Rating Game (IV)

|Karnelly Zepar POV|

"We need to win this at least once."

I look at my team, who are also thinking of ways to win in this fight. I never thought that we would fight against a monster. I'm told that I will fight against a child, well that's true, but no one told me that his peerage member is a beast.

"Jiang Chen, report."

I look at my only peerage member who did not teleport to the medical wing and wait for his answer.

"He is fast and tough. His spear also has a rune around it that weakens me. It is unnoticeable if you are in a fight, but I can feel it around my body once I'm not fighting him. I know Gae Bolg has a rune around its body that releases a curse, but I never thought it was that many curses."

"Curses?"

"Yes. Weakening curse. There are at least ten of them there. An eternal wound on the tip of the spear. The wound on my arms has a hard time getting healed by my internal Qi."

"Damn. That means we cannot do an endurance battle either. Do you have any suggestions?"

I see Jiang Chen start to think about something, and after a few seconds, he says.

"Long-range attack. He had the means to fight from a long-range, but it was not as powerful as his close combat ability."

I nod my head. Yeah, that made sense.

"Lucky for us, the next one to fight him is Lady Nathalie."

I look at the woman next to me and frown a little. I was not too fond of it when my father decided to get involved in my rating game, and the lady in front of me did what my father did to get involved in it.

She is my father's pawn. She is worth three pawns. She can be considered a high-rank High-class devil. My father decided to trade her with me. No, it was more of lending her to me. She specializes in magic with a decent close combat experience.

Nathalie nodded her head before saying.

"Good. Then this will be easy."

I don't know about that. I feel that Shirou Emiya still has a trick up his sleeve that he did not show to us yet.

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|Hardius Phenex POV|

"The next opponent will be Nathalie Latvia, right?"

I nod at Serafall Leviathan's question before saying.

"Yes."

"Are you not afraid and worried about this fight? She is Lord Zepar's pawn, after all. Not only that, but she is also around seventy-five years old this year, meaning she has a long experience."

"Worried? Yes. Afraid? No. I know the ability of my son's peerage, but I couldn't help but worry."

I look at the stage and see Shirou Emiya get teleported once again. This time the battlefield is in a grassland. By the look of it, it was a steppe in Mongolia. It was a place where many high-class beings do their spar from time to time.

"The fight will begin at 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!"

I snap from my thoughts when I see the fight has already started. Unlike before, Shirou is the one starting the fight by getting closer to Nathalie and starts to attack her with his spear. I can see him swinging and thrusting his spear without letting Nathalie have time to cast her spell.

The more I look at Shirou's fighting style, the more I can see the resemblance between him and CuChulainn. I'm unfortunate enough to fight against the famous dog of Culainn, and I can see the resemblance between both of them.

His movement is wild but calculated, it looks like a mad beast, but it does not give a gap that others can exploit.

*BOOM*

Well, it looks like Nathalie has enough fight at a close range. She flies high in the air with at least thirty magic circles above her, firing spell after spell.

I can see Shirou running from the spell that Nathalie fired. This battlefield is a disadvantage to him. The steppe did not have any place to hide. Shirou, on his bow, is more of a hunter. Hide and wait for time to strike. He was not suitable for a frontal attack if he used his bow.

I can see Shirou try to counter-attack, but his attack is not strong enough to break the barrier Nathalie made.

And it looks like Shirou agrees with my thinking as he switches his weapon.

"Does he want to use a close combat tactic? That might be difficult."

I look at Falbium Asmodeus and say.

"Can I ask the reason why you said that, my lord?"

"He did not have enough defense to take the damage that was coming at him."

"Why should he do that? He can use his speed and dodge the incoming attack."

"Yes. However, Nathalie's spell is fast. It is bound to hit him at least once."

I look at the arena and agree with lord Falbium. Shirou is fast, but Nathalie's spell is fast as well, and what matters worse, she can cast more than thirty spells at once.

I can see Shirou dodge the incoming attack and even fire his arrow to intercept the incoming spell, but the spell coming at him is too much, and two spells coming from his side hit him. When the dust disappears, I can see a barrier made of blue thread appear around Shirou, protecting him from the spell that hit him.

Hmmm, it looks Riser is fully prepared for his peerage member in this fight. That barrier is made from the same thread Illyasviel uses.

"What is that? A thread? No. It was a hair. Interesting. Really interesting."

As expected from Ajuka Beelzebub, he knows it was not a real spell but rather a hair that has been used to create the spell.

I can see the blue barrier disappear into Shirou's left hand and him firing ten arrows at Nathalie in quick succession. After firing his arrow, he begins to fly toward Nathalie while still firing an arrow at her.

Sadly, it was not enough for her to stop firing her spell at him. Nathalie is still firing her spell while blocking an incoming attack. Not only that, she uses a spell that she already prepared and teleported away from him.

Just like that, Shirou went back to square one.

I can see him thinking about the strategy he needs to use, and after a few seconds, he nodded.

Hmmm. I wonder what kind of strategy he wants to use.

I raised my eyebrow when I saw him flying away from Nathalie at high speed. Is he abandoning the fight? No. If he wants to do that, he can do it by saying he forfeit. I can see him stopped when he is a few kilometers away from Nathalie.

When he stopped, I could hear him saying.

"I'm the bone of my swords. Trace On"

I can see him summoning a sword. The sword is black in color. The sword is like being made of single steel as there is no gap in the design. There is a hole on its fuller that gets smaller and smaller when it reaches the point.

I raised my eyebrow even more, when I saw Shirou did not dismiss his bow but rather put the sword near his bow. Did he want to use the sword as his arrow? What kind of weirdo does that?

I widen up my eyes when I see the sword changed. The sword begins to change into what I can describe as a drill. I can see him pull the string of his bow with the sword as the arrow.

"Hunt them! Hound of the red plain! Hrunting!"

I widened my eyes when he said the name of the sword. However, before I could think anything, I saw the 'arrow' fly toward Nathalie at high speed and arrive in front of her in less than a second.

*BOOM*

A massive explosion can be heard through the arena.

"The 'arrow' can travel four kilometers in less than a second? Impressive."

I look at Ajuka, who looks at the screen with interest. I can even see Falbium, who is the laziest devil in the underworld, wide awake.

I look back at the screen and see Nathalie's barrier is destroyed by the previous attack. It looks like that previous attack took a chunk of her reserve, but it was not enough to drain her reserve. Sadly for her, Shirou is not done yet.

I can already see him summoning back his sword and ready to fire it again, but this time I can feel the demonic energy used is higher than before.

"Hrunting!"

Once again, Shirou fired his 'arrow' toward Nathalie. However, unlike before, where she came prepared, this time, she just barely created a barrier in front of her to block the incoming attack.

"ARGH!"

I can see her scream in pain as Shirou's attack does some damage to her. The barrier she created is not enough to block all the attacks, and the explosion burns her hand. Her hand, forearm, and arms get burned by the attack.

She can still cast her spell but once more attack like that, and she is done. She needed to make her own attack before Shirou could make the same attack once again. Sadly for her, Shirou is already ready to fire another attack.

Nathalie looks at the red aura in the distance and decides to dodge this time as I see her preparing a quick long-ranged teleportation spell.

"Hrunting!"

Once again, Shirou fired his 'arrow,' but this time, Nathalie was already prepared. She teleported away from his current location and appeared a few kilometers away.

Widen up my eyes when I see the 'arrow' take a turn and chase her. Before it could hit her, she teleported away from the arena, and the arrow hit the ground, causing an explosion. Shirou gets teleported away from the arena and greeted by the cheering spectators when the explosion is over.