Chapter 346 Exciting Battle
But that was the story of a few minutes before this current situation.
Right now, the open ground filled with small stones, sand, dirt, and hard soil, was covered with... countless arrows.
Some arrows were whole, unharmed by anything, and just halfway dug into the hard soil that was stronger than a soft armor metal sheet.
Some arrows were cut in half or multiple pieces and now lay on the ground like some normal piece of wood.
They were strong arrows, better than the normal arrows made of just any normal wood and this was evident from the fact that they were able to pierce the ground.
But the arrows weren\'t the only things that pierced the ground.
There were many sword cuts on this rock-hard ground. Solid, deep, and smooth sword cuts.
It was as if a sharp magic sword covered by a high-level fire, water, or wind attribute spell had made this cut.
It was also a special cut, something that was more than enough to kill even a normal soldier covered in heavy armor.
But there was not a single drop of blood in this area inside the barrier.
As the matter of fact, there was no one visible in these barriers.
No one…
There was actually no one visible inside the barrier but, the occasional noises of the clashes of two metallic objects, countless fierce sparks of fire, blasts of energy, and blows of winds were more than enough to understand what was going in there by anyone watching this.
And spectators were definitely shocked…
Aside from two ladies in the front, there was no one that could even blink at this moment.
They all knew, taking their eyes away from this fight meant that they would lose the two people fighting inside there forever and wouldn\'t be able to understand anything until the match ends.
But that was the last thing they wanted.
Their concentration was at the highest ever right now, their eyes weren\'t even blinking, water drooped from those open eyes and their eyes turned red but they kept them open.
Their mind could barely make out the things happening in there but, this was still not enough for all of them to understand all the things perfectly.
They would definitely reach their limits at one point but before that, they just wanted to see the things that the two inside that barrier were feeling.
Even if it was just a fraction of their power, they wanted to absorb anything they can from watching the two fighting in there like that.
They were amazing, and every one of them felt pure admiration for the two of them.
But they didn\'t even have time for that.
There was only a thin sheet between their own feelings and this great experience they were gaining just from watching two people spar.
And at this moment, be it knights or mages, only this fight mattered to everyone.
The young girl before the knights was watching the fight with her glowing pink eyes that could fully understand everything going on inside and \'see\' it more clearly.
The lady elf before mages was watching them fight with peculiar white translucent magic circles before her eyes and she also understood everything happening inside there. Though she couldn\'t see things as well as the young girl beside her, she could see better than the others.
But both of them who could see the two fighting inside the barrier couldn\'t help their bitter smiles.
It had been three minutes since the fight had started and the boy had fired more than three hundred arrows from his bow, meaning he fired at least a hundred arrows every minute despite evading the knight captain\'s absurd attacks.
From the beginning of this fight, the knight captain didn\'t go easy or underestimated his opponent\'s strength and started with strong attacks.
His attacks were brutal, something no one would dare use against a mere twelve-year-old kid.
These were attacks that not even knights could handle much less a mere kid but, the reality was totally different.
Not only did the young boy evade all of those strong cuts, stabs, slices, and physical attacks, he shot countless arrows in a response to those fierce attacks.
If looked closely, he even aimed every single one of those arrows at his vital spots or the very narrow gaps in his defense but… he couldn\'t break through the knight captain\'s defenses.
The knight captain was strong, and so was the boy.
They were giving each other a clear challenge, something both of them were experiencing for the first time in their lives.
There was a deep smile on their faces even after facing deadly blows and the smile just continued to deepen even more as time passed.
They both were strong, and every one of them knew this by now.
Their knight captain had swordsmanship incomparable to anyone they knew of aside from king-ranked knights that everyone knew of.
It was unique…
He used a saber that was specialized for slicing, cutting, and stabbing.
His mastery of the sword was the reason for his current position as their captain.
But what they all couldn\'t even fathom to withstand was being neutralized by some arrows fired by a twelve-year-old.
A twelve-year-old that had defeated all of them in seconds no less.
If their captain\'s swordsmanship was that of a hundred-year-old wine, the archery that the boy showed right now was the pure alcohol refined for hundreds of years.
There was nothing special to the boy\'s archery.
It was different from his opponent\'s swordsmanship.
Their knight captain had swordsmanship that was dazzling, impeccable, eye-catching, refined with time, and mastered with effort.
On the other hand, the archery that the boy used was just the normal things they all had learned as knights.
Just the basic form, the simple movements, his unique breathing that suited his movements, the way to pulling back the string, loading the arrow after retrieving it from his back, loading it, and shooting... all were normal.
They were something they all knew about and had practiced but the young boy had already transcended humans in the aspects of these same simple steps.
His control was refined beyond they could ever imagine and they could see in his every action that they were able to see even at the cost of blood slipping from their eyes.
His posture as an archer was perfect, something they hadn\'t even seen in some seasoned archers, his breathing and judgments were calm, as if this high-speed fight that they were having this great difficulty didn\'t affect his heart and breathing at all.
