As he watched the three knights share looks between themselves, Reivan internally chuckled.
He wasn't just being a flashy reckless imbecile in challenging all three knights at once instead of fighting them one by one, of course. Reivan had a plan.
'It's more advantageous for me to fight more enemies at once.'
Nobody knew that though. Only he — and Karuna, he supposed — knew of what he'd achieved. The three knights had likely been informed in great detail about how he usually fought, but unfortunately for those knights, he fought quite a bit differently now. Their intel was entirely useless.
Just like how Zouros excelled in slaughtering numerous weaker foes, he also found it easier when he was outnumbered.
Reivan took a deep breath and focused his mind, tuning out anything and everything unnecessary — including those pesky notification screens that his [Supreme Insight] showed when he activated his abilities. It was something he discovered he could do by, unsurprisingly, willing it to stop.
Those things could be quite disruptive after all. And they only ever told him of things he already knew of.
In this fight, he and the knights would not be powering themselves up to their maximum capabilities. After all, if the fight was happening too fast, how could the audience bear witness to it? There wasn't much of an issue when it came to fairness, however, since all the combatants on the stage could empower their bodies with qi reinforcement, had soul armaments to strengthen them further, and knew how to use perfect magic power application, giving a total of 1200 points to Might.
That said, Reivan could still use his [Beast Gate], bringing his total up to 1032 from 516, meaning he wasn't too far off from his opponents.
'Alright then, let's begin.'
The three knights still seemed quite unsure how to react, or whether what he said was even allowed. Reivan would be a fool not to punish their hesitance.
Without waiting for any sort of signal for the match to start, his magic power and qi easily fused together, producing a higher form of energy that gathered at his feet.
The essence instantly transformed as darkness rapidly extended from below his boots, seemingly altering the massive elevated platform into a gigantic slab of obsidian. The corrupted stage emanated a faint black mist that seemed to take the shape of little arms, coiling around the knights' legs.
'Absorb.'
He'd used quite a bit of magic power for the endeavor, but he would slowly refill his stock by taking it from the knights.
It was a surprise attack, yes. And perhaps it would have been seen as dishonorable in the eyes of an actual medieval knight from Earth. Luckily, the First King had been smart enough not to spread such a stupid view on chivalry when he introduced the concept of knights into the world.
There was no honor in defeat.
Victory was all that mattered — even if you had to spit in your enemy's eye, throw mud at their face, or give them a good kick between the legs.
"Get up!"
As anticipated, at the yellow-plumed knight's cry, the knights swiftly sprang into action and assumed combat stances with remarkable speed.
The knight named Gwendolyn was the first to react, a long and slender rapier appearing in her metal-clad right hand. The seemingly delicate weapon looked strange in the hands of someone in plate armor so thick that one couldn't even tell their gender anymore, but that didn't seem to matter — not to her, at least. She raised her foot and slammed it into the stage. Had it not been layered by darkness, perhaps cracks would be visible on it.
A moment later, thick stone hills seemingly made of whatever material the stage underneath was made of penetrated the blanket of shadows he'd created. The knights jumped up and landed atop the hill of their choice, seeking refuge from the absorption effect.
'Futile.'
Direct contact with the ground was preferred, but the smoky arms had already latched onto the knights — those wouldn't be so easy to escape.
Reivan dodged a few spikes that had been aiming for him as he willed the darkness to corrupt the stone spikes as well. However, as if knowing his intentions, the spikes are all wrapped in light. No matter how much he pushed the darkness, it could creep no further.
'Light element...'
The yellow-plumed knight's body pulsed with light, dispelling the ethereal arms grabbing her feet and some of the darkness on the floor, creating a clean area in a small radius around her hill. She then sent a beam of light to the blue-plumed knight's legs to free him of the smoky appendages plaguing him.
On the other hand, the red-plumed knight had no trouble purifying the darkness on her own. A halo of light hovered over her head, showering her with motes of white radiance. She was cleansed of darkness and Reivan could even feel her strength spike up by a notch.
'That's a surprisingly fat buff. I thought she was just a knight who dabbled in faith, but that doesn't seem to be the case.'
Reivan tightened his grip on his longsword, deciding to go after "Red" first before anything else. "Yellow" was troublesome due to her special ability and her light affinity, but the faith-user would be the most troublesome. She could not only heal the other knights, but if he allowed her enough time, she could summon a halo for the other two as well.
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As for "Blue", Reivan didn't know what he could do yet, but it hardly mattered. Whatever that guy could do, it surely wouldn't be as annoying as constant healing and a buff that never wears off as long as the halo persisted.
Just as he had that thought, his body moved on its own just in time to dodge something flying at him far too fast than it had any right to be, causing Reivan to have flashbacks of when Donovan pelted him with ridiculously fast shards of ice.
'A spear?'
Reivan followed its trajectory to see that the blue-plumed knight had already retreated to the far side of the platform, standing on a glowing stone outcrop.
'No. An arrow.'
A metallic great bow taller than the man himself was in the knight's hand, its string pulled back and a javelin-like arrow nocked. The knight released the string and the large bolt shot through the air faster than his eyes could see and more soundless than most could perceive, but Reivan calmly stepped out of the way to evade it.
'How inconvenient.'
