Alistair landed on the tower and surveyed the environmental damage from above. Vilagoros had unleashed a devastating sword slash resembling a sickle, which cleaved through two buildings between them and inflicted damage on the structure behind Alistair's initial starting position. Upon closer inspection, Alistair observed that the cut was clean in the center but exhibited signs of strain and force along its edges, evident in the presence of cracks and tears. This indicated that Alistair could intercept the energy slash as it relied heavily on force rather than just cutting or an esoteric concept.
His bestial opponent looked at him from across the township. Vilagoros had a dog-like yet draconic head with two spiraled horns pointing down its snout. Its red eyes had a glow to them that Alistair could see even from this distance. It had a thick, muscular body covered in black fur and scales and a thick gray lion-like mane around its neck and shoulders. He wore classic yet elegant samurai-themed armor with a wide shoulder plate shielding much of his left side. The armor had a dark red coloration. Around his waist was a Japanese-looking white decorative cloth band. Vilagoros lacked boots; his scaled and clawed feet did not need them. He had a wide nodachi-like sword made of adamantine slung over his shoulder. He stared intently at Alistair, waiting for him to make a move.
Alistair grew a little excited. This was the first time he had encountered a sword fighter and a seemingly worthy opponent in the Arena. His intuition told him his opponent was dangerous, and he lamented that he had no replacement for his poleaxe, not that any of his current weapons would survive more than a few clashes anyhow. He could form a weapon out of force; he had practiced that skill in his downtime for emergency parries. It would take up a lot of his focus, but it had the resilience to clash with Vilagoros' weapon. Alternatively, he could just play it safe and fight at range.
"Are you going to come down and face me, or are you just another runner?" Vilagoros growled, his voice a low, gravelly bark reminiscent of a canine's.
"I'm just lamenting that my preferred weapon broke recently. So I'm debating between improvising or just blowing you up," Alistair retorted, eliciting his opponent's loud barking laughter.
"Do me a favor and just fight me with everything you have! I have been waiting for a worthy opponent, and it does not matter how you fight as long as you can challenge me." Vilagoros declared eagerly.
Alistair's grin widened from ear to ear as Vilagoros, in one smooth motion, slung his sword from his shoulders and sliced through the tower Alistair was standing on, sending another energy blade arcing out at incredible speeds. Alistair, in turn, hurled a set of explosive blasts toward Vilagoros, who dodged them with rapid movement as he stepped into the air on what looked to be clouds forming under his feet. Vilagoros continued launching energy blades while Alistair returned fire with kinetic and razor blasts, too fast to be caught. Alistair was confident in outlasting Vilagoros in a ranged duel, who must have come to the same conclusion as he did. Vilagoros dashed toward Alistair at high speed, blocking one of Alistair's razor blasts with his own blade. Sparks flew from the continued impact as Alistair pushed back on his pursuer.
Alistair activated his bloodcurdling presence to suppress his opponent passively. In response, Vilagoros used a breath attack that filled a large chunk of the arena with clouds, dampening Alistair's senses as his opponent shattered his razor blast and vanished in the clouds. Before Alistair managed to leave the expanding clouds, his conceptual awareness warned him of his incoming opponent, who seemed to move even faster within the clouds. Alistair activated his temporal combat reflex boosting skill as he managed to raise his shield to block the first slash of his opponent, robbing it of most of its momentum before the dispersal magic managed to break through his skill as his shield blocked the rest of the attack. The kinetic energy was transferred into a sphere that shot out of Alistair's body and started orbiting around him. Alistair summoned one of the blades he had taken from the dragonfly Navih elite Karnec and lashed out at Vilagoros, who parried the attack with little effort, showing the large disparity in skill. Alistair continued his assault with his boosting skill, allowing him to keep relative parity with his more skilled opponent as he continuously siphoned kinetic impacts from the dog wyvern attacks, transferring and storing the kinetic energy within the nearby sphere.
Vilagoros stopped his assault, deciding to attack the almost-filled nearby sphere with his sword. The unleashed Kinetic shock strained his arm to its limits, nearly causing him to lose grip on his blade. The blade looked untouched, but deep fissures marred his scaled arm while his fur-covered regions bore bruises, and his armor cracked, some parts shattering under the force. Alistair took advantage of Vilagoros being thrown off balance as he slammed him with a fully charged, repulsive blast, which sent him through a nearby building and into the floor, leaving a moderately sized crater. The force of the impact momentarily dispersed the summoned clouds, revealing the chaos beneath. Alistair followed up with rapid-fire explosive blasts.
The clouds around Vilagoros reformed and coalesced into a thick wall, effectively blocking the explosive blasts and obscuring Alistair's vision of his opponent. Alistair had hit him with multiple explosive blasts, and Vilagoros looked quite a bit worse for wear. The clouds turned into black thunderclouds, and lightning lashed out in Alistair's direction, who barely managed to summon a barrier thanks to the clouds telegraphing the incoming attack. His Kinetic skinguard skill still struggled with energies other than kinetics, particularly lightning, and frost; he had a much easier time with fire, presumably because he had an easier time controlling and conceptualizing it. Vilagoros was too dangerous of an opponent to train on, especially with a growing arena title on the line. Alistair used his resist element spell to increase his resistance against lighting as his barrier skill was not automatic yet before using Blink.
