As soon as the duel had begun, Edward rushed towards Alexander.
‘Not bad.’
Although he didn’t know if it was due to Edward’s own ego, or if he actually knew how
Alexander fought, it was still a good choice on his part. Alexander’s main strength was his speed and fluidity.
It would not be wise to be a sitting duck to an opponent that moved very fast. Not at all. Had Edward decided to let Alexander attack first, he may have lost the duel in an instant.
‘But what is going to do with shields?’
Edward stopped a moment before he reached Alexander. Alex, who was prepared to dodge the moment the shields hit, was a bit surprised. He wondered what Edward was going to do.
At that moment, Edward jumped, his view was still blocked by his own shields, and his body would soon be covered by them. Alex still stood at the same spot.
“Take this!”
‘Why are you announcing it, you fool?’
Both Alexander and Alan had the same, though, wondering why Edward would be dumb enough to announce his next attack. They didn’t expect the show afterward.
No attack was made, Alex was confused. Edward simply shouted it and landed back on the ground, on top of his shields.
“Hyah!”
He swung his legs, but they were too far from their opponent, Alex could only stare in disbelief as he saw Edward swinging his legs at him. Was he fighting a clown?
And it happened at that exact moment, neither Alan nor Alex expected it.
Edward threw one of his shields, it slid towards the ground at great speeds but was stopped by Alexander’s own foot, He finally expected an attack to come but instead of lunging towards him, Edward clad his hand in flames and fired those flames at the shield he still had.
‘Why is he doing that…’
Alex could only draw two conclusions, Either Edward truly was a clown and was useless…or he had something else in mind. With all the information he had at the moment, he judged that it was related to the equipment he had.
And he was right. The shield caught between his foot began to light up. From it, a torrent of golden flame emerged, but before it could hit their target, the source was kicked away, right at Edwards face.
Edward ignored it and appeared from the pillar of golden fire that his shield exuded, he was close enough for a physical attack to work right now. His limbs clad in the same golden flame, he kicked towards Alexander’s head.
Alexander blocked it easily, Edward let loose a flurry of blows, but all were blocked by easily by Alexander. The only damage he suffered being from the flames that still lingered on his clothing.
Alexander covered himself in a layer of his own special attribute mana, that of the [Null] attribute, and dissipated those flames.
“The heck is that?”
Edward asked, a bit shocked. The show he had put on just to distract Alexander had yielded only almost no fruit. He was well aware of Alexander’s abilities and thus devised a good plan to make him drop his guard… but it was useless.
“My specialty.”
Alex said, as he too moved forward. He coated his legs in lightning attribute mana and kicked towards Edward’s knee, intending to make him crumble.
But Edward blocked it with his shield, that caused Alexander to finally take notice of something.
‘Huh?’
He paused for a brief moment.
‘Where is the other one?’
He suddenly had a bad feeling, he listened to his instincts and ducked, and a shield spinning at a high speed barely grazed his hair. It was caught by Edward, who didn’t let the chance slip by at all!
He let down an axe-kick, Alexander blocked it with his elbows and immediately grabbed Edward’s leg, to his shock, it wouldn’t budge at all.
‘Why is he so heavy?’
He could easily lift hundreds of kilograms without amplifying his strength with mana, but this was unprecedented. Edward’s shield, the one that grazed him back, then glowed and let down a torrent of Golden flame. Alex put up a shield of [Null] attribute to block it.
The rest of the party could only see two vague silhouettes fighting within the torrent of flames, though it was still easy to figure out who was who.
‘So one absorbs, and one reflects…’
He was wondering why Edward decided to use two shields. He noticed that whenever he had to block, he did it with the one in his left hand and used the one in his right to attack.
The left one absorbed attacks, whilst the right reflected those. An additional ability was that Edward could control the one that reflects with his mind.
Suddenly, as both of them emerged from the flames, Alan was a bit surprised to see Alexander having taken the upper hand, he had thought Edward would lead for a little more.
Edward was filled with bruises, that his golden flames tried to heal, but they weren’t fast enough. Alexander was landing blow after blow, a few were blocked, a few were not.
Thankfully, Edward knew where to get hit, and made it so he would receive as less damage as possible. Alan figured that Alex also realized the ability of Edward’s shields, and made sure to hit the one in the left hand as less as possible.
The right shield flew back to Edward, who then slammed it into the left one. A shockwave erupted that made Alexander take a few steps back. Edward threw his shields towards Alex.
“Release!”
He shouted, and both of his shields emitted mana. The left one released shockwaves that messed with Alexander’s sense of balance, whilst the right one released a torrent of flames.
‘Oh, I was wrong.’
Alan, though, his initial assessment was wrong. Edward’s shields had different abilities…it would seem. Using Dragon eyes would give him everything he needed to know, but he decided against it. Not wanting to feel the pain that accompanied that skill.
Edward appeared behind Alexander, and intended to land an axe kick to his head to finish the fight, but Alexander turned around, disregarding the golden flames that still stuck to his body, fighting his [Null] attribute mana.
He caught the kick before it could land, spun, and planted Edward right into the ground beneath their feet. The road didn’t appear damaged at all… it was Edward who had been
knocked out and was bleeding.
“Damn, the road is tough.”
Alexander commented, going to pick Edwards shields and Alan went to heal Edward, dousing him in his blue flames. Edward woke up immediately and cried about the pain in his head.
Despite Alan’s healing efforts, it still stung.
“What the hell is this road made out of?!”
The fight had ended in his defeat, yet he didn’t mind it. Alan was impressed, Edward held on
for longer than he expected too.
He thought the fool would lose in a few seconds, he didn’t think the fool would be able to even hurt Alex at all. He was pleasantly surprised that Edward wasn’t as weak as he had
thought.
“Nice fight.”
Alex gave the pair of shields back, and suddenly shivered. He realized that his clothes were about to burn off completely and headed back inside the Arctic Titan.
“Edward you pervert!”
Making his own snide remarks along the way with a happy face. It made everyone inside the
Titan cringe in disgust. Alexander thought it was funny.
Alan helped Edward get up with a satisfied look on his face, he told Edward to wait for a
minute and went towards the Arctic Titan.
“You guys go on ahead, I have something to do with Edward.”
All of them were a bit confused, Edward especially so, but they listened and went along their
way. Edward and Alan watched the Arctic Titan disappear into the distance. Eventually,
Edward couldn’t handle his curiosity anymore and finally asked.
“Why did you do that?”
Alan, holding a particular book in his hands, grinned, and instead of answering, he asked his
own question.
“So, how much of that golden fire can you produce?”
Edward was a bit perplexed, considering Alan hadn’t answered his question. He was also confused as to why Alan would make a face Maxwell would make when he was talking about the fire Edward could produce. Why would a frost dragon be interested in fire?
He answered, his voice shaking a bit.
“A lot?” That was, perhaps, the worst answer he could give right there.
Alan took out some wood from his inventory, one he harvested back on Gigantia a while back
and put it down on the ground, telling Edward to light it on fire with his golden flame.
He did so, still confused… He watched Alan open the book he had in his hand. He closed it
after a while and…
To Edward’s sheer shock, surprise, confusion. Alan thrust both his hands into the golden fire Edward produced.