Aranea stood there with a mouth ajar. The pulsating water-shaped dragons surrounded Leonel, forming an impenetrable water wall.
Leonel smirked at Aranea as the dragons danced around him. He made sure Aranea could see his smug look to entice her to attack.
Her familiar's arrogance left a sour taste on Aranea's mouth. She wanted to slap him out of his consciousness, but the sentient water wall made it impossible for her to do so.
But she was determined and unfazed by such power.
She ran towards the serpentine waterwall and tugged her arrow for release.
"My goodness! Elenea, that's insane!" Elenea tried to stand in between them. "Don't do—"
Aranea evaded her sister, "This is our fight, get back to the sidelines, Elenea! I can do this!"
The spunky Summoner released the bow, making it slide through her fingers, penetrating the air.
She's aiming for Leonel's smug face but the waterwall proved to be too strong for her arrow to even go through it.
Leonel started his offense. One of the water serpents bobbed its head out and rammed itself towards Aranea.
Aranea skidded towards the side to avoid the vicious attack. The ground shook as the water and debris splattered all around. She knew he was too powerful for her, but the Summoner didn't want to call it quits just yet.
She fired two overhead shots arching towards the eye of the defense wall, Leonel. The spearman easily blocked all three of her arrows with the water serpent.
Aranea was no match for him. She saw the difference of their abilities. She realized the gap in their magical abilities, especially because she cannot produce even the slightest form of magical attack.
She smiled and scratched her head in annoyance.
"Still wanting to fight, aren't we?" Leonel yawned as he serpents slowly stretched their curled bodies.
"Those worms of yours…" Aranea pointed, "Don't really equate to the real thing, right?"
Elenea got flustered by the question.
"Hey! Aranea, wh-what are you talking about?" Elenea tried to hide her tomato red face.
"That—" Leonel covered his crotch with his free hand, "Wh-what do you mean by that?! Wh-what worms?! These are serpents! Are you supposed to be a pervert? Have you summoned me for that?!"
Leonel's face turned red as the question slowly descended to his conscious thought.
Aranea was shocked by his answer, "Wh-what?! A pervert?! Me?!"
The clueless summoner still couldn't understand how completely inappropriate what she just said. In her mind, she only wanted to know how the magic works, but apparently the question came out wrong—oh, so, wrong.
Finally, the airhead caught-up with it.
"W-wait…"
Her eyes unwillingly made a glance at his crotch.
"What the hell?!" She covered her eyes. "You pervert! Y-you were thinking about that?! Disgusting!"
"W-wait…I'm the—" The spearman glared at her bafflingly.
"Enough talk, you pervert!" Aranea fired an arrow straight towards Leonel. "I will punish you for that!"
"Punish me for what?" The spearman deflected the arrow easily.
Aranea still couldn't find a way to penetrate the defense. She clicked her tongue in frustration as she evaded the spearman's counterattacks. She moved towards the side, trying to find the right angle of attack.
She found a small opening on the left side in between the gaps of the serpents that stretched out. She took a risky shot releasing another round of powerful arrows.
The serpents easily parried the first two arrows, catching it with their watery jaws, breaking the projectiles. The third one, made it pass the defense but missed Leonel by a hair.
Aranea clicked her tongue and swore under her breath words that would make her sister faint.
"Still not enough!"
She encircled the spearman, stopping by his back before evading incoming serpent heads.
The attack became more relentless than ever. The water serpents became more of projectiles rather than the defensive wall that it was.
It began to follow her and attacked her ruthlessly as she did her best to duck and slide around the trio of heads charging towards her.
Aranea finally took leverage of a momentary blunder when one of the serpents accidentally butted head with each other as it was crashing down on her.
She swerved right out of the impact zone and charged directly at the remaining defending serpent.
Using the momentum of the charge, the confident Summoner leapt over the final serpent's attack using its thick formed body to leverage herself. She went right into the center of the impenetrable defense where Leonel greeted her with a bow.
"My, my…you made it all through that?" The spearman's smug face radiated. "Well, at least you put on an effort doing it!"
Leonel acrobatically spun his spear ending with his favorite fighting pose.
The Tidal--was a pose involving the spear raised overhead with the sharp tip aimed at the opponent while lunging backwards.
