Now that Joshua could no longer see his opponent he wasn't able to see how much the man was currently freaking out. The mage placed his hand on the ground and used a spell that allowed him to sense where things were around him all over the arena so that he could keep track of Joshua who was currently still standing in the sa spot. None of his traps had been activated so he started concentrating his mana in to the ground and created a surge of mana that shot an earth spike out of the ground below where Joshua was supposed to be standing.
Joshua easily avoided the attack and just rubbed his forehead in irritation. This mage was even more of a coward than the last one, but Joshua didn't plan to let him just hide away behind all of his traps for the entire match. Joshua pulled sothing else out of his inventory and chunked it over towards the large earthen wall that his opponent had created. Joshua then aid his rail shot at the position where he could sense his opponent's aura and fired away a concentrated blast when the grenade he had thrown earlier landed against the wall.
The grenade was one of the more powerful ones that they had gotten a recipe for in the past and the explosion created by it was so large that several of the traps that the mage had set beforehand near the large wall he created went off, sending spikes of earth out of the ground or creating pitfalls that were ant to trap Joshua underground. All of that was just random noise in Joshua's mind as his rail shot followed in just behind the explosion he had caused as it passed through where the wall of earth used to be and pierced through the back of the huddled over mage that was trying to protect himself from the crumbling rocks.
The mage vanished without even letting out a whimper marking the end of the match. This opponent was a bit more creative with his defenses than the last mage, but he wasn't any stronger level wise and was in fact a couple levels lower. The system was just throwing anything at Joshua that it thought might have a chance at creating a more exciting outco without actually putting him against other high level participants that had a chance at making it deep into the bracket portion of the competition.
Joshua gave another wave to the crowd before he was taken away from the arena and was put on his last hour long break for the day. This ti around he decided to spend so ti watching so of the matches of the people he knew were participating in the competition. The first match he ca across was one with Vince in it who was honestly boring to watch since his opponent was being toyed with for the entire match. Vince wasn't even using his illusions in the fight, yet he was able to toy around with him and put on a show for the crowd.
Another person he found a match of was Lilly who was probably one of the crowd's favorite contestants to cheer for. They enjoyed watching her summon giant beast to take down her opponents in flashy ways. Even with all of the stuff Lilly was showing off she still hadn't summoned any of her more powerful beast and was taking out her opponents with beast companions that were often kept around to guard Jas Town rather than any of her more personal beast companions. In this match she had summoned Mr. Hoppy to win the battle. Her opponent spent most of his short ti running for his life as the large frog hopped across the arena towards him. When the poor guy ran out of space to run away a tongue shot out of Mr. Hoppy's mouth and grabbed him so fast that he wasn't able to move out of the way.
After the guy was swallowed whole by the frog a few seconds later the system declared Lilly the Victor showing that the man had been pulled out of the fight while being inside of Mr. Hoppy's belly. That was an embarrassing way to go, but there was another fight that was a bit more reputation destroying in Joshua's eyes. Natalie had been matched up against a martial artist that was no where near her level and instead of shooting him down with an arrow and keeping her distance like most expected, she let the guy co in close and beat him down in hand to hand combat within twenty seconds.
It was no secret that Natalie had been learning how to defend herself just in case an opponent was able to get up close to her, but the fact that a martial artist lost in one on one close quarters combat would be a big letdown for her opponent and his guild. Watching these matches Joshua started to realize the only reason everyone was doing these kind of outlandish fights was to satiate their boredom. At this point they had all fought around nine easy fights and it was starting to beco disappointing. Joshua just sucked it up knowing that there would only be one more day of these preliminaries that he would have to worry about before the tournant would get interesting once again.
Joshua kept watching matches until it was ti for his final fight of the day. He made sure he had all his gear ready just in case the system decided to actually give him an interesting opponent this ti around, but he wasn't going to hang on to hope for that to happen. When it was ti Joshua stretched a bit before being teleported in front of another cheering crowd that was excited to see him entering the arena once more. Joshua kept to the routine of waving to the crowd before turning his attention to his opponent for the last fight of the day.
