Chapter 34: 16.2

Chapter 16-2: The Fourth Day of Competition (2)

Jeff was still hovering in mid-air with his clothes gently flapping in the wind around him, holding Black Blaze in one hand and Larwood's dagger in the other. His grace and elegance immediately had countless young female spectators swooning out of their seats.

Meanwhile, Larwood was sitting on the ground with his hands pressed over his own wounds, and he spat in disgust at the sight of Jeff's cocky display.

An administrator hurriedly raised a hand to adjudicate Jeff as the victor.

Jeff landed on the ground, then turned to Larwood with a cold expression, and a derisive sneer appeared on his face.

Larwood raised his head and looked directly into Jeff's eyes, and he didn't look defeated at all. In fact, he appeared to be completely unfazed by the loss, and a smug smile appeared on his face, as if he were saying "you may be far more talented and powerful than I am, but you still came within a hair's breadth of losing to me in the end!". Two administrators made their way onto the competition platform to help Larwood down from it, but Larwood slapped their hands away in a cold manner, then struggled to his feet with difficulty, using his sword as a crutch. He paid no heed to the bleeding of his wounds as he stood up shakily before turning to depart. Along the way, he completely ignored the tens of thousands of pairs of derisive eyes focused on him, and his cocky smile didn't waver in the slightest.

Erwin was looking from the spectating platform, and he knew that Larwood was more heavily impacted by this loss than he made it seem. Thinking back to the sneak attack he had unleashed on Jeff, a series of mixed emotions welled up in his heart. In a battle against Larwood, one would never be able to predict the outcome until the very end.

As Erwin stepped onto the platform for his match, there were many thoughts in his mind. Truth be told, he really did cherish this opportunity, and he was certain that Larwood was the same, even though the two of them had entered the tournament with minimal expectations. After all, young people needed acknowledgment and affirmation, particularly young men like Larwood and Erwin, who were always seen as young nobles who lived off the reputation and wealth of their parents. No matter how shamelessly they normally behaved, this bias that was held against them still stung them greatly.

For this match, Erwin's opponent was a martial artist. Thinking back, this was the first martial artist that Erwin had faced in this tournament.

As soon as the match began, Erwin's opponent immediately unleashed an advanced agility technique, which allowed him to close down the distance between himself and Erwin, and he was doing everything in his power to stay in close proximity to Erwin. It was clear that he had studied Erwin's past battles and was trying to deny Erwin the opportunity to use his light shield.

When facing martial artists, Erwin's preferred mode of battle was to distance himself from his opponent, then use instant-release spells with strong tracing properties to harass them. This was a tactic that he employed very often when sparring against Kaiba, Larwood, and Chase. This was the first time that Erwin was coming up against a martial artist ever since he had mastered the light shield spell.

Of course, against an advanced martial artist, Erwin was still at a disadvantage when it came to close-quarters combat.

His opponent for this match was wielding twin blades, and he was clearly very well-grounded in the basics. Every single attack of his, including upward and downward slashes, stabs, and horizontal swipes were strung up in a seamless sequence. As a result, Erwin was forced to focus entirely on evasion, and was unable to unleash any instant-release spells.

The spectators were very intrigued to see this. They had expected Erwin to overcome his opponent with ease, but it appeared that he was having a lot more trouble than expected. After two rounds of competition, the spectators had already grown bored of the one-sided matches that the tournament favorites, such as Lana, Jeff, and Princess Onean featured in. Erwin was another tournament favorite in their eyes, yet he seemed to have been forced firmly onto the back foot, and all of the spectators suddenly became much more invested in the match. Of course, they were still rooting for Erwin to win, but they wanted him to have some trouble in the process so it wouldn't just be another boring one-sided affair. Just like Erwin's first-round match against Shaun, they wanted to see some suspense being built up.

If Erwin were to be made aware of what the spectators were thinking, he would be utterly bemused. He wasn't intentionally building suspense or putting himself in a difficult situation for theatrical effect, he really was struggling against his opponent! It was clear that his opponent had done plenty of homework prior to their match. This was the problem with being seen as one of the tournament favorites. All of the contestants in the tournament who had any level of renown were studied extensively by their opponents. This was a triennial tournament, so it was a very rare opportunity, and everyone wanted to put on the best possible showing.

At this point, Erwin had already evaded dozens of attacks from his opponent, and he hadn't managed to unleash a single spell. The only enhancement he had made to himself was the intermediate agility technique he had used to boost his own speed at the beginning of the match, but that was far inferior to his opponent's advanced agility technique. Furthermore, that was a martial technique. Thus, he was a magician who was unable to use any spells, and that was naturally a very awkward situation.

