‘These fuckers know I am going die for certain?’
Almond tightened his grip on the sword. ‘Fucking hell…’
He may be talented and powerful, prodigious even. But he didn’t think of himself as arrogant enough to beat someone titled like Garo, the Maestro of Myriad Arts, someone who was fighting here for over ten fucking years.
‘That cat just sent me to death, but I ain’t gonna die,’ Almond gripped his sword while a sweat bead formed on his forehead. ‘Anyway, surrendering is possible, right? But I never saw the dwarf or that orc woman mention it. In a previous fight, she only told me to kill my opponent to win or die….’
“Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome the legend, Gaaaaro! The Maestro of Myriad Arts”
Almond looked ahead and saw a figure coming out of the opposite battlefield entrance over a hundred meters away.
The screens all around in the sky showed his figure in clarity for everyone as the audience erupted in loud cheers.
A man…looking in his sixties and walking with a rather plain red-wood staff with simple dark gold patterns.
‘A human?’ Almond blinked, his eyes activating All-Seeing Eyes.
‘Yeah, no. I can’t see anything,’ Almond began sweating more.
‘If All-Seeing Eyes doesn’t work, Divine Divider’s Harvest wouldn’t help…’
Suddenly, he heard the cat’s voice in his mind.
‘Good luck, boy. Have fun, and don’t surrender. You are forbidden from surrendering.’
His voice faded away with a chuckle that sounded like he was very much entertained, while Almond felt exactly the opposite of that.
“A fine warrior, I see.”
Garo spoke as he suddenly appeared twenty meters across Almond in the blink of an eye, smiling serenely at him.
‘Of course, he can teleport!’ Almond felt like crying. ‘And fuck that cat, I am going to surrender.’
However, the moment he thought of surrendering, that notion forcefully vanished.
“I-” Almond’s mouth forcefully stopped the moment he thought of uttering “Surrender”. It was as if someone had taken that part of thought away, rendering him unable to speak.
‘I told you that it’s forbidden. You can’t override it, so fight and do your best.’
The cat’s voice rang in his mind.
“It seems you are rather nervous,” Garo blinked, appearing surprised.
“Of course I am. Why would I not fear death?” Almond stood in a stance with a weary smile before taking a deep breath and composing himself. ‘But I have no intention of backing away without giving my all since there’s no other choice.’
“Death?” Garo was taken aback before chuckling while the audience also reacted surprisingly.
“Brat, you haven’t heard about Master Garo?” the dwarf floated beside him on his shield-dist, his expression weird.
“He never kills anyone.”
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“W-what?” Almond’s face turned blank.
‘Tsk, I guess the fun’s over now.’
The cat’s voice rang in his mind, sounding disappointed.
‘Y-Y-You…’ Almond felt his mind fucked while his face turned red outside with a multitude of emotions changing his expression and showing his eyes.
“Blade King, you okay? Your face looks like you ate shit.”
“I fucking ate it!” Almond snapped and sighed, shaking his head. “That damn cat made me swallow it whole.”
“Anyway, thanks for telling me that.”
“No problem,” the dwarf grinned before channeling his next words loudly, “Ladies and gents, it appears that Blade King thought he was going to die! Bwahahaha.”
The audience burst out laughing, causing Almond to roll his eyes.
Taking a breath, he readied himself and erased the fucked up part from his mind.
‘I am going to remember this prank and will return it to you tenfold in the future, I swear.’
‘But for now, I am going to have a fun battle with this senior.’
“Sorry,” Almond said stood holding his sword with one hand as a field expanded from him. Grinning, he said, “I am ready now.”
Garo nodded with a smile and gestured with his left hand at Almond, “Come, show me what you got.”
Almond’s eyes flickered as he infused 500 Prana and executed Arbitrary Wyrm: Sand Fang.
A draconic maw with four fangs appeared right above Garo, clamping on him as air burst and a loud blast rang.
A crystalline formatted barrier protected Garo. “Swift teleport for projectiles? Interesting in how you are doing this. But piercing focused strike with traits of Sand for cohesiveness and enhanced lethality with vibrations. Not bad, but it needs some work. There’s a big scope of growth for your Sand and attack patterns.”
Right as he finished speaking, Almond’s Arbitrary Wyrn began freezing and shattered.
“And ice is the perfect counter for your sand,” Garo smiled.
‘That’s true. If he immobilizes all sand and its vibrations, it becomes less potent, and the vibration-affiliated cohesion also collapses with the absolute stillness of Ice’s nature,’ Almond blinked.
‘Then how about this!’ Almond’s eyes flickered with golden lightning.
At the same time, he also made a dash forward, his sword held forward.
*Crackle!*
Arbitrary Viper: Golden Edge!
Garo saw a slick, flat, almost 2D Digital-like golden snake streaking at him with blinding speed from the left.
In response, a brown-golden earth ball materializes with spikes over it to block the viper, but it streaked like lightning unpredictably.
Almond swung his sword as he arrived two meters from Garo. The sword not only lit up with blue flame but also with a hazy-brown glassy coating that crackled with lightning as he had added another symbol on it to enchant it further with his assets.
However, right as he swung his sword, he vanished and appeared to Garo’s left, while the Golden Edge had streaked behind Garo, both striking at him at the same time.
However, the earth-spike ball still blocked the lightning. The lightning was forcefully absorbed as the ball crackled with lightning and released from its spike, dispersing.
Meanwhile, Almond’s frontal attack-turned-ambush was also blocked with Garo’s stick.
Almond saw movement as Garo had also moved his leg intending to kick him. ‘I can dodge.’
However, that kick suddenly blurred and instantly struck him as if it accelerated crazily.
*Boom!*
The kick was packed with explosive power as he was shot up like a shooting star and smashed into the barrier five hundred meters high, spitting blood.
‘Holy fuck!’
