Chapter 315: Chapter 315 - Arcadia Championship Clash(Part 5)

Point-of-View: Aries Velenet

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She’s strong...she’s easily on the level of most of the Knight Captains, I’d probably struggle against her without my Soul Weapon Ascension. And her Soul Weapon is powerful...I don’t know exactly what its ability is, but it likely has something to do with manipulating the weight of it.

She’s able to move so quickly while holding it despite the fact that it’s more than half her size, she wouldn’t be able to do that if it was as heavy as it looks...but the immense impact it made when she swung it down, that wouldn’t have been possible if it was a light as a feather.

She must have worked hard to master it, her Soul Weapon’s power is fairly simple and straightforward, assuming it really is something to do with weight manipulation, but actually using it wouldn’t be easy...if she messes up on the timing of shifting the weight, the momentum of her swing would get affected.

If it wasn’t for the prejudice against people who don’t solely possess the Dark Attribute, she might have become a rather excellent Knight Captain...and she’s so young too, she’s can’t be much older than sixteen or seventeen, but she’s already at such a high level.

I wonder, just how much potential and talent have we tossed aside by maintaining these prejudices for so long? How much more powerful would our nation have been if we’d treated everyone equally regardless of social status or their Attribute?

Arcadia holds none of those prejudices, they treat everyone equally, and not just humans, but even Monsters and Demi-Humans...it’s no coincidence that they now likely have the greatest fighting force in the world...

"Okay, time for the fifth match of round one now, it’s Ilex Sarralot vs Visca," Announced Mysst, as the next two competitors approached the arena.

Hm...was it just my imagination, or did her tone sound a bit more upbeat for a moment when she mentioned Ilex’s name?

He’s pretty powerful, having earned a Diamond-rank as an Adventurer in Obsidian, and one of a very small handful of people in the Dark Continent who has achieved Soul Weapon Ascension.

His opponent is an Oryctolagus woman, the Demi-Human race with rabbit-like features. She had light brown hair tied in a ponytail, black eyes, with rabbit-like ears and a fluffy, cottonball-like tail the same color as her hair.

Before we came here, out of curiosity, I looked up information about the various Demi-Human races, to learn more about this since I knew little to nothing about them before. Prior to coming here, I’d never even seen a Demi-Human before.

From what I’ve heard, Larrk Stryker freed all the Demi-Humans who were enslaved by the Hematite Nobles, and Arcadia has also requested that all Demi-Human slaves in the other Dark Continent nations be freed and relocated to Arcadia.

Obsidian has cooperated with that request, and I believe the other nations haven’t objected either...I’m sure a lot of that cooperation has been at least partly due to fear, but maybe in the long term, Arcadia’s actions will trigger change for the better across the entire Dark Continent.

Anyway, back to the current match...I wonder how strong Ilex’s opponent is?

From what I’ve read about the Oryctolagus race, they have strong physical abilities, their jumping power and kicks are especially strong, and they’re highly agile too, although they can’t use Magic. They each possess three Skills, and they can transform and take on a more beast-like appearance, and their physical abilities effectively double while in that state.

"Okay, here’s the countdown...ten, nine, eight, seven..."

Alright, let’s see how this goes...

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Point-of-View: Ilex Sarralot

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Damn it, I’m so nervous...all these people watching me, it’s making me feel really self-conscious and anxious. Okay, just calm down, I can do this. Ignore the crowd, and focus on your opponent...yeah, easier said than done, the audience is so loud, they’re basically impossible to ignore.

I took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled to try and calm myself, my palms breaking out into a cold sweat as I felt a slight pit in my stomach...this sucks, I’m way beyond simply being nervous or whatever.

"Three, two, one, zero."

The instant the countdown ended, my opponent wasted no time in unleashing her full power, transforming into her beast form, light brown fur sprouting all over her body as her face changed shape to more closely resemble that of a rabbit’s.

I suppose I should respond in kind. I haven’t used this in a fight yet since I only just recently mastered it, so here goes...

"Soul Weapon Ascension: Mana Armament Level 5 - Arsenal!" I chanted before swiftly ducking as my opponent leapt towards me with immense force and speed, whipping her right foot across at my head, which I just barely avoided as it whizzed past the top of my head.

Armor then manifested around my entire body, as two T-shaped weapons, the Mana Amplifier version of my Soul Weapon, formed in both my hands. The weakest version of my Soul Weapon Ascension is Level 2 - Double Armament, it simply gives me a second copy of my Soul Weapon in its base form.

Then, Level 3 - Mana Amplifier, combines the two L-shaped Mana Armaments into a single T-shaped weapon that can multiply the output by upto fivefold. Level 4 - Double Amplifier, creates a second copy of that weapon.

And now, finally, I’m able to unleash the full power of my Soul Weapon Ascension, Level 5 - Arsenal...it creates a full-body armor embedded with several weapons on top of retaining the Double Amplifiers from Level 4.

I can fire off a powerful beam of Mana from the middle of my chest, I can create wings made of Mana from my shoulder blades to fly and also shoot out jets of Mana from the soles of my feet to accelerate in flight.

And I have three tendril-like appendages from my lower back that I can control telekinetically and fire off Mana projectiles from. All these additional weapons don’t have an amplifier function, but that’s fine...in this form, both my offense and defense are at their strongest.

As I ducked under my opponent’s kick, I extended out one of the appendages on my lower back and took aim, firing it at her face. She sharply twisted her body across in midair to evade the projectiles, which grazed the top of her shoulder before she used the momentum from twisting her body to spin across and swing her left foot down towards me.

I raised my right arm up defensively, my knees buckling as her heel slammed onto it with immense force, feeling a slight twinge of pain across my forearm.

My armor may be impenetrable, but it couldn’t fully absorb the force of her kick...that’s the downside to invulnerable armor, since it has no give, a strong enough impact can travel through it and still hurt me.

Still though, if that’s the most damage she can do, then...this fight is already over.

As her feet began to hit the ground, I sprung up and unleashed a powerful burst of Mana from the cannon over the middle of my chest, her eyes widening in alarm as she quickly crossed her arms in front of herself defensively, before getting blasted back several meters through the air.

She grimaced in pain as she landed and skidded back close to the wall of the barrier, her arms trembling in pain with patches of fur burnt off from my blast, as I manifested the Mana wings from my shoulder blades and rapidly flew up, turning the multiplier dials on my Mana Amplifiers to the highest setting, x5, before I swooped down towards her, unleashed intense bursts of Mana from the soles of my feet to sharply boost my speed.

I closed in on her in a fraction of a second, too fast for her to react to, before I channeled Mana into both my Mana Amplifiers and pulled the triggers simultaneously at near point-blank range, massive waves of Mana erupting out of the nozzles and triggering the safety barrier before the blasts could engulf her.

The bursts of Mana slammed onto the wall of the barrier, violent ripples erupting out across it upon impact, the entire stadium shaking before the blasts began to peter out and fade away.

I landed back down as I let out a slow exhale and dissipated my Soul Weapon Ascension, reverting to my normal state as the barrier then faded... 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Yes! Er, ahem...the winner is Ilex Sarralot!" Came Mysst’s voice over the speakers, sounding very clearly and significantly more enthusiastic than during any of the previous matches, echoing out across the stadium as cheers erupted from the crowd.

I did it...and I managed to block out the crowd once the fight got underway, I hardly even noticed them after I got into the swing of things. Okay, that’s one match down...let’s see how far I can go in this tournament...

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