Chapter 86 17.3 Duel?

[COMBAT COMMENCED]

"Here I come, Moriya!"

What the- "W-Wait!"

Not even having the time to react, my eyes were open wide as Guidance literally swung her keyboard right at me. She didn't even do anything special. She literally just tried to smack me right in the face with her actual keyboard that she used to manipulate reality!

"Wait? There's no time to wait in actual combat," Guidance scoffed, her [Manifest] lazily hefted over her shoulder as if it was an actual weapon. "Besides, what I did wasn't even that bad even if it hit you."

"W-well, I didn't think I wouldn't even get time to breathe," I sarcastically quipped, wiping the sweat cold sweat off my brow as I tried to regain my composure. "We're not trying to kill each other here. We're just trying to spar."

To my surprise, Guidance simply smirked at me as she placed a hand over her keyboard. "Don't worry, Moriya. Nobody can die in a [Duel] anyway. We can beat each other up to our heart's content!"

"Wha-"

"[Ruin]!"

Once again, before I could even try and talk to her, a massive ball of purple light erupted from her [Manifest]. Not knowing what to do, I dove out of the attack's way, rolling to my side as the ball of purple made contact with the ground that I was previously at.

[*BOOM!*]

Rock and dirt exploded from the spot, my eyes only widening as I slowly panned my gaze back at the maniacal dev. Sure enough, she was already preparing to cast another one of her so-called [Ruin] thingy.

"[Ruin]!"

Oh hell!

"Ngghh!"

[HP: 200/260]

I gritted my teeth as I braced myself, my health dropping a whopping sixty points as I tanked Guidance's spell. My feet skidded across the dirt floor, my legs pumping as I willed myself to stop to a crawl.

"Hah! Now that was a direct hit!" Guidance cheered. "It dealt some considerable damage, didn't it?"

I clicked my tongue as I refused to give out an answer. Surely, she could see my own health bar in the same way that I could with hers. I didn't think that an attack coming from a self-fashioned healer would deal this much damage, but I guess I just have to dodge her stuff instead of getting greedy.

Also, since when did I have 260 [HP]?

"What? Are you stunned?"

Hearing the telltale sound of her casting animation, I put down my arms and aimed my pistols right at her. The mounting questions I had about my mysterious increase in health would have to wait. Right now, I have an increasingly smug dev to put down a notch.

[*BANG! BANG!*]

[HP: 184/260]

I winced at the amount of blood I used just firing off two shots. I didn't think they'd hit, but it was a decent start as I saw Guidance quickly cancel her cast to move out of the way.

"Tch..." Oh? Clicking her tongue now, are we?

"Frustrated?" I cooed, my left arm already raised as I began leading my shots to account for her movement.

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

[HP: 160/260]

My health dropped once more as I fired off three more shots. To her credit, Guidance began using her keyboard as a shield, somehow managing to block two of the three shots I aimed right at her torso. However...

"Ow!"

I smirked as my third shot hit her right on her thigh. Satisfaction running through me, I could only hope it did some decent damage as I- Wait... "What the hell?!"

"What?!" Guidance incredulously asked me as she nursed her wound. "You think that just because you've been having a hard time against bosses recently means that you hit like a wet tissue?"

"Well... yeah?" I shrugged, my eyes still glued to her dwindling health bar as I gawked. "I mean, Shizu obviously hits harder than any of us, that's for sure."

Guidance rolled my eyes at me as her fingers quickly flitted over her [Manifest]. "Duh, she's a melee DPS. And you're a DPS too if you forgot that was a thing."

I kept my pistols raised as I watched her begin healing herself. With one hand hovering over her keyboard, the same winds that she emitted whenever she did a cast almost reached me as I waited for her to recover.

"[Medica]"

Watching as her health bar slowly came back up, the spell she used wasn't the one that she used to heal the Emperor. Instead, it gave her a buff underneath her bar, a green plus symbol blinking every other second as her health recovered.

[STATUS: REGEN: 28 SECONDS]

Huh. I guess she didn't want a raw heal to fully heal herself back up. "Ready then?"

Guidance raised an eyebrow at me as she stood up. Picking her [Manifest] back up, she smirked, "Yeah. And thanks for giving me some time."

I returned the smirk as I assumed my stance once more. "No problem. It wouldn't be a spar if one of us immediately keeled over without even so much as a clean shot at winning."

"Hey now, I'm getting some progress on your health," the dev chuckled. "Even if I gave you some time to regenerate, you'll still run out of [HP] before you can even put me down."

[HP: 210/260]

Sure enough, I took a glance at my health and saw that I did recover a decent amount of health. I guess waiting for her to heal up didn't amount to nothing. Still, with her [REGEN] up, I'd probably have to start chipping away at her before she could begin stacking enough heals on her that I wouldn't be able to do damage. But first...

"[Blood Screen]"

[HP: 110/260]

[MP: 160/210]

Pointing my right-hand pistol up into the air, a shower of my own blood erupted from its muzzle, coating me in a thin sheen of red as I felt its effects begin to work. Already, I could feel my veins shudder in relief, [Blanc and Noir] now using some of the blood on me to power itself as opposed to draining me dry.

"A new [Move]?" Guidance asked in curiosity. "Kind of gruesome, no?"

"As if I had a choice in the matter," I sighed. "This thing runs on blood, which means every [Move] I've got uses them."

"I guess I'll have to help you with that whenever we get into an actual fight," she casually pondered. "But enough about that. I have another [Move] of my own to use."

"Eh?"

The clock was ticking as I watched Guidance assume her casting stance once more. Without even taking a second, a green shell surrounded her as she declared.

"[Adloqium]!"

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