The Start Of The First Practical Assessments (3)

Back in the real world Cyrus laughed out loud when he saw what happened to Minerva, thinking to himself, "She was having too much fun it seems. The lack of tension due to knowing it was staged seems to have changed how she acts, as if she had the same mindset when she fought me then I believe victory would have been at hand. Ah, I bet I can use this later for my benefit."

Formulating a few plans to mess with his pet-, ally, he put his focus on the fight that his other half was watching: Bavol vs Titus.

But he was in for a surprise as the fight had already ended, even faster than the short and intense battle that Minerva took part in.

The best part was that the victor was not the seemingly all knowing and careful Bavol but instead was the butt of many jokes, Titus.

"How did he win so fast?" asked the masked Cyrus to his other half.

The response was quick, and just two words, "Bavol surrendered."

Hearing this the dark half was able to guess at two things, "He does not wish to reveal his cards just yet or he does not wish to fight me. Either way, it seems my battle will be with this odd Titus and then perhaps Gellert."

Titus was told to get up and head towards Cyrus, which he did, and promptly sat across from him. Both of them placed their hands on the crystal and were whisked away just like Minerva, to a crafted world.

---

The battlefield was the same exact one that he had spectated his ally in, a barren land with sparse trees and geysers in the background.

He spotted Titus across from him, with his hands behind his back and a friendly smile on his face. He yelled, "How about we talk instead of fight, the winner of the debate is the winner of the battle?"

Of course Cyrus paid no attention to whatever drivel spewed forth from his mouth, instead opting to immediately send an array of knives at Titus while he began to cast his Vita coil in each of his limbs one at a time.

Titus heaved a great sigh and said with dramatic flair, "What a pity. Alas, I must win this fight for I require Fidem to give to my brethren. Forgive me for my violence, but this is a fight I will be winning."

With such compassionate yet arrogant words said, a buckets worth of water was created in the air above him and quickly fell downwards as things tend to do. Except when the knives came near him it suddenly turned into a whip and knocked away each of the knives with surprising force.

"Water is quite heavy you know" said Titus lightly as he let the water fall to the ground in front of him and walked slowly towards his enemy.

Cyrus' response was more knives of course, which were easily dealt with by Titus.

The slow gain of ground by Titus did not last long though, as once Cyrus finished casting the last coil he drew his sword and almost phased out of existence from where he was standing and appeared just a few steps in front of Titus with his sword bringing down its wrath onto him.

The sword hit nothing. Specifically it hit a large bubble of water that was created in front of Titus that absorbed most of the force of the blade, the rest of it simply causing some water to splash onto his face.

He then turned the leftover water into another whip that cracked towards Cyrus' face, narrowly dodged by him by burning the last of his leg charges to dash to the side.

Digging his right foot into the ground to transfer the momentum from the dodge to an attacking posture, Cyrus held his sword with both hands and thrusted with all his might into Titus.

"It did not work the first time, so why would it work the second?" mused Titus aloud, repeating the same exact counter as the last time.

Cyrus' sword was easily stopped once more, with a force weighing down on it that was not just the weight of the water.

But with two activations of Cyrus' arm Vita coils he broke through the holding force at the cost of breaking both his arms but the effect was as intended, Titus' defense crumbled and his head was skewered through.

---

Back in reality, Cyrus opened his eyes and saw Titus knocked out completely cold.

"Well that was easy. It is clear that he was not on the top rankings for his combat skill, although the magic he used was not half bad. A strong defense that turns into a strong offense, the only downside is that there is no time to react if the defense is penetrated through a trick like mine. By presenting less power than I actually had the first time, he underestimated the amount of will he would have to use in his defense…thus his quick loss."

Titus was carried away and to one of the gladiator pits, where a medical center was erected temporarily, and Gellert sat down in the seat across from him.

Once more, the two opponents entered the created world.

---

"Now that I am here for a second time, I can definitely feel my connection with Ares even in here. I can even feel that it is possible to recreate him in here, but if this was made by mages then shouldn't that be impossible? Unless of course, it was not made by human hands of this era…" pondered Cyrus.

