Felix dusted himself off and waved happily at Richard. Richard's expression fell.
"Pfft, Richard can't even beat a backwater peasant who's doing nothing but standing still!" shouted someone in the crowd of spectators. That set off a peal of laughter. Richard quickly turned furious.
"I'll show you clowns!" Richard yelled angrily. Richard clutched the air, and out of the darkness, he pulled out a small, black book. He bit his thumb, and allowed a drop of his blood to fall on it. The front cover of the book absorbed his blood greedily, and a dark black and red chain shot out of it into Richard's chest.
"Watch out." Arboro said. "That book is a darkness boosting grimoire, he's really going all out now. That one drop of blood he used cost him probably five percent of his lifespan. Get ready to use Earth Escape the moment I tell you to." she instructed.
A dark power burst from the book, as it looked like a dark sun in Richard's hands. A glowing green rune appeared underneath him, with many strange and esoteric symbols. The already dim light in the early night fell even further, casting a terror-inducing darkness for miles around the field.
"W-what the hell is that?" someone in the crowd asked. "Is this even a spar any more?" "This sort of thing is a bit too far..."
Leo's face darkened, but he looked at Felix. Felix seemed determined and ready to face whatever was coming, so he could only sigh inwardly and watch.
"You forced my hand, you brat! It's matter of my pride now, so even if this costs me a lot, I'm going to bury you!" Richard yelled, as he formed many shapes made of darkness in the sky around him - swords, mallets, pikes, glaives, halberds, every manner of weapon was constructed in the sky, a hundred times over, purely out of dark energy. When Felix thought Richard was done, Richard grew solemn and raised his hands into the sky... and created a gigantic black ball of pure darkness.
"I'd like to see you survive this! Not even I could take on this attack and live, let alone some low-tier scum like you! Hail of darkness!" Richard yelled, before flinging his arms forward. The massive fleet of weapons came crashing down towards Felix.
"Hold it. Wait until the first few hit you, and then use Earth Escape downwards. Let the aura of his attacks cover your own aura." Arboro instructed. Felix looked up at the oncoming hail of weapons grimly.
A giant dark scimitar hit his arms first. It actually managed to break his defenses and left a cut, exposing his bones. A mallet fell and struck him, crushing him downwards. A pike pierced his shoulder. And after every weapon hit, they would disappear, so that a new weapon would be able to strike Felix.
"Keep holding out." Arboro said. Felix didn't respond, but just did his best to resist the pain.
A sword slashed his shoulder. A halberd slammed his arms. A dagger somehow stabbed his legs.
Felix kept holding on. A staff smacked into his stomach. A rapier... missed him actually, it landed next to him. Hex: Distortion at work again, Felix mused.
Felix was continuing to look up. The weapons that hit him were the few that had flown ahead. Now the main, massive body of weapons was coming. And behind it... he could see the massive ball of darkness approaching.
"When the main body of weapons hits you, use Earth Escape." Arboro instructed. Felix nodded. A couple of more random weapons hit him, and then, the main body of weapons slammed down onto Felix.
It didn't feel good. His arm definitely broke. He was bleeding all over. He thought perhaps his rib was broken too. But still, he kept his wits and activated Earth Escape at the same time as the main body of weapons hit him, moving with their momentum and thereby lowering their damage greatly as he sunk into the earth. After a couple of feet of moving through the earth, the weapons could not penetrate any further. But Felix didn't dare to dally in the area, thinking of the massive ball of darkness. He went deeper and deeper as quickly as he could, while simultaneously casting Regenerate to help at least stabilize his wounds.
"Don't dally, get behind him so you can get him with Soul Siphon right when that massive ball explodes." Arboro ordered.
Felix nodded, and moved through the earth, which was a bit difficult as the rain of weapons where he was before was making everything shake. Felix did his best to retract his aura as he went to the back side of where Richard was on the surface.
There was a brief moment where the shaking and crashing of weapons stopped... and then a massive explosion occurred where Felix had been before, shaking everything a hundred times more than when the weapons were striking the earth!
Felix felt like the apocalypse must be happening on the surface. He swore one of his teeth cracked because he accidentally slammed his teeth together when the explosion hit, as the earth around him shook heavily. After a few moments, the shaking started to subside, and Felix popped his head above the surface behind Richard. He was surrounded by a shield of darkness, so that the dark energies from the explosion flowed around him from where Felix was before. After a couple of moments, the shield of darkness collapsed, having finally run out of energy from blocking Richard's own attack power.
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Richard was panting heavily, and was down on one knee. But his face had a grin. "Hah, there's no way a peasant could have possibly survi-" he began saying.
"Soul Siphon, now!" Arboro yelled out in Felix's soul. Felix obliged her, and cast out Soul Siphon. Richard stopped what he was saying suddenly, sensing the spell coming towards him, but he didn't have the mana to deflect it now, after that massive attack. So he tried to roll out of the way to dodge.
He reacted very quickly. Worthy of being a Duke's son. But unfortunately for him, enough time had passed that all of the hexes which were cast on him were beginning to show at least moderate levels of effectiveness. Hex: Soul Disruption muddled the order from his soul to his body. Hex: Brain Fog confused his senses and hampered his coordination. Hex: Wither made it so he had barely recovered at all from his recent exhaustion from throwing out so many attacks. Hex: Inner Turmoil distracted him with a dark thought for a fraction of a second, slowing his reaction.
