"I will deal with him myself."
A voice filled with confidence, belonging to a teenager, said after the smoke had settled.
The second-year students turned to look at the student who had collided with Ragna; there was a look of relief on their expressions when they saw he was a third-year student.
Ragna, who had just collided with Hansen, couldn't help but stare at him with surprise.
It wasn't that he was surprised about Hansen's current level of strength, rather, it was the fact that he had been looking for him all this time and wondering where he had disappeared to. Hansen, along with his gang, was his free ticket to gaining new abilities, so he was surprised and excited by his sudden appearance.
Ragna couldn't help but turn to look around, he could see two other students as well, and could immediately recognize them to be Ned and Galadima, they walked past the spectating students and stood beside Hansen, even though they seemed a bit different Ragna could instantly recognize them thanks to the system markings on them.
Compared to the last time he saw them at the cafeteria, they were not only bigger, but the aura exuding from their bodies seemed to have become stronger; he could tell they had grown stronger.
The second-year students flinched back when they saw the trio.
"Huh, wait I recognize the three of you. Aren't you guys the ones I smacked so hard at the cafeteria, you disappeared to meet your mummies? Guess mummy gave you lots some milk huh? Here for revenge?"
"That was in the past, Ragna. You might have surprised us in the past by hiding your ability and catching us off guard, but not anymore. Also, maybe you don't know but we have grown much stronger than we were then!"
Hansen said with a snort, he was still pissed about that incident that occurred at the cafeteria, since Ragna had been tested to not have used any enhancement elixir; their only conclusion was that he must have awakened his ability recently and was hiding it.
They didn't know how he did it, but that was the only possible conclusion they could come to.
"Maybe you should become a rapper rather than an awakener, I can definitely tell you firsthand you've got some talents there."
Ragna smirked. Of course, his head was still spinning, and he could barely tell his left from his right, as his stats and health were also low, but he wasn't going to cower because they had grown slightly stronger.
Even though he thought fighting them was going to be difficult, it was only going to be difficult, but not impossible; however, he needed to be strategic, otherwise, he might be the one on the receiving end today.
Ragna raised his head and tried to look at the trio properly.
'Their confidence doesn't seem baseless…'
He squinted his eyes, as he scrutinized the trio from head to toe.
Just from their first collision, he could tell the fight wasn't going to be easy; however, if he included the other two students, they might give him a run for his money, considering his current state.
"Guess, you are trying to buy time, huh, for a teacher to come and save you? But guess what, no teacher is currently around this block!"
"This time, we will definitely make you regret picking on us."
Ned said, and rushed at Ragna with explosive speed, while Hansen and Galadima joined the frey, they weren't going to give him any chances.
Their explosive speed made Ragna squint his eyes, trying to wipe off the sleepiness from his eyes. His actions seemed to be doing even more harm than good at this point, not only was it not working, but he seemed to become more sleepy by the second.
The last thing he wanted was to fall asleep in the middle of a fight, besides the fact that he was having a terrible headache that made him unable to focus.
The trio stood in a triangular formation, with Ragna at their midst. The first to attack was Hansen, but Ragna only managed to dodge by a hair's breadth, with Hansen almost making contact with him.
'Fuck, if only I wasn't under the sleeping penalty, I wouldn't be having so much trouble. Their current self seemed to be as strong as I was at the cafeteria when we fought.'
'While they must have become stronger, my current self is still stronger even with the penalty. But my only problem is that I can barely focus, due to the sleep penalty, and this terrible headache that keeps making me unable to concentrate or think properly. I can only do so much with perception in my current state, also I can't use Dash at the moment since it is under a cooldown.'
Ragns quickly analyzed, he wasn't having it easy since he needed to both focus on their attacks and dodge them. Another thing was that the trio seemed not to have realized he wasn't his usual self, and only thought he had grown weaker compared to them.
The reason they had come after disappearing for some time, was not because of how embarrassed they were but also because they had been training seriously, needless to say since their parents were wealthy they must have taken elixirs that would boost their growth, making their abilities to not only grow in a short period of time, but also become twice as stronger as it was before.
If they were rank 2 before they were close to becoming rank 3, if not rank 3, since they were sure Ragna was rank 2 when they fought, and had caught them off guard with his ability, they believed if they got to rank 3 their strength would have grown enough to easily defeat him, and since the trio had achieved rank 3 desperately, they thought it was only proper they paid him back for the humiliation.
Accordingly, the power of awakeners increases exponentially, with the increase in each rank, not just multiplying their strength
"How about you stop running around, like a damn monkey Ragna!"
[Author notes: Thanks for reading the novel if you want more chapters please support the novel, with golden tickets, powerstones, comments and reviews. It gives the author motivation to write more, thank you]