Chapter 162
How many hours had it been since the battle started?
Yet another boom went off. Explosions went off like the famous fire spell, and every time Ulabis swung his sword, the floor would crumble. Ulabis’ columns of fire often spat crimson tongues of flame that threatened to consume Akshuller.
In addition, the rising was making it harder to breathe.
“Hooh… Haah.” Akshuller’s breathing was heavy. They had just exchanged dozens of moves in the proverbial blink of an eye. Even with Akshuller’s intensive training, he was starting to find it difficult to endure the heat.
“Your movement is sluggish.”
Swoosh!
Akshuller turned to the side as Ulabis’ delicate red sword slashed at him.
“Keugh!”
Unfortunately for Akshuller, Ulabis’ sword wasn’t the only issue he had been facing. It was because whenever Ulabis made a move, a trail of flames would follow soon after, which had been torturing him for a long time now.
“This is hard, goddamned it!” Akshuller couldn’t help but curse.
He couldn’t even get close to Ulabis because of the annoying, unpredictable flames flying about the latter.
“If we keep this up, there will be no end to this battle.” Akshuller stopped moving.
“...?” Ulabis was astonished when he saw that. After all, Akshuller had been trying to get close to him all this time, so why would he stop now?
“I don't like this.” Akshuller clenched his fists. It had to be a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. Akshuller only had one method he could use to do that.
“Haah… hoooh.” Akshuller took a deep breath, and his muscles abruptly bulged. His biceps were already huge, but they became even bigger. In fact, they looked like they were bigger than an adult’s torso now.
Akshuller’s shirt stretched dangerously close to ripping.
Seeing that, Ulabis’ eyes flashed in a grim light. “I have no idea what you’re thinking, but there is no way I’m going to just let you do what you want.”
With that, Ulabis seized the initiative and unleashed his sea of flames once more. It had been quite a while since the battle started, so Ulabis already had a grasp of Akshuller’s fighting style.
Akshuller was a traditional fistfighter, and his fighting style involved taking advantage of his innate physique to incessantly pummel his enemies until they submitted to him. As such, Ulabis knew how risky it would be if he were to let Akshuller get close to him.
“It’s about time we end this.”
Akshuller smiled at Ulabis’ quick movement, and he immediately took action to take advantage of the delay between Ulabis’ initial movement onto the next movement. It would be dumb for him not to take advantage of this opening.
‘Vision Skills aren’t something that’s only exclusive to knights.’?Akshuller brought his trembling hands together. His hands were bulging as well, looking like they were about to explode.
He was aiming his fists at the ground.
“...!” Ulabis’ eyes widened in shock.
Mana drained out of Akshuller’s body and onto his fists as he exclaimed, “A powerful earthquake rocks the earth!”
Boom!
A huge explosion erupted, and it was so loud it threatened to burst Ulabis’ eardrums. He hurriedly retreated, and with a look of disbelief, he did his best to avoid the rocks flying toward him after the earth itself had exploded.
“What is this absurd power…?!”
Rip.
There was shocking rumbling coming from his feet.
The whole arena was made of Gold River Stones—one of the hardest stones on the continent, but it was disintegrating around Akshuller’s fist, and it seemed as if a real earthquake had occurred.
One particularly large rubble even sent a cloud of dust into the air.
“Now it’s worth living for.” Akshuller crossed his arms contentedly.
Ulabis groaned as he cautiously landed somewhere further from Akshuller.
“Are you crazy? The crowd could have gotten hurt.”
“Are you sure? They seem grateful to me for getting rid of your sea of lava.” Akshuller shrugged and pointed at the audience. As he said, they seemed very content. “Let’s quit the pointless exchange of moves and fight for real. Let’s fight like men.”
“Hmm…” Ulabis felt a faint wave of energy. He couldn’t see anything, but with his finely honed senses, there was no need for him to see it to know what it was. “Aura Fist.”
A-Class auras were unique and distinct, so there was no way Ulabis would be mistaken.
In response, Ulabis mustered every mote of mana he could, wrapping his sword in a flaming crimson Aura Blade. The aura that surged within him collided with Akshuller’s aura, and it held fast in the face of the latter.
“Are you ready for the second round?”
