Chapter 77: Lucias vs. Astaroth (3)

[Combatant Diodora Astaroth's [Knight] and [Rook], retires!]

The announcer shouted in excitement as the crowd screamed in anticipation due to the stimulating first round of the game while the participants were teleported back to their respective teams.

"Great Job you two"

Lucias praised as he watched the two onis come out of the magic circle with a light smile on his face.

Ibaraki and Shuten immediately pounded on him as soon as they arrived back at their base with a look of anticipation visible in their eyes.

"Don't forget our reward, Danna-han"

Shuten seductively whispered before playfully biting his ear with her slightly sharp teeth causing Lucias to reflectively peel both of them off his body.

"Don't go too far you two"

Lucias said with a wry smile on his face as the voice of the arbiter caught the attention of the masses, announcing the start of the second round.

[We will now commence with the second round. So both kings, will you please step forward?]

The arbiter declared causing Lucias to throw the two onis at the sofa before walking towards his stand to grab the dice, ignoring the disturbing glare that Astaroth was giving him.

[Shoot!!]

The arbiter urged causing both of them to throw their respective dice on their stand while the results were projected onto the crowd. Waiting for the results in anticipation.

[The value rolled by combatants are... 2 and 1!! A total of 3 for the second round of the game. Lucias Frey still have 6 extra points from the previous round , giving him a total of 9 points for the second round!! What a disadvantageous situation combatant Diodora Astaroth is in!!]

The announcer said causing Diodora to grit his teeth in anger, fully knowing that he was placed in an extremely disadvantageous situation thanks to the lost that he suffered in the first round.

[Both teams will be given 3 minutes to prepare for the second round! All retired pieces are eliminated from participating in future matches, all losses will be compensated by the organizers themselves, so all death during the match is not accounted for the opposing team!]

The arbiter announced immediately with a strict expression on his face before Astaroth could complain about the deaths of his two pieces.

Lucias who heard his announcement, immediately went towards his peerage to plan for the second round as a sound nullification barrier surrounded their base once again.

"He only has 13 pieces left, and I'm pretty sure he is going to play 1 knight, bishop, or pawn for this round since we only rolled a total value of 3"

Lucias calmly says causing Merlin to raise his hand to ask a question.

"Won't he play 3 pawns, Master? Won't he just outnumber us for this round?"

"He won't risk sending more than that since he knows himself that I can easily outnumber his peerage for this round so he'll play safe and try to make me waste my servants by sending more than two"

Lucias explained causing Merlin to nod his head in agreement as Lucias tried to decide on who he should send for this round.

"Either a Knight or a bishop, huh? Okita has low magic resistance compared to the rest of you so it's risky to send her out alone... Merlin and Skaði are both more suited as a support... that leaves us with... Mordred, you're next"

"Huh?"

Mordred muttered in surprise while casually sitting on the sofa with her arms are comfortably placed on top of the armrest of her sofa.

"Sending me out already, huh? You made the right choice, master!"

Mordred shouted in excitement and anticipation as she stood up from her seat while her armor reconstructed back to its original form, covering every part of her body as she held her sword with her right hand.

"Father is watching this match right?"

Mordred asked causing Lucias to nod his head in response before casually sitting beside Skaði on the sofa.

"Good"

Mordred muttered with a large grin on her face as the barrier around them dissapeared, indicating that the 3 minutes of preparing were over.

"Don't cause too much trouble, Mordred"

"Huh? Are you my mother or something?"

Mordred said in annoyed tone, causing Lucias to helplessly sigh in response.

"I'm more or less your new father, Mordred"

"Pfft- like hell I'll recognize you as my father. Come back and tell that to me again when you manage to impregnate her, brat"

Mordred joked as she walked towards the magic circle causing both Merlin and Lucias to awkwardly look at her direction.

"Aren't you going to tell her about this, Master?"

"... She'll go on a rampage if I did, so let's just cool everything down before I reveal it to her. It's already a miracle that she isn't bothered by Artoria's presence in the mansion... I don't want to waste the hard work that Castoria and Liria did to pacify her"

Lucias answered with a wry smile on his face before glancing back at the large projection floating on top of the stadium.

[3 minutes are up, both fighters please step in the magic-circles for the second round]

The arbiter urged as both participants stood on top of the teleportation circle at their respective base causing both of them to disappear from their spot.

[It's time for the second round!! Both teams have given out a great performance for all of us for the first round! So what kind of surprises will both of them give all of us for the next round! For this round, the field will be a... Colosseum!]

