The axe was the traditional weapon of the vishan. It embodied all of the aspects of war that their tribe held in the highest respect. Strength, will, and sheer power.
But Kal'o Kir no longer fought for her tribe. The only thing left that propelled her actions was rage, and the desperate need for vengeance.
Caution was thrown to the wind as Kal'o Kir leapt forward with a snarl and brought her axe down upon Eve. She activated Adrenaline and felt her perception of time change, everything seeming to go slightly slower.
The use of Adrenaline was highly discouraged for warriors unless certain conditions were met, including assurance that no external forces could interfere with a fight while the user's peripheral perception was hindered. These conditions had not been met, but Eve was an opponent Kal'o Kir could not afford to hold back on and so she decided it was a necessary risk.
Axe met with axe and a shockwave ripped through the clearing from the clash. Kal'o Kir scowled as she felt her own strength being overpowered by Eve's.
Just how absurd is her power? Or maybe she's simply overinvested in strength.
It was common practice past level 20 to make sure every stat was at least somewhat even. Everybody had a fighting style they'd be more naturally inclined to, but creating completely uneven stat pools was an exercise in folly. Sooner or later you'd run into something that was able to completely exploit such weaknesses, no matter what they were.
Even so, Kal'o Kir cursed the heavens for how bad of a matchup this was for her. Her rare class, The Unrelenting, was one based on strength and endurance. She was a force that ripped across battlefields, careless of the wounds or burdens she accumulated as she carved a path of carnage through her enemies.
She could already feel her first skill, Rapid Regeneration, working to fix the gash Eve's initial attack had left on her leg. Rapid Regeneration was useful, but it had a set of conditions that made it ideal for protracted battles instead of decisive duels. It was mostly good for fixing smaller injuries, as there was a low bar for how much damage a single use could fix. Kal'o Kir could tell at a glance that the wounds Eve usually inflicted were anything but shallow.
It doesn't matter how many small wounds I can comfortably accumulate, that axe can likely bisect me if I'm not careful. Even so…
Kal'o Kir broke off the engagement first, leaping back to make distance. Under the slowed time of Adrenaline, Kal'o Kir had been able to examine Eve's physical condition in their clash. Though her offensive capabilities seemed unhampered, it was clear to the discerning eye that her muscles had a slight tremor in them. Most likely the result of falling from such a height with only middling endurance.
A stray thought made Kal'o Kir wonder what her human associate would have done if Eve's surprise attack had been successful. Zane had come to her and extended the hand of cooperation on the condition that she assist him in killing Eve. The spark of greed had been there in his gaze, and she understood. Whoever came out on top of the tutorial's ladder would likely receive a great title from the system, yet on his own his chances against the monstrosity known as Eve were slim to none.
Would he have simply killed Phil? Or perhaps used him as further leverage? Kal'o Kir didn't honestly care. Anything that came after her death was meaningless to her. Even death was meaningless to her, so long as she got what she wanted.
I need to either turn this into a protracted battle and wear her down or stun her and take her down before she takes me down.
The problem was, Kal'o Kir had no solid ranged options. So her only real option was to attempt to make an opening and deliver a decisive blow.
It was almost funny. Eve had enough strength that she could likely destroy almost anyone Kal'o Kir had ever met at their level with only one or two blows, yet because Eve lacked sufficient endurance the same would be true for her.
Kal'o Kir felt at her waist with a free hand, ensuring the ring of metal was accessible and that none of the cords had gotten tangled. She noted with satisfaction that her auxiliary weapon was still ready to deploy.
She activated her second skill, Rampager, and felt power surge through her body. Rampager acted similarly to the magic Boost in that it gave both her strength and endurance a 20% enhancement and gave her a huge amount of pain resistance, but it didn't come with the intense muscle fatigue that followed Boost. In general, class skills would always trump general skills of the same grade.
Once again Kal'o Kir clashed against Eve, and they engaged in a back and forth of axeblows. Now that she'd increased her physical attributes Kal'o Kir felt mostly on par with Eve's raw strength. She'd try to lure Eve into a false sense that Kal'o Kir wanted to keep this battle physical before springing her trap.
At least, that's what she planned on doing before she saw Eve's eyes sharpen. Kal'o Kir instinctively felt the activation of a skill as Eve attacked with her axe in an overhead swing. Every cell in her body screamed to avoid that attack, so she leapt to the side as the axe narrowly avoided her body.
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Eve's axe slammed into the ground with the weight of a meteor, shattering the ground beneath them and causing an explosion of dirt and dust.
Kal'o Kir was forced to take several steps back as she tried to see through the cloud of dust. As she did, she heard a thunderous boom in the near distance. She tried to make out what was happening in the surrounding area but couldn't see anything in the cloud of dust.
What was that? What's happening over there?
Anxiety rushed through her heart. The duel between Eve and Kal'o Kir was supposed to be the only thing happening in this region of the forest. A million thoughts flew through her mind, between the possibility of a trap and Zane's desertion, as well as a myriad of other things happening that she couldn't anticipate.
