Chapter 983 (1/2)
“Next up…” The bearded man announced as two janitors were using large brushes to scrub away the stain of blood from the arena floor, “Jerrick and Aldo!”
Vye released another small sigh. Although there were barely any participants left who had not been called, her name was not announced. Not her turn yet. She still had time to prepare. More time to struggle against the question of what her image would be.
I still have time.
Vye looked up toward a wide window at the side of the arena and out into the cloudless sky. At her core, she yearned to be out there, moving frantically in a mad dash toward the horizon. Chasing after the setting sun. That. That’s all I want. Does that count as an image…?
Jerrick turned out to be an extremely muscular man carrying two heavy axes that looked like they had seen frequent use. Aldo, meanwhile…
When seen out of the corner of her eye, Aldo seemed to familiar that Vye jerked around to look at him. But on closer inspection, Vye was left rather nonplussed why Aldo had seemed so familiar to her.
He was tall, but not too tall. Muscular, but not too muscular. And honestly, he was altogether extremely messy. His hair was sticking out in several directions and his jaw was covered in a few days worth of stubble. His clothes were worn through an extended period of heavy use. But most of all-
Then Vye blinked. Aldo was barefoot.
Aldo casually brandished a ‘spear’. Which was, in fact, just a branch that appeared to have been sharpened to a point. Blinking several times, Vye realized why he looked so familiar; when you barely looked at him at all, and let your focus narrow solely onto his bare feet…
He certainly had a certain surface level similarity to Randidly Ghosthound.
It seemed that Vye wasn’t the only person who noticed the passing resemblance. The bearded man seemed torn for several seconds after Aldo casually walked onto the arena, and then hesitantly said. “...Aldo, are you sure you don’t want any foot protection for the challenge?”
Aldo looked over coolly to the bearded man. “...some secrets you can’t experience until you expose yourself to the world. Some primal powers are too raw for the fearful to grasp through gloved hands.”
Everyone fell into a slightly awkward silence for several seconds. Then the bearded man shrugged helplessly. “Well, it is your decision.”
Without waiting for any more strange comments from Aldo, the bearded man swiftly signaled the start of the duel. Despite the fact that none of the earlier fights had done anything but make her more nervous about her own time in the arena, Vye found her attention being dragged to the messy and barefoot man with a branch for a weapon.
Compared to Jerrick’s brutal axes, a branch seemed unable to do much to alter the outcome of the fight. And Jerrick wasted no time rushing forward to close the distance and ensure that he could bring his superior weapons to bear.
Aldo barely even seemed to notice. With narrowed eyes, he calmly walked forward to meet his foe.
And as Vye watched the subtle movements of his feet, her jaw dropped.
There certainly was something… powerful about the way Aldo was moving toward Jerrick. Aldo’s leg muscles were clearly flexing and pulling, but he kept his bare feet on the ground the whole time. But… he continued to zig-zag lazily forward to meet his foe. More than anything else, it reminded Vye of the slow and graceful movements of ice skating.
But how could Aldo skate across the dirty and pitted ground of the arena without any trouble?
“Beware, if I use my full strength, I cannot guarantee your safety!” Aldo bellowed. Jerrick’s eyes tightened in fury, but he didn’t say anything in response. It seemed that he was competent enough that he had noticed the strange movements of Aldo as well. His mad charge slowed down as he considered the unpredictable movements.
As they neared, the moment seemed to stretch. Then, as if due to some hidden signal, both individuals accelerated toward each other. But Aldo moved so quickly in those last moments that Jerrick seemed to be standing still.
By spinning around Jerrick’s slash, Aldo built up a fearsome momentum. His spear swept outward only to-
Vye’s jaw popped from hanging open for too long. When Aldo’s spear struck Jerrick, the sharpened blade didn’t even pierce through the skin. Like an ordinary twig, the spear cracked in the middle and shattered into several pieces.
Without missing a beat, Aldo flipped the broken spear shaft in his right and brutally stabbed it into Jerrick’s bicep. Although the blade wasn’t sharp enough for a slash, it seemed that the broken wood was sturdy enough to be used as a dagger. At the same time, Aldo stretched his left hand out into the air and produced another sharpened branch from his interspatial ring.
Bellowing in fury, Jerrick seemed to transform into a tornado of steel and bloodlust. But Aldo calmly weaved through each of the strikes, cracked his weapon over Jerrick’s body, and then methodically stabbed the broken pieces into his opponent.
After about twenty broken spears and there were a dozen short wooden shafts were leaking blood out of Jerrick’s body, the muscular man clearly showed signs of nearing the end of his Stamina. His exhales were huge explosions of compressed air, his chest erratically rising and falling as he struggled to recover his energy.