(Furuwa's Perspective)
The mont the battle began, I activated all the statboosting skills I had.
'STR: Boost.'
'AGI: Boost.'
'INT: Boost.'
'DEX: Boost.'
There was no LUC stat boost, unfortunately, but I wasn't planning on relying on luck to get through this anyway. And finally
'Acceleration.'
As I began running, I sped up my speed using this skill, then sprinted all-out towards Koroth. This was my first plan draw out his attack, then narrowly dodge it and finish him in one blow while his fist was still outreached. Such a strategy would be better for Assassins, but Knights could play whichever role is necessary exactly what I liked about this class. Very versatile and adaptable.
As expected, Koroth was ready to et my attack with his fist, but right before he hit , I jumped upwards, soaring through the air as I landed behind him.
Not wasting any ti, I brought up my sword and prepared to cut downwards, but Koroth was faster than I expected. He managed to avoid my attack just in ti, stumbling forward with a very stiff and clumsy front roll.
The audience gasped in shock.
"That's the first ti Koroth moved from his spot!"
"Will the Unshakable Mountain be shook after all?!"
I gritted my teeth. "Tch that didn't work. Plan B it is."
As Koroth spun around and moved in towards slowly to unleash another punch, I nimbly dodged out of the way, once again sorsaulting over him.
However, this ti, he wasn't about to let just fly by that easily.
He reached up with his other arm and jumped, grabbing by the hell and slamming down onto the stage.
"Wha- ngh!"
I cried out in pain from the force of the impact. My head was shaking and the world was spinning, my vision getting hazy.
"Ooh" the audience collectively winced in empathy.
Given these symptoms, it seed I had a concussion however!
'Status Ailnt: Cure.'
Imdiately, the dizziness and haziness went away, though the pain on my head and body still remained. I opened my eyes wide to see Koroth preparing to puml straight into the ground. However he was hesitating waiting.
Not bothering to figure out why, I imdiately grabbed my sword laying beside , and cut towards his arm pinning down.
Koroth let go of , jumping back a short distance as I rolled on the ground and got to my feet in an instant.
"You why did you hesitate there?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. "You could've punched straight through the floor there why stop?"
"" Koroth didn't respond, and instead got into a fighting stance once more. He had never done this to his other opponents, since he finished them all in one hit.
"Well, whatever if you're going to hesitate, that's your loss!"
I charged towards him once more, using Accelerate to boost my speed again. He prepared to receive my blow with his own punch, but obviously, I wasn't stupid enough to take it head-on.
'Intrinsic Focus!'
At the last mont, I used this skill to suddenly sharpen my senses by about 50 tis, allowing to perceive his punch at reduced flow of ti. This made it possible for to dodge his devastating blow, tilting slightly to the right as I prepared to drive the sword into Koroth's body without any hesitation.
However, to my surprise, my sword did not pierce through. Hell, it didn't even draw blood.
I noticed Koroth's skin color change from the dark tan to silver, almost like steel. The audience cheered in anticipation.
Sensing danger, I imdiately backed off.
"Well, that's not good" I muttered.
Koroth's skin was now made of pure tal his shirt ripped, unable to withstand the expansion of his body's mass. His breathing turned ragged and heavy as he closed in on , one step at a ti.
Yeah there's no way I'm fighting back against him when he's like this.
With any luck, this 'tal' form of his had a ti limit, and would run out soon. If not if not, well, that would be a problem.
As he smashed down on the ground in front of , sending a shockwave powerful enough to shake the entire city, I jumped upwards lightly, taking advantage of the fact that both his hands were currently on the ground.
Fortunately, Koroth was already slow normally, but in this form, he was even slower. This made getting away from him quite easy I just had to make sure I didn't blunder again like last ti and end up getting caught.
And so, the ferocious duel soon turned into a ga of tag.
Several minutes later, I noticed Koroth slowing down even further. He deteriorated to a walking pace, panting heavily. It seed he would be running out of energy soon. I could only hope this tal form of his would go away along with it. After all, I was running out of stamina as well, jumping around all the ti.
Eventually, Koroth just stopped and fell backward, crashing onto the stage in exhaustion. Slowly, his silver skin returned to normal, signaling that his tal transformation was over.
