Maria and Hecate continued throwing insults at each other until they were both out of breath. Maria didn’t know why, but she felt that she would never get along with this woman. Just looking at her bipolar appearance made her angry and the way she switched between personalities was extremely vexing.
She wanted to punch Hecate right in the face, but Maria didn’t want to be the first one to lose her cool and throw the first punch, since it would mean that she had lost their argument because she couldn’t control herself, so she refrained from doing that and continued to verbally abuse Hecate, not wanting to lose.
Hecate thought the same thing as Maria, so in the end, they continued fighting each other with words until they exhausted one another. This wasn't even a battle with swords and fists yet, but it looked like they had just finished a grueling battle with the other.
“Y-You… crazy lunatic!”
“Yeah? Well…you’re a brain-dead empress!”
“Shut up!”
“No, you shut up!”
"Nobody calls me brain-dead!"
"And nobody calls me a lunatic! I hate that word!!!"
They had both reached their limits so they snapped right at the same time. Maria raised her fist and Hecate did so as well and the two of them socked each other right in the face at the same time.
“Ow!”
“Agh!”
They both held their noses but, in the next instant, Maria summoned Cali and transformed her into her first weapon form before brandishing her ax at Hecate. Hecate did something similar. She unsheathed her weapon and swung it at Maria’s face angrily. Their weapons clashed and the two of them were each knocked back a few steps.
“No more words…this time I’m going to teach you a lesson,” Maria growled.
“You? Teach me? It’ll be the other way around, sister!” Hecate growled back at her before lunging forward with her weapon in hand, a pair of swords that respectively had a night-black blade and pearl-white blade.
Previously, Hecate hadn’t used a weapon when fighting against Maria and only used her fist along with her glowing orbs of light that floated around her. Maria didn’t see the orbs this time around and wondered where they were as she repelled Hecate’s attack before delivering an attack of her own.
“Hmph, so you’re fighting differently now, huh?” Maria asked with a sneer.
Hecate only growled at her before saying, “I was only going easy on you before, but not anymore!”
“Going easy? Well, wasn’t that convenient for me then? I was able to steal and learn one of your techniques and, let me tell you, it’s been a great help!”
“Ugh!”
Maria changed Cali into her second weapon form, the Death Scythe, and ignited the blade with a red aura before cleaving it down on Hecate’s head. Hecate blocked it with her two longswords, which she quickly covered with a black aura before jumping to the side after seeing an energy blade being ejected from the blade of her opponent's scythe.
“Tch!”
“Feeling a little regretful? Here, let me show you how to properly use aura!”
Maria and Hecate exchanged numerous blows with each other with the latter receiving a few light injuries thanks to some of the former's ingenious ways of utilizing her aura, which caught her off guard.
“Whatever you can do, I can do better!” Hecate roared before she began a fierce counterattack of her own. Just like Maria had done before, Hecate was now copying her aura utilization and was using it against her.
Previously, Maria’s [Aura Mastery] level had been below Hecate’s, so she had been pushed back in their first battle. It was different this time, however, because from what Hecate could see, Maria had leveled up her [Aura Mastery]’s skill rank and level to be on par with hers.
Now, she no longer had an advantage in terms of aura, but instead of growing worried, her smile bloomed even brighter as her heart was growing more and more excited as she and Maria continued to exchange blows. Even though Maria had vastly improved since their last meeting, Hecate was able to stay on par with her throughout their exchange.
Maria was tempted to start blasting her with magic spells, which had now become the strongest asset in her repertoire, but she didn’t want to use them unless Hecate began using her own magic spells. This was entirely out of vanity, because Maria wanted to break her opponent and crush her spirit along with the smile that was on her face by using only what she considered to be her opponent’s forte, melee combat and martial arts.
If she could beat Hecate at her own game, Maria believed that that form of victory would be the absolute best. The thought of it actually made her ecstatic and even more excited than before which increased her fervor in battle. Her attacks, although not increasing in speed or power, began to flow seamlessly and this caused Hecate to be pushed back because it started to become incredibly difficult to deal with Maria's chain of attacks.
