*BOOM*
Under the power of ‘soulfire’, the illusionary world around Nora shattered in million pieces. The shattered pieces fell like rain, changing the surrounding back to what it originally was. The view of the hobgoblin commander became clear to Nora.
The hobgoblin commander was two times the size of an average hobgoblin, with clearly defined muscles that bulged under the thick dark black skin. The skin and muscles were harder and thicker than any human armour. Across his right eye, a long scar traversed through it, showing his experience in combat. Above his head, a red indicator shone bright like a star, informing Nora that he was level 75.
Seeing how easily his illusory world was broken, the hobgoblin commander roared in anger. The roar reverberated through the rocky walled and echoed in the enclosed cavern. His body stood unmoving in its original position and it began emanating a forceful aura.
A cold light, as venomous as a snake, flickered within the his narrowed eyes. In that moment, the area surrounding the commander’s body seemed like it was being enveloped by a silver halo. As the aura was externalised, a faint metallic lustre flickered, getting brighter and brighter by the second.
Pulling his sword out, the commander roared and charged at Nora, his blazing silver aura cracking the frozen surface of the tar lake. Behind him, his elite group of hobgoblins followed like wolves, keep pace with him.
That’s battle armour! I was right to prepare after all. He’s a warrior that knows illusion magic! This will be difficult..
*Tsk*
Nora clicked her tongue and frowned. Nora then commanded her army of undead orcs to charge at them. She needed them to tank the other hobgoblins for her. She wanted the hobgoblins all to herself.
Nora shot the two soulfires at charging commander and summoned her blue hued blade again. Nora ate some souls to regain her lost mana and shot forward to meet the commander in melee combat. Soulfire was an extremely powerful spell that required a soul and a large amount of mana. It wasn’t something Nora could spam without thought. Thus, Nora wanted to waste some of his mana before trying to attack with soul fire again.
Seeing the orb of yellow fire coming towards him, the commander pumped more mana into his battle armour and leaped through them. The two blast created an explosion of yellow fire and made the commander roar in pain. His soul was getting gnawed at by the soul fire. However, he swallowed the pain and continued his charge. Although he took heavy damage, that level of power wasn’t something that could kill him easily. As long as he had mana to fuel his battle armour, he was invincible.
His strength, speed and defense was exponentially increased by his battle armour. Unlike normal warriors who pumped mana through their body to increase their power. He had used an advanced technique to mana into an aura like armour around him. This advanced technique was an extremely difficult skill which only the bests of warriors were capable of using. It was so advanced that even with Nora’s encyclopedia of knowledge, Nora was incapable of using it.
Leaping upwards to meet the commander, Nora angled her blade to deflect the sword. Clashing against the blade, the commander’s sword was expertly guided to the side in a perfect parry that neutralized the leaping momentum from the powerful swing.
Being in a superior position from their clash, Nora started making a few quick attacks towards her target, just to judge his level of skill and strength. She wanted to know the strength and weakness of the commander before making a plan. She knew she wasn’t going to beat him just by pure skill or strength alone.
However, to her annoyance, her enemy was more than capable countering all her small probing attacks. As if predicting her thoughts, he only used just enough strength to deflect them and not a bit more. It was obvious her enemy was an expert.
As she increased the speed, strength and frequency of her attacks, the commander matched her perfectly. Nora couldn’t find a gap in his defense. Not only was he stronger and faster than her, he was more experienced too. The commander had been training and fighting ever since he was born. Tasked with the duty to lead his people, he was like a well oiled machine, never slacking a day in his life. His experience with the sword was insurmountable compared to Nora who had just recently started training with a sword again.
Nora felt as if he was able to see through her attacks and even anticipated them. The only reason she hadn’t been hit by the counters yet was because she knew not to overextend and pulled back from her attacks early enough. Nora knew this was from his experience. While Nora was busy trying to probe him, he too was trying to probe her. He was getting used to her attacks and was even able to predict her attack before she could even launch it.
Using a snowdrop movement technique, Nora jumped up again and swung her sword downwards. The commander jumped back immediately and dodged her attack. His eyes kept roaming, waiting for the perfect moment, until he saw it, a mistake. A cold light flashed within his eye as he saw the weakness of Nora’s position after she swung.
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He swung his sword left towards Nora’s head. Nora immediately tried to parry, but...
It was an illusion! He had actually stabbed his sword from the right.
Panic rose in Nora’s heart as she felt her sword hit air. The illusion disappear and Nora saw that the sword was speeding towards her head like a bullet. Nora instantly dodged by using her superior flexibility and bend her upper body backwards, narrowingly missing the near fatal blow. She could sense the crackling energy along the large blade as it passed just barely above of her stomach. Even with her mana shield and armour, a blow that strong to her head was something she couldn’t handle.
Seeing the quick and expert movements of his enemy, the commander couldn’t help but praise her in his mind. It’s been a long time since i last had a worthy opponent.
After dodging the attack, Nora turned her heel and spun clockwise, aiming her sword at the his leg. Using a 3 circle lightning spell, Nora charged her metallic blade with it, causing the blade to be surrounded by crackling blue energy.