Having dodged so many attacks, Erwin was already breathing quite heavily. After all, he was a magician, so his physical conditioning couldn't compare with that of an advanced martial artist, and his stamina was clearly running out. Many gashes had already been cut open on his magician's robe, and around a dozen wounds had also been sliced onto his body. Thankfully, they were all shallow wounds that were overly impairing to him.

His opponent could see that he had seized the initiative, and he naturally wasn't going to allow Erwin any respite. At times, he held his twin blades with a conventional grip, at other times, he employed a reverse grip, and he also occasionally adopted a mixed grip. In doing so, he was able to fully exploit the advantages of his weapons to apply maximum pressure onto Erwin.

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What was even more alarming to Erwin was that his opponent's movements were becoming faster and faster. He didn't know what martial technique his opponent was using, but he could clearly sense the lack of some elemental matter in the space around him. It was clear that his opponent was able to absorb the surrounding elemental matter while in battle to enhance his own power and speed.

Lana was watching from the spectating platform, and she was quite amused at the sight of Erwin's struggles. 

Let's see how you dig yourself out of this hole, you little rascal! 

Princess Onean had only arrived at the venue not long ago, and she was also watching the match from the contestant's spectating platform. Despite the peril that Erwin was in, she wore a relaxed smile as she looked forward to seeing how Erwin was going to turn the tables.

If things were to continue like this, it wouldn't take long before Erwin would fall to an inevitable defeat. With that in mind, he knew that he couldn't just evade any longer. Thus, he began to reflexively evade his opponent's attacks in a small area.

Meanwhile, his opponent was really beginning to hit his stride. He continued to absorb the elemental matter in the air, and as a result, his blades became more and more powerful, and it seemed that it would only be a matter of time before he claimed victory in the match. He held his blades in a reverse grip and slashed them horizontally through the air to force Erwin back into retreat, then spun around without any hesitation, adjusting his grip on his blades as he did so before slashing one of them directly down toward Erwin's head, while slashing the other one upward from down below.

This sequence of attacks from the martial artist could barely even be tracked by the naked eye, and right as his blade was about to reach Erwin's forehead, Erwin's eyes abruptly lit up as a faint smile appeared on his face.

This is it! 

Through the use of a space split technique, he was able to instantly open up some distance between himself and his opponent, immediately following which around a dozen instant-release spells were sent flying directly toward his opponent. This was the first time that Erwin had unleashed his space split technique during this battle, and he was able to do so as his opponent had absorbed all of the elemental matter in the surrounding space.

The martial artist looked on with an astonished expression as his blades struck nothing but empty air, and before he had a chance to return to his senses in the wake of his opponent's sudden disappearance, he was struck by the barrage of instant-release spells.

A violent explosion of purple magic energy erupted forth, and the spectators could just barely make out the martial artist tumbling along the ground amid a string of agonized howls. All of Erwin's instant-release spells had been imbued with negative status conditions, including paralysis, scorch, frostbite, and disorientation. All of these negative status conditions were instantly inflicted upon his opponent, and even though he was facing an advanced martial artist, his opponent still possessed a human body, after all, and all of these negative status conditions at once were too much for him to handle.

As a result, Erwin's opponent was sent crashing to the ground, and his arms and legs were all spasming uncontrollably. In fact, if one were to look closely, one would see that his entire body was spasming unnaturally aside from his eyes. He tried to clamber to his feet, yet his arms and legs refused to listen to his instructions, and he could only slap the ground with his palm in anger and frustration. To put it more accurately, he tried to slap the ground with his palm, but in reality, his hand only flopped up and down a few times.

It was clear that Erwin's opponent had lost the ability to continue fighting, and an administrator immediately raised a hand to adjudicate Erwin as the victor.

Erwin heaved a long sigh of relief upon seeing this. He had been dominated the entire match, but just as his opponent was lured into a false sense of security, he was able to successfully turn the tables on him. After that battle of life and death against Shaun, he felt like neither of the two opponents he had encountered since were powerful enough to defeat him.

Meanwhile, the spectators were still rather dissatisfied. Even though Erwin had been at a disadvantage this entire match, he was able to turn the tables in an instant, so there was no outlet for all of the emotions that had been building up in the spectators' hearts. They were hoping that Erwin would show off some type of special spell, but they were sorely disappointed.

At the same time, an amused smile appeared on the faces of both Lana and Princess Onean, as if they had a tacit understanding with one another.

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