‘[Human : Shota][Level: 33]

Status:

[HP: 5361/5477]

[MP: 4709/4799]

[SP: 6329/6437]’

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, that sucked. All her numbers were higher than mine, maybe our Stamina and Mana could be compared, but the same couldn’t be said for our Health. The numbers weren’t as scary as Braden’s were, but she had a sword, metallic breastplate and gauntlets, and a metallic helmet. It was just a bad match up. Really, really bad.

I had reach on her, but that might just work against me too if I weren’t careful. If I had learnt anything from my fight with Braden, it was that as long as Mana was involved, getting up close and personal with your opponent was a bad idea. Especially if you didn’t know all their Skills, which was all the time. I don’t think anyone was stupid enough to advertise all their Skills. I would keep the low level ones secret for rainy days.

The fight had yet to be called, but we had taken our positions. She was taller than I was, but not by much, only enough for it to be clear. She was tan skinned with dark brown hair, at least I thought it was that before she covered it up with her helmet. Other than the shiny metallic parts, her clothes were mainly grey.

We were staring at each other leisurely, as if we were not about to fight each in a bid to decide who gets to settle for five golds, and who moves on to fight for more. I wanted more, but first, I had to get through her.

“Ready!?”

There it was again, the question not-question. They really needed to settle on what exactly it was supposed to be. I stared at my opponent, all leisure gone, we were within seconds of starting to maul each other to death. The sword and the armor, against my stick and clothes. Oh! How I loved Mana.

“FIGHT!!!”

[Fast Dash] and I was on her, already with a hit to the head. Damn helmet, that would have left her rattled for a few seconds, enough for me to try and half her Health. As it was, it did nothing more than irritate her, and she responded in kind, slapping and dodging my strikes. She knew her basics, but would they hold up for the rest of the fight. Time would tell.

I could keep a staff going for at least ten minutes without getting past my half mark of Stamina. And I only did so to relieve my muscles of the lactic acid build up and regain my proficiency. Of course, that meant I wasn’t attacking at maximum force, but if she let her guard down, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I needed to gauge just how much her armor affected her endurance, that would help me plan for the fight more appropriately. And so ten minutes it was, and I kept the staff on attack, not giving her breathing room, or allowing any chance of retaliation. At the same time, I tried my best to keep my movements to the minimum, only back and forths, as she gave ground and tried to take it back.

Six minutes of us going around the arena and she hadn’t landed a blow on me, and the few that landed on her were nothing more than armor glazes, mostly her trying to move in on me by feints. She hadn’t tried to escape either. I assumed it was highly likely that she had no speed Skill of her own, or she was keeping it in check for an opportunity to present itself.

We kept the dance going as the seconds stretched on and became minutes. She didn’t show any signs of slowing down. She parried, moving in to slash at my shoulder, but I turned with the parried staff, keeping the distance between us the same. I struck at her exposed side, forcing her to move back as I advanced on her. A thrust, swirl and she dodged and slapped them away with ease.

As the eight-minute mark passed, Clare alerted me that I was a minute away from half way. That was a surprise, had I pushed too much? Or had she made me dance more than I had wanted to? That would be even worse if it were the case. As the second alert went off, I pushed at her with a series of close swirls forcing her on the back foot before I used [Fast Dash] to dash past her and create distance between us.

‘[Human : Shota][Level: 33]

Status:

[HP: 4904/5477]

[MP: 4025/4799]

[SP: 2732/6437]’

I frowned a little as I studied her [Status], her Stamina was right where I wanted it to be. The Health was understandable, very few strikes, or thrusts, had met anything other than metal. But her Mana… I couldn’t recall her using Mana for anything, anything at all. If I had missed that, I could have missed something else too.

Keeping that in mind, I decided it was time to see whether she bled red.

Looking at her, she looked as good as new. Me on the other hand, I could feel sweat streaking down my back and sides, in fact, everywhere that was covered in clothes. And my face too, I hadn’t noticed that during our engagement. She wasn’t close enough for me to see, but even if she had been, I was sure the helmet would have hidden any signs of sweating from view.