While he was thinking his opponent on the other hand wasted no such time. Immediately several arrows flew towards Cyrus in an unending stream, clearly to prevent him from getting as close as he had to Titus.

Using uncanny, almost grotesque, dexterity Cyrus ducked under the first few arrows and slashed the next few out of the air when they tried to bend to follow him.

All the while he created a vast amount of shadow essence around him, slowly snaking its way towards the natural shadows of the tree line.

Not wishing to allow such a thing, the attacks became increasingly creative. The next few arrows were somehow shot in a manner that they while three were shot one after the other, they all ended up taking different paths but arriving at their destination at the same time.

One bended to the left, one to the right, and one kept going straight. If Cyrus were to dodge any one in any direction another would follow. Not only that but these arrows were shot by a professional, if he tried to block it using his arm there was a chance it would go clean through him.

To pull himself out of such dire straits, Cyrus focused his mind and senses to their max. Time seemed to slow ever so slightly as Cyrus actively began to burn his own stamina to increase his processing speed, a rather heretical art but one that could be explained as some kind of internal gift.

Having enough leisure to even idly think in this state, Cyrus thought, "This is one part of two tests, to see who really made this type of technology. Whether or not I get an innocent inquiry about this ability, will be one of two tests. Although I do not believe I will have to use the second unless a real opponent comes along."

While he was thinking such thoughts his hands were most definitely not idle, unleashing three knives with his left hand while drawing his sword with the other.

Two out of three knives hit their target, an extremely superhuman feat to say the least, while the last missed but his sword more than made up for the loss and with a small flick of the wrist the last arrow was cut down.

With Gellerts last ditch effort failing, Cyrus succeeded in dissipating into the shadows and even going to great pains to cover his tracks as much as he could by making adept usage of his lesson with Caligo.

"A tricky foe, but not an impossible one" said Gellert, his aura slowly changing once again from calm and cool to hot headed and brash.

Noticing this change Cyrus thought, "Does he actually have some kind of personality disorder? Poor sod."

His somewhat sarcastic pity did not stop his advance, safely advancing through the shadows of one tree to the next. Sneakily approaching his opponent who could do little other than continue to run in one direction or the other, hoping that the shadow he passed would not be the one that Cyrus was in.

"Of course if he continues to run I will never be able to catch him, not until I figure out how to quickly move from shadow to shadow without giving away my position anyhow" thought Cyrus as he made his move, pulling a page from a previous fight.

Burning most of his will, the entire area surrounding the two fighters began to become shrouded in a misty death essence.

Gellert soon found the places where he could run to avoid the shadows that he knew Cyrus could possibly be in growing to be fewer and fewer, but he was not running around for nothing.

Unleashing a spell that he had been slowly preparing the entire time he had been running, in order to avoid detection that he was casting it, a large ball of orange fire was created directly above him. The heat was nothing impressive nor did it do anything to directly aim Cyrus, but it was so massive that the light it emitted tore right through the shadows that Cyrus was hiding in.

Shocked by the sight of an Aero mage suddenly using Ignis, Cyrus responded automatically by unleashing another flurry of projectiles and quickly using his leftover will to hastily craft a coil in one of his legs and use it to jump into the mist he had created himself.

The reason he was so quick to retreat became obvious, as a large activation of the Aero domain came from Gellert shooting several small balls of hot fire onto the area where he had just been standing.

The last few were even adjusted for the retreat path of Cyrus, zooming into the mist and cutting some of it apart as it burned away whatever it touched.

Hiding in the mist of death that he had created earlier, spending much of his focus on manipulating his sense so that his own spell would not eat him alive, Cyrus chuckled to himself, "Well, perhaps this will not be as easy as I had thought. Mm, it is better that my prey squirms a bit before being crushed…allows me to relish the feeling longer."

The fight had now been almost completely reset, except for the fact that Gellert was trapped in a small area and that Cyrus now had barely any will left.

"Time to get creative I suppose" thought Cyrus as he rummaged through his pockets, wondering if his bag of tricks had followed him into this world.