A Dragon's Curiosity

The arrows shimmering with a metallic sheen homed in on Ser Felippe.

Sera Elizabeth’s bow did not impress anyone with its small size, yet the attacks flying through the air like pearls on a string steadily aimed for the dual wielding warrior trying to close in on the lady.

Although the warrior advancing bravely weaved right and left to throw off the aim of the archer, the arrows had already locked in on his presence and accordingly corrected their trajectory to arrive before him.

Felippe had already expected such a level of archery, otherwise the lady would not have thought of challenging him.

Forcing the arrows to recalibrate their path wasted quite an amount of aura stored within them, hence it was still useful to dodge to the best of his ability.

As the silvery projectiles were not big in the first place, their ability to store aura was limited as well, saving him from the need to cast defensive skills to block them.

Flicking the tip of the smaller sword left, right and left again, the arrowtips released intense sparks when the metals collided, then the projectiles got buried in the arena sand.

Not wasting the time that her opponent spent on avoiding the first valley of arrows, Elizabeth retreated backwards towards the edge of the pit, picking a pair of arrows out of the small quiver on her belt this time.

For the first time in the entirety of the short battle, aura flared as the woman infused her energy into the bow, green wind aura swirled around the bowstring while she knocked the two arrows against the string and pulled the silver bow into a full moon.

Elizabeth stopped on the spot and made sure to aim properly at the running swordfighter.

Unless Felippe closed the distance and forced her into a melee matchup, he was too much at an disadvantage, hence right now he only focused on rushing ahead and protecting his vitals from the arrows coming at him.

Squinting her eyes, two arrows left the bow as all of the green aura seeped into them and left the string empty of energy.

Not bothering to look at the results, the archeress almost reached the outer boundary of the pit and ran alongside it instead, trying to avoid losing the range advantage.

In the fights below fourth rank, the arena was wide enough that most of the fighting was contained in the centre, yet now the two combatants crossed half of it almost immediately at the start.

Ser Felippe originally wanted to shore up his weakness and quickly dominate the duel, not giving his challenger any sort of chance.

Who knew that a newly ascended fourth rank noble lady had ample fighting experience and refused to fall into his control range and darted away like a nimble bird, sending distractions along his way to keep his speed under control.

Right as he was about to use a speed type skill to bring the battle to an early end, Felippe clicked his tongue and brought his swords in front of his chest, crossing them to form a defensive stance.

Bright white light flashed and turned into a hemispherical shield right in time to welcome the skill of his enemy.

One of the arrows arced high into the air and bore down on the target spinning madly with great force, while the second arrow darted close to the ground and arrived first.

Upon impact, the projectile scattered and released waves of restraining aura rings, briefly holding the sword fighter in place to set up the real attack, the spinning arrow high above.

Felippe ignored the wind hoops entangling him and aligned the dome shaped shield with the incoming arrow.

Instead of a static defense wrought from aura, white arcs of light sprung back and forth to form the shield.

As soon as the projectile impacted the shield, the tension inside the light arcs broke out and offset the incoming force and violently broke the arrow into tiny silver pieces.

Affected by the clash of light and wind aura, the rings around the swordfighter dispelled as well and restored the man’s freedom.

Since he was well protected inside the concave area inside the dome, Felippe paid no attention to the debris and upturned sand around him and locked onto Sera Elizabeth’s position.

Despite being forced to a stop by the snare effect of the Sera’s skill and waiting until his shield counteracted the drilling arrow from above, Elizabeth similarly had to stop to gather to aura to empower her skill and locking onto his position.

Consequently, their distance from each other had not increased as much as the archeress hoped.

Right from the start of the sequence, the lady had no high expectations of her skill and turned around without waiting to observe the results of her attack.

Her intuition warned her that the fight had been about to take a dangerous turn, hence the skill was fired without hesitation to break the pace.

Sprinting along the outer wall of the pit, Elizabeth retrieved more arrows and fired them on her own trail.

If Felippe wanted to catch up, he had to follow her or set up a trap to bait the archeress into range.

True enough, the clashing of metal against metal resounded while the chase resumed.

Anticipating the resistance, the sword fighter kept using his shortsword to deflect the incoming arrows as he did before, aiming the longer one at his target, the fleeing Sera.

One behind the other, two figures raced along the wall of the pit.

Seeing that her attacks did not achieve the desired result, Sera Elizabeth left the drawn arrows on her bowstring and focused a swirling mass of wind aura in her palm as a glowing orb.

Smashing the orb on the sandy ground, the archeress repeated it two more times to create a big cloud that obstructed everyone’s vision.

On the other side of the fog, the sword wielding duelist squinted at the obscured path and did not immediately dive in without delay.

He knew that there was a trap waiting for him instantly, otherwise it made no sense to obscure his sight.

If Felippe saw the setup, then the trap would be meaningless.

Considering his options in a split second, the man thought of a countermeasure and flung his short sword with his full power.

It cut through the air and passed on the side of the cloud, cutting off the Sera’s path towards the centre of the pit.