I slowly began making my way towards her, the arena silent as far as I could tell. Come to think of it, other than the announcer, I had heard nothing during the previous fight too. Did they have enchantments that kept the sound out? That would be highly welcome for me, all that cheering and jeering would unnerve me.

When I got close enough, I sent two [Fire Ball]s with a [Wind Gust] in between them. I closed in on her as I saw a bluish white shield pop up in front of her, a circular thing filled with two circles, nearly her height in diameter. The outer circle had four protrusions ending in arrow ends, top, bottom, left and right. In between those were two other protrusions for each quarter, shorter than the four main ones and with no arrow heads. In between the circles were a lot of intricate designs that looked foreign to me. It was so different from my own uniform translucent shield that I nearly forgot about my initiative.

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I delivered a strike at it, and my staff bounced off, same as my [Fire Ball]s and [Wind Gust] had washed over it. I struck again, but with [Staff Strike]. And it cracked. She dissolved it and dodged the follow up attack. And I pursued.

Whatever that was, I couldn’t let her recreate it again. And I needed to learn it. At least she couldn’t do anything else while she had it on, I hoped. But with how good it was against both Mana and physical attacks, it could be used to get a reprieve, or even take a potion. Had she taken a potion? I should have paid more attention to her and not the shield.

We went back to the old dance, but things were different, I was striking to hurt. Every strike was a [Staff Strike]. But she also got herself a few hits in, mostly slashes to the legs that were momentarily unprotected when I overstriked. But for every slash she landed, she came out with a strike to the back or head.

As she stumbled forward from a back strike, I used [Hurtling Projectile]. But she somehow saw it coming, bringing into existence that shield again. My projectile broke up on impact and she took a few steps back. I threw another at the shield and it was left full of cracks as my projectile crumpled, the third one went straight for her chest, carrying her several meters before she dropped to the ground.

I took that time to down a much needed Health potion, but came up with a Stamina potion instead of the Mana one I needed. As I was about to return it, I felt more than saw the strike coming. I raised my staff on instinct, moving my right hand back to it for more leverage.

I lost the Stamina potion then, but successfully parried her strike, it would have dug into my neck had it landed. My potion wasn’t as lucky, meeting its fate at the heel of her boot. I quickly thrust forward before she could retreat, hitting her square in the mouth area. Her helmet went flying off and I hoped the thrust had knocked a few teeth out for what she had been about to do to me. In the haze, I quickly followed with successive hits to the head.

Her wild sword swings forced me to step back as a few of them made contact. I kept one hand on the staff, swinging it at her as I retrieved the Mana potion I had been after. I was down to one of each with a very low Stamina, while she was high on her numbers with at least one of each. So not fair.

By the time I was done, she was back to her senses. I thrust forward, then turned it into a strike as she ducked under, but she side-stepped to the side, moving in at a perceived opening with my staff down. But she got a strike to the side for her troubles. She shook it off, parrying and attacking consecutively. It was all I could do to step away from her slash. We engaged for close to a minute, thrust, strike, dodge, parry, slash, step, repeat. Sometimes the sequence went backwards, others it began in the middle, but one thing was common in all of them; she was moving faster than before, and in my efforts to conserve my Stamina, my staff had become a rotating clock arm. Round and round we went. She was showing a level of skill she hadn’t displayed before, and my efforts to keep her at bay were slowly but surely being thawed away. Soon, she would make it through, and it would be game over. I couldn’t stay still anymore. I made a lunge and another, and as she tried to dodge away from those, I [Fast Dash]ed away from her.

In a feat I hadn’t been able to do before, I had the Stamina potion out before [Fast Dash] ended. It wasn’t the kind of control I had wanted but it was a step in the right direction. But before I could even open the potion, she was already on me, with her sword going for the precious Stamina potion. If I lost that, I was done for, unless I could somehow manage to steal hers. Was that even allowed? If she took mine away from me, we would find out.

