Eisen deeply stared at the man that was approaching him at great speeds. The way that Buldor was moving was incredibly dissimilar to how the old man expected him to. Normally, the way he was walking, it seemed like he would move like a horse would, but that was very much false.
And while Eisen had already seen Buldor run before, at that time, he still ran like a horse did. But now, it was different. Instead, it was like Buldor was prowling forward like an oversized, draconic wildcat. He was jumping around, and it made it much harder to properly predict how they were going to move, since Buldor's freedom of movement was just incredible.
It was like Buldor had two 'modes' of sorts. As if this was specifically something designed to fight against opponents that might be quicker in raw speed. And Cabarum, even if the one that Eisen was riding right now was fake, was nothing but a large horse. Even the fact that he was created out of gears and pipes didn't change anything about that. He was able to run the quickest when moving in straight lines, and turning while at full speed was close to impossible. Sure, Cabarum was incredibly fast, but even then, with Buldor's capabilities of jumping around even sideways, they were able to dodge Eisen incredibly easily.
It was a little annoying, but at the same time kind of exciting, at least in the old man's mind. Right now, Buldor was sprinting at Eisen at an incredible speed, but now that Eisen realized the way that this ground-dragon moved, he was also able to react to certain attacks more easily.
Eisen looked at the approaching figure with a deep stare, ready to counterattack however necessary, and then commanded the fake Cabarum to run forward straight at Buldor and Gran. And Eisen was prepared for all possible ways that his opponents would avoid a straight-on collision.
If they jumped to either of Eisen's sides to dodge, Gran would surely swing his halberd at Eisen while holding it horizontally. That way, Eisen would simply be able to deflect it upward.
If Gran chose to just keep running forward and maybe just slightly change his path so that they wouldn't directly encounter head-on, Gran would stab the halber forward. Surely, that was the hardest one of the possibilities to avoid. Maybe Eisen just had to somehow accept the attack if that was the case and try to use it for a counterattack on his own. With his halberd, Gran had a superior range compared to Eisen, but that range would matter little if Gran just tried to 'slide' past Eisen directly.
As long as he was prepared for the attack, Eisen would be able to brace himself and then slash at Gran while he and Buldor were running directly past him.
And then, it came to the point where Gran had to make his choice. And it was the one choice that Eisen had been kind of hoping for, since it would allow for a rather interesting counter-attack that might help stun Gran and Buldor for at least a few moments, maybe enough to finish this fight. But that was only if Eisen could pull this off properly.
Instead of continuing to run on the ground, Buldor stopped rapidly and dove downward with his front, before using as much power as possible to jump over the old man.
The way that Eisen had thought about this attack was that Gran would try and reach downward toward Eisen with his halberd, swinging it at him from above. And what Eisen would have done if that was the case would have been pretty simple. Since the shape of the axe-blade of the halberd was kind of triangular, it would be possible to hook onto it somehow, which was what Eisen would be planning to do. He would ram the edge of his blade underneath the halberd's axe-blade, and then with one hand try to grab the halberd's handle.
Then, Eisen would be able to somewhat slam Gran and Buldor down into the ground, or at the very least, he would be able to change their trajectory to the old man's advantage.
Or so he thought.
But instead of Buldor staying upright, he did something that Eisen really did not account for. The ground-dragon twisted his body around mid-air and started to spiral around as Gran swung the halberd at Eisen. Instead of a straight-on attack that came from Eisen's front, it was an attack that came from Eisen's side, with incredible speed and weight behind it.
Eisen tried to quickly hold his sword next to his head to deflect the blow aimed toward it, and he was able to luckily do so, although not completely. The spike at the tip of the halberd started ripping open the old man's skin just above his eye, simply destroying the layer of rock that was covering the old man's body as if it was a single sheet of paper.
It was painful, and became even more unpleasant the moment that the bright red liquid mixed with razor-sharp splinters of rock was flowing into his eye, but at the same time, Eisen had just one thought cross his mind, "Yeah, there's no doubt about it... You really are Brody's student." The old man muttered with a grin on his face.