As soon as his hand let go of the handle, the sword fighter used the thumb of his free hand to hook and fling a small throwing knife from his belt, right in the centre of the sand cloud.

Repeating the action in quick motion three times, Felippe used his own countermeasure against ranged attacks and dashed after the projectiles he fired towards the archer.

Although he knew about the trap, he still had to enter it to prevent her from gaining more distance, otherwise he would have to pay an even higher price to obtain victory.

So he did not hesitate to advance bravely ahead.

On the other side, the lady prepared her next move after creating a diversion and surveyed the pit.

She had a higher burden on tactical planning as the weaker party in the duel.

If the close combat specialist caught up to her, the fight was going to conclude right away.

Although Sera Elizabeth planned to establish a new course of action after buying a brief respite with the cloud and the traps, plans did not always keep up with reality.

Her danger sense suddenly spiked and the archeress first saw the short sword of her opponent slice through the distance and stab right into the path she wanted to take.

On top of that, movement erupted suddenly in the corner of her eye and Elizabeth knew that this was the real danger she sensed.

The woman did not take a sudden and unexpected ranged counterattack into account, thus revealing an opening.

In the blink of an eye, the first flying dagger pierced into the Sera’s shoulder, carving a deep wound with ease.

Twisting out of the way to escape the danger coming for her, she barely managed to dodge the second projectile by a hair, while the third embedded itself into the back of her hand - Elizabeth barely managed to bring up her free hand to block the dagger in front of her face.

Seeing that the first blood was spilled, the crowd on the seats exploded in deafening cheers, chanting the moniker [Slice and Dice!] again and again.

The archeress barely had time to pull out the dagger lodged in the back of her hand before Felippe’s figure burst out of the turbulent dust cloud.

He was very pleased that his gamble paid off and the hurled daggers managed to wound his opponent.

As a precaution, the sword fighter only had his hearing and experience to determine where the lady’s location most likely happened to be.

Thanks to that, the trajectory of his throw fanned out for maximum coverage instead and gave the archeress a chance to avoid some of the damage.

Nevertheless, the distance was closing and he drew first blood, which gave him an advantage and put psychological pressure on his opponent.

At the same moment as Felippe decided to capitalize on his edge, the ground beneath his feet exploded with swirling wind aura.

Elizabeth did not only use the wind orbs to churn the sand of the pit into the air, the three clusters of concentrated wind aura also had an arrow hidden inside them.

Thanks to the small size of the bow and the corresponding arrows, the ground did not look disturbed or gave away signs of the hidden trap.

Because he was fully committed to the attack and his charge, Felippe failed to dodge the sudden ambush and the three arrows injured his legs.

Two arrows scraped along his flesh and left flesh wounds, while the last remained stuck in his thigh.

Nevertheless, he accurately judged the situation of the battlefield and made his decision in a split second and ignored his wounds.

Sera Elizabeth had her escape path cut off by the sword he had thrown, whereas the archeress suddenly came into his range after wrongly estimating the time her diversion would buy.

Taking advantage of the closer range, Felippe triggered the skill that earned him his moniker and suddenly accelerated sharply toward his sword buried in the ground along a white line of light.

His foe had already returned the earlier damage and effectively traded wound for wound, bringing the balance back to normal.

If the sword fighter gave her more time, the outcome of the duel might end up being unpredictable.

Arriving at the short sword in the blink of an eye, Felippe snatched up the handle of his weapon and bounced back towards the direction of the pit wall.

Effectively, he suddenly trapped the lady between himself and the outer boundary of the battlefield.

Sera Elizabeth had already known about the famous skill and did her best to avoid its effective range, but in the end her preparations had proved insufficient.

The first part of the skill allowed the man to close the distance, now a white aura manifested on the edge of the weapon, aiming to impale her.

From the pressure alone, the lady could tell that Felippe targeted her shoulder holding the bow, which would remove all of her battle capability and effectively end the duel.

Biting her lower lip, she assessed her own stance and the figure rushing towards her.

Taking a gamble, the Sera moved backwards and away from the sword fighter, using the little space left to gather momentum and vault upwards with the stone wall as a pivot.

Felippe raised a brow when the figure in front of him jumped upwards and turned into the air, hastily firing an arrow while turning midair, but it did not disrupt his pace too much.

The arrow lacked the proper utilization of a skill and therefore the corresponding power, but the lady did not have the time to mount a better counterattack.

Flicking the tip of his short sword, the duelist warded off the arrow and reinforced his legs with a burst of aura to jump upwards.

His long sword whipped forward and struck like a beam of light.

Blood splattered and flesh parted as a cold metal edge scraped along the bone, piercing the lady’s shoulder completely.

White light scattered as the aura around the sword dispersed and the second part of the skill ended.

Falling down together after the clash ended, Sera Elizabeth ended up lying on the ground with a sword pinning her shoulder into the sandy ground of the pit, red blood soaking the immediate area around the wound.

The crowd exploded and screamed their soul out, the fight was over!