I wasn’t able to make a decisive strike, but eventually, my opponent surrendered. He was getting too many wounds, and I think he simply didn’t want to spend too much on healing.
During our entire fight, he was unable to deliver any decent attacks, so I guess he knew that it was a lost cause. He didn't seem angry about it and when I was declared the winner, it was the first time I was able to shake hands with my opponent.
"It was a good fight. I enjoyed it," I said, and he answered back, "It was indeed, but I still need to be a bit faster. Then we would have a proper fight."
Him being faster was truly a scary idea, but I was quite certain that his build wasn't meant for dueling but taking down massive monsters. We exchanged contact information, but he needed to leave as soon as possible to get healed as he was bleeding all over.
I once again went to stand to wait for the next fight, but this time I rested the shield against myself so I could stretch and move the hand that was holding it up. Even his handle strikes eventually made my hand sore.
My next opponent had her face covered by a scarf. She had darkened leather armor and was wielding two daggers. She looked deadly and professional, and when our fight began, I could see she was quite skilled at misdirection.
I do not know what abilities she used, but it was hard to keep track of her weapons. Because of that, she was able to get past my defenses quite often, but her blades weren’t able to cut through my armor.
As our fight continued, I also started to attack, which she was able to dodge or defend, but just barely. Even when she used abilities that made her weapons stronger, they weren't able to get past my defenses, which made her radiate disappointment.
Our fight hadn’t gone on for long, but I could already feel how she was getting exhausted. Apparently, she wasn't built for prolonged fights. She took a brief pause and got distance, but when I started to follow her, she rushed towards me.
I was expecting some sort of open ability when she jumped towards me and straight at my raised sword that was going to pierce her abdomen. To my surprise, she didn't do anything to defend herself. Thanks to that my sword pierced her and she was able to get one of her daggers to scratch one of my cheeks as I wasn’t wearing a helmet that covered my face completely.
She still couldn't get further in to do any real damage, but the next moment I knew that she didn’t have to. That small scratch was enough that she was able to deposit whatever poison she had. It was incredibly deadly and so painful that I was unable to keep standing and fell to one knee. My vision was blurry, but I could still see the smirk on her face.
I still, however, had enough strength and could think clearly enough that I pulled my sword that was still buried inside her upwards and tried to cut her in half. It was hard to figure out what she did, but the next moment she was further away from me, and I saw that I was only able to cut halfway through the rib cage.
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The moment I saw her fall to the ground, gasping for air, was the moment I felt sharmar’s organ demand energy. I gave it all that it wanted, and only a few moments later my vision began to clear. It was clearing out the poison incredibly fast, and only about 5 seconds later I felt good enough that I was able to stand again, although I was a bit wobbly.
That made my opponent's eyes go wide, and when I started to approach, she started to panic. I think she was feeling so much pain that she didn’t realize that I was going to end the fight and that she was going to get healed enough by the wonder so she wouldn't die.
She tried to pick up her dagger, but she simply didn't have the strength, and when I made it to her, I was strong enough to quickly plunge my sword towards her head, which made her disappear as soon as the tip touched her.
I was declared the winner, but this time I didn’t answer immediately when I was asked if I wanted to continue fighting. I checked myself to find that the poison was almost gone, so I decided to continue fighting even if I wasn’t in top condition. But during real battles, you might not be in your top condition, so continuing to fight and learn seemed like a good idea.
The next fighter appeared to be a young man who seemed quite excited about the whole thing. A curious thing I noticed was that he had only one sword scabbard, but he held two long swords in both of his hands.
He was wearing leather armor that was quite scuffed up, and I didn't think it was even able to provide defense against first-rank attacks. However, his weapons seemed quite adequate. He was waving them around, trying to get the crowd going, but he was totally failing at that.
When our fight began, I was a bit surprised at how serious he got, but it made sense. Otherwise, how would he have made it this far? The respect I gave him broke as soon as he started to make his second strike. His first was expertly made. It was strong, fast, and accurate, but when he used the second sword in his left hand, it felt like he was a child using an oversized sword to try to mimic someone making a strike.
Now, perhaps I was a bit exaggerating. He could probably kill anyone under the first rank with one strike, even with his left hand, and he could be a menace to anyone in the first rank, but he certainly wouldn't be able to do that in the second rank.
It was actually quite annoying as his second sword was interfering with his first one, which was still extremely deadly. I started to push him, and his movement slowed down even more simply because fighting with two weapons was incredibly difficult, and while he had some skill in it, he wasn't close to being proficient enough for this level of fighting.
It didn't take long for me to get him to a point where I could finish the fight with one strike, but I stopped just before I did that. An idea came to me, and I pulled back a bit to try to make it happen.
He was once again able to get into a proper rhythm. Now I just defended and waited for the perfect opportunity. It didn't take long. I was able to push his right-hand sword back into my opponent with my shield, and his left was left completely open.
I made my sword disappear into my tattoo storage, and I grabbed his sword and yanked it out of his hand. I then backed off and threw his sword out of the arena. I made my sword reappear and waited for him to attack me. He was incensed, but he didn't get angry, which made me smile.
He attacked, and this time I really needed to defend myself. He was a lot faster, and his mastery of the sword was way above me, but he still found it hard to get past my shield, and whenever he did, my armor was good enough to defend myself, which always gave me a good opportunity to strike back. He, however, didn’t have the protection I did, and after multiple wounds, my opponent finally surrendered. I walked to him and offered him my hand. He took it, and we shook hands.
"It was a good fight after I got rid of your hindrance," I said. He didn't say anything to me, but I liked his attitude. He was in no way pleased about the situation, but I could see that he understood his mistake.
"Here, let's exchange contact information. You have a lot of potential, and I’d hate to see it wasted." He accepted, however, he was a bit reluctant, and he quickly went off to find his sword, and I went back to wait for another fight.
This time it seemed to be another spear fighter but he had good gear and looked older. This probably meant he had experience and his ability levels should be high. It looked like it was going to be a hard but fun fight.