The final round of the Divine Tournament had finally commenced. The silence among the spectating demigods seemed to be the usual response to tense situations, and this was no different.
"I finally get to fight the legendary marksman," Lance said with a smile to his opponent. "Do not disappoint me."
All the fights led to this final round, and the contestants were nothing short of champions among the demigods, so it was already anticipated to be the greatest match-up in the tournament.
Both fighters readied themselves and the tense feeling of the seconds going by before the alarm was rung elapsed. Klaus stared in understandable silence as he witnessed Lance and X glance at one another, awaiting the moment they could strike. After the unexpectedly long wait, the alarm echoed around the Arena of Valor, signaling the final battle's commencement.
Immediately the sound notified the fighters, X reached for his firearm and pulled it out of its holster at his right hip before pointing it directly at his opponent and firing a single round.
Realizing this action unfolding before a single second, Lance instantly rushed his right hand ahead of himself, in front of the bullet's trajectory, before spawning a blade and swinging it at the fired round. This allowed Lance to deflect the fired bullet successfully. X continued to fire another round, with his opponent doing the same action to deflect the action yet again.
"You know," Link suddenly started at the sidelines to the other demigods. "It's very easy to ignore that most of us just easily react to gunshots recently."
"That's true," Riley replied upon realizing the fact of the statement. "Huh, I guess it's easy to forget our superhuman capabilities due to our unnatural abilities."
"True that," Link responded before turning his attention back to the occurring battle.
X fired a round from his sidearm one more time, but instead of deflecting, Lance decided to evade the shot completely, tilting his head slightly from its path, before rushing at his opponent with his right hand raised to the air. Reaching his opponent, Lance had already spawned a metallic spear before swinging it at X to deal damage.
X easily managed to evade the first swing directed at him, continuing to evade the rest that followed as well. Lance began swinging his weapon, attacking his opponent, and X remained on the defensive, evading the attacks that were directed at him. This continued for a few seconds before X grabbed onto the spear that Lance was using and forced it out of his opponent's arms.
Kicking his opponent away before snapping the spear in two with his knee, X was able to create space between the two of them, alongside disarming his opponent. But Lance's smile was more than enough to show that this meant nothing to him. Immediately, Lance returned to his brawl with X, creating a replica of the previous weapon and swinging it at his opponent once more.
X continued his evasive maneuvers for a few more seconds before finally switching to the offensive after getting a chance to. X launched a punch directly at Lance before Lance managed to react by placing the side of the spear he wielded in front of his opponent's right fist. The punch's force was strong enough to cause Lance to move back a noticeable distance, creating more space between the two fighters yet again.
The created space caused Lance to switch his approach to the battle without wasting time as he immediately despawned the spear he used before materializing a longbow with the idea of changing to a long-range style. Pulling the string backward, Lance spawned an arrow between the bow and his fingers, where it was supposed to be, before firing it at X, similar to his previous battle with his brother.
Reacting to his opponent's attack, X moved his left hand ahead of his face, catching the fired arrow before it could hit its mark. After catching the arrow, X wasted no time snapping the projectile in two with his left hand after applying pressure to the wooden part.
Lance wasted no time in continuing his barrage of arrows at X, firing them by the second, but for every shot that was fired, X would grab onto and snap the arrow before the next one could reach him. The precision he used to grab the exact spot and break the arrows every single time, and with no delay, was beyond impressive as the action persisted.
As this continued, X grabbed onto one of the fired arrows after a brief barrage, but before he could snap the arrow, another one suddenly darted past the previous, heading directly for his head. X then tilted his head slightly to the right, evading the sudden arrow, but receiving a scratch to his metallic mouth mask.
Lance had fired two arrows at the same time so upon noticing that he had almost hit his target, he let out a taunting smile at X. It was clear to everyone that Lance's skill at range was exceptional in both precision and persistence, making no mistake in his entire sequence.
After staring at his opponent for a moment, X turned his face to the arrow he had previously caught before engaging in a brief conversation.
"You wield the power to spawn any weapon imaginable, yet you choose to spawn these obsolete toys," X stated to Lance before breaking the arrow in his hand.
"There is no elegance in the use of modern weapons and firearms," Lance replied to his opponent, gripping his bow and awaiting his opponent's response.
