Point-of-View: Argent Stryker

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"Take this! And this!" Exclaimed my next opponent, swinging his Soul Weapon at me, a long chain with a sharp, jagged blade attached to the end of it.

My third opponent, a Gold ranked Adventurer who seemed to have a lot of energy. He had dark red hair pushed back with a blue headband, had brown eyes and a pale complexion. He wore very light armor, which became apparent why once I realized his fighting style relies heavily on agility.

As his weapon closed in on me, I blocked it with my left blade before flinging my right blade straight at him, which he evaded by shuffling across to the side. He then flicked his wrist before yanking back his arm, pulling his chained weapon back towards him, the blade zipping towards the back of my neck.

I quickly ducked in alarm, the blade narrowly whizzing past the top of my head before and slicing off a couple of strands of my hair. I then raced across as he spun the chain above his head in a rapid arc, his gaze locked onto me as I made my way towards the blade I’d flung.

"Elemental Flame: Fire Blast!" I exclaimed, taking aim and firing it out towards him, right as I reached my blade and picked it back up.

A slight look of surprise appeared in his eyes, before he responded by spinning his chain in front of himself, blocking my flames and dissipating them, a smirk appearing on his face.

"Not too bad, let’s see what else you’ve got!" He declared, before chanting, "Initiate Skill: Homing Projectile!"

He then fired out a round, glowing red projectile, which shot towards me swiftly. As I raced across to evade it, I grimaced as it followed after me, without losing any momentum whatsoever.

What a troublesome Skill, but surely it can’t chase after me indefinitely, right? That said, it’s slowly but surely catching up to me, I’ll be in trouble if it doesn’t dissipate soon.

My eyes then widened in alarm as the bladed chain came swinging in towards me from the front, while the projectile continued to close in on me from behind.

"Initiate Skill: Intangibility," I muttered, both the chain and the projectile phasing right through me and crashing onto each other, the chain getting blown back as the projectile exploded upon impact.

Woah, that would not have been pretty if it had hit me directly. Since I figured that this fight would last a lot longer, I decided to hold off on using Intangibility for as long as possible, since I could’ve only used it for a couple of minutes if I’d activated it right away, since I used it for about three minutes in the previous duel.

But since I waited before using it in this fight, I’ve once again got the full five minutes at my disposal. As he withdrew his chain and blade with a confused frown, I shot towards him at top speed, turning intangible as he fired another projectile at me, which passed through my body as if it were thin air.

However, once it had flown past me, it turned around and chased after me again...tch, how annoying. But maybe I can use it in my favor...I locked my gaze onto my opponent and continued making a beeline straight towards him, his eyes widening in alarm as he realized what I was doing.

If that projectile is gonna chase after me, then I’ll just lead it right back towards him! He quickly swung his chain out, the blade slicing through the air towards me-...no, it’s not aimed at me.

The blade struck the projectile, and I quickly turned myself fully intangible while simultaneously leaping forward as high as possible, as the clash triggered another explosion. I turned my back tangible to let the force of the blast hit me once I was out of range of the blast itself, the shockwave hitting my back and pushing me towards my opponent even faster.

As I slashed at his face, he ducked back, a shallow cut appearing across the bridge of his nose before he used the momentum to transition into a backflip, his feet shooting up towards my face...and phased right through it, no damage done.

He then backed away several paces and got some distance, eyeing me warily. If he knows how the Intangibility Skill works, then he’ll know that all he needs to do is wait for my time limit to run out, and I’ll be vulnerable.

And for me, that means I need to finish this fight before I hit that time limit, or my chances of victory will drop significantly. Guess there’s no choice then, the best way for me to max out the effectiveness of Intangibility is to...

"Initiate Skill: Limit Breaker," I chanted quietly, and as my opponent took a step back...I shot towards him at full speed, a loud splash echoing out as I kicked off from the lake.

I closed in on him before he could fully react, driving one of my blades towards his chest with a swift twist. It struck and gashed through his left shoulder as he evaded as fast as he could, before he swung his chain up towards me with a flick of his right wrist. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

I turned the spot on my body that it was about to hit intangible, before slashing at his throat with my blade, grazing his neck as he sprang back in alarm, firing out another of those projectiles as he jumped away.

It went right through me and hit the ground behind me, as I shot forward and swung both my blades out as I closed in on him. But he managed to react just in the nick of time, deflecting one of my slashes with his chains and narrowly evading the other one.

Limit Breaker may give me a fifteenfold boost to my physical state, including my eyesight, but even so, my movements are less sharp and efficient than in my normal state.

Sure, I’m several times faster and stronger with this Skill active, but it’s also hard to control. I was completely overwhelmed when I first tried using it, I was stumbling all over the place.

I’ve gotten a lot better at utilizing it now, but in terms of how effective it is, it’s definitely not fifteen times more effective than when I fight without it. So, at my current level of mastery over this Skill, I’m nowhere near using it to its full potential.

The only way to fix that is with frequent practice and training...so, for now, this is the best I can do, and it’s good enough at the moment. My lack of efficiency in this state is giving him a split second to react, but...if I keep this up relentlessly, it won’t be long before I land a hit!

He hasn’t landed any attacks on me for a while, I’ve either evaded or deflected them, or just turned intangible. That’s gotta be frustrating for him...and I’ve got to take advantage of that.

"Come on, you can’t even land a single hit when I take this seriously? Is this all there is to the Gold rank?" I inquired tauntingly, as he evaded a slash at his head, a slight nick appearing on his forehead as blood trickled down from the cut.

"Don’t underestimate me, kid, it’ll take a lot more than this to defeat me!" He declared, as he swung his chain down at my feet.

Ah, I see, he’s realized that I have to keep some part of myself tangible in order to avoid falling through the ground...but, naturally, that was the first weakness of this Skill that I tried to find a solution for. With his weapon swinging towards me at such a low trajectory...dodging it is child’s play.

As his chains closed in on my feet, I leapt straight forward as I turned myself tangible, slamming my knee onto his chest and knocking him back. He was too eager when he tried to attack my feet, and left himself wide open, too focused on offense and completely neglected his defense.

The force of my kick knocked him flat onto his back before he let out a sharp gasp as I landed on top of him, my knee firmly pressed against his chest, before I pointed the tip of one of my blades right by his throat. He grimaced for a second, before letting out a defeated sigh as he let go of his chains and raises his hands up, his palms open.

"Alright, I concede. You have defeated me," He admitted wryly, before I got up and helped him back into his feet, "You’ve got some good Skills up your sleeve, that was quite a tough fight."

"Oh, uh, thank you. You weren’t half bad yourself," I replied, a bit awkwardly, as I deactivated the Skills I’d been using.

I glanced off to the side as I spotted the receptionist heading this way with a slight jog, stretching my arms up as I dissipated my Soul Weapon. I think I’ll ask for a break before my next duel...I’ll be up against a Silver rank, and I’d prefer to be at a hundred percent against an opponent of that caliber.

Uh-oh, here comes the backlash from using Limit Breaker...

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