Chapter 503: Joshua versus Marcus Part 2

Joshua took a moment to think about his current situation. He was already caught up in Marcus's pace and the battle had just started. At the moment he was stuck in a situation where he had very low visibility and eyesight wouldn't be helpful. Joshua highly doubted that Marcus didn't have a way to see through all of the smokescreens after setting up the match in such a way. Marcus also knew about Joshua's ability to sense aura so the smoke screen wouldn't be able to keep Joshua from being able to tell Marcus's location. Since Marcus went out of his way to set all of this up then there had to be another reason why he did it this way.

Initially Joshua would have thought a smaller arena would be to his advantage even under the current circumstances, but after thinking about it a bit more he realized the current situation played to all of Marcus' strengths. There were three reasons why this was the case with the first being the current size of the arena. The arena had been shrunken down greatly by being cut in half, but it wasn't small enough to be a huge advantage for a close ranged fighter. There was still enough room for a ranged fighter to move around, but it would be likely for a fast close ranged fighter to close in on them. However Marcus wasn't a long ranged fighter but was a mid-ranged fighter. He excelled at keeping his range while moving around in trapped areas and that was exactly Joshua's current situation. The size of the arena was perfect for this.

The second reasons the circumstances were perfect for Marcus was that he had completely trapped up this side of the arena before the match even started. Joshua was able to see where Marcus had placed several traps, but the smoke definitely hid some of them while the flash bang had allow Marcus to hide even more traps. All of these little diversions allowed Marcus to set up the battlefield in a way that Joshua might get caught by a trap simply from avoiding a different trap that he already knew about. It was a bad situation to be in, but Joshua was just going to have to deal with it to the best that he could.

The last advantage that the current circumstances had given Marcus mostly dealt with the smoke screen. Joshua knew that Marcus was aware of his ability to find him in the smoke by simply using his aura sense or aura pulse if needed. Both scenarios were impossible for Marcus to avoid, but there was something that Marcus got from having so many smoke screens up. Even if he couldn't avoid being found by Joshua his bolts from his cross bow wouldn't be seen flying through the air, his throwing knives could come in without being seen as the dark blades blended in with the smoke, and worst of all was that his traps were all hidden from view. Joshua's aura couldn't sense out inanimate objects that had no aura connected to them so it was impossible to tell where all of these things were in the smoke.

After realizing his current position Joshua decided to give up on holding back when it came to using his aura defensively. One powerful trap could greatly injure him or send him out of the competition altogether if he wasn't careful, so Joshua quickly activated his aura cloak shocking the crowd. His aura gave off its usual oppressive surge of power that swirled into being around him as a dark blue shroud surrounded him. With this he knew he'd be able to take several hits and even his regeneration capabilities would sky rocket giving him the advantage of a drawn out fight. With everything ready Joshua raised his scale blade and faced the direction he could since Marcus waiting in.

Joshua wasn't foolish enough to just go charging forward like an idiot even with having his aura cloak up. Any trap could go off and slow down his movements or restrict him in some other way that would once again put Joshua at another disadvantage. Instead Joshua swung his blade sending an energy slash in the direction of Marcus that tore through the air and activate some traps while cutting through the arena. Even so the sudden attack forced Marcus to dodge out of the way which Joshua could see through his aura, but suddenly Joshua felt a sense of danger as he twisted his body and avoided a bolt that passed by and landed in the broken portion of the arena behind him. The bolt exploded on impact letting Joshua know one of the ways that Marcus planned to get around Joshua's aura cloak.

The explosion wasn't large enough to take him down, but it could injure him which would lead to Marcus getting easier opportunities to do some real damage to Joshua. He would have to avoid or block the bolts since he didn't know if they would explode or have some sort of poison on them. Joshua kept track of Marcus as he moved through the smoke, but his sense of danger went off once more. This time around the threat wasn't coming from the direction that Marcus was moving in. Instead the danger was coming from Joshua's side. He quickly turned his scale blade in that direction blocking another crossbow bolt that exploded against his blade. The small explosion wasn't enough to knock Joshua off balance, but Marcus still tried to take advantage of the situation.