The announcer shouted as he tried to build up the hype of the audience, causing all of them to shout in excitement while looking at the large projection at the center of the stadium.

[For the second round, Lucias Frey.... has sent out his [Knight]! Mordred Pendragon!! A woman with the same name as one of the knights of the round table of King Arthur!]

[Huh!? Who are you calling a woman!? I'll castrate you once I get out of here!]

Mordred angrily shouted inside the projection as her helmet deconstructed, revealing her facial features to the crowd.

[Oooo! It's looks like the [Knight] of combatant Lucias Frey is quite lively, and a cute one at that!]

[Say that again!! I'll kill you]

Mordred shouted in anger causing Lucias to helplessly sigh as he watched her argue with the announcer of the game.

[Now for the combatant, Diodora Astaroth's team... He also sent out his [Knight] for the second round! And a [Knight] of mysterious origins on top of that. What an exciting match we have for this round!]

The announcer shouted while both Mordred and the female humanoid demon, with long pink hair tied into a pony tail with a single katana on her waste, stood opposite each other like they were studying each other's strength.

"We will now start the second round of the game, so get ready"

The arbiter announced as he appeared in between the two knights in the field as he raised his hand up in the air.

"Begin!"

He announced as he dropped his arm down.

Mordred immediately charged at her direction without hesitation, as she tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword before slashing her vertically.

The female demon who saw her attack didn't moved nor panick but remained calm as she placed her hand on the hilt of her katana, while her eyes were covered by a mask that hid half of her entire face.

"Give me your guidance, Master"

The female demon muttered as she swiftly unsheated her katana, blocking Mordred sword and redirecting it's force to her side, causing Mordred to slice a large cut on the ground beside the female demon.

"Huh?"

Mordred muttered in surprise as a thin blade suddenly slashed at her neck in one swift motion, almost slicing her neck apart if she wasn't able to jump back in time to create some distance between them.

"You lack posture, Lucias' [Knight]"

The female demon advised as she positioned her sword in front of her body in a slightly tilted position, aimed at Mordred's direction.

"Don't get too full of yourself"

Mordred warned as she kicked the ground with her feet to propell herself towards the female demon at incredible speed.

The female demon calmly breathed out as she hightened her senses to detect and predict where she will attack, causing her to reposition her sword as she quickly blocked Mordred's attack before redirecting it's force upwards before slicing a large vertical cut at her armor with her katana. 

Mordred immediately repositioned her grip on her sword before slashing it downwards at the female demon's direction, causing her to immediately block Mordred's attack with her sword before sliding her Katana as she dealt another clean cut at her helmet, using the force of Mordred's own attack.

"Tch"

-with Lucias-

"This is going to be a tough fight for Mordred..."

Lucias muttered while watching the female demon's elegant but lethal sword style with a large frown on her face, while Okita stared at the screen in wonder and excitement.

"Why do you think so, Master?"

Merlin asked while watching Mordred bombared the female demon's with dozens of slashes but was only redirected and countered by the female demon in each attack, causing her armor to chip down due to the damages brought by the demon.

"Mordred's swordsmanship is balanced in both technique and strength, while that demon's swordsmanship is based on technique... Her main skills are [Supreme Senses], [Supreme Reflexes], and [Peak of Swordsmanship], all at their maximum level. If this continues, Mordred would only exhaust herself is she keeps recklessly attacking her..."

Lucias answered without turning his face to look at Merlin as she watched the match.

"Her style is more on using the strength of her own opponent as an advantage, since she is weak compared to Mordred, status wise. So she's using Modred's reckless fighting style as an weapon... Luckily, Mordred has sharp fighting intuition so I'm pretty sure that she'll get the hang of her opponent's techniques"

Lucias explained while Okita watched the match in amusement from seeing such a delicate and elegant swordsmanship that the female demon was using, far different from Lucias to did contain delicacy and elegance, but is more ruthless since it was a technique made for efficient killing.

-with Mordred-

"You're getting on my nerves"

Mordred muttered before slashing her blade at her direction, aimed at her chest, but was only blocked by the female demon causing Mordred to immediately retract her attack as she launched another slash aimed at her neck.

The female demon calmly blocked every single one of her attacks as their pace started to increase, causing sparks to dance around their location while several cuts appeared on Mordred's armor. 

Pushing the clash at the female demon's favour, before she quickly redirecting the force of her attack upwards, causing Mordred to unconsciously step back to keep her balance as she received a lethal strike at her face, shattering her helmet into pieces.

"It's over"

The female demon said as she repositioned her grip on her sword before slashing a lethal strike aimed at her neck, causing Mordred to strike a kick at her stomach before jumping backwards to create some distance between them.

