Chapter 520: The Second Round is full of Close Matches Part 2

After the poison mistress had gained her victory it was time for the match that Joshua was looking forward to the most in this round. Adrian and Dmitry were both summoned into the arena. Although Adrian was decently tall and well-built he was nowhere near the size of Dmitry who towered over him. Although Adrian had the advantage in reach since he used swords he was going to have to get in close to attack Dmitry which wasn't a good strategy against someone who was deadly the moment they got their hands on you. Joshua wasn't sure what kind of tricks Dmitry had, but he knew that he was going to have to use some of them if he truly wanted to take on Adrian.

The moment the match started Adrian used his movement skill right away and was a blur as he used his speed advantage to move easily around Dmitry who simply stood his ground. Even though it looked as if Dmitry wasn't reacting Joshua noticed that his skin seemed to harden as it turned bronze in color. Steam seemed to be emitting from it as well which meant that he was most likely giving off a lot of heat. The way Adrian was cautiously moving around Dmitry told Joshua that Adrian hadn't found any openings that weren't traps at this point. Adrian might be confident in his skills, but he wasn't cocky. There was no way that he was going take a risk that he didn't have to when he had the advantage of reach on his side.

After both sides seemed to be in a standstill for a moment Adrian suddenly struck out aiming for Dmitry's left leg. The moment he struck out with his sword Joshua could see it glowing with the faint signs of an energy slash being held within it. The attack was so quick that Joshua was barely able to see it, but he was surprised when he heard a reverberating clank in return followed by the explosion of the energy slash. Adrian leapt back and waited to see the result of his attack, but when the explosion cleared out Dmitry was still standing there with a smile on his face as he didn't have a single injury. The only visible sign that he had even been attacked was the slight white mark on his leg that stood out from his currently bronze skin. It was as if someone had tried to cut a metal pole with a rather blunt kitchen knife.

Adrian frowned at this but he started walking around Dmitry in a large circle with after images making it look like there were several of him. He then started striking out over and over after switching from the swords designed to draw blood to swords that were designed to break through armor. Dmitry took notice of this and started to react to Adrian's movements as he used his arms and legs to block any of the strikes. Although his arms and legs were getting cut up slightly the injuries were negligible in comparison to letting Adrian get in a hit on a weak spot. As the fight went on Joshua noticed that Adrian was getting tired far faster than he'd ever seen before. Whenever Adrian went in close for an attack it was as if some of his energy had been taken away. Adrian seemed to realize this too as he started taking more risk in his attacks knowing full well that he was going to run out of energy well before his current strategy would have been able to break through Dmitry's guard.

While going for weak spots Adrian left himself open as well, but it did make the match a much closer call. Occasionally Adrian was able to hit a couple of weak spots with his speed and swordsmanship skills. Unlike when he hit other areas the weak spots would result in glaring injuries that actually could take Dmitry down if they piled up. Adrian even used the unknown skill that he had used against Victor to strike at one of the weak spots he had already hit before, but the attack only seemed to tire out Adrian even more. Eventually his speed started to slow and Dmitry was given the opportunity that he was looking for. He caught one of Adrian's swords with his bare hands and then shot his other hand out to catch him by the wrist. In that moment it seemed like what little energy Adrian had left was drained away as Dmitry tossed him over his shoulder and slammed him into the arena floor at full strength. The collision went off like one of Joshua's fully charged aura blast doing enough damage to end the match.

Watching that fight allowed Joshua to learn that whatever ability Dmitry was using to absorb energy didn't need him to actually touch his opponent, they just had to be close. Of course he drained more energy when he was able to grab ahold of you, but now Joshua was going to have to worry about staying to close to his opponent for too long. The next match was actually a rather quick one which surprised a lot of people. It was a match between Laura and the leader of the Stranger's Guild.

The way that the leader of the Stranger's Guild tossed out several rune stones before the match even started was similar to what she did against Robin. It was clear that she was trying to make Laura into a one dimensional fighter and force her into only using her sword instead of her magic. She then followed that up by throwing down more rune stones in a small formation around her that created some relatively powerful mana cords that were much stronger than any of the ones Joshua had seen up to this point. She still held a few rune stones of her own waiting to create new ones depending on how the battle went, but she seemed more than prepared for someone like Laura.

