Chapter 316: Chapter 316 - Arcadia Championship Clash(Part 6)

Good, this is going well...with the Demons and Frielektra participating, it’s good to see the human competitors putting on a good show too, that’ll help indicate to our guests that we aren’t solely reliant on our more obvious heavy hitters, we’ve got plenty of solid firepower below them too.

Even the more one-sided bouts have at least had the defeated parties putting up a decent fight to begin with...actually, they’ve all kinda been one-sided so far, all five results upto this point have been as expected.

The next match is Gior against one of the Felinians, hope it’s a more competitive fight than we’ve seen so far. After that is Aratron against the Centaur Elder, Friese. Yeah, I doubt any of the Demons are going to have trouble getting through the first round, it’ll definitely be a surprise if any of them are defeated this early.

And looking at the rest of the lineup for the round one matches, it looks like we aren’t going to have any particularly close fights...I guess that’s fine, we’re still putting on a pretty good show out there, and tomorrow’s leg of the tournament, starting with round two, should be a lot more competitive.

Yeah, let’s call today something of an appetizer of what’s to come tomorrow...we’re just under a third of a way through round one, and it looks like match number six is about to start...

"Okay, time for the sixth match, it’s the Gior King Ohph vs Kit," Announced Mysst, as the two of them made their way onto the arena.

Gior’s opponent is a young Felinian boy...well, young by Felinian standards, anyway, Felinians live for about two hundred and fifty years and age about two and half times slower than humans do, so he’s probably at least twice as old as I am.

I don’t know what he’s capable of, but Gior is pretty tough, being a Diamond-ranked Adventurer and all. Let’s hope we see a closer match this time around...

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Point-of-View: Gior King Ohph

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Alright, let’s do this...Felinians can’t use Magic, so ranged attacks are the way to go against this opponent. But I’m sure he knows that and is expecting it, so he’ll probably unleash his full power and try to close the distance the instant the fight begins.

I’ll need to brace myself for that and get ready to respond as soon as he springs into action, I don’t know how strong this guy is, so I should err on the side of caution.

"Three, two, one, zero."

"Manifest Soul Weapon: Bowblade!" I swiftly chanted as my opponent tranformed into his beast form and shot towards me, his snout extending forward and fur sprouting all over his body as his speed sharpy increased.

As he closed in on me, I activated my Switch Skill, swapping places with him before rapidly spinning around and swinging my Soul Weapon at the back of his neck.

My eyes widened in surprise as my blade phased right through him, before he spun around, got low and swept his right foot across at my ankles. I quickly sprang back and switched my Soul Weapon to its bow mode, before forming a lightning arrow and firing it at my opponent.

I grimaced as it phased through him and he shot towards me as the arrow hit the floor of the arena behind him...tch, he’s got the Intangibility Skill, that’s got to be one of the most annoying Skills to go up against. But I’ve sparred against Argent a few times, so I have experience against that Skill, I can handle this.

As he closed in on me, I fired out a blast of flames at his face from my right hand while simultaneously swinging my blade at his stomach, both attacks passing through him as he turned intangible before he drove his claws towards my chest.

Right as his claws pierced through my leather armor and nicked my skin, I used the Switch Skill again, whipping my blade across as I spun around, which phased through his back again before he swung his foot back towards me, slamming it onto my stomach and sending me stumbling back as I let out a stifled gasp of pain, his kick knocking the wind out of me.

I flung a poison smoke bomb off to my right as he swiftly spun around and drove his claws towards me again, before I used my Switch Skill and swapped places with the smoke bomb, teleporting several meters away to my right as the poison smoke bomb appeared right in front of my opponent, exploding as his claws struck it, a sharp cough echoing out as he inhaled it before quickly turning himself intangible and springing back, getting out of the poison cloud with a grimace.

Good...he didn’t inhale much of it, but that’s fine. This isn’t a fatal poison, those are banned from the tournament, so this toxin works more like a tranquilizer.

Since he inhaled such a small amount of it, it’ll take a few minutes to fully take effect, maybe longer if his transformation slows down the spread of the poison, but his movements will gradually get slower and more sluggish as the fight goes on...and the more he moves around, which he’ll have to, the faster it’ll spread.

The poison fades away fast when exposed to oxygen, so I don’t have to worry about the smoke spreading out and affecting me.

I then swiftly fired out a swirling water arrow at him as he reoriented himself, quickly turning himself intangible as the arrow closed in on him before passing right through the middle of his chest, a grimace on his face as a trickle of blood ran down his chest...he was a fraction of a second late in activating his Intangibility Skill that time, but the damage is insignificant. Still, if it at least frustrates him or something, it’ll be worth it.

As the water arrow passed through him, I used my Switch Skill to switch places with him, before slashing at his back as I appeared behind him, my blade starting to cut into the right side of his back before he quickly turned intangible, the blade passing through him before it could cut any further, streaks of blood splattering out of the shallow gash I’d inflicted before he turned intangible.

The Intangibility Skill, once activated, works for five minutes, during which the user can freely turn any part of his body intangible at will, but after those five minutes run out, the Skill can’t be activated again for ten minutes. It’s been about three minutes since he first turned intangible, so he won’t be able to use it anymore after about two more minutes.

And on top of his Skill closing in on its time limit, his movements and reactions have definitely slowed down significantly since inhaling the poison...I shouldn’t let my guard down though, he might have more tricks up his sleeve.

I then flew up using my Wind Magic, getting some altitude and firing down a barrage of lightning arrows down at him...I did think about doing this right at the start, but we were told to make things entertaining for the audience, so I reluctantly decided to take the risk of staying grounded.

He’s evading my attacks and turning intangible every time he’s late to react, but his movements have grown a lot more sluggish now, and it’s only going to get worse for him the more he exerts himself.

At any rate, I’ve got plenty of Mana to spare, so I’ll just keep attacking, force him to move around as much as possible and make him keep using his Intangibility Skill...otherwise, he could deactivate it momentarily to make me think that he’s used up the time limit, and then reactivate it and counter when I go in for the kill.

My Bowblade lets me create arrows made of Elemental Magic and fire them off, and the Mana consumption is more efficient than casting Spells normally...and of all the elements, arrows made of lightning are the fastest, so I’ll keep up this barrage, give him no breathing room to work with.

There should be less than a minute left now before his Intangibility Skill hits its time limit and enters its cooldown period, not much longer before-...hm?

Oh...he collapsed, and just got teleported out. Never mind, then...the poison ran its course before his Skill did. Bit of an anticlimax, but hey, I’ll take it, a win is a win, after all.

"And the winner of the sixth match of round one is Gior King Ohph."

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