Her focus was brought back to the present as she sensed something coming her way. She took a defensive stance as around a mount of upturned earth came… a ball of light?
Before she had time to react the tiny floating ball seemed to explode, blinding her.
Kh! A dirty trick!
She anticipated an attack coming from somewhere, but in her blindness she couldn't tell which direction the attack would come from. If Eve managed to land a hit with that monstrous skill while Kal'o Kir was stunned she had no doubt she'd die instantly.
In desperation, she crouched down and leaped forward with all of the strength she could muster. With the boost from Rampager she could jump about 3 meters into the air and double that in distance. She didn't know where she was moving to, all that mattered was buying a few seconds for her passive skill, Impervious, to kick into effect.
Even as she landed roughly and tumbled to a stop she felt the blindness fading away. Impervious gave her a massive resistance to status effects, and was meant to allow her to shrug off detrimental effects like blindness.
Still, the fact that it took the few seconds it had to wear off spoke to the effect's potency. Usually skills like that had a condition to their activation. Kal'o Kir hoped that would keep Eve from using it again, because Kal'o Kir didn't have any counter to the move except blindly fleeing.
Eve didn't bother trying any more tricks, instead directly pushing towards Kal'o Kir and swinging her axe down. Kal'o Kir sensed the attack didn't have the weight behind it of the previous attack and so chose to block it instead. The resulting clash blew away all the dust that surrounded them, allowing them to see each other clearly.
Kal'o Kir grinned viciously as she saw the look of complete surprise on Eve's face. No doubt she had expected Kal'o Kir to be still blinded and defenseless.
Eve's rushed attack lacked proper support behind it, and so Kal'o Kir was able to force the downward momentum of the beast's attack off to the side with only a single hand gripping her axe. With her free hand, she hooked a finger into the loop at her waist and pulled, breaking the weak binding that held her second weapon in place.
She whipped her arm around, and three balls of metal swung on strings attached to the ring she held. The bola was traditionally used by the vishan to hunt and capture small game, but it was also extremely useful in battle for any type of warrior because of its unique properties.
Kal'o Kir activated the magic Lightning Imbuement as the balls swung through the air. A small thunderclap and shockwave expanded their little sphere of clear air within the cloud of dust as electricity coursed through the metal balls.
Lightning Imbuement was well known as one of the most effective spells to use against physical warriors. It didn't do much damage, but the stun effect made it perfect for creating an opening. The potency of the effect was slightly diminished in a clash of weapons, but when applied to a fast moving object it was incredibly effective at striking exposed areas of the body.
The electrically charged balls of the bola slammed into Eve's side, and Kal'o Kir saw her body spasm. While she was stunned Kal'o Kir swung her axe towards Eve from the side, confident she could embed the weapon into Eve's chest cavity and finally end this duel.
But even as she swung the blade she could see Eve wasn't nearly as impaired by the electrical charge as Kal'o Kir had expected. With swift movement, Eve spun to avoid the head of the axe, and at the same time swung a leg up into Kal'o Kir's side.
Kal'o Kir felt the same explosive force that had shattered the ground slam into her side, and she felt a multitude of bones in her chest shattering from the blow. She felt very little pain from the attack through the haze of Adrenaline combined with Rampager, but she knew nonetheless it was a critical injury.
Why? Why isn't she affected by Lightning Imbuement?
With Eve's skillset, Kal'o Kir found it highly unlikely the human possessed a passive skill similar to Impervious. It simply didn't match her style of combat.
And yet the only other explanation was that the human had for some reason invested a significant amount of free points into arcane, but that also didn't make sense. As far as Kal'o Kir could tell, Eve hadn't used any magic at all during the duel. So why would she have invested points into arcane?
Did she invest points in arcane simply to boost her magic defense? But that's crazy!
Physical fighters increased their physical attributes both so they could deal damage and take it. That included the strain their own attacks put upon their bodies. The only people with as much strength as Eve who would increase arcane before endurance were the irrational or stupid. And yet, such an absurd allocation of stats had been Kal'o Kir's undoing.
Desperately, she tried to swing her axe down to catch Eve in the middle of her spin, but Kal'o Kir's injury stopped her from moving correctly, and Eve's axe reached her first.
In one smooth motion Eve's axe came up into Kal'o Kir's armpit and cut straight through flesh and bone, severing the arm entirely.
Kal'o Kir vomited blood as her legs gave out, the immense damage to her innards compromising her body's basic functions. A memory ran through her mind as she kneeled there in numb agony.
She remembered the time she'd seen Kal'o Dar dancing with one of the spirits of the pale moon back home. It had gotten lost underground and the detachment from the moon had reduced its destructive tendencies. At the time she'd thought Kal'o Dar looked ridiculous dancing with something so dangerous. Now she thought there was a kind of beauty to it.
That memory, as well as the neurons that played it back within her mind, were split asunder as Eve's axe was embedded in her skull.