On the other hand Joshua had the feeling Laura was going to destroy everything in her path when it came to this match just based off of the giant smile she had on her face when she saw all of the things her opponent was setting up. Laura started chanting a spell as she took out her sword and held it in front of her. It was clear that she had a plan and Joshua just needed to wait until the match started to see what exactly that was. The Stranger's Guild leader continued to wait in the same spot as the countdown came to an end as she watched Laura to see what exactly she was going to do.

The moment that the countdown ended Laura grinned as she finished channeling her spell. From the amount of mana that was gathering around her body to the point where it was visible to the eye it was clear that whatever spell she was planning to use would be a powerful one. After seeing those runes be able to absorb the lightning storm that Robin created Joshua was wondering what exactly Laura was planning with the spell she was creating. It didn't take very long for him to find out as a massive figure of a phoenix made of flames hovered over the entire arena. The mana that Laura had gathered all went to forming the flaming bird and the heat that was being generated from it had to have been scorching hot from the way the arena floor was sizzling. The phoenix seemed to bow towards Laura and sent a few waves of fire towards her that were absorbed into her sword and as soon as that was done it charged towards the Stranger's Guild leader. The runes quickly formed a barrier that was trying to absorb the mana from the powerful spell, but the amount of mana coming from the phoenix was too much for the runes to handle.

Joshua could already see that the stones that the runes were carved on were starting to crack from the power of the spell and the fact the heat was melting the rocks. By the time most of the spell had been absorbed the barrier broke down allowing the last portion of the flames to break through. The stranger's Guild leader pulled out another rune stone that formed a smaller barrier directly in front of her that stopped the explosive power of the spell from ending the match right then and there, but Laura had already planned for such a thing to happen and dashed forward with a movement skill that left a trail of flames along the path she took. She charged forward with her sword aiming directly for the nearly shattered barrier that the Stranger's Guild leader was trying to use to protect herself and any of the mana cords that tried to stop her were burnt down by the flames from the earlier spell.

With one stab Laura broke through her opponent's barrier and stabbed her through the chest. The Stranger's Guild leader vanished from the arena soon after and Laura was declared the victor. There were two matches left but only one of them was one that Joshua cared to watch. The match between the Raider's Guild leader and Vince was an interesting one, but Joshua quickly saw that Vince was at a disadvantage in the match up. At first Vince was using his illusions to take the Raider's Guild leader off guard, but the man had good instincts and didn't waste time blocking illusions and only defended using his sword whenever Vince went in for the strike.

At first Joshua couldn't tell how the Boss of the Raider's Guild was able to tell the difference between Vince's illusions and his actual attacks well before Vince even struck out, but then he noticed a thin shadow stretching out from the Boss's shadow and it seemed to be connected to something. Joshua soon noticed that the thing it was connected to was Vince's own shadow so the Raider's Guild leader could actually tell where Vince's position was no matter the amount of illusions that were going on around him. This spelled out the end of the match in Joshua's opinion and he wasn't too surprised when in a vital moment of one of Vince's attacks his opponent commanded several shadows to shoot out like spikes directly where Vince was going to attack from. He was able to dodge some of them, but the injuries that he had gotten from that attack eventually lost him the fight.

The last match between the Random fire mage and Henry was a quick one with an expected result. The fire mage created all sorts of traps and spells, but they were all useless. The second the match started Henry used a torrent spell that sent a wave of water that covered the entire arena. He used a support spell to empower his previous spell to the point where the normal small wave of water turned into a tidal wave that just flooded his opponent's side of the arena. After that he used a small lightning spell that discharged throughout the entire wave of water and electrocuted the poor mage that had no way to avoid the massive spell. Henry's simple support spells turned his small scale elemental spells into a giant disasters for anyone to deal with. After that short fight the winners had been decided and was time to move on to round three.