The air is so tense you could basically cut it with a knife. The two men stand apart from each other, facing one another with a pure intent of killing or at least harming the other.
Steven is used to this atmosphere due to his days as an underground fighter. Plenty of people have given him stares of death, yet this one seems a little more deadlier than the others. That probably do to the long sword in the man's hand, and Steven makes sure to keeps his eyes on his opponent's weapon at all times.
Even with this deadly feeling coming from his opponent, Steven has a wide grin on his face. Gripping the hilt of his axe tightly, Steven prepares for what could be the deadliest fight of his life.
His opponent is the first to make a move, rushing forward and stabbing straight out. This is counter by Steven who rolls to the side, followed up by a horizontal swing with his axe. Power surges from the axe when it is swung as the impact phial activates, giving his an some extra firepower.
The opponent saw this coming however and jumped backwards while slashing out at Steven horizontally. This slash manages to cut Steven's nose since he couldn't fully pull back his head in time but this is only cosmetic damage to the seemingly genetically enhanced human.
Steven's opponent after doing a move called the 'Fade Slash', figures his best bet is up close and personal since Steven's axe has a long hilt, however this was a mistake.
Rushing forward, the man is surprised to see Steven also full suit and rush forwards as well. Steven is is faster than his opponent and duck his head down and sticks his shoulder out. The shoulder bash hits the man directly in the head and knocks him down, he manages to keep a hold of his weapon though.
Luckily for the man, his armor is extremely well made from very fine materials and mitigates most of the damage that would have been caused from Steven charging into the man. The armor hadn't stopped the man from losing his balance however and currently lays flat out on his rear end.
Steven uses this chance to rear his axe into the air, power once again surging into the shield/blade part of the axe, and he brings it down with all of his force.
His opponent is unable to react in time and the axe slams down onto the golden chest piece which shines brilliantly in the sunlight. This armor isn't just cosmetically pleasing however, as following the smash from Steven's axe, he is surprised to see not even a scratch on the armor.
"What?! That's cheating!" Steven yells after jumping backwards a few feet. The jump was to create some distance between him and the hunter to give Steven some time to rethink his current plan of attack.
"How is that cheating dumbass. My armor is made of scale and bones from an elder dragon. Did you really think your dull, weak axe could even scuff this armor of mine, let alone break it?!" the hunter yells with a sneer. Steven mind races about how to approach this opponent.
'I can't really harm this opponent because of his armor, then how am I going to beat him?'
Unable to find an answer before his opponent gets up and is ready again, Steven decides to just keep hitting the man and maybe his armor will break eventually. The man laughs seeing that Steven is somewhat at a loss and goes into a new stance.
Before the hunter's stance was full of gaps and seemed like the man either didn't care or didn't need to, however that has changed.
The two have a few clashes and Steven ends up losing momentum after each encounter, showing the man must have not been really trying to much earlier. Having 3 impact phials left, Steven remembers a move that might help him even somewhat break his opponents armor, however he needs to get the opponent to stay still.
Unfortunately that's not very easy as the hunter continues to flow like water with his attacks, barely given Steven even a chance to breath or to think of anything else but dodging.
Steven finally manages to hit the hunter in the head with the hilt of his axe in a surprise move, stunning the man for a second and forcing his opponent to take some steps backwards.
Steven uses this time to ready his grappling hook and sends it flying towards a thick tree branch. Seeing Steven try to run away with a grappling hook, the man can only yell a taunt in anger as he doesn't have one with his current set of armor since it was receiving maintenance before he left for a hunt.
"You pussy! Get back down here and face your death with some dignity!"
Steven simply laughs at this remark and looks at his surroundings for something that could help him, and that's when he sees his saving grace. The only thing that could help Steven in this situation is currently sitting next to a tree about 100 feet away.
The only problem is the man stands between Steven and this miraculous find, forcing Steven to al least confront his opponent before he could reach it. On top of that, the way to it is through an open area so it's not like he can just go from branch to branch to get there.
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Steven takes a deep breath and steadies himself, preparing himself mentally for what is to come. Jumping down onto the ground, Steven tries running around his opponent to reach his destination, however is met with a powerful vertical slash from a golden sword. Steven stops in his tracks and dives backwards to avoid the intense slash, and he manages to do a handspring afterwards to keep himself on his feet.
Without missing a beat, Steven continues to try to run around the hunter, and manages to put the hunter behind him. Steven thinks that he can reach his goal before the hunter is able to catch up, but the hairs on the back of his neck standing up tell Steven other wise.
Turning his head around for a second, Steven is able to see his opponent right behind him with their sword at their hip, and a dangerous feeling washes over Steven when he sees the swords position, however it is too late to do anything.
