Xion CH27: The Duel

Samael liked to blind her opponent and buff herself in their blind spots. It made it easier to hide what her buffs did or deliver a killing blow. Fortunately, Samael buffed over 85% of the time in her fights. She did it for the attention. If a fight was genuinely dire, she wouldn't waste a killing blow to buff. On the flip side, she might have risked a god light killing offensive technique. There were downsides to that, and it was normally frowned upon in a duel.

I delivered a powerful elbow to the side of her head from the moment it connected another technique had already gathered. The light's speed buff allowed her to perform other techniques faster even though it was running out. I threw myself back as a dome of light appeared around her.

My danger sense went off as her buff died, and she gathered power around her off-hand. I gained some more distance; while being close could normally allow me to interrupt her technique, I needed distance while her dome was up. With both suns shining down on her, she could call up a lot more energy than normal. There were only so many techniques she could call upon with a dueling arena full of people.

From out of the light, I realized she had performed a summoning technique instead of one of the point-to-point killing techniques. This was worse. Summonings called upon mythical weapons forged from thoughts and memories implanted in qi. The forest tribe's mythic weapon was a sword that absorbed light and eased her technique burden. It was the perfect utility tool for a mage or a mage knight class.

The dome shattered, and its pieces formed numerous semisolid glass-like projectiles. She slashed with the sword, and they raced after me. So, I formed the old island obliterating fist and punched forward. Then I wobbled and a little unsteady on my feet. After gaining constant, I shouldn't have enough power to use one island obliterating punch and stay standing, much less four or five.

Still, even with my own powerful technique of my own, it wasn't made for defense. One shard hit my thigh while the other smashed into my shoulder. The others were too small to do any real damage and broke apart on my body glove. This was how Mekael fought when she got serious, except she couldn't call upon a mythical weapon that halved the cost of her techniques. So I shot forward as again light's speed was applied.

Blood trickled down my leg, and I knew I wasn't moving quite as fast as before. The shard had already dissipated into motes of light, letting my wound bleed. I've only heard of the mythical blade Angel from Zosimael, and it shouldn't have been summoned for a duel. It's a weapon of the tribe, not some chief's daughter for a grudge match. Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact it was out.

She moved too fast for me to keep up with, and her stab was coming. Samael's gaze was too serious about taking a surrender at this point, and I wasn't offering it anyway. Qi or not, body glove or not, and regeneration or not, that little piece of obsidian would slip through my ribs without slowing down and skewer my heart. Death wouldn't take long after that.

There were other factors at play before this fight even began. Samael could have chosen numerous buffs and applied them with the sword out or risked applying a second in my blind spot. While I knew about the sword, Zosimael said it was incredibly unlikely to be summoned for this. The will of the sword shouldn't allow it. Finally, even if I wasn't an elf, I was a member of the tribe taught in the tribe's forms. Only I wasn't, really. I hadn't fully integrated with the tribe's culture or learned much of their history besides how Samael and other elves fought before.

For that reason, I had no choice but to factor the sword angel into my plans. With that in mind, how to counter it came up, and better yet, how could I counter it if I was wounded.

I raised my using it to block the attack. The simplest answer was that I didn't. Throughout the entire fight, I had lied to my opponent and suppressed my qi. The sea god's greatest strength was in its armored hide and incredible regeneration, not its island obliterating fist or water manipulation. In an instant, I let my qi return to its previous level, and my wounds healed on the spot.

The obsidian spear shattered when it hit my chest, and the spear bounced when it impacted my chest. Samael's eyes widened as my strategy took effect. Before, if I had shown even the slightest chance of being able to use the sea god's defense to my advantage, she would have buffed in kind. Not only would she have used light's speed, but she would also have used Piercing light and photon burst. Her entire fight would be on the defensive until she gathered those techniques together to kill me in one hit. Then, her barrier would have stopped me long enough to summon the sword and buff herself. A little-known fact about angel it halved its user's casting time. I noticed it when she applied light's speed again.

I caught her sword hand and stopped her from bringing the only weapon that could have pieced my qi toughed skin to bear. With a twict shown to me by Mekael, I broke her grip. Samael screamed as I put her in a joint lock and kicked her leg out from under her. This was what I had been waiting for all along. The sword vanished in motes of light, sapping Samael of some of her reserves.

Samael continued to scream in pain and rage. I pressed my crotch against her ass to add insult to injury as I held her there. Finally, she crawled to the ground, searching for any leverage that might help her get out of this situation. All the while, I pressed down upon her with my own will. Our fight devolved into a battle of qi and wills as she struggled in my hold.