*BOOM*
Explosion of lightning and thunder occurred, creating arcs of lighting to fly out. The force of the explosion decimated the frozen arena below them. The arena frozen arena between them shattered and was lit ablaze by the explosion. Fresh blood sprayed from both of them as both received damaged from the explosion. Nora coughed blood while the commander’s left leg bled slightly from the shallow wound. His battle armour had absorbed most of the damage.
After coughing blood, Nora glared back at the commander who was glaring at her. Due to the explosion that occurred, the frozen arena below them had been separated. They were each on a platform of frozen tar, separated by the burning black pit between them. Thick black smoke rose as the tar burnt, disrupting their vision. However, with mana they could still sense each other.
Facing the commander, Nora lit her hands ablaze as she used soul fire again. Consuming a bunch of souls to regain her lost mana and fuel the spell, Nora shot a barrage of soul fire at the commander. Since he was standing on the platform, she knew he was sitting duck.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
Explosion after explosion rocked the battlefield as all the orcs and hobgoblins fell into the flaming tar pits. The power of her soul fire was so devastating that it affected the whole battlefield. Other than floating platform, the whole lake was burning.
The hobgoblin commanded jumped from platform to platform as he evaded the shots. Sometimes he would use his illusion magic and split in two or three directions to make Nora lose track of him.
As he did that, Nora chased him. She didn’t want to lose him in all the smoke. However, an unexpected event occurred.
*BOOM*
A massive eruption of sound shook the entire cavern, the force from their fight had caused the cavern to collapse. Realising that they could be trapped and buried inside the cavern, Nora and goblin commander looked at each other.
*BOOM*
Another large chunk of the ceiling collapsed and fell into the tar lake. Instantly, both of them jumped, landing on any solid piece of land they could find before continuing. They leaped from platform to platform, sometimes even using the falling stalactites to get closer to the exit.
While they leap around, Nora continuously shot ice spears at him while using her agility and flexibility to keep up. She wanted to slow him down. She knew that if she didn’t, she wasn’t going to live. Even with her agility and flexibility, he was still way faster than her. If it was a race to escape, she knew for certain that he would win. He would reach the exit first and then destroy it, trapping her inside. Thus, Nora knew she had to slow him down at all cost.
*Boom*
Yes!
After shooting ice spears at him for the past minute, Nora finally managed to disrupt his movements. Her shot had destroyed the large falling stalactites that he was going to use, allowing Nora to reach him.
However, after reaching him, Nora did not try to overtake him. Instead, she turned and attacked him. Nora summoned her blade and slashed against the commander. The commander immediately reacted and met her blade with his sword. Her blade of crackling lightning slammed his crackling silver sword.
*Boom*
Another explosion occurred as they slammed into each other. The entire cavern shook again, the explosion had caused a massive shock wave to sweep out in all directions. Even the black smoke which was steadily filling the cavern was blown apart for a few second. If falling into the burning tar pit or getting crushed to death didn’t kill them, the lack of oxygen would.
Nora smashed against the cavern wall. Blood sprayed out of her mouth as she held her grip on the wall, stopping herself from falling. Her heavily enchanted armour and mana shield had taken most of the force of the impact.
As for commander, he had fallen on a tall stalactite poking out burning tar lake and was seriously injured. He had numerous wounds all over his body and his hard chiseled chest had a large wound in it.
However, even though they were both injured and was so close to the exit, they did not fall back. Both of them were like lamps on the verge of flickering out, so injured that one lucky strike might end it for them. They both knew if they run, it would provide an opening to the opponent. Thus they decided to end it there instead.
As they sensed each other through the smoke, the commander gritted his teeth. He noticed that Nora was preparing a very powerful spell through the dark smoke and knew that he had to act instantly. He guessed that by the amount of mana she was outputting, she was most likely trying to use that yellow fire again. Thus, using all his strength, he charged towards her.
From the look in his eyes, he was throwing caution to the wind. The glow of the commander’s aura rose up. The silver aura which was flickering in and out of existence suddenly shined brightly, he was forcing every last drop of his mana to fuel his last strike.
However, just as they were about to meet, the commander face turned into despair. Because he was mistaken, unlike him, she was not going to fight, she was actually trying to run. Nora had long ran out of souls to fuel soul fire.
With a smirk, Nora turned her head towards the commander and spoke “do you really think that i’ll be so battle hungry that i’ll throw caution to the wind and match you with a final strike of my own? HAHAHA, think again!”
“BLAST BURN”
*BOOM*
Then two 5 circle magic circle on the front of her palms shot out a large beam of fire. The force of the blast blasted Nora flying towards the exit while the commander landed at where Nora was. His mana pool empty from using it all at the final strike. Setting his gaze at the flying pink haired girl in front of him, he suddenly felt empty inside. At the last moment, he had been trick! Gazing at the ceiling above, he gave into despair, allowed the falling stalactite to crush him.
As Nora sailed through the air, Nora cannonballed through all the falling stalactites. Her mana shield had long shattered into pieces. Her mana pool was empty and she had ran out of souls again. Thus, with no mana to help absorb the force of all the impacts, Nora just relied on her gear and hoped for the best.
Slamming into the cave walls, Nora screamed in pain. However, she was alive. Abit battered, bruised and bleeding, but none the less alive. Arriving at the entrance of cavern, Nora got up and walked out of the cavern and into the cave, leaving the collapsing cavern behind her.