In response to Maria's increased fervor, Hecate abandoned all thoughts of defending and began matching Maria's attacks, blow for blow, and completely going on the offensive. Since the two were more or less on the same level in terms of techniques and experience in close-combat, their attacks started cancelling each other out and their HP bars started decreasing only because the system registered their matching attacks as parries and in the game, parrying an opponent's attack still resulted in a slight decrease in HP though this decrease didn't matter to the two of them because their battle regeneration would just fill their HP bars back up to full.
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The two were basically caught in a stalemate, but neither of them backed down or tried to do anything about it because they had zoned out and were just focused on the moment, determined to break their rival's flow of attack first.
Alexa, Raiju, and Zhuge Lan had to quickly evacuate from the area after the two began attacking each other all of a sudden. This was now a proper fight instead of the previous childish exchange of insults and hurtful words.
Alexa and Raiju had tagged along with Maria intending to fight and have fun, but they no longer wanted to do that. They just wanted to spectate the battle that was happening in front of their eyes because it was the first time they had seen their master battling with so much passion and determination. When they went monster hunting or territory conquering, Maria never displayed the amount of passion and determination to win as she did in this fight.
The two were mesmerized by Maria’s will and they didn’t want to take their eyes off of it. The same was for Zhuge Lan. Even though he should be wary of Alexa and Raiju since they were technically his enemies, he didn’t keep a close eye on them and instead stood next to them to watch the battle that was unfolding between his master and their master.
“...Magnificent…”
“I’ve never seen Master so passionate about a fight…she truly wants to win.”
“Big sis…”
Alexa and Raiju turned to look at Zhuge Lan at the same time he looked over at them. Zhuge Lan cleared his throat before saying, “I won’t do anything as long as you two don’t do anything. I’d like this battle to be clean and fair.”
“...We have the same sentiments as well,” Raiju replied.
“Alright, then we’re all in agreement that none of us will interfere, regardless of how this battle ends, yes?”
“Mhm.”
“Great!”
Zhuge Lan began pulling out chairs and a small table before setting them down on the ground and inviting Alexa and Raiju to sit down.
“Please, have a seat,” he offered.
Raiju looked at him skeptically before shrugging and pulling Alexa along with her to take a seat in one of the chairs. She then turned to look somewhere behind them and said, “...What about your friend hiding over there?”
Zhuge Lan looked back before sighing, “Damascus, you can stop hiding. Come sit with us and let’s watch this fight together.”
From behind a tree, a person wearing ninja-like attire appeared and he began walking over to the group. Once he arrived, he silently eyed Alexa and Raiju before giving them a nod and sitting down on a chair Zhuge Lan had just pulled out from his inventory.
Without saying anything, the ninja quietly began to intently watch the battle. Zhuge Lan gave Alexa and Raiju an apologetic smile before saying, “Please forgive my friend. He doesn’t mean to be rude or anything, but he swore a pledge of silence so he can’t and won’t talk.”
“A pledge of silence?” Alexa asked.
“He swore that he wouldn’t talk until he finally landed a clean, life-threatening blow on our Master.”
Alexa scratched her head in confusion because she didn’t quite understand why someone would make such a pledge. She didn’t try to understand it any further because the minds of the players were a complete mystery to her. She instead turned her attention back to Maria and Hecate’s battle which was now happening all over the place. They sometimes flew into the air, exchanged blows on the ground, and even flew into the crater that Maria had created earlier and fought inside there.
Maria and Hecate were both eager to defeat and kill the other, so their battle was extremely intense as they didn’t pull their punches. The blows they exchanged were incredibly fast and powerful, causing powerful shock waves to spread across the battlefield as the sounds of their weapons clashing echoed throughout the area.
Hecate’s eyes had begun to shine red at some point as her body bulked up a little bit and she began to move faster and strike harder, making it a little bit difficult for Maria to keep up, so she backed off and transformed into her Nephalem battleform before rushing back at Hecate to continue exchanging blows with her. Maria was annoyed because, instead of being worried, Hecate laughed and laughed as they continued their battle.
“Hahahahahaha! Fun! Fun!! Fun!!! This is so much fun!!!”
“Tsk, just fall already!”
“You’re going to have to try harder if you want to kill me, my beautiful Maria~”
Maria felt chills run up her spine as goosebumps creeped onto her skin when she heard Hecate’s words, so she immediately yelled, “Ack! Shut up, you lunatic!”
“Hahahahaha! Ahhhhahahahaha!”