As the audience witnessed Leron overwhelm Valyr by bombarding the latter with a flurry of attacks made out of dark energy, worry was written all over a great portion of the audience’s faces as Valyr’s pained cries resounded throughout the coliseum.
Unsurprisingly, the regular customers of Valyr’s smithy, as well as Arcenne and Wells, had even more unsightly expressions on their faces, feeling each hit that landed on Valyr’s body as the worry on their faces became more and more obvious.
To them, the current duel had transformed into nothing more than a one-sided beating, with the only hit Valyr was able to land on Leron being the finger he cut off. On the other hand, Valyr gradually became more bloodied thanks to Leron’s relentless attacks, some of them shallow, some of them digging deeper into Valyr’s skin.
“I have something to ask you. Something that’s been bothering me since earlier.” Deciding to finally end it all with a killing blow, Leron pushed down on the spear Valyr had extended towards him as he asked him a question. “Whose prey is whose again?”
At this moment, some of the regular customers from the Crimson Forge closed their eyes, not wanting to see the owner of the smithy they’ve grown to like to die a merciless and brutal death. As for Arcenne and Wells, their eyes were wide open as they watched the scene before them unfold with bated breaths, hoping that there was a way for Valyr to turn things around.
And turn things around he did.
Bang!
Under the witness of thousands of people within the Farraway Coliseum, the spear Valyr was holding, which was being pushed down by Leron all this time, disappeared for only a brief moment, with Leron oblivious to what the man before him had just done with his spear.
Then again, he wouldn’t remain clueless for long.
All of a sudden, Leron started to fall to his right side, his eyes frantically looking around his surroundings in a slight panic to find out what had just happened. Coincidentally, just as he had figured out what was happening, Valyr’s voice resounded throughout the coliseum in response to his earlier question.
“Whose prey is whose? As if that had even changed at all.”
“You’ve always been my prey, Leron.”
…
Thud.
Silence. Silence consumed the entirety of the coliseum for that brief moment as everyone was left at a loss for words at how easily Valyr had turned the tables around. In their minds, they all thought that his death was imminent under the bombardment of attacks Leron sent his way. But instead…
“Woooo!!!” Cheers swiftly erupted throughout the coliseum as Valyr remained standing where he was, looking down at his opponent that had just fallen to the ground.
On the other hand, Leron let out a long wail of pain before gritting his teeth, enduring the pain that crippled his entire body as he looked at Valyr with a gaze that could only be said to hold the epitome of fury.
After all, his right leg had disappeared without him knowing.
Bellowing out in anger, Leron summoned all of the dark energy that he had used throughout the duel and congregated it towards where his right leg should have been. Within seconds, this dark energy took on the crude shape of a right leg, allowing Leron to stand up once more.
‘I guess surpassing 100 points in DEX does have its perks.’ In the meantime, as he gave Leron time to compose himself and stand up, Valyr thought about the move he had just used to make Leron’s right leg disappear from existence, inwardly letting out a light chuckle soon after.
The move that he used was called [Tyrannous Bite], the third move that he unlocked from [Serpent Spear Combat Style]. Unlike [Descending Fang] and [Venomous Strike], which had Valyr follow a certain trajectory for the attack to be effective, [Tyrannous Bite] was an attack that could be shot out in any direction, condensing all of the power behind the attack into a single point, swallowing everything that it touched before making it disappear before their very eyes.
Such was the case with Leron’s right leg.
Taking a quick look at how many seconds still remained before [Tyrannous Bite] was off cooldown, Valyr looked back at Leron and asked, “So, wanna risk your life to find out who among us is the true prey?”
“Die!” Consumed by his rage, Leron lunged forward towards Valyr as he shot dark energy out of the soles of his feet, propelling him forward at great speeds. Then, with the gap between them now non-existent, Leron swung his daggers inward, the dark energy infused into them far greater than before as he aimed to kill Valyr with the energy.
“[Elusive Dash]!”
Whoosh!
However, due to the fact that he had lost his right leg, Leron was unable to showcase the superior agility he had in its fullest, allowing Valyr to dodge the attack with a swift [Elusive Dash], appearing behind Leron just as the latter was looking for his whereabouts.
“[Tyrannous Bite]!” Then, just as Leron had sensed Valyr’s presence and turned around, Valyr extended his spear out once more, which swiftly made contact with Leron’s left leg.
Bang!
Once more, Leron was sent falling to his side as he cried out in pain. However, unlike before, where he allowed his body to fall completely to the ground, he hastily summoned more dark energy towards where his left leg originally was, forming another crude leg out of the energy once more as he stabilized himself.
“I wonder… how much of that energy do you still have to replace parts of your body?” Though Valyr was covered from head to toe in his own blood, with parts of his armor being soaked in it as well, he knew that he had dealt far more grievous damage to Leron, taunting the latter with his words.
“[Shadow Immolation]!’ In response to the taunt, a great wave of dark energy burst out of Leron’s body before enveloping it, causing the aura he was radiating all this time to reach a higher level of intensity.
To those in the audience, it seemed as though Leron had brought out his trump card, giving off the feeling that he was not going to hold back anymore to end the duel once and for all.
But to Valyr, who still had a plethora of skills he had not shown to the audience yet, as well as the fact that the damage he accrued was surface level at most, Leron activating his skill seemed more like a last-ditch effort to him.
As if he didn’t want the audience to think that he died doing nothing.
“Since you’re going all out, I should respond in kind.” Dodging the attacks Leron sent out at him in wanton, Valyr went ahead and activated all of the offensive buffing skills he had in his arsenal.
“[Offense Aura]!”
“[Robust Arms]!”
“[Crimson Blaze]!”
Bang!
Catching Leron unaware with a crimson fireball to the face, Valyr swiftly closed the gap between them before activating two more skills in succession.
“[Descending Fang]!”
“[Venomous Strike]!”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Before Leron could even react to the two attacks Valyr sent, both of his arms were swiftly cut off by each skill, showing the audience a far more gruesome sight than what Valyr had done through [Tyrannous Bite].
Surprisingly, the audience was in an uproar at this moment, cheering on for Valyr to land even more devastating blows on his opponent.
On the other hand, with all of his limbs now effectively cut off from his body, it was only did Valyr’s earlier words to him echoed in his mind, realizing that the man’s words wasn’t a baseless accusation.
He had the means to do so.
With this realization sinking in, Leron stood frozen in place as Valyr stepped closer, a light smirk adorning his face. “Only now did you realize, huh?
“Too bad. There’s no prize for figuring it out.”
“I surre–!” Not wanting to give Valyr the satisfaction of having the last laugh, Leron’s voice resounded throughout the coliseum, showing his intentions to surrender. Unfortunately, before he could even finish his words…
“[Tyrannous Bite]!”
Bang!
At that very instant, Leron’s head disappeared under the witness of the audience as all of the dark energy covering his body gradually disappeared.
With a thud, Leron’s limbless and headless body fell to the ground, bringing an end to what could be summed up as a bloody and gruesome life and death duel.𝑶𝔳𝓵xt.𝑐𝚘𝐌