His opponent raised his staff and brought it down on the ground, creating a localized earthquake that caused Okita to lose his balance slightly. Unfortunately, the mage was not fast enough to make it to him in time to capitalize on the distraction, and instead he was caught in an awkward position of being in motion while fighting against a far faster opponent.

With a look of alarm on his face, he snapped his fingers, summoning a blue energy shield around himself before Okita reached him. With a sharp sounding shout, the man cut down with his katana, moving the tip at speeds that were invisible to the naked eye. It was that tip that struck the shield, eliciting a loud crack from the substance that stilled the cheering of the crowd.

Merlin smiled, slamming his staff down again. With a low whir, something burst out of the ground next to Okita. It looked like a segmented worm made out of molten rock, and it lunged for the swordsman with a high pitched screech. The man leaped back and blocked the strike with his blade, angling it so that the brittle metal of his highly sharpened weapon did not break. The worm was redirected off to the side, and it tried to coil around in the air, but failed to reach Okita as he tucked into a graceful forward roll.

Closing the distance between himself and Merlin rapidly, the man drew back his sword and thrust it forwards. A small bead of light came out of the tip and struck the shield, starting to rotate as it did so. Growing faster and faster, the attack began to hum as it drilled a hole in the shield. Okita gritted his teeth as he pushed forwards into the air with his weapon, seeming to have to maintain the position for the attack.

The worm came in from the side, knocking him out of position and disrupting the attack. With a bead of sweat running down his face, Merlin dabbed at a small rivulet of blood that trickled down from his forehead. The attack had started to go through the material, and had even reached his head.

Now that Okita was on the ground, the worm started to show its worth. It latched onto the swordsman with its serrated teeth and started to bite down. If not for the intense heat coursing off the creature, Okita would have been bleeding out on the sand. As it was, he was covered in burns instead.

Leaning in to see the battle more clearly, Sam was starting to get excited about this. The fight was rapidly becoming one of high stakes, something that really got the blood pumping. He hoped that Okita won, of course, but the fighting style of the earth mage was quite enjoyable to watch. Neither of them were that strong, but they fought with a skill that showed how often they had practised with their respective styles of fighting. Sam briefly checked the leaderboards, to see where they were on them. Both of them were in the high fifties, with Okita at 57 and Merlin at 56. Because of this, they were very well matched.

Okita roared and started to pulse with a red light that seemed to be made both out of his mana and his blood. Okita stumbled a little as he rose, and Sam saw that his eyes had turned blood red as well. It was some sort of berserker skill, one that took health away from Okita for using it. Sam was intimately familiar with something like that, as he had one just like it. It seemed like the Japanese man was more in control of himself however, and he moved forwards in a calculating manner that belied his feral appearance. Despite the obvious anger and bloodlust that the transformation instilled in him, Okita was able to rein it in.

Kicking off the ground with one foot, he moved at speeds of over a hundred miles per hour for about a second, bringing him much closer to his opponent. Merlin squealed and cracked his staff into the ground, creating a wall of stone that rose up in front of him. As Okita’s sword point struck it, all of the red energy that surrounded him was sucked into the tip, creating a bloody drill of energy on the end of the blade. It seemed that the man specialized in armor penetration over all else, and it showed now as the drill blasted through the wall, and into Merlin’s flesh. The mage toppled over, but everyone except for Okita could see that he was not out of the fight yet.

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A moment before impact, he had created a crude stone golem that vaguely looked like him, something that you wouldn't think was human, even in the dark. However, Okita could only hear what was happening on the other side of the wall, and not see it, meaning that he believed the battle to be over. A moment later, the wall toppled over and towards Okita. He lazily slashed up with his sword, bisecting the rapidly crumbling earthen bulwark, gasping as he saw that Merlin was alive. Opening his mouth to speak, his voice came out of the speaker in front of Sam. They seemed to have fixed the sound issues in the time spent, uh, redecorating the universe.

“But how? You died. I heard your body hit the ground!”

Merlin laughed and pointed to the decaying golem on the ground. Speaking in an obviously contrived deep voice, he answered.

“Appearances can be deceiving, my young hobbit. You assumed that I was dead, when in reality there was no way to be sure.”

Sam laughed. The man had definitely mixed up his wizards there. He had likely been some sort of roleplayer before the System came, and had decided to fully embrace his hobby now that he had a chance to be a real wizard. Sam watched as the man thrust his staff forwards, summoning a spear of earth that sped forwards with the sound of an avalanche that had somehow been tacked on to it. Not quite understanding how the man had achieved such an effect, Sam looked closer, realizing that it was just a petty trick. He could feel the vibrations of earth and rock moving far below, which was creating the noise. Merlin really was going for the special effects.

The rocky spear reached Okita in an instant, starting to fracture into multiple smaller shards as it traveled. By the time that it was about to strike Okita, it had turned into hundreds of little pieces of rock. Rather than trying to dodge, Okita stood his ground and Sam watched as a faint mist started to drift into his blade. Sam strained his eyes and more paranormal senses that he had gained, trying to see what was going on. The scene sharpened into focus, and he saw a pure white energy fill the blade. A System notification chimed, but he ignored it, too intent on watching the fight. Okita took a deep breath and then bellowed the name of his technique.

“Samurai’s Defence!” Sam could faintly hear that the original language was not English, and the actual words were “Bushi no Mori!”. If he had not been paying attention, that would have escaped him. Yet another oddity of the translation feature, it seemed.

The man’s hands started to blur with speed, and what looked to be a heat haze started to build around him. With a series of swift, efficient movements, his sword flashed out into a devastating sequence of attacks that cut through the stone shards like a hot knife through butter. The attack was so powerful that it actually blew a couple of the shards back at Merlin, causing the man to duck for cover.

Okita stood there, panting for a moment, before rushing forwards. His body was starting to give up on him, and he was severely flagging, but the look of steely determination in his eyes signaled that he would not give up until either he was incapacitated, or dead. With another shout, he thrust his sword forwards multiple times in a single second, quite a feat with such a long blade. The small drills of energy started to form and then coalesced into a much larger drill that locked onto Merlin, Seeing that the drill followed his every move, the mage paled and started to weave a complex spell in his hands. Firstly, a blue mana shield formed. Then a wall of stone rose up, and wrapped around the man with a soft whisper of stone on hardened mana. Finally, he shot up into the air on a pillar of rock. The drill followed him unerringly the entire time, and by the time it had reached him, the man had had enough.

“I yield!” Merlin screamed, causing Okita to abort his attack. The mage was clearly not a fan of pain, and would rather give up than suffer any more than he had already dealt with. Okita bowed low and withdrew, giving Sam a tense smile. Then he fell over backwards with a thud, throwing up a cloud of dust from where he fell