His hands already knew what they had to do when their captain\'s attacks had reached him so they used the bow they were holding to block and the simple-looking bow that they now knew was super special… easily blocked the attack without any problems.
His hands moved on their own.
For retrieving the arrows from the quiver, setting them on the bow, adjusting more than one arrow, and pulling back the naturally strong bowstring.
Every action they did were almost on their own as if he had repeated that so many times that his body already knew what to do.
This wasn\'t something they, the knights as well as mages, were able to achieve even after training for their whole life till now.
This was also something their captains lacked.
The young boy was faithful to the basics, maybe too much that he transcended humans like them in this aspect even at this very young age.
They were speechless just from this but... all of these weren\'t the main source of their admiration, awe, shock, and fear.
It was the eyes that all of them were fortunate enough to see for themselves.
His clear eyes, filled with certainty.
Those were anything but the eyes of a special twelve-year-old boy.
They could never believe it even after seeing this with their own eyes.
They were no naive soldiers to not know them.
They were complete knights under one of the king-ranked knights.
All of them can deduce a person with their eyes, behavior, and character.
And right now, they could tell by just those eyes… even if they disregard the fact of his impeccable prowess in weapons and archery.
Those eyes... they resembled their master\'s eyes as well as their master Brian\'s eyes.
They were also the eyes that they had seen on many distinguished people.
And this boy, this twelve-year-old had those same unparalleled eyes.
The eyes with a burning flame in them.
Eyes that had seen death, survived that death, and overcome some of the greatest trials of nature.
The flame of a survived one burned in those eyes.
But that wasn\'t all about this one.
These flames... they were different. Different from their master and different from their master Brian.
They seemed like a mix of both but, at the same time, greater than both of them.
It was as if they had seen death multiple times as if he had almost died and come back from the underworld and now knew the deepest truths of this world.
Eyes that contained flames of strength, eyes that contained waters of wisdom, eyes that contained winds of nature, and eyes that had witnessed wonders of the earth.
These eyes had darkness but that darkness was overpowered by the strongest and brightest of light.
Those ruby-red eyes read, saw, and understood every attack of their captain.
This was something they were witnessing for the first time and even though most of them couldn\'t follow this almost four minuet fight, they had already learned a lot.
Some of them had given up by the time the simple exchange of the first round of bow, arrows, and sword was over and they were entering the end of this fight but… most of them were dead set to follow this spar to the end.
The eyes can be healed with divine healing but this experience might be something they might never get the chance to witness on this scale in the future…
-Booooooom!
An explosion rang out from the clash of their sword and bow and both of them stepped up their high-intensity fight.
They might be strong but there existed something called stamina.
Even if they had great strength, physical and mental exhaustion was a thing. These four minutes might not be a great thing in normal cases but the way the two of them were fighting was... definitely anything but normal.
Even if the young boy was strong, definitely stronger than them, there was a natural lack in his current stats compared to their captain.
He was great to fight on equal terms with their captain but he was still young and his natural strength and stamina were not on par with a pure high knight just yet.
But... this didn\'t mean he was going to accept defeat just yet.
The bright smile on his face was still fresh even with the clear indications of exhaustion.
But he wasn\'t going to fall just yet. His recovery speed was better than the captain after all.
He wasn\'t a knight, he was a magic achar.
He knew he was far behind him in terms of natural stats but, even he didn\'t have something like his golden fruit that recovered his stamina alongside Mana and concentration.
He even used the most basic movements so his stamina was at a good level to give him a proper last fight.
He knew he will lose, it was natural. But he didn\'t mind that.
This was also a good learning experience for him.
His opponent wasn\'t praised as the \'iron heart\' for his exceptional swordsmanship anyway.
It was because of his special Aura and absurd vitality that was beyond any shield-wilding tanker.
He was a swordsman but, because of his high vitality, he could stand against thousands of enemies and still be fine after getting countless fatal attacks.
That was his unique skill. The one and only unique skill that could be called on par with Chry\'s unique skills.
The famous, [Sustenance of Aegis].
A passive skill that increases vitality, bravery, blood volume, and resistance to almost all mental abnormalities.
His base vitality is just that high, and so was his greatly trained stamina.
Even though the boy could recover faster, he was still not yet beyond the limits of a human body.
He was a young boy and... he had a flame in him. A flame strong enough that was determined to challenge those limitations as many times as it needed.
This would be the last part of their \'spar\' but they were certain to show the spectators something that would improve them greatly.
At this end that started after a loud boom... something expectedly unexpected happened.
The two of them stopped for a moment.
The knights and two ladies... as well as all assassins in the shadows could see them now.
But the spectators dare not blink for even a moment.
They knew their reason for stopping and they weren\'t going to miss this chance for something trivial like blinking.
The two people that were fighting fiercely for the last few minutes... this was a rare chance to witness the special Auras of these great people.