Chapter 586: Do Not Read
Chapter 150
"The next contestants are, contestant Laura against contestant Derrell." As the two names were mentioned, the two contestants walked to the stage from the opposite sides of the arena. As Laura approached the stage, she saw her opponent from the other side as she remembered Adrian’s words from their conversation earlier.
"I want you to fight him, beat him up, and show your dominance over an apostle. And then, I want you to lose." Adrian said.
"What? Why?" Laura asked as she couldn’t see the point of losing.
"Just trust me. I need you to lose so I can face him as well. If all goes well, we will have ourselves an ally by the end of the day." Adrian replied, not answering her question with a reason.
"And what if we don’t?" Laura asked. What if Derrell doesn’t agree to be an ally? Then what? What will they accomplish then?
"You seem to be mistaken here, my darling," Adrian said as he embraced Laura by her waist which she let him despite her dissatisfaction with him. "I never said anything about getting his consent. I just need an ally. If that’s in the form of a slave, then wouldn’t my objective be completed?"
She was taken aback by surprise at Adrian’s answer but she didn’t say anything about it. Adrian always had a plan, that much she understood after a long time with him so she wasn’t going to doubt him now. If he said that her loss brought them more gains, she knew he was right.
Besides she wasn’t interested in this tournament anyway. None of them were. The only reason they were actively participating was because they needed to show their dominance according to Adrian. Adrian wanted them to show to the world that they were just as good as or even more so better than the apostles, the god’s chosen ones. The same didn’t apply to Alicia because she had a title higher than apostles but even then, her alliance and relationship with Adrian raised questions about her motives.
Laura didn’t mull over Alicia’s decisions for a long time because they didn’t matter. She knew Alicia would never betray Adrian just like she wouldn’t and that was all that mattered to her. All that mattered was how she helped Adrian in any way and supported him like a good wife.
"Let the match begin." The referee shouted and the match began however, the contestants didn’t move from their spot. Derrell pointed his bow at Laura who stood still in her spot. As he pulled back the string, an arrow magically appeared in his grasp. He shot the arrow at Laura at lightning speed who still didn’t move from her spot. The whip in her hand trembled and before the arrow could even get close to her, her whip struck the arrow at the speed double than the arrow and neutralized it, and the arrow disappeared.
Derrell saw this and moved from his spot, moving in a circle and he kept shooting arrows at her. Laura didn’t move from her spot and her whip neutralized all the arrows even before they got close to her. Derrell couldn’t see a breach in her defense and no matter what he did, his arrows were being blocked.
That left him no choice but to move to physical arrows but he had a limited supply of them as well. Besides, he wasn’t sure if his damage was enough for that. What he needed was speed to surpass the speed at which Laura’s speed would become meaningless.
{Skill: Multishot}
Derrell used one of his skills that allowed him to shoot multiple arrows at a time. Since he couldn’t waste his physical arrows, he would first distract Laura with magical arrows and overwhelm her with numbers.
Derrell began by shooting two arrows of air attribute both of which were effortlessly blocked by Laura’s whip once again. Seeing as the effect was so less, he switched to three arrows however, the result remained the same. He couldn’t predict the movement of Laura’s whip and although it was difficult to stop three arrows at once for Laura, it wasn’t that difficult.
With this, Derrell had no choice but to use his ultimate move because ’Multishot’ only allowed three arrows to be shot at maximum. He had no choice but to use a move that would surely break past Laura because that was all he needed, one clean shot at any part of her body and his objective would be completed. Then whether he ran out of mana or not, wouldn’t matter in the least.
He pulled out an arrow, the tip of which was slightly darker green than the rest of the arrow. He pulled the arrow back and in tandem with that, used another skill.
{Skill: Wind spirit’s retribution}
In an instant, his bow enlarged to three times and the arrows increased to thirteen. There was still only one physical arrow mixed in with thirteen magical arrows. He pulled them back and shot them at her.
{Skill: Homing}
Instead of going in a straight line, the arrows began to tremble and change direction, their directions were random which made predicting their movement impossible. Laura became alert and used her whip at full potential but still four arrows passed her whip which she had to avoid by moving herself. Unfortunately, one of the arrows nicked her on the cheek while the other nicked her on her thigh.
As soon as it did, she felt something. Something flowed spreading at lightning speed inside her body as she began to feel weak all over. As she began to stagger, Derrell didn’t miss this chance but since he had no mana left and didn’t want to waste any more arrows on an immobile target, he brandished a dagger and ran in Laura’s direction.
Laura saw Derrell heading in her direction but she couldn’t do anything about it. She felt something happening to her at a fast pace and now she wasn’t just feeling weak, she also felt as if her innards were failing.
[Your party member "Laura Ravenknight" has been poisoned]
[Status: Poisoned]
[Multiple organs declining]
[HP will reduce by 5 every second]
Adrian received the message the moment she was poisoned. He turned to look at Derrell running at the chance. He sighed and mumbled, ’Why did he have to do such a thing? I didn’t want to hurt my servant.’
[’All poison neutralizer’ has been purchased]
[Type: Consumable]
[Cost: 100,000]
[’All poison neutralizer’ has been used on party member "Laura Ravenknight"]
[Status: Normal, Low HP]
[HP recovery potion has been used on party member "Laura Ravenknight"]
Doing all he could have done, he returned his focus to the fight just in time for Laura to turn and glance at him for a brief moment. Adrian nodded in return which made her smile as she also returned her focus to the archer with a dagger.
She straightened herself just in time for the dagger to be just before her face. With a very fast foot movement, she moved to the right and dodged the dagger that went past her head while it was difficult for Derrell to stop his momentum, leading him straight to the fist Laura brought in his way.
The air was knocked out of him with just one hit and he knelt on the floor. Laura grabbed him by hair and raised his head only to deliver a fist to his face, knocking a few of his teeth out, and uniting his face with the floor.
She didn’t stop there as she kicked him in his abdomen and sent him rolling on the floor. Since his stats were agility-based which was proving to be meaningless in front of Laura who was supposed to be a mage class yet since the beginning, she hadn’t used one spell, skill, or even mana to fight. All she had used was her whip which she mysteriously manipulated. And now she was using her fists to beat the cra*p out of Derrell.
Derrell coughed heavily as he grabbed his stomach while having great difficulty breathing. He knew she was walking towards him but there was nothing he could do.
Before he could compose himself, Laura was already before him. He struggled to take out another arrow which was also laced with poison but before he could, a foot landed on his knee, shattering it or at least almost shattering it. Laura was careful about not breaking anything permanently.
She didn’t want anyone to give another reason that the next fight would be unfair. Although given the fact that the kingdoms had already pushed the tournament so far that the headmaster might not listen to them anymore, the risk that the kingdoms might make sit out the fight was also there so she couldn’t be careless.
Also the reason why she stopped at that and turned to leave the arena. Although she wanted to continue, if Derrell passed out, it would be her victory. She wanted to get out before then.
"Contestant Laura, Ou...out of bounds. Winner, contestant Derrell." The referee awkwardly announced as the arena turned to look at each other. Monica in the VIP room smiled triumphantly while the seven kingdoms couldn’t help but lower their heads. Although this round ended in a victory, it was practically a defeat and this was the second embarrassing defeat.