'He took them all down... without even shooting multiple arrows simultaneously! I did my best to lock him out of options, but he destroyed them all!' Last Coin thought as he was forced to shift his plans after this failure.
Jake was supposed to be wounded, at least a little.
Yet, he defended himself so well against the rain of rocks.
Seeing something like that at such an early level was unbelievable.
How could he even learn this?
What kind of a monster taught him the basics of something so difficult?
'Damn! He's attacking!' Last Coin jolted back to his senses as he noticed Jake stuffing another thunder arrow onto his bowstring.
He could tell that from the flow of mana around Jake. It was such an odd flow, too, as Jake took mana from a source on his right arm to the arrow.
Last Coin was intrigued by that, but he couldn't let his curiosity take over him.
'I will take a page from your book, Archer!' Last Coin shouted.
When the arrow darted at him, Last Coin used another basic skill—a mana step.
He teleported.
That said, he went against the norms of mages and appeared beside Jake.
'It's one versus one. We can't fight like we normally do since we're both strong,' Last Coin said as he extended his hand toward Jake's face.
Before Jake could have jumped away, Last Coin detonated his Gust Of Wind.
The pressure was so immense that Jake had been swatted away like a fly.
He bounced off the ground a few times before landing.
He was battered from head to toe.
As the game system's messages popped on Jake's retina, the cloudless skies were taken over by a snaking lightning bolt. He dismissed all messages and prepared to face the second attack from his opponent.
In that moment, Last Coin saw his monotone life.
A particular moment in middle school was like a trauma to him.
[Leave that loner alone. He's a nerd. Nerd, I tell ye. He's just playing games and nothing more. Our teacher asked him what high school he wanted to go to, and he said he had no clue! Then she asked him what he wanted to do in life and he said he wanted to play games!
Haha! He's so dull! I know something better. He isn't even the best in this MOBA game that he's been grinding for years! Someone else has snatched the top one and never dropped from that rank! He's a loser through and through!]
'Though a few players and The Instructor Randal told me that I'm talented, I thought I'm this strong because of the time I put into honing my skills... that anyone could be like me because those are just basic skills...' Last Coin thought. 'But no one has ever told me that I'm awesome with such a genuine smile...'
Last Coin said with a bright, confident voice, "I really want to win against you."
The coffin's lid collapsed.
BANG!
It was over.
No one could survive such an assault of magic. It was perfectly executed, too.
The crowd cheered while Archer's fans sighed with disappointment. It would have been so much better if Jake had won against Last Coin! He'd really make a name for himself!
Alas, he lost.
Last Coin started at the ground.
He was overwhelmed by emotions that he'd never thought would appear here.
That was when an arrow whistled and lodged itself in his right chest.
Last Coin opened his eyes wide.
The crowd gasped into silence.
'He's alive?' Last Coin thought as he mantled himself in his mana barrier. An unknown sense of joy wrapped around his heart as the battle wasn't over. 'I don't know how he survived that! He must have hidden an arrow to teleport, right? He really waited until the last moment with this one! So patient!'
He kept smiling.
'He should be behind the leftovers of my earth walls. I'll expose you, Archer!' Last Coin shouted with newly found passion, pride, and rivalry.