"Big mistake," Alistair commented as he teleported next to Vilagoros on the ground. The Dog-wyvern had streams of clouds envelop him, forming a Hagoromo over his head. They were silvery with emerald-colored lines, and Alistair could sense they were healing him. At this point, Alistair was quite confident that Vilagoro's strongest affinity should be clouds, which he complemented with swordsmanship. Vilagoros let out a barking laugh.
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"Good, keep it coming!" He growled as he pointed his large blade at Alistair.
Alistair smirked as he sent out two razor blades in a mirroring arc at Vilagoros, their trajectory tracing a graceful oval shape before converging on their target as Alistair dashed at Vilagoros himself. He swapped his current blade for another as his first one was about to break. Vilagoros, for his part, jumped back with his cloud step and expended a good amount of mana to envelop his blade in dispersal magic and shatter the two razor blasts coming at him. The clouds enveloping him turned black, telegraphing his attack again as electricity crackled around them. Alistair summoned another barrier as two bolts of lightning stopped his approach. They impacted his barrier with a loud thunderclap; the barrier slightly cracked but held firm before being shattered by Vilagoros bringing his blade down upon it. The dispersal magic sent the disconnected magical hexagons in every direction, damaging some of the nearby stone walls. Alistair smiled and was about to test one of his newest body cultivation adjustments. He brought up his curved blade to meet Vilagoros nodachi. When they made contact, Alistair channeled his [Right Hand Time Out] through his weapon, something he had been working to improve on his accidentally augmented body part.
As Vilagoros shattered through the barrier, Alistair's kinetic skin guard skill and the effects of the [Right Hand Time Out] skill proved too overwhelming for him to disperse, freezing him in place. Alistair heard a satisfying chime and wasted no time, unleashing a rapidly charged, unstable blast at point-blank range while giving his opponent an apologetic smile. Despite his mana and Qi dropping rapidly from the exertion, Alistair forced Vilagoros to remain in place, continuously charging the unstable blast that was about to explode. Finally, he unleashed the blast, connecting with Vilagoros and causing a violent explosion that tore through much of the surrounding arena buildings. Though Alistair managed to teleport away, avoiding most of the damage, he still found himself surrounded by two completely filled orbs of kinetic energy orbiting around him.
Alistair knew he had successfully upgraded his [Right Hand Time Out], though he also knew the skill would only properly upgrade once the tournament ended. But he could still recreate the effects manually if he needed to. Alistair readied himself to continue the fight as he was teleported out of the arena, standing in front of the bench that was now occupied by one of the many rabbitkin who gave him an odd look. Alistair gave a polite nod as he walked away. As he did, he received a ping from King, who had sensed Alistair was back in the arena. Alistair hurried towards the beast arena to sign up King, who wanted to go for some rounds himself. His countdown had started shortly after returning to the arena, but luckily, Alistair managed in time.
None of the subsequent five matches matched Vilagoro's strength and skill. The most formidable opponent was a Lamia mage wielding water magic, slicing through the environment effortlessly. However, her reliance on high-pressure water streams and blades worked against her when facing Alistair. He used her attacks as a chance to refine his skills, absorbing the kinetic energy and storing it in additional spheres beyond the system-assisted two. Eventually, once he reached five spheres, he felt his focus reaching its limits. He then used all the stored kinetic energy to unleash a devastating kinetic blast from close range that blasted the lamia to smithereens.
In between the matches, Riseth called him to inform him she had managed to upgrade her race to [Body Cultivating Succubus]. He was as excited over the news as she was, as they were now ready to take on the event. She planned on increasing her levels a bit before the tournament and had made a trip to check her own new gate addresses, which she had recently uncovered from an event.
He was now waiting for his last match on a bench near the beast arena. In the distance, he spotted Enya minding her own business, signing up some of her own beasts. He wondered if she had let slip that Sol could trap him for his benefit. Was it a subverted way to let him know of the danger Sol posed? If so, why would she still choose to follow him? Did she truly speak out of turn out of overzealousness? Nessyra mentioned the possibility of spies present at the party, which might have been a factor. Nessyra had cultivated her own network of spies with Alistair's and Riseth's consent, some of which had infiltrated Sol's followers. Either way, approaching her would be a bad idea. Sol had been generous and quite open, though Alistair would not presume to be able to read a god's true intentions, as he was one of the biggest threats to them and their freedom, and they would keep him at arm's length.
Alistair's current plan was to grow as strong as possible as fast as possible. There were probably a lot of time-sensitive titles and events like the slayer titles, so he would push himself within the slayer world as it was the most promising instance of progress. Perhaps there was a continuation of the slayer title or other challenges and trials hidden within it.
Veteran League (lvl 40-44) First-time participation counts towards [Gladiator] title. Rounds: 10/10
Time left to confirm: 34 Seconds Opponent:
Iatok - lvl 41
Do you wish to Participate?
[Yes] [No]
Alistair considered the comparatively low level, which usually indicated high skill instead of reliance on stats. Alistair confirmed the window as he appeared in a hot and humid jungle with vines draped across the trees. He could hear the loud buzzing of insects and birds singing and smelled the wet, musty air that seemed to teem with life. He could not spot his opponent's bubble as there was quite a bit of jungle between him and his opponent. Alistair braced himself to teleport away from his starting position as he watched the countdown tick down.