23 suddenly shouted.
A hand appeared behind him and pushed the ball out of his hands.
While he was busy with Jonathan, it gave Dominic enough time to catch up with him, and while he wasn't paying attention, he snatched the ball away from his hands!
Jonathan grabbed the flying ball and immediately started to look for Kiernan. He found him standing in the middle of the field, just like before.
As he was about to throw it, SmokerBoy suddenly screamed and threw a punch at Jonathan's face.
Jonathan quickly grabbed his fist, pressed his fingers against his flesh, and brought him down to his knees.
SmokerBoy fell on his knees, a shocked look on his face.
'After I lost to Kiernan and felt the feeling of absolute powerlessness, I also began improving. This is a new technique of mine.'
It was quite similar to Kiernan's technique of Anatomical Bind.
However, it was clear that Jonathan had less control of his opponent's body than Kiernan.
He was only able to bring his opponents down to their knees using the center of their gravity as a weapon.
SwiftStriker23 was quickly heading over to them. He realized that SmokerBoy needed help, and he couldn't score all by himself.
Jonathan quickly tossed the ball over to Dominic, then rushed past the kneeling SmokerBoy and smashed fists with SwiftStriker23.
"Dominic, throw the ball over to Kiernan!"
SwiftStriker23 exchanged blows with Jonathan. He wanted to break through him and attack Dominic, but Jonathan kept pushing him back with his dangerous swings.
Dominic was about to throw the ball but saw a couple of their opponents standing in the path of the throw. If he recklessly threw, there was a high possibility that they would catch it, opening a scoring opportunity for them.
'Passing is not a possibility. I have to bring this ball closer to the goal by myself!'
Dominic dashed out of their defensive zone and headed towards the goal, but he was immediately stopped by SteelPhantom, whose eyes blared with anger.
SteelPhantom reached his hand towards the ball. Dominic stepped back to avoid the hand. SteelPhantom advanced closer and threw a punch.
Dominic ducked just in time to avoid the blow, and lifted his ball-holding hand, looking for a chance to pass, but all the passing options were blocked off.
'Shit, come on, guys, make some space!'
Kiernan, who was standing in the middle of the field, raised his arm.
'Huh?' Dominic looked surprised. 'He wants me to pass to him? But…'
He could see that CrimsonGlitch was in a perfect position to intercept the pass. He was waiting for that pass to come to Kiernan so he could snatch it.
As SteelPhantom tried to punch him, Dominic quickly hurled the ball through the air. The rolling ball headed to the middle of the field.
CrimsonGlitch grinned and ran forward to intercept the ball. He was now standing in the middle of Kiernan and Dominic, the ball heading straight to him.
'Shit!' Dominic thought.
At that moment, Kiernan grabbed CrimsonGlitch by his shoulder and forced him down to the ground.
CrimsonGlitch's face was planted against the grass, and he tried to stand back up, but it felt like an entire world was weighing on his back.
The strength of this young man was insane!
The ball flew over him, and Kiernan caught it with ease.
As soon as he got a hold of the ball, the faces of their opponents paled, and all fighting spirit slowly faded away from them like a flickering flame slowly dying.
Kiernan slowly started to make his way over to the goal.
None of their opponents made a move. They had given up.
XxxChampionxxX didn't even raise his arms. He just lowered his head and listened to Kiernan's footsteps going past him towards the goal.
Kiernan simply walked into their goal and then dropped the ball inside the net.
[CoachJin Team 3 - 0 SwiftStriker23 Team]
[The winners—CoachJin Team!]
With that victory announcement, they all turned to pixels and vanished from the grass field before reappearing back in the blue-painted dojo, surrounded by the serene scenery of cherry blossom trees in full bloom.
"We won!" Julia excitedly said. "That was more fun than I expected. This was my first time trying Punch Ball."
They were all smiles. It was quite interesting experience.
"What about you?" Julian wrapped his arm around Kiernan's shoulders. "Did ya like it?"
"Mm, it was pretty nice." Kiernan nodded. "I kind of want better opponents, though. They were pretty weak."
"They weren't necessarily weak; you're too strong, Kiernan." Coach Jin said with a wry smile. "I think you're strong enough to reach top 10,000 in rankings."
"Really, coach?" Julia said in surprise. "Isn't that a really amazing accomplishment if he can do that?"
"Yes." Coach Jin nodded. "Kiernan could do it. There is also a solo version of Punch Ball, which is quite difficult, to be honest. You have to be an attacker, defender, and goalie all at once."
'Hmm, solo Punch Ball, huh.' Kiernan thought. 'Maybe there can be a proper challenge for me.'
"Anyways, I just wanted to get you guys familiar with Infinite Dojo. We most likely will be using this to train in the future. For now, it's getting late, so we should start heading