This ti around Joshua found himself looking at soone that was definitely different from the other opponents he had been facing throughout the day. His opponent was a woman by her figure but he wasn't able to tell by face alone since she had it hidden. It wasn't because of her gear as a tank or sothing like one of Joshua's last opponents, but instead was because of a mask that she was wearing. The mask was basically completely white outside of three large black lines cut across the center of it. It looked as if so beast had scratched it. The only portion of his enemies face that was visible were her blue eyes that were glaring in Joshua's direction as she pulled out her one handed sword preparing for battle.
As the countdown started Joshua observed his opponent and realized that her level wasn't really close enough to warrant him taking the match seriously. She was level sixty-five which was too far away from his own. He did give her credit for not showing any signs of fear or agitation through her body language as she pulled sothing out from her inventory. It was sothing that drew Joshua's interest as she held three small stone plates that she threw to different portions of her side of the arena. They made a little defensive formation around her and by the way she took a stance and stood still preparing for the upcoming fight Joshua got the feeling that she wanted him to co towards her. He wasn't sure what the stones would do, but he knew that they weren't sothing that his opponent had created on her own. She was a swordsman after all and unless she randomly bought a skill that had nothing to do with her job Joshua doubted she had the ability to lay out traps.
Joshua was a bit happy that he wasn't going up against another knight or mage, but he was curious what his opponents plan was so instead of using his gun to attack her from a distance he decided to have a little fun for his last match of the day. The mont the countdown ended Joshua charged forward directly into his opponents side of the battle arena. She imdiately started sending energy slashes towards him that he would easily side step as he approached her. His speed was too much for her to pen down with a skill that took seconds to charge each attack, so Joshua closed the gap between them within seconds.
When Joshua started to get too close to her the stones she had thrown onto the floor around her started to glow and large snake like wires made of solid mana shot out of the one closes to Joshua and headed directly for him at a speed faster than his own. Joshua was a bit surprised by how fast the spell moved and kicked off the ground avoiding the first group of mana cords that tried to grab him. Although they were faster than him they couldn't change directions quite as fast as Joshua so he constantly kept weaving his way around them as he closed in on his opponent.
The entire ti she kept trying to hit him with energy slashes and Joshua could tell why as another stone lit up and more mana cords were on the move trying to restrict his movents as he got within twenty feet of his opponent. Although she wasn't panicking Joshua could tell the only reason she wasn't moving from the spot she had planted herself in was because she wouldn't have the protection of the mana cords that were getting in Joshua's way. Out in the open she'd be forced to fight Joshua head on and that wouldn't end well so she had to pin all her hopes on the mana cords from the stones to restrict his movents.
Joshua kept dodging around the cords as he closed in on the swordsn as he flexibly moved around like a ninja for soone his size causing the crowd to cheer. When Joshua was only ten feet away from his opponent the last stone activated restricting the amount of room Joshua had to move around even more, but at this point Joshua didn't mind getting caught because he was already too close to his opponent for her to be able to escape his grasp.
He kicked off the ground one last ti and plunged straight through the last group of mana cords that tried to impede his way to the swordsman. The amount of force he used to shoot himself forward caused him to barrel through the cords to the point where he was able to reach the swordsman who had her sword in the air trying to strike down, but her speed was to slow as Joshua's hand wrapped around her neck and clenched firmly. The cords that were wrapping around Joshua tried to pull his arm away, but with his strength they couldn't tear him away from her after he already had her in his clutches. She tried to swing her blade down at Joshua's arm but the bracer easily blocked such a swing that hardly had any strength behind it do to her current position.
After twenty seconds of losing air and nearly having her throat crushed Joshua's opponent vanished from the arena along with the mana cords that she had used to try to restrain him. Joshua waved to the cheering crowd, but his mind was more focused on who could create such interesting items that just anyone could use.
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