Eisen quickly made the splinters of rock in his eye disappear while he pushed his hand into his apron, just to take out a small glass bottle that the old man poured over his head. It was a bottle filled with liquified health-jelly. It would still seep into Eisen's skin incredibly well, and it could easily be poured out a bottle in the middle of a fight.
Once the wound was properly repaired, Eisen covered it in a new layer of rock and then continued the fight.
His sight was still a bit blurry, considering that he couldn't easily get rid of the blood that had poured into his eye already, but it wasn't as big of an issue as it was before.
Eisen took a deep breath, but as he did, Gran was already counter-attacking.
Buldor had landed on the ground gracefully after Gran attacked and damaged the old man just now, and immediately twisted his body around to prowl at Eisen and the fake Cabarum once more.
Gran stabbed the halberd forward at Eisen, and it was just about to hit the old man's face, before Eisen simply shrunk down and the halberd missed. It slid over Eisen's horns and pulled him back a bit, but Eisen was prepared for that. The staff of the halberd was still sliding over Eisen's horns as Gran tried to pull it back toward himself, but then, he returned to his normal size and twisted his head to look straight at Gran.
The warrior tried to pull on the halberd, but all that happened was that the tip hit against Eisen's strong, metallic horns, unable to get out since Eisen was holding down the halberd itself onto his head again.
"I didn't want to do this at first since it hurts like a bitch, but I guess the first thing I need to do is disarm you somehow, huh?" The old man said with a grin on his face, before he let his body fall backward off of Cabarum's body.
With as much strength as he could muster, Gran tried to continue pulling back the halberd, practically keeping Eisen forced on Cabarum's back for now, but the old man simply pressed his feet onto the mechanical horse's body and used as much force as he himself had in his whole body to try and push away from Cabarum. It hurt Eisen incredibly that he was actually using Cabarum as nothing but a glorified stepping-stool right now, and he would never be able to bring himself to use something like this with the real Cabarum, but with this fake, Eisen knew that he had to risk it somehow. It was the best way that he could see how to disarm Gran.
And right now, the two of them were basically stuck in a contest of strength, to see who would give up first. Gran's grip or Eisen's neck. But little did Gran know, within this direct contest of strength, it was neither. The old old man immediately shrunk his body down to the smallest, and with that the lightest, that he could manage, and kept gripping onto the halberd with his arms, although he couldn't anymore with his small horns right now.
Of course, due to the sudden change of weight and force attached to the halberd different to what Gran expected, the Warrior ended up swinging the halberd upward rapidly. It already slightly unbalanced him, but the moment that the tip of the halberd travelled further than the peak right above Gran, Eisen returned his size to his normal one. No, even beyond that.
He was gripping onto Gran's halberd and increased his size rapidly. Gran wasn't in a great position to keep holding onto the halberd perfectly, and now that it was behind his back, Eisen pushed right onto the warrior's back directly. It was like Eisen was about to pull Grna's arm out of its socket if the Warrior didn't quickly let go.
And then, Eisen actually heard a popping sound, and Eisen felt a light jolt as Gran's arm really was pulled out of its socket. The warrior's grip loosened just so slightly, and Eisen managed to pull the halberd out of Gran's hand, before kicking off of his back. Of course, during this time, Cabarum had come back over to Eisen, and the old man returned onto the back of his mechanical steed.
Gran slowly held his hand over toward his shoulder, simply pressing his arm back into its socket as if it was nothing, before he slowly turned around. Eisen wasn't sure what to expect, since he didn't perfectly know Gran's moral values of what should and shouldn't happen in a fight, but luckily, Gran's reaction was like Eisen hoped.
The warrior was looking at him with a broad, excited grin.
"Strong! So strong! This fight fun!" Gran laughed, his energetic voice echoing through the arena. The onlooking souls that had been unsure of what exactly was going on, and why Gran was suddenly fighting this random, living person, had been staring down at the fight in an overall quiet, tense manner until now.
But the moment that Gran announced that he truly thought this fight to be fun, somehow everyone started to cheer excitedly.
Eisen didn't fully understand it, but he didn't really mind it either. With a broad grin on his face, Eisen held his sword forward toward the Warrior, "I'm glad you think that it's fun, but I'm afraid you'll lose now."