I raised my staff one-handed, a poor way to use it, and tried my best to do something akin to [Fast Dash], but for the strength. It didn’t work, but I managed to redirect the attack, landing to my thigh. I used my one arm to thrust the staff forward as the slash to the thigh began to hurt, but the metal breastplate dulled the attack with a jarring vibrating back through my arm. I think I came out the worse for it. I struck upward, still trying to enhance the hand with Mana, and getting nothing in return. I connected with the upper arm of her sword hand, forcing her back a step. But she still kept attacking, going for the bothersome left arm, which was too overstretched to do anything for itself, especially with the full weight of the staff on it. I had a choice to make, arm or Stamina.

What kind of choice was that? I chose both. Of course, I chose both. It was time for that Mana to obey my will. Muscles, I needed power, I needed strength. The strength to pull back before I got dismembered. And while the left side of my body was trying to safe its prime appendage, the right was already bringing the potion to my mouth.

I felt the click the moment the potion touched my tongue, and as I swallowed, my left arm tried its best to pull back with renewed strength. But it was too little, too late. I began my counter then.

As her sword began slicing through my forearm, the ground beneath her leading foot opened up slightly. I didn’t have enough Mana in me for extravagance, and I needed everything for the final attack. So, only the front of her boot went in as the earth closed up again, and a meter away, a chunk of earth dislodged, hurtling towards the knee of the captured leg. I released it when I began to hear the crunch, whether from my own bones or hers, I couldn’t tell.

My staff dropped to the ground as I lost feeling in my left hand. She hadn’t managed to slice it off, but there was blood sputtering from the wound. Artery. She had gotten a main artery. I quickly took out my remaining Health and Mana potions and drank them before things went too far. My little trick had left me dry of Mana. Working with earth was a bitch, but the results were satisfying.

Even after using her remaining Health potion, she couldn’t put all her weight on the leg, at least not for a few more seconds. And I wasn’t giving her that.

I picked up my staff as I activated [Fast Dash]. She anticipated my arrival attack as I met her sword in defense for the healing knee. I felt a throb in my left forearm, but I could work through that. I was back to near full, and I didn’t know what potions she had taken during that reprieve, if it could be called that.

I pushed hard nonetheless. Strike, [Fire Ball], [Wind Gust], [Staff Strike], anything really, when I felt the opportunity arise. I knew the longer I stayed without connecting with the knee, the harder it would be to finish the fight in my favor. I needed everything, I used the [Enhanced Hand] that I nearly saved the hand with, and I saw the sword give. And went again, adding [Staff Strike] to the attack, and watched my already dropping Mana drop faster; I was using too much. But the attack connected, and the hand couldn’t keep the sword on it. I knew what was coming next even before it materialized.

And the consecutive [Hurtling Projectile]s created cracks in it, and I was out of Mana. The staff finished the shield and came back for the knee. Finally unprotected, it crunched with ease. And as she stumbled in place, I quickly delivered three strikes as powerfully as I could with my meager Strength. I really needed to start working on that. But it proved enough, I saw her eyes roll back as she dropped to the ground.

I brought my staff to the ground with a stomp and used it to keep myself upright. Somehow, I hadn’t fully recovered my Health, and that last engagement had eaten away all my Mana and around two-thirds of my Stamina. Just how long had she held out? Minutes? I had thought it shorter than that.

I looked around the arena, and was surprised not to see it as rugged as I had expected. What with all the projectiles I had thrown around. I tried counting in my head the number, and it somehow didn’t make it to ten.

Then the healers came, and they were talking and gesturing, and I heard nothing of it. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything other than the constant humming that became more obvious the more I focused on it. I brought my left hand to my left ear to clear it up, but I found it wet. Bringing the hand to my face, I was shocked by the blood on it. I looked down at Shota’s prone body as the healers attended to her, and one thought came to mind, she had used Skills I didn’t even notice.

When I tried to take a step back, the world around me swirled, turning white, before going black.