Sofia didn’t quite understand how, but she knew Pareth wanted her to throw the bolts right then and there. And so she did. The bolts hit Mornn. The explosion was bright but weak. Pareth teleported to Sofia. Standing right before her, his weapon had become a giant pair of shears. He tried to snip the Sun Saintess in half at the waist.
Once again, the momentum of his weapon was stopped by a wave of mana, but this time, he prevented Mornn from moving by blocking the ways out of the shear’s grasp with his four [Flying shields of light]. Mornn easily broke through the one blocking her way up, but she was too slow to escape the sudden closing of the shears and lost both her legs to the brute force clamp of the dull shears.
She hadn’t as much as twitched when losing her arms in the fight against Alith, but she couldn’t repress a pained scream this time. She lost control of her flight, and Pareth caught her with his huge hand. He crushed her under his grasp.
That looks painful…
Sofia and Mornn reappeared among the spectators.
This was the most silent the spectator platform had been until now, though Alith was nodding as if she had expected that result, which she probably did. After all, she was the one person who had the most experience fighting Pareth. She knew precisely how scary he was. It was not by luck that she bested Mornn in a blade fight. She had been exchanging blows with Pareth and Zerei the whole time when Sofia trained her skills.
“I should have kept the Solar realm for this fight…” The elf mumbled to herself, “Giant teleporting paladin skeleton…”
Sen looked over the participants, “Three more fights today. We’ll go back to back a bit faster now. The first match will be Miss Alith against Sir Vank, followed by Miss St- Mornn against Miss Glacier, and finally Miss Alith against Miss Sofia. After that, you will all be healed one last time for this trial, and we will move on to the most exciting part!”
Alith and Sir Vank the Knight disappeared.
I wonder how this one will go. You would think that since Alith won against the elf and the elf won against the Knight, Alith would be ahead. But so much is dependent on the chosen skills. And the Knight is no pushover, either. If she still had [AvoiDance], I wouldn’t worry for her, but… Let’s see.
The fight was one-sided. Alith’s chosen skill was [Utterly unimpressed]; she had used it to bait attacks, negating their blow and counterattacking. That wasn’t enough to beat the Knight whose skills were better suited for the situation. His active skill was a stomp that created a violent quake around him that he could use every other second, and his passive skill seemed to give him more strength. It only took two good war-hammer hits to blast through Dopple’s protection. A quake destabilized Alith and caused her to take one too many hammer strikes, sending her flying to the ground.
Yeah, not that surprising. That guy could hold his ground against the Sun Saintess too. If it wasn’t for the skills, he has to be the best at using weapons out of all five of us. He could probably beat or at least match Pareth if he was still in the standard Ogre form.
Next was the Sun against Moon duel. It was… weird. It was a mirror match.
Both had taken their respective god’s blessing, Sofia guessed. From how the fight was going and as Sofia knew, Astelia had a massively inflated health pool. Mornn seemed to have something equivalent, maybe for stamina?
Meanwhile, they both used an active skill to control multiple swords telekinetically. So, it was a duel of many flying swords, trying to reach each other and blocking. Mornn was also holding two swords in her hands, chasing after Astelia, whose strategy was to hit and run. She’s not confident in close combat.
However, the battle suddenly ended when Mornn summoned a gigantic sword that took Astelia by surprise and smashed her into the arena wall. For once, she got a taste of her own medicine.
“...”
What in the world was that sword?
It’s like… Larger than Pareth’s largest sword.
Who would ever wield that, a giant!?
Sofia couldn’t spend more time being bewildered at the weapon as she had been sent to the preparation room for the last time.
Facing off against Alith… I need [Blessing of the Deep] no matter what because if not, I instantly lose to [Maiden’s shriek]. She can use her ghost form against me, which is quite a problem. I’ll need to use Bookie’s summons for this one. It’s leveled up a lot since I got it, so it has more mist now… No sunlight here though.
Actually, never mind, she knows about the blessing and probably expects me to pick it, so…
[The skills : ‘Spine of the Black Sun’ and ‘Armor of Bones’ have been selected]
[Every other class skill has been temporarily disabled]
Just in case, I won’t let her know that I picked the armor until she reaches me.
As the number appeared on the door, it was Sofia’s cue to rip two pages off the book, the three Templars and the Twenty-five Paladins.
The place is getting crowded.
Sofia and her small army appeared on one side and Alith on the other.
Two Templars and five Paladins will stay with me as protection, everyone else on the offensive, magical attacks only.
Alith rushed straight for Sofia. The attack skeletons were useless, Alith was surrounded, but she still managed to avoid every attack coming her way. She picked [Split focus]!
Only the Templar managed to hit her once as she dashed past him.
She reached Sofia’s personnel close guard and managed to evade the first whip Spine hit but got touched by one of the Paladins and one of the Templars again. Dopple’s ethereal armor held, and Alith was unhurt.
Alith was changing to her ghost form as she dodged. Once fully inside the spiritual plane, she casually flew through the Templar skeletons to reach Sofia. She took a frontal hit of the spine whip, but the explosion had little effect on her.
