POV Luana

I could already tell what spell the mage was about to use, and I somewhat regretted not betting. The water rushed out and almost immediately surrounded the fighter. Everyone in the restaurant complained in their own ways as we were all hoping for a longer fight.

Then a moment later, the water disappeared and the mage was gone. "What the fuck just happened?" I heard Horus say, and I had to agree with him. What the fuck. I also heard the commentator say in unison, "What the fuck just happened?"

We all turned to look at the fighter who was approaching a wall and the screen quickly focused on what the fighter was focusing on. There was a hole in the wall. "He must have thrown something and that’s how he won," Horus said.

Can that be it? It would make sense. The mage probably didn’t have any defensive abilities or spells active because he thought he would win in a second. "I told you all that he was too arrogant, what is it now Adam, seven meals that you owe me?" Horus' laugh was always close to some mad wizards, but this time I could really hear it.

Adam was totally annoyed and just before I was about to comfort him, we were all interrupted as the fighter began to break the arena wall to get whatever he threw out of it. "I thought that arena wall was supposed to be incredibly tough?" I asked and I got nods in return.

"Now that's a fighter I wouldn’t mind delving with. Perhaps we should see if he’s available for a delve just in case?" Horus asked and I couldn’t disagree with him. He looked like everything we were looking for but I saw Adam shaking his head. "We have seen too little of his fighting and we don’t know his personality which is quite important for us. We don’t want to delve that long with someone we can't get along with or even worse, a mad person."

The commentators were going crazy and we did finally see that it was a throwing knife with an interesting design that ended the fight with the mage. It was still an incredible win and he must have some way to resist mana. Otherwise, he should have been crushed in an instant.

To everyone's surprise and the delight of the commentators, he chose to continue fighting. Now that's some impressive stamina. His next opponent was already well known and the commentators quickly filled us in that he had a 20-5 record. Usually, he made quick work of any of his opponents with the two hammers that he was wielding.

We ordered more drinks as we watched the fight. It was a long one but the shield and sword fighter never backed down and he was impressively good at defending himself even though he barely attacked.

The commentator filled us in that it was his usual strategy and whenever he did that, the fight usually ended with a burst of activity and usually a one-hit kill in favor of the shield and sword fighter. A few minutes later, that proved to be reality as one strong attack finished the fight.

Once again, he chose to take another fight. And I saw some people starting to bet not if he would win but if he will take another fight or will he finally quit. When his next opponent was announced, the workers of this restaurant had a hard time keeping order.

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Even we were invested but we were able to keep ourselves in order a lot better than the rest. He was going to fight the Yellow Flash. He had a 21-1 record, and that was only because he was fighting a top-tier mage who was able to spread his attack throughout the entire arena.

POV Rich

The next fighter kind of looked like a Spanish rapier fighter. The weapon he wielded resembled a rapier but it felt incredibly powerful and I wasn’t certain my armor was going to be able to defend against it. My opponent also didn't look arrogant, he looked like he was concentrating on the fight and was hoping that I would prove a challenge.

That got my blood boiling and it was hard to contain myself as the countdown started. Just before the fight began, I felt a cold sweat at the back of my neck. Immediately, I boosted my defenses as much as possible and started to raise my shield to protect my face.

As soon as the start of the fight was called, I saw a yellow flash and then a heavy bang on my shield that I was just able to get in front of my face. The blow was strong enough that I had to take a step back but I was only able to get a small glimpse of my opponent's face who looked thoroughly pleased that I wasn’t dead.

The yellow flash didn't appear again but the speed of his attacks was ridiculous and the strength of them didn't make any sense. He was pushing me back towards the wall. I knew that this fight was over if he ever got me against the wall.

I started to move more but he did as well, always moving to try to push me towards the wall. The constant moving and the strength I needed to exert started to heat up my muscles and I was now able to move faster. Attacking with a sword swing would be pointless as it would be too slow. I was left with thrusts if I wanted to start attacking and I needed to as I was still being pushed back.

My defensiveness finally made my opponent go into a pattern and as soon as I saw the gap, I took it. My sword flashed out, but once again I saw another yellow flash and my opponent escaped my attack and was now quite far away from me, looking at me with a mix of surprise and anticipation. “Lovely.”

Once again, I saw a yellow flash, but I was already moving my shield and sword before that. Even then I needed to quickly tilt my head otherwise he would've skewered me. My shield was able to cut down his attack angles and my sword that I was thrusting out was able to stop him from getting too close. If I hadn’t done that, the fight would’ve ended there. I took a deep breath and started to push my body as much as possible as I kept defending and attacking at ever greater speed.

It took a while but I was eventually able to stop myself from being pushed back but the moment I did, my opponent activated some sort of an ability that made him even faster and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with just my body alone so I activated my own haste ability and was able to take him by surprise for a single moment, giving him a tiny cut to the back of his hand.

We both took a moment to breathe deep and then we rushed each other once again. He was still faster than me but I was able to pump more energy into my haste ability for momentary bursts of speed which required him to do the same with his abilities.

I do not know how long the fight was going on and it didn’t matter. All I was focusing on was trying to match his speed and do any damage I could. I was burning through energy like a maniac but I wasn’t putting too much into my defenses or weapon to keep at least some things hidden. But I was having so much fun and I was so focused that it was hard to think about anything else.

Speed. I need speed. I felt something click and it seems like I sped up a little bit more. I was now starting to push him simply because I was a lot stronger and he wasn’t capable of blocking my attacks. He was only barely able to divert them. But even now, he had the speed to simply dodge 95% of my attacks.

Another yellow flash indicated another attack but I hadn’t expected anything like this. He had gotten out of weapon range but he still attacked with a horizontal slash that produced a similar attack like my flying slash. It was so close and so deadly that I needed to dodge it.

So I bent my body backwards so much that I was almost horizontal to the ground and watched his flying attack fly over me. I immediately snapped up to find my opponent frozen in shock. That allowed me to make a similar attack which he wasn’t completely able to dodge and I left a proper wound on his shoulder.

Our fight continued but his attacks were slowing down. It was only a matter of time before I would win. He still put up an incredible fight and at times he was still pushing me back but I was able to mitigate his flying slash attack by attacking with my own flying slash. My strike met his, overpowered mine but it slowed it down and weakened enough that I was able to defend with my shield.