"Hey! Link! Would you like to climb that tree with me?" (Riya)

"Nah, I don't want too" (Link)

"What, you scared? Hah, the son of such a great person is scared?" (Riya)

Seeing the smirk on the cute girl's face, Link got annoyed he felt his pride was being hurt.

"Who said I am scared; I am not scared! Let's climb!" (Link)

"I will climb before you can, you little scared cat!" (Riya)

"I am not a scared cat! Wait I will catch you" (Link)

Link started running towards the running girl, he tried to run as hard as he could yet he was not able to catch him, as he continued to run desperately just so as he can catch her for once, he saw her tripping and falling down.

He immediately ran towards her and checked her knee for wound:

"Are you okay, Riya!" (Link)

"Ye-yeah, just a little scratch." (Riya)

"You shouldn't run so fast, you silly girl!" (Link)

"I am not silly though~ Link's sillier than me~" (Riya)

Ignoring her teasing, Link helped her get up. Both of them then started to walk towards the tree they had wanted to climb:

"Hey Link.." (Riya)

"What" (Link)

"w-would you always save me in the future too?" (Riya)

"Yeah" (Link)

"I-I see.." (Riya)

.

.

Looking at the same girl he had promised to protect being in grave danger, Link's heart started to beat faster, he started to feel extremely anxious and worried. He wanted to protect her no matter what, no matter what

'No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her, No matter what I will protect her'

'Protect her'

'Protect her'

'Protect her'

'Protect her'

'Protect her'

Suddenly the mana started to concentrate around Link he started to lose is sanity by the mere thought of losing the most precious person that he ever cherished. Until he finally snapped....

"Wh-what's happening!?" (A-ranker)

A strange silence appeared and an eerie atmosphere surrounded them, until the silence was broken by Link:

[Dragon Arts: Mana Overload]

Instantly the mana in the surroundings started to tremble and madly rush towards Link, even the ground started to crack from the mere impact of the mana moving. If not for the fact that Riya was right now held captive and was inside the mana shield of the A-rank individual, even she would have been affected by this much mana.

The last black clothed individual who the A ranker wanted to save also burst apart into pieces and his body's mana was also sucked dry by Link. Link's muscles started to bulge up, even the blood vessels started to become visible on his hands and face.

His red eyes started to glow even more brightly as if they have already locked their prey and obviously his prey was the individual holding Riya.

Seeing the boy suddenly transform like this, the A-rank individual suddenly felt a chill ran down his spine. His senses were telling him that this boy is no good. Even though he might not be able to him but this boy can do some fatal damage to him in this state.

The A-ranked individual was not a fool, he knew that the professors of the academy should already be rushing to this place and must be on their way. Since, the person he wanted to save was already dead, he immediately came to a decision:

"You forced me to do this boy, see how I kill her and remember that me, Yug, An A rank assassin had killed her." (Yug)

*slash* *thud*

Just as Yug was about to do the final attack, a sudden slashing sound came, with something falling. He found that the girl he was holding in his left hand up till now disappeared without him even knowing.

His mana shield suddenly collapsed and just as he was getting more confused, he felt a bit pain in his right hand. Looking at his right hand, he found it was missing. Yeah, you read it right, his right hand was now on the floor!

"wh-what the f**k" (Yug)

He immediately tried to stop the fountain like bleeding from his right hand using his mana to seal it up. He is an extremely talented assassin yet he never got to know what suddenly happened. This was just because he was just too fixated on Link.

Seeing that Riya was nowhere to be seen, Link's rage suddenly reached its limit, he immediately launched towards Yug with extreme speed. In a mere blink of eye a punch landed on Yug's face with so much force that even the ground split apart due to air pressure.historical

Yug was sent flying straight towards the nearby pillars, yet his body continued to penetrate right through the pillars, which caused the entire upper floor to collapse. It is fortunate that the collapsed building was just a one story building and was already empty from the start.

