Adventures of the last Wild Dragon-Chapter 196: The Colosseum (14)
"Welcome onto the stage our next semi finalists! On one side we have a crowd favourite and long time colosseum regular, Kaldor! And on the other side we have yet another colosseum rookie, she fought her way through the tournament with ice, illusions and with incredible skill. Give it up for Luna!"
As Luna walked into the arena she wore an excited smile, she was looking forward to facing off against Kaldor, he had impressed her back in the free for all. His strength and speed were both noteworthy, plus just from their brief interactions she had a good impression of the man.
Now they would be facing off against one another for the right to enter into the finals and fight against Violet.
Luna never thought that she would find herself in a situation like this, sure she had confidence in her skills now, but growning up she never thought that she was someone with the talent to rise above everyone else. Yet here she was, in the semi finals of a massive tournament sporting some of the strongest Lords of the entire city.
Sure this tournament only consisted of people in the early stages of being a Lord, up to level 99 if she remembered correctly. But Luna knew that it was not realistic to composure her own skills against someone considerably higher level than herself. She was now level 88, still in the first dozen levels after reaching tier 4. Yet she had managed to fight her way past people who could be approaching that level 99 threshold.
She was proud of herself for achieving a feat like this, whilst she dearly wanted to be able to fight against Violet in the finals, she would be happy with only reaching this far. Still, Luna knew that she would do everything in her power to try and reach the finals, so that meant that she had to win this battle and she would hold nothing back.
The two fighters stopped on the middle of the arena around 10 meters apart from one another. Enough space for magic to be cast, yet not too far away to make it a challenge for mele fighters to close in on their opponent.
Luna noticed that Kaldor also spotted a smile of excitment, it would seem like he too was quite looking forward to this battle. ’Well if he is looking forward to it this much, then I best make sure to not disappoint!’ Thought Luna.
"Now let the fight begin!"
Luna moved, sand was kicked up in her wake as she charged forwards, her form splitting up into 4 as she closed the gap in rapid pace.
Kaldor was not idle either, he too opted to charge forwards, arcs of electricity running up and down his massive frame and into the head of his axe that was nearly as tall as Luna. He wielded it with an ease that belied its size, clearly showing both his strength and skill.
As they got close to one another Kaldor stomped down and spun his body around, an arc of lightning extending out from his axe head and instantly traveling the distance to Luna and her illusions.
Luna ducked under the horizontal slash, yet two of her illusions were too slow to duck under it and shattered magical electricity reached through their frozen illusory forms. She clicked her tongue in slight annoyance upon seeing that, apparently her illusions were able to be destroyed by magical attacks but not when stuck with purely physical attacks.
Still she did not let her concentration slip, she was now within striking range after all.
Twin swords instantly formed in her hands, her sole remaining illusion following suit at the same time. They approached from opposite sides swinging down in an overhead strike on one side and a underhand swipe on the other.
Kaldor seemed to flow as he reacted, his axe intercepted one of her swords, deflecting it away whilst he kicked out with his leg on the other side, landing the kick on her illusions arm and blasting the arm apart, the illusion soon shattering too.
Luna spun with the initial deflection, her second sword flashing forward with a straight thrust as she tried to sweep his remaining foot off the floor. Yet Kaldor only focused on the seord thrust, the haft of the axe intercepting the thrust with pinpoint precision. When lunas leg impacted his shin it felt like she had just kicked a steel tree, his leg did not even shack from the impact, instead it was Luna that was rebounded away, her leg hurting from the impact.
"Hahaha, good, good! I know you were good when I first saw you! Come show me all that you have!" Kaldor bellowed, a almost manic grin splitting his face in two.
Luna wanted to respond to his words but he left her no time to reply. He shot forward, his axe already coming down towards her head. Luna twisted out of the way, narrowly avoiding the blade, yet she left it too close and was shocked by the residual lightning arcing off the metal blade.
Hissing in pain at the sudden shock Luna leapt backwards, creating some space between the two. Then she started to utilise her magic, her domain of ice manifested around her. Spears of ice forming in the air above where she stood, she took a moment to take a breath then charged forwards her figure splitting into 4 once again.
The two warriors danced, exchanging blows with fluid grace, to the untrained eye it looked more like a choreographed dance than a true fight. Yet to the skilled warriors and fighters in the crowd they understood the skill that went into their deadly dance.
Kaldor decimated Luna’s illusions with shocking ease. A stray bolt of electricity enough to shatter them, her frozen illusions unable to endure any true magical damage. Yet he was unable to truly block or counter every strike, small nics and cuts appeared on his arms and legs, small, insignificant wounds normally. But for Luna each and every strike she landed allowed her to deal just a touch more damage with the next strike.
Kaldor seemed to sense this quite quickly, instantly changing his style to a slightly more defensive one, working to disallow a single strike to truly land. This did limit how much damage he could dish out in return but his pure skill was enough for him to land the occasional blow.
Burns and cuts soon appeared on Luna, a mistimed parry or dodge allowing a bolt of lightning to land in her or for his a lie to slice theough flesh. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺
All the while Luna’s arctic manifestation lowered the temperature within the arena. At first it did not hinder the giant warrior, his physicality enough to shrug off any debuff that may have applied. Still when coupled with the small cuts that froze his skin the cold was slowly seeping into him.
Or it would have, had Kaldor not been able to erase the lingering chill as lightning coursed across his body. The powerful currents erasing the lingering magics from his body.
Ice spears did not aim to hit the powerful warrior, instead used to hinder his movements and aid Luna in parrying attacks she otherwise would be unable to dodge.
Ice shields formed to block ranged bolts and arcs of lightning launched towards her whenever she tried to create some distance. Then Kaldor would once more follow along in the lightnings wake, he was constantly chasing, advancing, closing the distance and swinging his axe with deadly grace.
Luna was being pushed, her movements, usually so fluid and evasive felt lacking in front of the man’s practiced dance of death. Her domain, usually a deciding factor in her fights felt lacking in its impact.
Yet she was not dissuaded, if anything she was elated. To be able to face such a warrior, to learn from him was something that Luna truly appreciated. Even in the few short minutes that they had been fighting she could already feel herself improving, her movements and strikes being refined in the crucible of the battle.
Both warriors shared the same feral grins, elated to be fighting an opponent that could push them to their limits.
Kaldor too a step in, his axe coated in lightning, Luna lept backwards to avoid the blow, a shield of ice forming in front of her to block the following arc of lightning.
When the shield shattered upon blocking the blow Kaldor tried to advance, but found his foot frozen to the ground, worse Luna was no longer standing in front of him.
A surge of electricity shattered the ice holding him in place, he spun around to block the perceived blow coming from his back, yet he was a moment too late. The sword made of ice already having cut a long line down his side.
Luna was still forced to roll away to avoid the retaliatory strike, but when she popped up again her gaze fell on the long jagged cut that marred the warriors side, red blood forming and freezing as it fell down his side.
