Chapter 327: Chapter 327 - Arcadia Championship Clash(Part 17)

Point-of-View: Ilex Sarralot

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"Hm...is it just me, or is the crowd less hyped for this match? I guess a fight between two measly humans is boring compared to a fight with Demons and Dragons," Sighed Gior dryly, as he and I walked onto the arena.

He’s right, the crowd is definitely less amped up. Izzy put on quite a show in the last match, that probably contributed to lowering expectations for this match.

"W-well, I don’t mind, the less p-people paying attention to me, the better...a-and besides, there are still a lot of cheers, it’s not l-like the entire audience is totally disinterested or something," I replied, as the barrier formed around the arena.

"Yes, I suppose you make a good point. Either way, it doesn’t matter, let’s subvert those low expectations and put on a display they won’t soon forget," He suggested as he began loosening up.

"Here we go, it’s time for the third match of round two, it’s Ilex Sarralot vs Gior King Ohph! Let’s hear some noise!"

"That loudmouth usually gets on my nerves with his constant chatter, but I suppose it’s welcome chatter in this scenario," Mused Gior wryly, as the crowd grew louder.

Not for me, I don’t want everyone watching me...

"Let’s get to the countdown! Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! THREE! TWO! ONE! ZEROOO!!!"

"Manifest Soul Weapon: Mana Armament," I chanted, manifesting my Soul Weapon and taking aim at Gior, before firing out a beam of Mana at him.

"Manifest Soul Weapon: Bowblade!" He swiftly chanted in response, raising his blade in front of himself as it manifested and using the flat of the blade to deflect the trajectory of my beam off to his left, diverting it towards the wall of the barrier.

He then zipped across the arena as I stopped firing the beam and unleashed a barrage of Mana bullets at him, evading my attacks before switching his Soul Weapon into its bow form and forming an arrow of lightning.

I swiftly formed a shield of Mana in front of myself as he fired the lightning arrow at me, my eyes widening in surprise as the arrow missed my shield and shot past me to the right...his aim is way off, what is he-...?

Oh, crap!

I spun across and sprang back as he suddenly swapped places with the arrow, glancing to my left as I spotted the arrow shooting towards me from that direction...I see, he intentionally fired his arrow away from me so that it wouldn’t get canceled out by my Mana shield, while he simultaneously positioned himself so that when he used his Switch Skill, the arrow would come straight at me.

The arrow’s starting to close in on my left arm, and he’s charging in from up ahead...if I deflect or block the arrow, I won’t be able to react in time to his attack from the front. And if I block his attack, the arrow will hit me. Okay, then...

"Soul Weapon Ascension: Mana Armament Level 2 - Double Armament!" I chanted as quickly as I could, forming a Mana blade in my right hand while raising my left arm off to the side and forming a Mana shield in that direction.

The arrow struck the shield and petered out, before I rapidly whipped the Mana blade up and across as Gior swung his blade down at me, hitting the side of his blade and deflecting it across. If it swung straight up and hit the sharp part of the blade, it would’ve cut right through my Mana blade, I had to hit the side of it to deflect it.

I swung my left arm in front of myself as he fired a blast of flames at me, blocking it before he swiftly backed away and got some distance, before suddenly firing out several small rocks, scattering them all over the arena.

Huh? What’s he doing? Why is he-...oh, shit.

The realization hit me too late, as he swapped places with one of the rocks, reappearing to my left and unleashing a rapid arrow of flames at me.

I slashed at it with my Mana blade as it closed in on me, dispersing the flames and canceling out the attack, before he used Switch to swap places with another rock, reappearing behind me this time.

I spun around and fired out a blast of Mana at him, but he was quick to use Switch again, once again reappearing behind me. I quickly surrounded myself in a defensive dome of Mana, right in the nick of time as he fired a wind arrow at my back, which hit the Mana dome before it could reach me.

That was too close...he’s good at using that Switch Skill, and having scattered all those rocks all over the arena, he can teleport anywhere he wants at any given time. If I keep letting him dictate the pace of this fight, I’ll only play right into his hands.

He’s also being wary of my Shadow Bind Skill, he only gets close when I’m facing a direction in which our shadows won’t overlap with each other. If I’m facing a direction in which I’ll be able to use Shadow Bind if he gets too close, he maintains some distance to avoid that.

In my current state, I don’t have the speed or power to force him to do something different, though...in which case, I’ll need to turn things up a notch. Alright, then, time to go all out...

"Mana Armament Level 5 - Arsenal!" I chanted, a burst of energy erupting from me as I took down the dome of Mana I’d surrounded myself with.

