Chapter 67

Ash picked up his sword and looked at his enemy. He hadn't expected to be challenged to a duel in the middle of a war. And his opponent also looked too confident in his abilities. He pulled out his sword from its sheath, it was longer than a normal sword and the goblin too was pretty tall and lean, it almost looked like a combination of a goblin and an elf.

Ash and the goblin started circling each other at once, his nerves were starting to get to him, what if the goblin was too strong for him, he had easily stopped his attack earlier with just his hand. He had to give it his all and test the strength of his opponent. He increased the mana around his body as they circled each other, the goblin's long sword had also started burning with green flames. Ash's armor started crackling with lightning, and it spread through his whole body, he knew he was expanding too much mana but he had a feeling he would need it in this fight.

The goblin looked at the sparks of lightning and smiled, he was looking for a worthy opponent to fight.

Ash felt the attack was coming and just by instinct he stopped moving, he only saw a slight change in the air and moved his upper body back when a vertical green slash grazed past him, he looked down at his armor there was a clean circular cut there the attack had chipped off his armor like it was cloth. He hadn't even seen him bring his sword down and release the attack.

Ash had gotten faster and his body could move fast but he couldn't see an attack that fast, he had to think of a way to deal with that he wasn't sure he could dodge another attack like that. The goblin didn't immediately attack though it looked like he wanted to have some fun and was waiting for him to attack next.

Ash took the time to think of different fighting strategies, the first idea that popped into his head was to try and focus mana into his eyes, but then a bad image came into his head of his eyes bursting into flames in his skull.

He slowly tried sending mana into his eyes, he felt a weird sensation spread through his head, it was like he was walking through a foggy field, his eyes started watering, but they weren't burning, he wiped his eyes clean and looked back at the goblin. The mana was in front of his eyes now, he could see clearly but something had changed, everything was moving at the same speed but for some reason, he felt he had more time to see where what was happening, he realized that what had changed was that his brain was able to process what he was seeing much faster and his eyes could move and focus much faster too.

Now he could fight on an equal footing and did not need to worry about sudden attacks like that. He was now expanding too much mana, on his feet, eyes, body, and sword. So he had to finish this fight soon. He decided to close the distance with one leap, and the goblin reacted too, and blue and green met in the middle with their swords clashing, lightning met with green flames, Ash felt the strength of the goblin immediately, it instilled a sense of fear in him but he couldn't back down now, they stepped back and clashed again, this time their swords didn't stop instead they kept exchanging blows at tremendous speed.

The goblin was grinning still with every blow he kept hitting back harder and faster.

The green flames were hot and burnt every time he went close to them but they also had the same corroding nature as the green rain, the flames on the swords flowed even more every time they clashed.

It gave Ash an idea and when the next blow came he let the sword go past him grabbed the goblin by one hand and let the lightning do its work, he let his mana flow freely out of his body and when it came out of his body it turned into blue lightning, but he had underestimated his opponent because he wasn't going down so soon, he screamed a very terrible scream as the lightning burnt through every inch of his body and he let the green flames loose in his hands, they in turned engulfed the arm from which Ash was grabbing onto him. The sudden pain made him scream at the top of his lungs too and increase the mana in return. The energy got too dense and it exploded sending them both hurling through the crowd in opposite directions, Ash hit a hobgoblin and the body of the goblin exploded on impact, green blood and organs sprayed everywhere and Ash landed on the ground hard creating a small crater.

His body was aching all over, the pain was unbearable, and he felt like every bone in his body had broken and he couldn't take it anymore, he felt the darkness come over him and he closed his eyes and went unconscious.

When next he came to his senses he saw something white flapping over his head, he opened his eyes to see that it was the cloth of the white tent he was in. He looked down at himself, his armor had been taken off and clothes were torn apart, and his whole torso and arms were covered in bandages.

He saw someone else was in the tent too, preparing a salve to apply on his head wound, she must be a healer he thought, but she was also wearing armor, which made sense in this kind of environment, she turned and started applying the salve on his head.

"Are you awake?" she asked.

"What happened, is the fight over?" he asked.

"No it's still going on, you were only unconscious for about an hour, " she said.

"I thought I was hurt more badly, " he said.

"You are, but this is a war, we don't care about treating our patients calmly, especially the ones who can still walk, I have given you a very strong dose of Viper serum, it will null all the pain in your body and I have also had you about a dozen mana restoration pills when this will all be over you will feel it all at once, and I don't know how it will work on a human when they brought you here they didn't know what you were it was only after I removed your helmet did I realized, I haven't told anyone yet, we need fighters like you especially someone who managed to damage a goblin warlock, " she said.

"A warlock?" he asked.

"Yeah although it was a young one he still killed a lot of us and so I am sorry but I want you to go out there and help us out a bit more, " she said.

Ash slowly stood up, he couldn't feel any pain, but his head was still aching and he could tell her shouldn't move and rest instead, he tried feeling his mana reserves, he could feel a dozen pills trying to push mana back into him, but he couldn't absorb them that fast, but still his mana was getting better and better by the second.

"You want to let your mana flow through your body, it will help with the healing, you don't need to worry about mana exhaustion until those pills run out of mana, " she said.

Ash picked up the helmet and the sword.

"And the armor? You will stand out like this, but I have to say you look pretty cool," she said and took off her helmet and Ash almost spat out the water he was drinking when she looked in the eyes of Amyra.

"I told you I'd find you, " she said smiling.