Sofia was no longer expecting the shriek, if Alith had it, she would have already used it, but she didn’t. She’s going to use that one skill she kept secret from me until now?
Alith became corporeal again. Her kama was rushing for Sofia’s head. The whip changed to a sword, and Sofia got in position to block. It was best that she didn’t move back; the Templars were turning around to strike.
Alith’s Kamas hit the spine sword, and the Templars’ swords loomed above her back. Alith released her blocked weapons and threw herself to Sofia. She was too close. Sofia couldn’t avoid her and could only activate her bone armor which had been ready to activate for a while.
Alith slapped Sofia across the cheek. Her hand harmlessly impacted the bone armor’s helmet.
The weird attack confused Sofia, problematic, but the magic behind it was even more shocking. Like a hidden snake, a malignant mana pulse had escaped Alith’s hand and infiltrated Sofia’s head.
The bone armor was deactivated. The Spine disappeared. The skeletons exploded into a mist of free mana and fog.
Before the dagger Alith had summoned out of her storage reached Sofia’s neck, Sofia saw Alith wink at her and flash her a system window.
Sofia internally sighed as [Fast reading] allowed her to read the whole thing as the dagger cut her throat.
[Slap of absolute shame] : To be slapped across the face by a fair maiden, what an absolute shame! Slap someone across the face in the 199 (1*Skill Level) seconds following the activation of this skill to disrupt channeling and dispel all magic they are currently using, preventing their reactivation for five seconds. Prevents the target from moving for one second. Deals damage proportional to your anger and disdain toward the target. Costs 5000 mana. Requires a five seconds channeling to activate. A hit target cannot be hit again with this skill for a duration of approximately (target level*target level*0.04) seconds.
Sofia had one last thought as her consciousness faded. At least it dealt zero damage…
Before she was entirely gone, she was teleported to the spectator platform, and her mind cleared up.
“Well done, everyone, that was a great show around the board! Magnificent performance! Now, follow me to the scoreboard. Let’s see where you rank!”
No teleportation?
Sen walked away on a continuation of the invisible spectating platform that no one had realized existed. Should I put on a rune now while I have time? Hmm… Maybe not. Let’s see how this goes.
The group finally started to comment openly about the duels. Surprisingly everyone was satisfied with their results; even the old Knight who had won a single match thought he did well. It is about showing off our talent, after all, not about winning. With two wins and a draw, I technically performed the best on par with Astelia, though we could argue that I had the advantage in our fight.
The Sun Elf and Alith won twice, and the Knight won once.
Let’s see what this gets us for the third phase.
Sofia didn’t quite understand how, but she knew Pareth wanted her to throw the bolts right then and there. And so she did. The bolts hit Mornn. The explosion was bright but weak. Pareth teleported to Sofia. Standing right before her, his weapon had become a giant pair of shears. He tried to snip the Sun Saintess in half at the waist.
Once again, the momentum of his weapon was stopped by a wave of mana, but this time, he prevented Mornn from moving by blocking the ways out of the shear’s grasp with his four [Flying shields of light]. Mornn easily broke through the one blocking her way up, but she was too slow to escape the sudden closing of the shears and lost both her legs to the brute force clamp of the dull shears.
She hadn’t as much as twitched when losing her arms in the fight against Alith, but she couldn’t repress a pained scream this time. She lost control of her flight, and Pareth caught her with his huge hand. He crushed her under his grasp.
That looks painful…
Sofia and Mornn reappeared among the spectators.
This was the most silent the spectator platform had been until now, though Alith was nodding as if she had expected that result, which she probably did. After all, she was the one person who had the most experience fighting Pareth. She knew precisely how scary he was. It was not by luck that she bested Mornn in a blade fight. She had been exchanging blows with Pareth and Zerei the whole time when Sofia trained her skills.
“I should have kept the Solar realm for this fight…” The elf mumbled to herself, “Giant teleporting paladin skeleton…”
Sen looked over the participants, “Three more fights today. We’ll go back to back a bit faster now. The first match will be Miss Alith against Sir Vank, followed by Miss St- Mornn against Miss Glacier, and finally Miss Alith against Miss Sofia. After that, you will all be healed one last time for this trial, and we will move on to the most exciting part!”
Alith and Sir Vank the Knight disappeared.
I wonder how this one will go. You would think that since Alith won against the elf and the elf won against the Knight, Alith would be ahead. But so much is dependent on the chosen skills. And the Knight is no pushover, either. If she still had [AvoiDance], I wouldn’t worry for her, but… Let’s see.
The fight was one-sided. Alith’s chosen skill was [Utterly unimpressed]; she had used it to bait attacks, negating their blow and counterattacking. That wasn’t enough to beat the Knight whose skills were better suited for the situation. His active skill was a stomp that created a violent quake around him that he could use every other second, and his passive skill seemed to give him more strength. It only took two good war-hammer hits to blast through Dopple’s protection. A quake destabilized Alith and caused her to take one too many hammer strikes, sending her flying to the ground.