Reivan could effortlessly trace the arrow's trajectory if he saw it before it was loosed, but that would require him to pay much more attention to the archer — attention that he would have preferred to focus on taking out the Sormon Templar cosplaying as a knight.
Speaking of the templar, the red-plumed knight now held a very manacing spiked club and a large heater shield. Red bent her knees, apparently intending to save Reivan the trouble of closing the distance.
Unperturbed, Reivan prepared for her arrival but had to hastily summon a shield when he noticed "Yellow" suddenly vanish. The next moment, his shield was penetrated by a rapier headed straight for his heart. With a click of his tongue, he hastily retreated by transforming into a bolt of lightning, appearing right behind Yellow. But before he could land an attack, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Once again transforming into a bolt of lightning before his head was caved in by Red, he used his chance to switch targets for now, after all, Red and Yellow were far too close to each other for him to take one of them out in a melee. In all his simulations, fights never went well when he tunnel-visioned on one enemy.
Blue would be a better target for now.
Reivan zoomed across the stage, leaving the other two knights far behind in the dust. He reappeared right in front of the great bow user, his longsword tracing a merciless line through the air as it aimed for the knight's neck.
Blue wasted no time in blocking the strike with his great bow. The weapon wasn't meant for melee combat, but the knight seemingly didn't care about that fact, holding the body of the bow out in a defensive stance. The knight made up for the weapon's unwieldiness in close combat with skilled movements, Reivan backed away, deciding that a melee with the bow user — surprisingly — wasn't an option.
'Very inconvenient.'
Reivan abandoned his assault. Yellow had caught up with him easily, so he kicked Blue's bow, forcing the knight back. He then turned around, to block Yellow's rapier, this time, manifesting a much thicker shield. As he'd anticipated, the shield managed to block this time, but his Soul Armament was practically screaming in pain at the surprisingly... heavy strikes from such a light weapon.
'Earth attribute... She must be using some sort of self-discovered gravity manipulation technique to increase her weapon's weight then using <
After instantly analyzing the enemy's technique, Reivan came up with a counter-attack. However, he didn't think any of them would work if Yellow could truly see the future.
'I suppose I should test out just how far her future vision goes.'
Right after blocking another stab from Yellow, Reivan banished his shield and rushed forward, lashing out with his newly manifested longsword. The blade's edge glowed with a sinister purple radiance, heralding the release of a great force. However, he was surprised to find that his target had vanished, and the spot his foot stepped on crumbled into dust, ruining his footwork.
A fraction of a moment later, a sharp pain erupted from his shoulder as a thin blade was inserted deep into his flesh from behind, piercing the "invisible armor" that his soul armament afforded him. The rapier had penetrated it like it wasn't even there.
When he felt the blade suddenly grow hotter, Reivan momentarily transformed into lightning once again, putting some distance between them while healing any internal injuries with [Effect Reproduction].
Yellow seemed to have other plans though. She morphed into a streak of light that relentlessly pursued Reivan, zooming across the air faster than him. The knight then began to pepper Reivan with quick thrusts, ridding his body with bloody holes.
If Reivan was affected by the light injuries, nobody would be able to tell from his impassive countenance. He tried to keep up with the rapid strikes, but Yellow seemingly took those parries into consideration as she continued her assault. Her strikes snaked through his paltry attempts at a parry, piercing deep into his flesh.
As if that wasn't enough, he also had to constantly keep an eye on Blue — who had already nocked an arrow. The archer seemed to know that part of Reivan's attention was on him, holding fire. Even though the man wasn't technically doing anything, the threat of a bow ready to fire was more than enough to hinder Reivan greatly.
'As expected. These people are no joke.'
They obviously weren't going all out yet. But Reivan already felt quite a lot of pressure from the two he was engaging. Luckily, the red-plumed knight was somewhat slow, so he could easily keep his distance from her but that wouldn't last for too long.
After all, another halo had appeared on the former-templar's head.
The first halo's effect was boosted by the second, and the second was boosted by the first. All while both halos boosted the user.
It was a rare talent for Sormon's priests — the ability to put more than one halo on a single entity.
'Resonance, huh?'
The Saintess had revealed to him that she could put ten halos on a single person, acting as a significant boost even for a fight between Transcendents. This meant the blue-plumed knight was quite impressive for managing even twenty percent of something only a Transcendent could do. And at this point, Reivan wasn't even sure if two was his opponent's limit.
'Donovan really picked out some very troublesome foes for me.'
Reivan jumped high into the sky — a normally foolish decision that would leave him very vulnerable. But Reivan had already scouted his opponents' strength enough. Or rather, he was taking far too much damage than he was comfortable with to continue probing his opponents with casual attacks.
Chaos energy filled his body as he forced it to go berserk, instantly causing a massive and nigh-uncontrollable blast of force that should have blown him up into countless pieces of burnt flesh. But instead of letting it do so, he willed the energy into his arm and pointed his palm at the red-plumed knight.
Reivan ignored the arrow that tore into his stomach as he released the concentrated berserk energy threatening to shatter his arm into a shower of flesh and blood.
'I hope the Sword Star teleports you out in time, Miss Knight.'
A bright flash blinded everyone watching as a beam of unstoppable energy erupted from his palm, headed straight for the Sormon Templar.