Hesitantly, I walked over, and pointed my sword at him.
Koroth raised his two hands up in surrender, holding them in the air for a brief two seconds before letting them slump back down again. It seed he was truly completely out of energy.
"The winner of this fight is Chiaki Furuwa!" Zhen Yuhan declared as the drums began being struck once more.
I took a deep breath and opened up my System, putting my sword away. Then, sparing one final skeptical glance back at Koroth's panting body, I walked off the stage.
*****
(Kaze's Perspective)
"Welco back," I said once Furuwa returned to Hina-nee and I. "Well done."
"That fight it felt weird," she narrowed her eyes at .
"How so?" I asked in confusion.
" You did sothing, didn't you?"
"Do what?"
" Talk to Koroth. I don't know when or how, but you spoke to him before he fought , right? One way or another, you convinced him to let win."
"And what leads you to that conclusion?" I taunted, continuing to feign ignorance.
"He hesitated before punching . Back there, when he had pinned to the ground, if he had just threw his fist, I would've been respawning by now," Furuwa analyzed. "And yet, he didn't, for so mysterious reason. Tell if there wasn't soone giving him a reason to do this, why would he do it?"
"Hm, the analysis is pretty logical, but how can you be so sure it was ? What makes you think I have the ans to manipulate a character such as Koroth?"
"Who else would bother doing this, all to make sure I won?"
I shrugged. "Beats . Secret lover or sothing?"
"Haha, you're real funny," Furuwa said with a completely neutral and unamused face.
"Look I'm just a normal high school student who got bullied in the past the type of guy you can find just about anywhere," I said, sighing exasperatedly. "I don't know even know how to make friends, much less manipulate soone to do my bidding. Sorry, but you're overestimating ."
"Oh, really" she muttered, before turning away, not wanting to talk anymore. However, I knew full well this conversation wasn't over. Without a doubt, Furuwa would bring it up again later, when there were less people around.
Put simply this was bad. Furuwa seed to be dead certain on the fact that I had manipulated Koroth into letting her win.
I'll give her credit it was true, I made a move behind the scenes. Right before the fight began, I snuck onto the stage using Vanishing Steps's invisibility, and whispered into Koroth's ear. He knew who I was from the voice, but no one else could hear because of the loud drums going on at the ti.
I had told him that I would get him the three herbs he needed Firesaffron, Bloodmint, and Hailflower. All he needed to do was let Furuwa win this fight.
Of course, he had no reason to accept my baseless proposal with nothing to back it up whatsoever that is, if I didn't have so handy information on the guy.
Sotis, the threat of doing sothing is more dangerous than the 'sothing' itself. That was the theory I was using here. I had threatened to leak his demon identity to everyone here, thus disqualifying him from the tournant and probably even executed right then and there.
Sure, it was pretty evil to blackmail soone like this, but I needed Furuwa to win, and I was ready to use any pawns I had at my disposal. She would beco a useful chess piece for later on one far more useful than Koroth was. Reason being, she was a player she had endless potential to continue growing and getting stronger.
Koroth was a demon, and may be stronger than her right now, but I'm thinking in the long term here. Eventually, Furuwa will definitely surpass Koroth and that's when this decision I made today would turn out to be the right one.
Besides, it's not like I'm completely scamming the poor guy. I was actually planning on using the wish I was granted to get the three herbs he needs, if I get first place which I was confident I could take.
However sothing told I wouldn't even need to. This was the Blessing Nature Sect, after all. Herbs and whatnot was their specialty.
I purposely had Koroth not just outright forfeit the match, so that he could demonstrate his skills a little bit. The mayor had stated that even if you don't get into the top four, there was still a chance to make it into the sect as long as the elders present determined you worthy. That was my end goal to have Koroth enter the sect as well.
That said, this wasn't 100% necessary. However, Furuwa getting into the sect to stay by my side was. It would be difficult to control a pawn too far away from .
Therefore, I made the decisions I made today. Now, I just had to pray the elders didn't detect my invisibility earlier they probably didn't, considering they didn't say anything and co up with a lie good enough to satisfy the powerful yet cunning chess piece known as Chiaki Furuwa.
This girl was a two-headed snake. Depending on how I used her, she could bite both the enemy and myself.
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