Yeah, not that surprising. That guy could hold his ground against the Sun Saintess too. If it wasn’t for the skills, he has to be the best at using weapons out of all five of us. He could probably beat or at least match Pareth if he was still in the standard Ogre form.
Next was the Sun against Moon duel. It was… weird. It was a mirror match.
Both had taken their respective god’s blessing, Sofia guessed. From how the fight was going and as Sofia knew, Astelia had a massively inflated health pool. Mornn seemed to have something equivalent, maybe for stamina?
Meanwhile, they both used an active skill to control multiple swords telekinetically. So, it was a duel of many flying swords, trying to reach each other and blocking. Mornn was also holding two swords in her hands, chasing after Astelia, whose strategy was to hit and run. She’s not confident in close combat.
However, the battle suddenly ended when Mornn summoned a gigantic sword that took Astelia by surprise and smashed her into the arena wall. For once, she got a taste of her own medicine.
“...”
What in the world was that sword?
It’s like… Larger than Pareth’s largest sword.
Who would ever wield that, a giant!?
Sofia couldn’t spend more time being bewildered at the weapon as she had been sent to the preparation room for the last time.
Facing off against Alith… I need [Blessing of the Deep] no matter what because if not, I instantly lose to [Maiden’s shriek]. She can use her ghost form against me, which is quite a problem. I’ll need to use Bookie’s summons for this one. It’s leveled up a lot since I got it, so it has more mist now… No sunlight here though.
Actually, never mind, she knows about the blessing and probably expects me to pick it, so…
[The skills : ‘Spine of the Black Sun’ and ‘Armor of Bones’ have been selected]
[Every other class skill has been temporarily disabled]
Just in case, I won’t let her know that I picked the armor until she reaches me.
As the number appeared on the door, it was Sofia’s cue to rip two pages off the book, the three Templars and the Twenty-five Paladins.
The place is getting crowded.
Sofia and her small army appeared on one side and Alith on the other.
Two Templars and five Paladins will stay with me as protection, everyone else on the offensive, magical attacks only.
Alith rushed straight for Sofia. The attack skeletons were useless, Alith was surrounded, but she still managed to avoid every attack coming her way. She picked [Split focus]!
Only the Templar managed to hit her once as she dashed past him.
She reached Sofia’s personnel close guard and managed to evade the first whip Spine hit but got touched by one of the Paladins and one of the Templars again. Dopple’s ethereal armor held, and Alith was unhurt.
Alith was changing to her ghost form as she dodged. Once fully inside the spiritual plane, she casually flew through the Templar skeletons to reach Sofia. She took a frontal hit of the spine whip, but the explosion had little effect on her.
Sofia was no longer expecting the shriek, if Alith had it, she would have already used it, but she didn’t. She’s going to use that one skill she kept secret from me until now?
Alith became corporeal again. Her kama was rushing for Sofia’s head. The whip changed to a sword, and Sofia got in position to block. It was best that she didn’t move back; the Templars were turning around to strike.
Alith’s Kamas hit the spine sword, and the Templars’ swords loomed above her back. Alith released her blocked weapons and threw herself to Sofia. She was too close. Sofia couldn’t avoid her and could only activate her bone armor which had been ready to activate for a while.
Alith slapped Sofia across the cheek. Her hand harmlessly impacted the bone armor’s helmet.
The weird attack confused Sofia, problematic, but the magic behind it was even more shocking. Like a hidden snake, a malignant mana pulse had escaped Alith’s hand and infiltrated Sofia’s head.
The bone armor was deactivated. The Spine disappeared. The skeletons exploded into a mist of free mana and fog.
Before the dagger Alith had summoned out of her storage reached Sofia’s neck, Sofia saw Alith wink at her and flash her a system window.
Sofia internally sighed as [Fast reading] allowed her to read the whole thing as the dagger cut her throat.
[Slap of absolute shame] : To be slapped across the face by a fair maiden, what an absolute shame! Slap someone across the face in the 199 (1*Skill Level) seconds following the activation of this skill to disrupt channeling and dispel all magic they are currently using, preventing their reactivation for five seconds. Prevents the target from moving for one second. Deals damage proportional to your anger and disdain toward the target. Costs 5000 mana. Requires a five seconds channeling to activate. A hit target cannot be hit again with this skill for a duration of approximately (target level*target level*0.04) seconds.
Sofia had one last thought as her consciousness faded. At least it dealt zero damage…
Before she was entirely gone, she was teleported to the spectator platform, and her mind cleared up.
“Well done, everyone, that was a great show around the board! Magnificent performance! Now, follow me to the scoreboard. Let’s see where you rank!”
No teleportation?
Sen walked away on a continuation of the invisible spectating platform that no one had realized existed. Should I put on a rune now while I have time? Hmm… Maybe not. Let’s see how this goes.
The group finally started to comment openly about the duels. Surprisingly everyone was satisfied with their results; even the old Knight who had won a single match thought he did well. It is about showing off our talent, after all, not about winning. With two wins and a draw, I technically performed the best on par with Astelia, though we could argue that I had the advantage in our fight.
The Sun Elf and Alith won twice, and the Knight won once.
Let’s see what this gets us for the third phase.