There was no verbal response, but the sight of Ulabis clenching his sword tighter was a good enough response for Akshuller as he smirked. “Let’s go—”
“W-Wait!”
“...?” Confused, Akshuller turned to look at the host. The host had been hiding behind the audience since the battle started, and he finally spoke up, “I-I have something to announce!”
“What?” asked Akshuller with a frown.
The host hurriedly said, “I hereby announce that you both have been recognized as Masters!”
“...” Silence immediately blanketed the huge coliseum.
Akshuller and Ulabis had gotten too busy with each other that they didn’t have the leeway to care about anyone else, but upon hearing the host’s words, they awakened from their stupor and briefly stared at each other.
“Yeaaah!”
The audience finally erupted.
“Breath, breathe! I have to breathe! What a ridiculous fight…!”
“Wow! I’ve never seen a fight like this. This was the most exciting match ever.”
“So that’s four Masters now? Then the imperial and non-imperials are equal?”
As the audience erupted into intense cheers that seemed even more intense than the heat that had once enveloped the huge coliseum, Akshuller turned to look at Ulabis and said, “You’re not satisfied with just being acknowledged as a Master, are you? This is the best place to recover Thran’s previous glory after all.”
“Well…” Ulabis looked at Akshuler with burning eyes. “Our gamble is still ongoing, and I still haven’t felt the joys of gambling.”
At that, Akshuller’s smile deepened.
“He was constantly being pushed back, but he flipped the earth to drive his opponent away and douse his opponent’s flames…” Iceline mumbled. “The tides of battle shifted in an instant… He’s strong. As a mage, I find it hard to predict the winner...”
Iceline turned to Joshua and asked, ”As one of their competitors, what do you think?”
“...” Joshua didn’t say anything in response.
Noticing Joshua’s silence, Iceline turned to look at him and said, “Joshua?”.
Iceline was stupefied to see Joshua’s grim look.
‘Bronto is trembling…’
Crackle!
Bronto emitted a sound only Joshua could hear, and the sound dumbfounded him. After all, he thought he had completely turned Bronto into his own, but now, it was suddenly struggling as if it still had its own will.
- Has it begun?
‘Lugia?’
Joshua groaned upon hearing Lugia’s words.
- You noticed, didn’t you? He hasn’t used everything you’ve seen from him in your previous life.
‘Yes.’?Joshua nodded at that.
The Knight of Red Flame Ulabis had always been unique, and he was a firm member of the renowned Nine Stars. His strength was not a spark, it was an all-devouring hellfire.
His flames were so strong no common man would dare to approach them.
- Bronto’s power of growth has reduced your development time by at least five years, more or less. However, Magma’s power is the power of elimination. It provides the user with immense power for a short period of time, and it’s much more destructive compared to the other Primordial Stones.
Joshua listened to Lugia while staring at Ulabis.
- If Bronto is acting like this, then there’s a high chance that he already noticed…
“What?” Joshua was so shocked that he forgot he was talking to Lugia.
Joshua turned to look next to him and saw a pair of light violet eyes staring at him.
“Are you okay?” Iceline asked.
Joshua turned and met Iceline’s anxious gaze before saying, “I’m fine. I just got too engrossed in the battle.”
“...” Iceline was both relieved and annoyed to hear that. However, she suppressed her frustration by turning away from Joshua.
Meanwhile, Lugia was still talking to Joshua.
- To be more accurate, Magma is the one responding to Bronto’s energy. It’s not Magma’s owner.
‘Why is the Primordial Stone reacting so strongly?’?Joshua was annoyed and confused at the same time. ‘I’ve never felt such an intense urge before.’
There was an overbearing urge threatening to fill his chest, and even now, it was still gnawing away at him, dissolving his awareness.
- Do you want to know why?
‘What is it?’?Joshua inwardly asked.
- I know why you’re feeling that way, but you have to admit that I’m pretty awesome first. If you ask me nicely, I might just tell you for free.
‘...’ Joshua was about to say something about it, but Lugia quickly spoke up.
- The Primordial Stone, which is also known as God’s Crystal, was originally just a single Primordial Stone.
“...!” Lugia’s astonishing remarks astonished Joshua.
Meanwhile, the attack that would finally end the match between Akshuller and Ulabis finally erupted in Reinhardt.
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