X took a second after hearing Lance's statement before finally replying to the indirect diss.
"Then your restrictions will be your demise."
Immediately after his statement concluded, X placed his right hand into a small pocket on his armor vest and pulled out a strange metallic object. After pulling the object, X proceeded to tap its left side before the object began to change forms.
"Celestial metal," Link commented on the sidelines upon noticing X's action.
The object continued to morph until it finally completed its transformation, revealing what seemed to be an M134 minigun. X then gripped the large weapon before pointing it at his opponent and firing.
Noticing his opponent's attack, Lance quickly spawned a suit of armor around his entire body, including his face, blocking himself from the fired rounds that rushed to his location with tremendous speed.
The suit spawned by Lance was made completely of titanium. This was because of the nature of the material, being able to withstand barrages of bullets. Lance then began to rush at X while still defending the rounds of ammo that spread around his armor. However, Lance suddenly began to realize that despite his armor being bulletproof, the force of the rounds fired at him began to break his armor after a few seconds of receiving damage.
X fired over fifty rounds per second with his weapon, making it almost impossible for Lance to get an opening before his suit would fail. He wondered why this was the case before realizing that the bullets that X was firing were AP (Armor-Piercing) shells. This meant that when the bullet came in contact with any object, the copper case surrounding the penetrator would be destroyed, allowing the penetrator to have maximum effect.
Lance spawned a gladius on his right hand and began swinging at the bullets that were fired at him, deflecting most of the rounds, but with the sheer amount of bullets fired, he knew that he could not last more than mere seconds. The intensity of the spray was alarming.
Reaching his last resort, Lance then spawned a massive tower shield made of solid gold ahead of him before mounting it between him and the fired rounds. The shield was around five feet in length and about thirty inches in width and its density was immense, allowing Lance to successfully defend himself from X's attack while crouching behind it.
"Surprisingly, X didn't use this in his previous fights," Link stated on the sidelines while the storm of bullets continued to rush at Lance.
"I know, right?" Riley responded.
"Maybe his ammo is limited so he was saving it," Trent guessed.
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"That's not possible," Quinn then commented. "When transported to the medical facility, every demigod reverts to how they were before entering the battlefield."
"That's true," Trent responded after understanding Quinn's statement. "So his ammo would always be replenished after every fight."
"Exactly," Quinn confirmed before continuing. "I'm guessing he simply didn't see the need to use it to win against any of his opponents."
"Thinking back, it probably wouldn't have helped him," Link commented after analyzing X's previous opponents.
The ferocity of the bullets continued upon Lance's shield, but the spawned unit continued to hold its ground, taking little damage but defending its summoner nonetheless. Lance crouched behind the shield in thought until the barrage of bullets finally concluded. Upon noticing that X was out of ammunition, Lance began to execute the plan he had stirred up within the few seconds he defended against his opponent.
Lance's plan began with him spawning a long and heavy spear from the Divine Arsenal. After this, Lance proceeded to use the weapon as a sort of vaulting equipment by forcing the sharp end into the ground and using enough force on his hands to lunge himself upwards significantly, off the ground. While in the air, Lance then stretched his right hand to the sky while still holding on to the spear with his left.
Looking down, Lance noticed that X already had True Accuracy in his eyes and was stretching his sidearm from its holster. The possibility that Lance was going to survive the shot from X was next to impossible, but it seemed like he had already planned for this outcome after placing himself in the open.
Before X could completely pull out his weapon, Lance instantly spawned what appeared to be a tactical tomahawk on his right hand and gripped it before using all of the force in his hand to launch it directly at his opponent's head. After this action, Lance instantly despawned his equipped suit before spawning a newer one instantly.
His reasoning was to give his opponent a reason to switch from offense to defense since this was his best choice, and this approach appeared to be effective.
X was in a situation where he could fire his sidearm at Lance and land a guaranteed shot, however, he would not be fast enough to evade the incoming tomahawk thrown at him. This also meant that the damage he was going to take if he decided to make the trade would be much more significant than his opponent, especially with the suit of armor Lance wrapped around his entire body.