Not satisfied yet, Link directly jumped to the exact location where Yug's body had stopped, he broke through the debris and dragged Yug's body out while holding him from neck.

Yug was already coughing out blood his several rib bones had broken from the previous punch. He had already lost his strength to fight back anymore.

Link was not satisfied though, he threw Yug's body directly to the ground and strated to rain punches right on his face like a madman, one by one the punches landed with more and more lethality.

As time passed more mana started to fuse with Link and his punching speed and lethality increased even more. He continued to punch and punch until he found that the body was already reduced to a meat paste.

He had thoroughly killed Yug, a well-known assassin in a matter of seconds by simply punching from the start to the very end.

As Link found that the person had been killed, he immediately got up to look around. He was still in his maddened state and wanted to went out his anger on someone. He has long forgotten his real goal and now he is at the peak of his insanity.

Just as he was going to look towards the area where the people had evacuated his attention was attracted by a voice that appeared from right behind him.

"It looks like, I am a bit late today, sigh~"

A boy with dark black hair and pupils suddenly was standing behind Link. He had an expressionless face and an average look. All in all, he looked average from every aspect, yet his aura was telling that he was not ordinary at all.

Link wasn't in the right mind to differentiate between friend and foe right now. So, just as he saw the boy, he directly launched towards him with an extremely fast speed. In a blink of eye Link's punch was right in front of the boy's face.

Just as the punch was going to land, Rio tilted his face a bit to the left and his face moved away from the punch's trajectory in a matter of a millisecond.

"Well, speed is my specialty." (Rio)

[Elemental Sword Arts: Wind Slash]

Instantly Rio's figure blurred and he appeared right behind Link. Rio sword moved even faster and he directly slashed at Link's face with even faster speed than before.

[Dragon Arts: Extreme defense]

Link wasn't a pushover though; he immediately sensed the danger and with his increased mana he strengthened his body and used his extreme reflexes to block the sword attack with his bare hands. Yeah, he blocked Rio's sword with bare hands.

Even Rio was surprised for a second but instantly he jumped back and made a safe distance between the two.

'as expected, he really is strong. But this is just the starting.' (Rio)

[Elemental Sword Arts: Moon slash]

Rio's sword suddenly started to glow with a faint white light similar to the moonlight and with the next swing of sword a thin wave of light cut through the air with extremely fast speed.

This time Link got caught off-guard a little cut appeared on his right arm, which he ignored and attacked with his punch.

[Consecutive Punches]

A rain of punches started to be unleashed on Rio. Rio struggled a bit to dodge these punches and most of them were dodged successfully, as for the rest:

[Handling]

Rio used his sword as a medium to deflect the trajectories of his punches.

Both Rio and Link were attacking each other at speed faster than the naked eye of someone below C-rank can't even see. Yet their speed was increasing as time passed, both of them continued to exchange blows. When a punch landed on Rio, he deflected it using 'handling' while Rio's sword only made small cuts on Link's body even though it landed on him successfully.

'Tsk, this guy has such a thick skin, I am not able to cut it.' (Rio)

Now Rio totally understood why Link was considered the biggest challenge for Fade. This guy just that much strong and can't be defeated so easily.

'I doubt if not for the plot armor, Fade would have never been able to even make a scratch on him.' (Rio)

'Not to mention this guy is even more unbeatable when in this rage mode of his, its fortunate that he can only maintain this for a short period' (Rio)

Afterall the Mana overload puts a huge stress on Link's body and if used for a long time it can cause serious damage to him. Due to which after ten minutes of activating this skill, Link will automatically come back to his senses and this rage mode will go off.

This is the only way for Rio to deal with this situation now. Obviously he is not using his all and is only trying to pass the time somehow, while distracting Link's attention from the people in the evacuation hall.

Considering that Link was already fighting Yug before Rio came, he must only:

'two more minutes left, I just have to kite him for a while more.' (Rio)