Tournament: Nathan

Finally! It was finally my turn to fight in this long-ass tournament. 

I stretched my body before exiting the locker room. When I left, I pulled my retracted spear out of the bag wrapped around my shoulder and extended it using my magic power. It elongated almost as high as the ceiling and I was forced to hold the long weapon on my shoulder.

I yawned and wiped my eyes as I stepped out of the building and onto the courtyard. In front of me, there was a huge stone platform that was elevated in the air and had one staircase leading up to it. 

There were two large rows of bleachers, each on opposite sides of the arena. They have been placed a far distance away, possibly due to safety reasons.

I was still reasonably tired from last night's preparations with Aaron. That crazy bastard had me train all night with him, doing all sorts of exercises! 

I'm not that big on exercise, I prefer to spend my free time writing and tinkering with different gadgets, but that guy is just too much! Who in their right mind does a thousand push-ups in a single rep?

I walked onto the platform and twirled my spear around a bit, just to get a feel for it before fighting. I stopped at my position and got into my spear stance, which had me leaning back and holding the spear in front of my body. 

I wanted to get lower, but I felt my legs begin to feel strained, so I refrained from getting any lower in my stance.

Across the platform, a girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes walked onto the platform slowly drawing a long silver sword from her sheath and holding it in one hand. 

She was wearing custom-fitted silver armor with a blue cloth placed around the waist. Her plated gauntlets gripped the sword tightly and she stared daggers at me with her deep, piercing plum-colored eyes. This must be my opponent, the next sword saint of the Azure Kingdom, as they called her in the lockers, Eres Gabby.

"You there!" She exclaimed, "You're from that Knightford Kingdom, am I correct?"

"Eh, yeah, I guess." I replied with slight confusion in my tone, "What does that mean to you?"

"That's what I thought," She got into a fighting stance, holding her sword in front of her, with one foot in front of the other, "I hate you Knightford bastards! Why would you willingly take in demon refugees? Even after all their kind did?"

Damn, another one of these guys, huh? Why couldn't I have gotten someone more open-minded like Reginald's opponent? He kept bragging about how they "hit it off", why can't I get someone like that? 

Although, I can't exactly blame them for having that thought process. A lot of people lost their families to the demons, however, you can't blame the entire species simply because of the actions of a few.

The bell rang out to signal the start of the battle, and Eres took advantage immediately. 

As soon as the bell rang, Eres's figure disappeared and reappeared right in front of me. She swung the sword downward at me, but I quickly drew my spear and deflected the strike by twisting my arms and leading the blade away. 

I turned around and used the butt of the spear to attack Eres with a thrust to the face. Eres dodged the strike easily and positioned her foot behind mine and headbutted me.

I was completely disoriented by the blow and tried to back up from her, but I ended up tripping on Eres' foot instead. I began slowly falling backward and Eres took the opportunity to spin her sword around and swing it at my unguarded figure. 

I twisted my body in order to avoid the blow, feeling the cold blade graze my hair as I moved backward and fell. As I was on the ground, she attempted to stab my chest, which I quickly rolled out of the way. I then used my arm to push myself back up to dodge another slash downward.

"You seem angry!" I said while deflecting a sideways slash from Eres, "Do you mind explaining why?"

Eres didn't say anything to reply. However, she instead got faster with her swings, using her sword to gracefully guide her blade in a fluid motion after striking. 

She looked like an elegant and disciplined dancer while fighting. Although I had incredible talent with the spear, I put hardly any effort into training with it and instead grew up messing around with engineering. I could tell that the girl in front of me was both talented, and she trained extremely hard to gain her skills now.

This isn't going to work out in my favor if this continues on like this. She is far too skilled in the sword for me to be able to keep up with her normally. While my spearmanship is impressive, it can't compare to whatever she's doing. 

I reached into my bag while deflecting another one of Eres' sword strikes and pulled out a small silver ball. I threw the silver ball at her face and it just bounced off with a loud thud.

"Oww!" She exclaimed while rubbing her head, "What in the shit was that for, Heathen?"

"Uhh, my bad," I reached into my bag and pulled out a cylindrical silver object, "I meant to use this."

I concentrated magic power into the item and turned away as I tossed it at the baffled Eres. A loud explosion sound was heard as the cylinder burst into a blinding flash. Eres screamed in surprise and I turned around and immediately rushed toward the blinded swordswoman. I spun my spear around to gain momentum with my swing and sent it crashing down on Eres.

"Fool." She muttered as she sidestepped my strike and thrusted her sword into my side.