This made X switch his offensive approach with True Accuracy into a defensive one, causing him to shift his mark from Lance's forehead to the weapon darting at him before firing. The clash with the bullet caused the tomahawk to lose its expected path, flinging it away upon contact. But this was Lance's plan.
Lance knew that X would not be able to fire another shot on time due to the delay between rounds from his sidearm. He also knew that X would not want to keep True Accuracy active long since it took tremendous energy. This gave Lance enough time to grab the spear he had on his left hand with his right, allowing him to gain the opening he needed to switch to offense.
With this, Lance held on to the spear with his right hand and used all the force he had left, alongside the motion of his body leaning forward, to launch the spear directly at his opponent.
The weight of the spear accompanied by the utter force exerted to throw it made the attack an inescapable one, however, what Lance did not take into account was his opponent's true capabilities.
As the spear darted at its target, Lance realized that instead of attempting to fire another round, X was already prepared for an attack so upon releasing the spear, his opponent had already begun to evade. X swayed to his left at an insane speed that he was able to successfully evade the spear that was thrown at him. But this was not all that he did.
Upon evading, X used his right hand to grab the spear from its path before it could hit the ground. With this, X used a rotation motion on his wrist and entire body to turn himself around while holding the blade, allowing him to keep the momentum of the weapon active for his next action. After turning his body 180 degrees, X used the momentum of the spear to divert the attack back at Lance who remained airborne.
The spear returned to Lance while maintaining its speed and ferocity before slamming into its target, dealing devastating damage. Lance fell to the ground after the impact in pain as he processed what had just happened in such little time. He had not expected X to react to such a fast attack, let alone counter it by returning the weapon.
The pain Lance felt was immense, but he knew that it would have been significantly worse if he had not equipped the suit of armor he had that was present.
"What in the Gods' names just happened?" Siren asked after witnessing the recent sequence.
Everything that had just happened seemed to have only taken mere seconds, meaning the speed of their attacks and reactions were nearly incomprehensible. This was also why Lance was unable to return the weapon before it came in contact with him.
After returning the weapon, Lance also returned the suit he had on to the Divine Arsenal, revealing the wound on his lower left torso from the spear that had just come in contact with him. Lance remained on the ground for a few seconds, applying pressure to the wound he had received and attempting to stop the bleeding with the muscle around it. X was also on the floor after using the momentum required to return the attack so after a few seconds, he got back on his feet before walking towards his opponent.
X gradually walked forward before arriving at Lance's fallen location. He stared at his opponent's struggling expression before his eyes dimmed in slight disgust after realizing what was happening.
"Are you done?" X asked Lance.
After this statement was made, Lance's hurting expression instantly reverted to his typical one as he revealed a smile.
"Yeah," Lance cheekily stated before removing his hand from the wound and getting on his feet easily.
Lance had attempted to use the damage he had received as bait so that he could make his opponent drop his guard and use that as an advantage, but unfortunately, X was beyond that.
Lance smiled as he stood on his feet after using his muscles around the wound to stop the bleeding.
"You're in such a sorry state," X stated to Lance.
"I could say the same about you," Lance responded.
Lance realized that X had placed a lot on his last attack which was why he used True Accuracy. But since Lance was still in the game, all it did was cause him more energy than desired.
Although X was in a less desirable state, Lance knew that the battle was still far from his favor. He knew that this was far from any typical match-up and his approach needed to change if he truly desired the victory.
"Has it finally dawned upon you that you're losing?" X asked his opponent.
Lance's smile broadened after a second before he stretched out his right hand while maintaining eye contact with his opponent.
"I guess you're right," Lance stated before proceeding. "So it's time to be more serious."
And after Lance's statement concluded, Camelot began to gradually spawn from top to bottom, between the palm of his right hand.
Lance gripped the golden weapon before holding it with both hands and spinning it around him, attempting to warm up his motion with it. He spun the weapon around while moving gracefully before he finally struck a deadly pose.
The tip of the spear was pointed directly at X as Lance placed his right hand around the other end of the weapon and his left ahead, closer to the tip. His body position was slightly slanted forward, giving him a position that could allow him to lunge forward when he chose to do so.
"I will take this more seriously..." Lance started before letting out a smile once more. "so make sure to entertain me, hunter."