"Ha... Ha... Ha..."

Mordred panted, trying to regain her breathing while her armor slowly regenerated back to it's peak with a vicious expression on her face.

"Shit..."

She cursed as she tried to devise a way to catch her off guard, staring at her unscathed body as she wasn't able to land a single hit during their exchange except for the kick that she did on her chest.

"I'll kill you"

Mordred muttered before stumping her foot at the ground with all of her strength, creating several massive boulders around her location.

She then kicked each one of the boulders up in the air before launching it at the female demon's direction, causing the female demon to position her fight foot forward with her blade placed perpendicular to her face. Waiting for the boulders to reach her attack range.

"[Red Lightning]!!"

Mordred shouted causing blood red lightning to envelop her sword, as most boulders that she launched were all sliced into pieces.

"[Acceleration]"

She silently casted, causing her speed to continuously increasly as she jumped from boulder to boulder that were launched at her direction, swiftly dodging the lightning strikes that were aimed at her body in quick succession.

Mordred clicked her tongue in annoyance as she raised her sword, but was far too late as the female demon reached the peak of her speed, slicing Mordred's chest in one quick movement before appearing behind her location.

"... Ugh..."

Mordred grunted in pain as her blood splattered on the floor of the arena as a massive cut appeared on her chest down to her hips, but she gritted her teeth to avoid falling down.

"Quite resilient, [Knight]"

The female demon praised as she watched Mordred turn her head at her direction with a manaical smile on her face, filled with excitement, not the fear and helplessness that she expected.

"But... my master is the True God of [Pride], so my swordsmanship is unmatched in this realm"

The female demon confidently said as she sheated her katana.

"Don't feel too proud, kid. I'm not done yet"

Mordred said with a large smirk on her face before pointing her sword at the female demon's direction.

"I finally got the hang of it"

She said while the crowd watched in silence due to the incredible clashes that they seen within a matter of a few seconds at the start of the match. 

Silence swallowed the entire stadium as all beings inside focused their full attention to the fight.

"[Red Lightning]"

Mordred casted causing blood red lightning to devour her blade.

"You never learn"

The female demon muttered with a sigh as she placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Watch and see"

Mordred said before charging at the female demon's direction and slashing her blade at the female demon's direction, causing her to immediately raised her blade to block her attack.

The female demon then tilted her blade to redirect her attack.

'Light!'

She shouted in her mind as she felt minimal force in her attack causing her technique to fail as Mordred was able to immediately reposition her body to launch an attack while she was wide open.

Mordred immediately twisted her entire body around and slashing her blade upwards, successful slicing her mask apart as red lightning electrocuted her face.

"... Hahahaha, it's my turn, you brat"

Mordred laughed in excitement while the mask of the female demon, fell on the ground. Revealing her 3 eyes to the crowd which all had greyish pupil.

"You're blind?"

Mordred muttered in surprise causing the female demon to frown before she initiated an attack at her direction, swiftly slashing her sword at her body but Mordred was able to quickly block her attack, containing enough strength so she wouldn't get pushed back by her attack.

The female demon then quickly retracted her sword before slashing another attack at her direction, which Mordred quickly blocked with consistent strength contained in her grip.

"[Transcend Limits]"

She silently casted causing her strength to immediately spike as she launched several quick slashes at Mordred's direction which took her by surprise as she immediately strengthen her own body with her magic to match with hers.

Draining her mana as she slowly took mana directly from Lucias to support her constant need of mana to maintain her strength, applying enough pressure using mana on her wound to stop herself from bleeding to death.

-with Lucias-

"This feels.... weird"

Lucias muttered as he felt his mana being sipped out of his body and onto Mordred who was parrying with the female demon with a large frown on her face.

"Won't you run out of mana at this point, Master?"

Skaði asked out in concern but Lucias only shrugged it off while looking at his status board with a casual expression on his face.

"I have enough mana to spare..."

[Skill: Ultraspeed Mana Recovery

(Recovers 6,000,000 Mp/sec)]

"... This skill is pretty strong when I have more than 5 million mana... since it scales with the total amount of mana that I have"

"..."

Merlin who heard his words smiled wryly as he would find it strange if that was not the case since he is able to support so many servants at once that could cause large strains on his mana circuit.

"We have a pretty reliable, Master..."

-with Mordred-

Mordred blocked every single one of her attack without stepping back to avoid being cornered by the female demon who was baraging her with attacks at incredible speed, but unlike before both of them recieved several injuries and scars in their body as their techniques were now on par.