It was a powerful and effective offensive pose as it covered both a safety distance for one to attack while still given maneuverability over the range.
Unfortunately, Aranea wasn't familiar about this and just wanted to end the fight as quickly as she could. It was already getting late and her stomach grumbled in hunger.
The clueless Summoner charged in with her trusty weapon on hand. She fired three arrows towards
Leonel but got deflected easily.
Leonel went with own attack, thrusting the spear and almost piercing Aranea's face.
The Summoner luckily moved at the last second and was able to hold the pole of the spear.
She held on to it, causing a struggle between her and Leonel. She was able to close her distance and was about to grab him when suddenly, a blast of water struck her from the side. The attack flung her away from him.
The impact winded her, but didn't broke her spirit.
She got up and tried to attack him once more, ensuing one of the best close quarters scuffle that Elenea to this day bragged about her sister.
She took the last arrow she had on her quiver and fired it directly at the spearman's face. Leonel was quick to flick it out of his sight.
While the spearman got distracted by the arrow, Aranea rushed in covering a great distance to her advantage.
She caught the flicked arrow by one hand and held the pole of the spear in the other. Another brawl ensued, this time Aranea was at the advantage.
She tried to attack Leonel with the arrow she caught, prompting the spearman to shift one of his hands to grab her wrist and preventing the bloody attack.
This move shifted the spearman's position, giving the Summoner an opening to attack.
Before Leonel could grab her hand, she immediately dropped the arrow and flicked the spearman's hand out of the way.
Now that Leonel was open for attack, she immediately grabbed his nape as she closed her gap. As she moved forward, she yanked the spearman forward and using the momentum, lifted him over her shoulder, and slammed him to the ground.
For a brief moment, Aranea saw Leonel's eyes widen, but the look of surprise turned into an arrogant smug once again.
Before the spearman could hit the ground, a huge ball of water cushioned the slam. He bounced upon impact and was able to counter the slam with a throw of his own.
He grabbed Aranea's shoulder and using his feet that he launched her into the air, flipping her away from him.
Aranea quickly stood up the moment she hit the ground. Her body hurts all over and she's already close to her limit. No matter how much she trained, she was still bound to the limits of her body.
As she was taking a step, she could feel her knees tremble in fatigue.
At that point, she knew that this would be her final attack. No matter what happens, she wanted it to count.
She hoped to defeat the smug spearman but his power was too much for her. She was just glad she made it this far albeit frustrated that she couldn't get the job done.
Pouring all her strength to one more attack, Aranea charged in once more. Leonel made sure she won't be able to get close to her again.
The spearman attacked with his element. Water spheres and water missiles came attacking her in all directions.
If it wasn't for her pin-point focus, she would've been hit by the powerful projectiles by then.
But today wasn't that day.
Aranea weaved her way out of the projectiles, performing acrobatic movements so gracefully it was mesmerizing to see. She finally closed in on the spearman, but Leonel wasn't done with his attack yet. He went with his tidal stance and tried to gore his Summoner.
Luckily, lady luck smiled upon Aranea.
Just as the spearman was about to attack, an arrow fell down from the sky. It was just a few inches away from Leonel's face!
The arrow from nowhere startled the spearman and gave the Summoner enough time to finally close her distance and swing a huge haymaker on his face.
The tide of victory shifted--Aranea now has the chance to win it!
But just as she was about to deliver the strongest punch she could muster, her luck ran out.
As she lunged forward, she lost her footing. The wet ground proved to be difficult for traction. She slipped and tripped over the arrow lodged on the ground.
Suddenly, her vision went from Leonel's face going down--then the world went dark…
Elenea was proud of her dear sister. She had always praised her for her courage in defying all the odds and usually told this story to those who wanted to know about her sister.
However, Aranea made her swore never to tell how she defeated Leonel.
In her stories, Elenea would often end the battle in a draw.
But in reality, her sister was too embarrassed to let the world know that her face collided into the spearman's crotch and ended the battle with both of them passing out.
A long chapter made by MoeJam90 to start the week! ^^ Thanks so much for writing 2 chapters for me to have a grasp on how to make action scenes! Do check out his story~! :D