The silver sword dug into my abdomen and I leapt back away from Eres quickly. 

I stuck my hands into my bag and took out six more of the same spherical objects I threw previously and charged them with mana as I threw them into the air. 

The front of the metal balls opened up into an eye and propellers extended from the top of them to allow the chassis to hover. Underneath the floating orbs, a long silver tube extended outward and began glowing green. I extended my arm and a green display formed from my magic and showed a screen with the status of all six floating eyes. 

I motioned my hand and the six drones flew to my side. I motioned my hand once more and the long tubes began charging up an attack.

"Golem creation," I hopped onto two of the metal golems and began elevating into the sky, "it's a special skill that I have. It allows me to create and control up to six figures made of earth, like these."

I extended my arm outward toward Eres and the remaining four golem drones flew toward her. The flying balls of death began unleashing blasts of green magic upon her. However, Eres had no trouble dodging and deflecting the oncoming projectiles. 

I adjusted the golems I was standing on with earth magic and they conformed to fit around my feet. I began gliding around the arena much more easily than before.

To beat a swordsman, one must first gain a high-ground advantage over them. With the high ground, even the most talented of swordsmen could be beaten. 

I opened my bag and began pulling out different kinds of explosives and tossing them at Eres, who was busy guarding against my drones. The falling ordinates collided with the hard ground and immediately burst into red flames, scorching the surrounding vicinity in a raging fire.

"Heh," I chuckled, "I doubt anyone could have survived that."

"Foolish," A sword cut through the flames and came flying at my legs, "fucking Heathen!"

The cold silver blade sliced my right leg before changing direction and slashing at my left leg as well. I wobbled in the air before losing my balance and falling backward straight toward the ground. 

I grabbed my spear and used magic to transform the normal handle into a rotating one while forming another point at the end. I used the rotating handle to spin the spear around in the air like a propeller and safely landed on the ground. I looked around as all of the golems I had created had been completely destroyed.

Eres was on the ground and instantly met me with a swift thrust to the chest. I backed up quickly and retaliated with a thrust toward her stomach, as it was unguarded the hardest area to dodge with. 

She quickly pulled her blade from me and used it to deflect my spear thrust. I utilized this newfound opening to hastily pull out an explosive device and tossed it at her face. Eres quickly moved her head out of the way as the explosive passed her, but it exploded behind her instead, pushing her forward.

I took the opportunity to kick at her abdomen with my left leg and formed the golem on my foot into a long blade that pierced Eres straight through. 

The force of the impact sent ripples through my partially injured leg as I pushed my blade through her stomach. 

She coughed out blood and I pulled my spear toward myself and thrusted toward her chest. She quickly deflected my spear strike and pulled it away from me, tossing it away. She then used her sword to slice at my neck. I attempted to move my neck out of the way, but the strike was too quick and my throat was cut as a result.

"Hah!" Eres exclaimed confidently, "Bleed to death Heathen!"

Fucking racist bitch, didn't you forget about something? I couldn't say anything because my throat was cut open and bleeding out. I quickly sent mana to my left leg as I forced my foot to push upwards, straight through Eres.

"Wha-?" Eres had no time to finish as I quickly brought my leg up, slicing through her armor and cutting her upper body in half.

I pulled my foot down for a dropkick and cut straight through her lower body. Blood spurted out as the two sides of her lifeless corpse flopped onto the ground. I retracted the blade on my foot and grabbed my throat. 

I instantly looked away from the sight of Eres' body, feeling horrible. 

As I was feeling an immense amount of guilt for killing her, a bright white light enveloped both of us and we were instantly rejuvenated. 

Eres' body had become completely whole once more with all traces of blood lost, and my neck was no longer sliced open with blood gushing out. All the pain in my body had been completely washed over and a feeling of refreshment went through my body.

I retracted my long green spear into a disc shape that matched the new handle and placed it into my bag. I then walked over across the platform to retrieve the one intact golem sphere and placed it back into my bag. 

I turned back around and watched as two guys in black suits picked up Eres and escorted her unconscious body back to the girl's locker room. 

I sighed as I walked off the platform. That battle was incredibly tough, if not for Eres's arrogance, I would have never survived for that long. 

Thankfully, there is a deep resentment that the Azurans have for those from Knightford. This resentment causes them to look down on us, thinking they are better than us. But there was one thing that the Azurans refuse to acknowledge, and it's that the Azure Kingdom wouldn't even be standing if it weren't for the actions of our king.