While Joshua was blocking the bolt from the side he could hear two objects cutting through the air towards him. He dunked underneath them and could see that two throwing daggers passed overhead before disappearing in the smoke once again. He heard another cross bow shoot off and rolled out of the way as another exploding bolt passed by and left a little crater in the ground ahead of Joshua. Under the current circumstances he was an easy target for Marcus even if he knew where he was by using his aura sense. Joshua was going to have to go into the smoke himself and push through some of the set up traps just so Marcus wouldn't be able to keep up the current pace.

Before anything else happened Joshua ran into the smoke disappearing from the sight of the crowd. At the time Joshua wasn't really thinking of what the crowd was able to see of the fight, but it was basically random explosion in the smoke covered arena where they couldn't see either of the competitors after Joshua ran head first into the smoke. The first thing Joshua did when rushing into the smoke was charge up another energy slash and sent ahead of him along the ground in an attempt to clear out any traps. He could hear a few explosions go off in front of him letting him know that he had destroyed a few traps.

Joshua quickly rushed forward to follow the path of his attack and see if he could figure out what Marcus had set up that was shooting at him. He had to dodge or block a few more bolts before he finally got close enough through the smoke to see what had been attacking him. He knew that it had to be a trap of some sort since he could still sense Marcus on the other side of the arena repositioning himself so that he could get a better angle of attack against him. What Joshua found when he reached the trap was a small turret with a contraption at the top of it that looked like an automated crossbow that could reload on its own. The little contraptions only reached up to Joshua's waste and was more than small enough to hide in the smoke.

The turret had to have been set up before the match even started, and Joshua realized these were the things that Marcus was putting together in the smoke screens that he created before the match even started. It was a new item that Joshua hadn't seen before so it was probably the trump card that Marcus had found on his own just for this tournament. The little turret aimed at Joshua once more and was preparing to fire, but Joshua slammed his scale blade into it and tore it apart. They weren't too difficult to destroy the only issue was finding them in the first place. Joshua couldn't go after Marcus until he cleared out the turrets, so that he wouldn't get shot from behind while trying to take out the sly thief.

Although the turrets were hard to find in the smoke, Joshua could see them when he got close enough, and he could easily follow the trail they left when firing of bolts in his direction. Joshua rolled out of the way once more as another throwing knife was tossed in his direction then he leaped away from a clinking sound nearby which ended up being a grenade. Joshua knew that couldn't be the end of Marcus's plans so he listened intently as he heard another item being tossed through the air in his direction. This time it sounded familiar so Joshua closed his eyes just before another large flash bang went off. All of these little attacks were attempts for Marcus to keep Joshua away from his turrets. None of them worked however since the moment Joshua heard another bolt come from a direction that Marcus wasn't located he charged over.

The match quickly became a game of Joshua using his sense of hearing along with his aura sense to gain the distinction between Marcus attacking him with crossbow bolts and the turrets he had set up around the arena. Whenever a bolt didn't come from Marcus, Joshua would immediately speed in that direction to destroy the turret. At the rate he was taking them out Marcus wasn't getting the chance to set more up and Joshua wasn't allowing him to. He constantly sent energy slashes over in Marcus's direction to keep him on the move as well. There were other traps that Joshua had to avoid occasionally such as land mines or snares, but Joshua had no trouble either tearing through them or using his aura cloak to block out any damage from the explosions that he couldn't completely avoid.

Eventually Joshua was satisfied when he noticed that there weren't any more turrets firing in his direction and all that was left to oppose him was Marcus himself who was being run ragged by all of Joshua's energy slashes. Now that Joshua had cleared the field he knew just the way to bring the match to an end. Although the smoke screens had been a huge benefit for Marcus at the start there was one large benefit that it had given Joshua. No one could see him when moving through the smoke which allowed him to get away with a skill that he planned on hiding from people outside of the alliance. Once Joshua got close enough to Marcus he charged up an aura blast into his scale blade before blinking directly next to him. Joshua could see Marcus's eyes widen as he tried to leap away, but it was already too late.

With one swing of his blade Joshua ended the match with a huge explosion that destroyed half of the remaining portion of the arena. By the time the match had ended Joshua was standing proudly in the arena with his aura cloak fading away while Marcus had been sent flying out of the arena causing the system to take him out of the match. Joshua waved at the audience that only seemed to make them cheer even louder. There was only one match left for the day and Joshua was ready for it.