6th day of 7th month year 10352 of New Age is the current date and this means that the Heroes will be going to the field in three days.
Everyone has grown much stronger then they were before and everyone has mostly mastered their powers. Echo himself has learned a lot of new spells. Most were taught by Ana and one was learned by watching and copying her.
But currently everyone has gathered to the arena for the final training. A duel between each other because no one else in the castle is strong enough anymore to stand their blows.
And so this will be their last training session and after today they will have free time look around the city before departing in a few days.
The first duel is between Echo and Patric. Patrics class is [Arc Mage], so obviously he is a spell user. He is wearing red mage robes and uses a wooden magic staff with a crystal on it.
As for Echos equipment, he has his training clothes and for armor he has two metal boots up to his knees and a full arm armor on his left hand. His right hand has only plated wrist armor. The reason for his left hand is more armored is because he is left handed and as for the reason he doesn't use left hand to throw guards, is because he was taught to always use melee weapons with his off hand and ranged weapons with his off hand. Both of his arms are at the same strength and he can throw cards with both, but he prefers his right hand for that.
So the two are currently standing on the arena and looking at each other, waiting for the start.
"Start."yells Walther and Echo immediately throws a card near Patrics feed, who looks at it and says.
"That's it?"he asks.
"Nope.[Earth Wall]."he chants and immediately the earth rises from the ground with a great speed and right into his nuts.
'Nobody expects the earth wall to hit them in the nuts.'
"Motherfucker."he says with a high pitched voice while holding onto his crutch. As for the audience, the boys have a very painful face, because they probably could imagine the pain and the girls make painful sound."That must have hurt."says Mari.
"You cheated."he says with a high pitched voice again, after the wall is back where it came from and he is laying on the ground.
"Can't cheat If there isn't a rule about it."Echo replies.
"Fuck you. Just fuck you."he says with slightly less higher pitch voice.
"Okay. That was unusual tactic, but Echo wins."says Walther.
Without a word, Echo leaves the Arena and sits down on the bench near the Arena.
The matches goes on and after a while Echo notices that Evelyn hasn't fought at all.
'Maybe because of her class. Or she doesn't want to.'
After while it was Echos turn again and this time it was against Chris. He was wearing a golden armor without a helmet and had his Holy Sword on his belt, sheathed. The Holy Sword itself is according to the legends made by the Goddess and is supposed to be the best weapon against the demons. Echo doesn't know what it's abilities are beside the sword can't be damaged.
'Such a bothersome opponent. Only part which isn't protected is his head and because it is non-lethal fight, I have to keep my fighting in check. Huuh. Life and death battles are much simpler. Lets try [Air Step] and [Shock] from above combo.'
"You seriously fight against me without a sword?"says Chris and Echo replies"Don't need one against you."
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"You overestimate your abilities."Chris says and draws his white blade from the sheath. The Sword Shines while he is holding it in his hands.
'Flashlight and a swords two-in-one.'
As for Echo, he summons a card into his hand.
"Fight."says Walther, seeing that the two is ready.
"[Body Reinforcment]"Echo chants and his body glows blue for a second and he immediately follows it with an [Air Step] to get away from rushing Chris. Because [Air Step] only creates one step per chant, he needs to use a new card with each step and for now he has used ten on steps and one for his body. So forty three cards left.
"Gonna stay up there coward?!"Chris yells at Echo, who is standing in the air thanks to the step, while looking up.
"Nope. [Shock] he chants and hits his left arm with the spell, making sparks come out of his left hand.
With a few more air steps he gets above Chris and drops down with his hand in front of him, aiming at Chris's head to electrocute him.
As he is getting near, Chris understands what he tries to do and slashes his sword at Echo and after that he dodges his body.
Echo falls onto the ground with a roll and gets onto his feet. He feels pain his left arm and looks at it too that, it has been cut off from elbow down. Blood is dripping from the wound to the ground, where his other vald of the arm is, cleanly cut off.
"Fucking hell."and such other things see said by the other students. Evelyn is holding her hands on her mouth.
"Echo. You have lost. Get yourself healed fast!"Walther orders him, but Echo says with an angry voice"I haven't Lost yet. I have my three other limbs left." He raises his left arm and says"This is just a flesh wound."
He turns his gaze to Chris, who is holding the bloody blade and says with a calm, but a scary voice."You just had to do it. Fine. Eye for eye then."
His current calm aura changes into a pure bloodlust and his eyes turn a little red. He summons all of his cards three at a time and throws them all around the Arena until he rans out and says"Try to defend this.[Blink]"and he disappears only to appear behind Chris and kicking him at the back of his knees.
"What the fuck."he says.
But before he could even react, Echo is at new location and kicks him again. And so he keeps using his [Blink] over and over again, kicking him everywhere in his body. Even though he doesn't damage the armor, the impact of the kick still goes through.
With every kick, Chris's legs grow weaker and soon he is on his knees. He doesn't know where he will appear next and so he doesn't know where to defend. He would know, If he were to look at the cards, because before Echo appears the card will glow.
"Stop playing dirty, coward."he says and Echo appears in front of him with the last card.
"Here I am, bitch."he say and kicks Chris's face with his right food.
*Krack*
Can be heard as his food hits his face. He falls down onto the ground completely after being knocked out and Echo falls onto his back immediately after, while breathing heavily. He can feel his body going colder.
"I really need that healing now."Echo says and passes out because of the blood lost.
Some time later, Echo opens his eyes and sees the familiar ceiling of his room. His entire body is sore and he feels a little weak. Turning his head, he looks out of the window, to see that it is dark outside. After lifting his left arm, he sees that it is back on his body and there is a scar going around his arm at the spot where it was cut off.
'Fucking hell. The adrenaline kicked in a little too much.'
While thinking, he feels someone else breathing next to him, so he turns his head and see Evelyn sleeping there with her head on the side of the bed.
'Was she actually worried about me?'
Hr just sighes and looks at the ceiling. After some time, he tries to get up, but his body seems to be too weak for that and he falls back to the bed. This made Evelyn to wake up, who is half-sleep state mutters something, before fully opening his eyes and looking at Echo.
"So you are well."he says with a regular tone.
'I expected a cheerful and happy tone to be honest.'
"Yeah. Thanks for healing my hands."
"You're welcome."She continues"Now explain what the fuck were you thinking. Why wouldn't you just surrender. You wouldn't have nearly died from bloodlost."
"My pride didn't let me and adrenaline kicked in, so I wasn't thinking that straight."Echo says and tries to get up again, but is pushed back down by her."You are staying here. Your body is recovering."
"So caring."he says jokingly.
"Yes. Someone has to look after you. You do stupid things all the time. First you got drunk and had sex with me, then you come back covered in blood and now you lost your damn arm because of your pride. Why are you like this?"she asks and Echo could see tears in her eyes.
He looks at her and says"Why do you care?"
After she sees his reaction, he punches him at his side and says angrily"I don't know asshole?"
She gets up and leaves while wiping her tears.
Echo looks at her leave and sighes again.
'What a stupid girl. Why do you like such a person.'
He isn't dense and can easily tell what one person feels for the other. And right now he could see a hint of love in her. She realized that she must have started to like him for some reason, but..'I can't accept her feeling. He would be better off without having any relation to me. I don't want her to end up like dad. So I have to make her hate me, so she would keep away.'
"Love isn't for me."