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Toman knew and was taught to keep an eye on the opponent’s body movement, for that dictates the movement and trajectory of the weapon, but at this moment, he was finding his attention split between Luke Ironcrest’s hand movements and his spearhead which seems to lag slightly behind his movement due to his weird bending and warping spear.

After a few spins of the spearhead in front of his face, Toman caught a different movement from Luke’s elbow but did not catch the rest of the movement from his other hand due to the red tassel waving in front of him

The next thing Toman knew, a spearhead was launching for his chest, too fast to parry, forcing Toman to bring his polearm closer in to block away the incoming strike, only for the spearhead to suddenly change direction at the last moment, aimed at his face.

This time, it was Toman’s turn to throw himself to the ground to save himself, but unlike Luke who threw himself back in a bad position to recover, Toman was in a better position and performed a side roll and recovered just in time to slap away an incoming stab with his polearm.

“So that's the slithering spear I have been hearing about.” Toman said as he readied himself for the next clash.

Luke just shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Not the word I like my spear being described as, but we can rarely name things ourselves when it catches on.”

That, Toman could understand, there were many tales of warriors and mages throughout history, whose techniques or spells, or even they themselves, were given less than flattering names by the public at large, and it just caught on despite what the warrior or mage said it was.

But before Toman could ponder further, he saw Luke move again, but this time, he was ready. Instead of concentrating on the spearhead, he aimed for the spear shaft.

As Luke prodded forward to test Toman’s defense, Toman used this opportunity to catch Luke’s spear on his polearm’s head, right between the splayed axe head and spike, he then twisted his polearm to lick the shaft in place and pulled in an attempt to disarm Luke.

But instead of having a tug of war with their weapons like Toman expected, Luke went with the pull, left his spear behind, and grabbed Toman’s polearm before proceeding to deliver a front kick to Toman’s chest.

Toman was totally caught off guard, causing him to lose a grip on his polearm as he staggered backward, and in that time, Luke had already flipped the polearm on him and charged forward to stab Toman with his own weapon.

The only thing Toman could do to defend himself was to grab the polearm by the hammer side and the gap between the spike and axehead as he was carried off his feet by Luke’s charge.

The next moment, Toman found himself on the ground trying to push the polearm spike away from his chest, but seeing that Luke had superior leverage, he knew it was a losing game, so in a single great push, Toman directed the spike over his shoulder and rolled to the side, but when he was face down during the roll, he felt a weight slam onto him, and an arm wrapped around his neck by the time he was rolled facing skyward while lying on someone.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

What was when he felt pressure on his chin through the mana shield and glanced down to see a dagger pointed at him as Luke spoke into his ear, “Do you yield?”

Knowing he had already lost, Toman raised his hands to the sky, “I yield.”

“Winner! Luke Ironcrest!” The referee shouts as he raises his flagged pole and points it to Luke’s corner.

The Arena once again burst out in a defining roar.

***

After my victory was announced, I released Toman and we both got up.

“Well fought, Toman. Got to say, you are a lot better at the polearm than a sword.” I said as I extended a hand for a handshake.

Toman shrugged and accepted my handshake, “Well, what can I do? Swordsmanship is seen widely as the more noble and civilized weapon.”

“Ha! Such silly notions held by stuffy old men, the best weapon is the one you can hit your enemy with without your enemy reaching you, see you in class, or any other events you signed up for.” I said as we both went to collect our dropped weapons.

After bowing to the royals and the audience, I once again made my way to the waiting room.

Soon enough, my semi-finals came up, and I was greatly disappointed, especially after the fight I had in the quarter-finals, Toman was the only one so far who had “wounded” me. My semi-final fight however, was some noble git that I also recognized from Advanced Combat & Tactics class, but did not bother remembering the name of, but had a bigger build than everyone in my cohort.

From what I observed during class, he had a decent grasp of the basic forms of swordsmanship and little else besides that. What he does not have in skill, he has so far made up for by being physically stronger than his peers, and having a longer reach by virtue of his longer limbs, and having a greatsword.

As for how my match with him went, he started by talking smack, saying that the rumors of me beating up a whole hallway of people must be fake, and the reason I always spar with instructors during class was that I was scared of ever facing him. At some point through his smack talk, I was wondering if he really meant what he was saying or if he was just blind.

Or he could be as stupid as a low-level NPC seeing the player slay the game’s boss and think “I could take him.”

Either way, he was easy, I did not even need to pull off any fancy moves, it ended rather anticlimactic by sweeping his legs with my spear and finishing him off with a stab, even I was somewhat surprised by how easy it was.

After the semi-finals, as I was once again at the bar sipping a smoothie, the door opened to reveal the opponent I would be facing in the finals, and it was a girl who I did not see in my Advanced Combat & Tactics class. I would know, that class is mainly male-dominated and there are less than twenty girls, and she was not one of them.

I looked up at the updated tournament board to see what her name was, and it showed the last remaining name beside mine, Lavinia Castilene… Castilene… why does that sound familiar?

I ran through my memories and came to the answer, the Duke's house of Castilene… Lavinia Castilene is most likely the daughter of a Duke.

As she walks into the waiting room, the sounds from the half-time performance take place, I study my opponent. She was a classic beauty redhead tied in a braid with a slender build, she wearing cloth instead of protective leather, but I suppose it was not needed with the mana shield.

She was wearing rather puffy sleeves, so I could not tell the muscle definition of her arms, but from her slender shoulders, I was not expecting much in the way of strength, which suggests she uses a light weapon, but I would not know until our match starts because the ushers collect our weapons before we enter the waiting room.

When I locked eyes with Lavinia, I knew she was also studying me as she walked over to the bar and sat beside me, “So, you this Luke Ironcrest I have been hearing so much about, nice to finally meet you while we are alone.”