The sword leaves the golden hunter's hips at speed faster than Steven can dodge, which completely catches Steven off guard since he has been able to outmatch his opponent when it came to speed the entire fight.
A powerful force hits Steven in the back and he can feel the grinding of a sword against his spine as he clothes were useless in front of the golden blade. The powerful strike sends Steven flying forward and hits face first into a tree.
"Hahaha, I got you now mothafucker. I don't know who you are to try and challenge the Guild but you were destined to lose from the beginning!" the hunter yells as he is certain that victory is his. The hunter approaches Steven from behind and raises his sword in the air, ready to bring it down onto the injured and defenseless Steven.
However, Steven laughs and says a quick word to his opponent.
"Catch."
The golden hunter is confused by this and watches in horror as Steven throws a bright yellow object over his shoulder. The golden hunter immediately realizes what this is and realizes his mistake.
The Paratoad flies through the air and manages to hit the golden hunter in the face, exploding with gas as it does so. Steven's opponent falls to the ground, paralyzed, as the gas from a Paratoad is know to be one of the strongest paralyzing agents in the New World.
Steven had read about these in the book which his father gave him and even accidentally stepped on one during his first trip out, and Steven quickly realized how strong this paralyzing gas the toad had. Luckily though, it only left Steven paralyzed for about 10 seconds, and his fathers book said the average time was about a minute, meaning Steven had some sort of basic resistance to it.
With the gas exploding out from the frog, Steven's opponent was unable to dodge the gas and falls to the ground short after, his body twitching from the paralysis. Steven is also caught up in the gas cloud and is paralyzed himself.
His plan was originally to just throw the toad and hit the hunter while being out of reach of the gas, but then again Steven hadn't planned to be slashed in the back and sent flying onto the toad. Now it is just a race to see whose body could expel the paralysis first.
After about 10 seconds, Steven feels that he can control his body again and quickly jumps to his feet. Steven notices his opponent still out for the count which promptly tells Steven that his hunch about being somewhat resistance was correct.
Not wasting anytime, Steven readies his axe and it starts filling with power. All three of the impact phials activate at once and Steven slices his axe horizontally but doesn't hit anything, but that wasn't the attack. Following the horizontal slash, Steven uses one hand to bring the axe from behind him, up and over his head, and straight down onto the head of his opponent.
The impact of the powered weapon and the seemingly impenetrable armor creates a large booming sound as the axe sends raw powerful into the helmet. Sparks fly out and an explosion blasts outwards from the impact, actually causing Steven to fall backwards from his weakened state and lose his grip on his Charge Blade.
The Charge Blade goes flying from the explosion and Steven's mind is fuzzy from the outward blast that knocked him over.
After taking a few seconds to recuperate, Steven manages to shakily stand up and look at his opponent. A newly created gash in the helmet causes a smile to spread across Steven's face while a deep cut stretches across his opponent's face.
The cut isn't even close to being fatal, however it is a win in Steven's book since he managed to damage this powerful armor set. On top of that, his opponent seems to be unconscious from the blast. That means that Steven can finally claim victory and end this battle.
"You were so vulgar and hateful, and now is your time to finally see your end." Steven says out loud to his knocked out opponent. He pulls out a carving knife to finish the job as his Charge Blade was sent flying, however the sound of movement causes Steven's head to quickly snap to the left.
The hunter with a Great Bow Gun stirs awake and sees that his leader is down, so he points his gun into the air and shoots the round he had loaded earlier.
A bright red flares bursts from the gun and shoots into the sky, giving Steven a bad feeling. The flare hangs in the sky for about 20 seconds before dissipating, causing the Great Bow Gun hunter to smile in relief.
"You're in trouble now. Both you and that traitorous scout that didn't tell us you were near are gonna be jailed and executed." the hunter says. This confused Steven as he had simply incapacitated their scout before attacking, so why did it seem like the hunter was looking for a reason to put the blame on his comrade as well.
Steven doesn't have time to think however before he hears the sounds of many footsteps in the distance. Without thinking or finishing off his opponent, Steven grabs the golden sword his opponent dropped and runs towards the woman he pelted with a berry in the eyes.
The woman is still barely able to see yet she can feel herself being picked up and carried away. In the distance she can hear a lot of yelling, but those sounds become faint as whoever is carrying her is running away from them.
Steven, who is carrying the woman away and is running away from his opponent's reinforcements, stops and takes one last look at his opponents in the distance, engraving what they looked like in his mind. Though he isn't able to see their faces because of their helmets, he remembers their voices and what there armor looks like and is confident that he could identify them when the time comes.
However, Steven continues his retreat as he needs to heal his wounds, his Tobi Kadachi's wounds, and find out what is so bad about this woman that even her own team hates her, or if it all just a cruel misunderstanding.