When combined with each other, the end result was that he fumbled his roll, and Soul Siphon landed directly on Richard's body. Felix felt the parasitic connection in his soul, as a slow trickle of energy began to move from Richard to himself.
Richard finished his fumbled dodge roll awkwardly, and got to his feet. "You're not a wood mage at all! You're an earth mage!" he shouted, pointing at Felix furiously.
Felix was in no mood to tease Richard, considering he was still covered in wounds and had a couple of broken bones. He cast Fling Rock, Blind, and Sand Attack simultaneously at Richard, who threw them aside with a casual flick of his hand.
"You think you can use such low tier spells on someone of my caliber?!? Even if I'm a bit tired, I'm still-" Richard began.
Felix ignored him and raised three Earth Walls around Richard, encasing him in a triangle. There was an angry yell from the triangle of earth walls, which were shattered almost instantly. Felix raised another three walls, and then nine walls around that set of walls, and twenty seven walls around that set of walls. There was silence for a moment, and then an explosion of dark energy came from the center of the ring of walls, shattering all thirty-nine of them.
Richard was enraged. "You really have gall don't you, using such low-grade spells to try and enclose-" he began yelling again, but then stopped, and doubled over. He puked out some blood.
It seemed Felix had successfully enraged him to the point that Hex: Hemophilia and Hex: Internal Bleeding had an opportunity to injure him. Felix didn't waste any time, and raised an entire new set of thirty-nine more walls around Richard, while simultaneously throwing sand at him using Sand Attack, and trying to Blind him.
There was another explosion of dark energy. Richard was furious. He raised his hands and began to channel another attack without saying anything this time, having seemingly finally learned his lesson to stop talking and focus on spellcasting.
Felix cast out Fling Rock and Sand Attack again as a feint, which distracted Richard for a tiny moment, which was lengthened by Hex: Inner Turmoil's relentless distractions. He then cast Pitfall beneath Richard and cast Supergravity at the same time, causing Richard to go from standing normally on flat ground one moment, to plummeting into a pitfall in the next instant, causing him to bowl over.
Still, he was a Duke's son, so he managed to throw out the dark blade he had prepared towards Felix. Unfortunately for him, Hex: Distortion ensured that it missed completely, landing somewhere a dozen feet to Felix's left. Felix casted spells like he had gone crazy, burning through all the elemental power and mana he had spent so much time gathering storing earlier. He surrounded Richard with three times as many walls as before, for a total of 117 earthen walls. He cast Pitfall a couple more times where Richard was, and continued holding him down with Supergravity. All the while, he spammed Sand Attack, Fling Rock, and Blind, doing anything he could to distract and annoy Richard as much as possible to buy more time for Soul Siphon and his hexes to work.
The sky seemed to shake all of a sudden, and vicious beams of lights flowed from the stars in the night sky towards Felix. They shone with a pale light as they struck his body. It stung because Felix was wounded, but it didn't actually do much damage - the light path was known for it's long range, high speed, and wide reach, not for it's high damage. So even though Richard could strike him using the stars as a focus, it wasn't even able to outdo the slow healing Felix was receiving from constantly using Regeneration. Maybe it would be different if Richard was in his peak state, but by now he had used up most of his mana and elemental power, and burned some of his own lifespan earlier in the fight, all the while the hexes had been growing stronger and stronger. He was exhausted. The fact that he could still actually attack Felix at this point was nothing short of a miracle, to be honest.
After a few moments of starlight bombardment, it stopped. There was another explosion from the hole to try and break the earthen walls... but this time, it didn't break all of the walls. Probably a hundred of them or so. Felix raised them again. Another burst of dark magic happened. This time only ninety or so walls were broken. And then eighty or so. Then sixty or so. Then forty or so. Then twenty. Then after a minute, another small burst happened. Only one wall was broken. And then there was only silence from the hole in the ground, surrounded by earthen walls.
Felix didn't dare to approach. He continued to stand there and wait, as the amount of energy absorbed by Soul Siphon grew, and the hexes continued to grow in strength.
After three minutes or so, there was another burst of dark power. This one broke about forty walls again. It seemed Richard had tried to lure him in and fool him. It didn't work. Felix stood where he was, continuing to stay on alert and using Regenerate, and he repaired the broken walls again.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. The crowd of spectating nobles watched in silence.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, Felix grit his teeth, and with a wave of his hands, destroyed the earthen walls, and cautiously walked forward to the pit that Richard was in, and peered into it.
Inside the pit was Richard, somehow still barely able to move, but clutching his head and babbling incoherently as Hex: Inner Turmoil tortured his mind with all the regrets of his life, and twisted false memories, along with other hidden evil thoughts. Any thoughts which weren't spawned from the evil machinations of Hex: Inner Turmoil were covered up by Hex: Brain Fog. Blood slowly dribbled from his lips, and he continued to move more and more slowly, rocking back and forth as he lost whatever little energy he had left.
Felix sighed. "Leo, I think you should call it for me here." he shouted out.
Leo stood up and crossed the barrier onto the shattered and cracked field. He walked over to the pit Richard was in, and looked down at him. He nodded.
"This is a victory for Felix. His opponent, while still technically conscious, is completely unable to battle, and to do further battle would only result in pointless injuries." Leo yelled out loudly to the spectators.