Armor enveloped my whole body as my two Mana Armaments tranformed into Mana Amplifiers, before I swiftly unleashed a massive beam of Mana from the cannon in the middle of the chest area of my armor, Gior quickly teleporting away to evade it before I fired out a couple of piercing beams of Mana at him from two of the three tail-like tendrils on my lower back.

My reaction time and kinetic vision are much sharper in this form, so I can react a lot faster each time he teleports.

As my beams closed in on him, he twisted his body across and raised his blade, just barely managing to block one of the beams before the other one grazed the side of his right arm, a grimace appearing on his face as my attack drew out a trickle of blood.

I then manifested wings of Mana from my shoulders blades and took off into the air as he used Switch again, forming a Mana blade from of the Mana Amplifiers and swinging it across as he fired out an intense, crackling arrow of lightning at me, dissipating it as my blade slashed through it.

I flew up higher and took aim down at the arena with both my Mana Amplifiers, before unleashing a barrage of rapid, intense Mana projectiles, raining down towards Gior with immense speed.

He raced across and teleported, repeatedly swapping places with the rocks he’d scattered as he narrowly evaded my projectiles...he’s skilled with chants, not only can he do so inaudibly like Larrk can, but he’s also really fast at chanting.

However, no matter how fast, it isn’t instant, which means there’s a brief delay before he can use his Switch Skill consecutively. In other words, each time he uses Switch to evade my barrage, he has to be ready to immediately block, dodge or deflect my attacks while he chants to use Switch again.

And he can’t keep that up forever, it’s only a matter of time before the fatigue from constantly moving around under so much pressure causes his concentration to waver...even if it’s just a slight fluctuation, that’s all I need.

I continued unleashing my projectiles as he teleported, evaded and blocked to the best of his ability while also scattering more rocks around the arena as my projectiles destroyed several of the ones that he’d initially scattered. And while he’s managing to avoid any direct hits, more and more of my attacks were starting to graze him, gradually weakening him.

Since he has both Attributes, he can heal himself, but with my constant barrage and his focus on using Switch, he doesn’t have an opening to stop and use a healing Spell.

He can also fly using his Wind Magic, but flying up with all these projectiles shooting down would be too difficult...and it’s unlikely that he’ll use Switch to swap places with me either.

Mana projectiles are fairly bright, and with so many raining down on him, I’m at least partially obscured from his vision, so he can’t lock on to me in order target me for his Skill.

This might be a bit of a boring way for this fight to end, but he’s strong, so I can’t afford to play around. Hm...but I suppose I can try to end this with a bang...

As I continued pelting the arena with a ceaseless barrage of Mana projectiles, I began charging up the cannon over the middle of my chest, channeling an immense amount of Mana into it...I haven’t poured this much Mana into it before, it hasn’t been very long since I fully mastered the full extent of my Soul Weapon Ascension, and I haven’t been in any real fights, so I haven’t needed to unleash any especially powerful attacks.

But I’ll charge this up as much as possible, the cannon doesn’t have an Amplifier function but that’s fine...because it’s so wide, it’s easier to control a larger output.

My Mana Amplifiers become difficult to aim when I go for an especially large attack, but it feels like this chest cannon is stable and under control even with the immense amount of Mana I’ve channeled into it.

Okay, this should be enough, I’ve channeled about half my entire Mana capacity into it, I bet this amount of Mana could do some serious damage if I fired it from one of my Amplifiers.

The arena is large, so I doubt this blast can cover the entire space, but hopefully it should be wide enough that he won’t be able to evade in time and-...huh?

I stared in bewilderment as I fired the cannon, a massive, MASSIVE beam of Mana bursting out and barreling down as it spread out across the space immensely, the barrier shaking violently as the beam continued to grow and widen until it filled the entire width of the space, before I spotted Gior outside the arena as my beam slammed onto the arena floor, drilling down powerfully.

The entire stadium shook and rumbled as my beam tunneled through the ground, cracks spreading out outside the barrier before the beam finally started to peter out, my eyes widening as it faded to reveal a deep, massive crater where the arena used to be, a thick cloud of dust rising up before spreading out as the barrier faded, the crowd stunned silent.

U-uh...maybe I put too much Mana into that attack...

"Wha-...holy shit, what an attack! Let’s hear a big cheer for the winner of match three of round two, everyone, it’s Ilex Sarralot! That was awesome!" Exclaimed Phyurio, the crowd erupting into raucous, deafening cheers.

O-oh, no, everyone’s looking at me...e-even the Demons are looking at me with intrigue and wariness, th-this is...this is way too much attention...!

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