With Mordred not recklessly applying force on her attacks, which made most of the female demon's skills useless against her, while her red lightning dealt damage to the female demon's skin in every exchange. Causing her arms to slowly go numb as the electricity produced by Mordred interefered with her body's nervous system to retain her senses.

"Tch"

She clicked her tongue before stumping the ground with all of her strength, causing the ground of the arena to shake as both of them lost their balance due to her actions.

She then jumped back to create some distance between them as she tried to regain her senses back, but failed as Mordred immediately charged at her direction to stop her from recovering.

"What's wrong!? What happened to your pride a few moments ago!?"

Mordred mocked as she launched several strikes at her direction, causing her to unconsciously raise her sword and try to redirect her attack but failed as her strikes were in a specific angle that didn't allow her attacks to slide off her katana. 

"I can't lose!"

She shouted while gritting her teeth as she recieved all of her attacks head on, but due to her endurance and defense as a high-level demon. She didn't pass out even when faced with Mordred's full frontal attacks, containing red lightning that interrupted with her senses.

Out of desperation, she stabbed her katana at her face as soon as she found an opening, only to be dodged by Mordred who tilted her head to the side, leaving her entire body open for Mordred to attack.

"It's over"

Mordred said with a viscous smile on her face as she let go of her sword, and grabbing her entire arm, before completely breaking her limbs, causing her to scream in pain as her body was thrown against the colosseum walls at full force, creating a large dent on the weak and stone walls.

Mordred immediately shattered the ground into several pieces before grabbing a large boulder and launching it at her direction, causing her body to get squished by the large boulder and the wall behind her, burying her deep into the wall as Mordred prepared for her final attack.

"This is the cursed sword that destroyed my father..."

Mordred muttered as her sword started to release brilliant blood red light before it completely transformed into a giant pillar of highly concentrated mana that reached the sky.

"[Clarent Blood Arthur]!!!"

Mordred casted as she swung down her sword at the female demon's direction, slicing the entire colosseum in half along with the female demon who was imbedded on the wall.

The entire field started to collapse due to the incredible destructive force and power contained in her last attack, destroying the old stone walls of the Colosseum to dust.

"hahahaHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Mordred loudly laughed in triump as she raised her first into the air with a large victorious and prideful smile on her face, while her body was covered in her own blood, and cuts from their exchanges.

"You were not bad, kid"

She whispered as her armor quickly deconstructed itself, revealing her bloodied and petite figure to the crowd, due to draining all of her mana to strengthen her body.

[Combatant Diodora Astaroth's [Knight] retires!!]

[OOOOOHHHHH!!!!]

The crowd cheered in excitement as Mordred was transported back to their base, causing Lucias to look at her worry as she showered her with 3 bottles of Pheonix Tears to heal her wounds.

"You did a great job, just leave the rest to us. I'm sure Artoria is proud of you know"

Lucias whispered to her as she completely passed out in his arms due to fatigue, causing Lucias to smile as she gently placed her on the sofa to give her some rest.

[What a battle!! A true display of swordsmanship among [Knights]!! Let's give them all a round of applause for their incredible display of skills!!]

The announcer shouted in excitement causing the crowd to cheer as the arbiter returned back to his previous spot to immediately start the next round.

[Both Kings, go to your respective stands!]

The arbiter urged, causing both Lucias and Astaroth who was glaring at his direction to grab both of their dies.

[And shoot!]

The arbiter urged causing both of them to throw their dice to their stand as the crowd waited in anticipation for the next match.

[Both combantants have rolled... 6!! A total of 12 values for the next round!!]

The announcer said causing Astaroth to widely grin in response while looking at his direction.

[Both teams will be given 3 minutes to prepare!!]

The arbiter sais causing both of them to immediately walk towards their respective peerages.

[The match is now 2-0, with Lucias Frey leading 2 wins in the matches. Will combantant Diodora Astaroth catch up to the large disparity in scores for the next round!?]

The announcer shouted as a magic barrier covered both teams, blocking off all of the noise around them.

"... A value of 12..."

Lucias muttered while glancing at their total values which was diplayed on the projection above the stadium.

"... He'll send out at maximum two pieces, maybe a few pawns? I doubt he'll send out his queen so easily for the next round... He can't afford wasting more pieces for this round since he already lost 3 pieces from the previous rounds... but he also can't afford to lose due to our gap..."

Lucias muttered before glancing at his servant with a serious expression on his face.

"Hmm... Cú Chulainn"

Lucias called causing Cú Chulainn to look at him with a large smirk on his face.

"Run wild"