Elem was wise enough not to wait for me to finish casting my next summoning spell, for he lunged at me. Dodging to the side, I brought both my swords up to deflect his passing slash, and then Elem spun around and kicked me in the abdomen. I staggered back, bringing Mo Ye up to parry Elem's slender sword.
"…kuh…"
Gasping, I countered with a thrust from Gan Jiang, but Elem dodged that elegantly before flipping his body away and sweeping with a kick from below. Jumping above his outstretched leg, I wasn't able to dodge his strike while still in midair, and the force behind his blow was enough to send me hurtling several meters backward.
Swoosh!
A massive torrent of mana gathered around his sword again. Taking another step forward, Elem got ready to blast me into oblivion.
"Don't die from this yet!" he told me with a feral grin before swinging his sword and unleashing the devastating blast of mana. The entire courtyard erupted in another enormous explosion again, the trees and grass getting razed by the esoteric energies.
"Huff…"
Perspiration dripping down my face, I leaned on my sword. Outside of my impervious water barrier, winds howled and destructive mana continued to crackle in the newly scorched crater in the earth. Behind me, Black Tortoise trudged forward and unleashed several streams of highly pressurized water at Elem. Each of the deadly jets of water was enough to cut through metal and pierce through a steel plate that was several inches thick.
However, Elem dodged every one of them. Occasionally, he would slice apart the streams of water with his sword – those he could not evade – but his slender sword was somehow able to withstand the intense pressure. Not that I was surprised. I could see the thin but dense film of golden mana coating his blade in a protective manner.
"That's one hell of a shell to break," the relatively short warrior remarked. The guy was actually a few centimeters shorter than me, even though I was only 168cm tall at most. Despite his diminutive figure, his aura was intimidating. I could see the golden mana flare up around his body before coalescing around his blade.
I couldn't afford to continue being on the defense forever. Sooner or later he would breach my water barrier and I would lose the battle. Not that I cared about winning, but after being woken up at 6am in the morning just to participate in such a ridiculous duel, I was seriously in a foul mood. I wanted to beat up Elem.
So I waited for Elem to blast me with his "Excalibur" again. Just as Black Tortoise and I vanished from sight as the blinding flash of gold mana engulfed the courtyard, I completed my next summoning spell while still under the protective aegis of Black Tortoise's water barrier.
"?!"
Elem suddenly spun around when gigantic claws savaged his back. Even as blood spurted from his wounds, he hit the ground and rolled, trying his best to fire off another devastating blast of golden mana. Unfortunately, as he had just recently fired off an "Excalibur" attack, he needed a few more seconds to recharge.
A few more seconds that White Tiger wasn't willing to give him.
With a roar, White Tiger saturated the entire area with lightning, with jagged bolts dancing about and frying every living thing in the vicinity. Elem tried his best to weave through the tempest of electricity, but he found himself bombarded from all sides. A bolt of lightning struck his leg first, and then his arm, and then a third slammed powerfully into his body, electrocuting him. Gritting his teeth, Elem tried to slice through the network of lightning bolts, his sword conducting some of the lethal electricity away from him and into the metal.
"BREAK!" he bellowed as he swung his sword and unleashed a devastating blast of golden mana that dissipated all the electricity in one strike. Fortunately, as distracted as he was in getting rid of the deadly lightning, he was not able to hit White Tiger.
And White Tiger could just cast his lightning spell again. Electricity wreathed the blackened space once more, charging the highly tense atmosphere, once the golden mana was dispersing after the enormous attack.
"Damn it…"
Even though Elem knew that he had to eliminate White Tiger first if he wanted to be completely free of the electricity, reality never worked out the way you planned it. With lightning and electricity bombarding him from all directions at every second, he had no choice but to deal with the matter at hand as opposed to focusing on slaying the great beast.
As such, he tried to charge his sword with more golden mana while enduring the lethal currents that flowed through his body. However, before he could unleash them once more, White Tiger pounced on him from behind and tore open a new wound, sending a geyser of blood spurting into the air.
"Argh!"
Elem staggered and desperately countered with a violent slash behind him, golden mana erupting from his blade. White Tiger soared above his clumsy slash, his lithe body coiling before he swiped at Elem with his paw. The swordsman just barely managed to parry the gigantic claws with his sword, only to be sent staggering a few paces backward.
"!!!"
I unleashed Alnasl from my recently summoned Sagittarius. What? You didn't expect me to be standing around doing nothing while my opponent was being distracted by one of my summoned beasts, did you?
"UWOOO!"
Realizing the danger, Elem spun around and swung his sword downward in an attempt to intercept the deadly flaming arrow. The projectile detonated upon contact, bathing the poor swordsman in an inferno.
Then golden mana erupted from within, tearing the inferno apart and scattering the lightning that remained on the field. Singed and blackened, the huffing Elem turned toward me, his sword still glowing. Kicking off the ground, he launched himself at me, ignoring White Tiger and Black Tortoise. Before either Celestial Guardians could react in time, he was already upon me.
Unfortunately for him, I already anticipated that. After all, it was a well-known tactic to aim for the summoner and to take him out. Cut off the head, and the body would fall. Similarly, slay the summoner and his Soul Beasts would disappear along with his life.
Before Elem could reach me, Leo materialized beside him and swatted him aside. Credit to Elem, he parried Leo's claws in reflex and avoided a fatal blow, but Leo was not done yet.
"Leo, Regulus!"
A golden beam of light that rivaled the blast from Elem's sword burst into being and slammed into the short swordsman, sending him clattering onto the ground.
"Fuck! I don't think I've ever been this hurt in a duel!"
Cursing as he slid across the ground, Elem managed to roll back to his feet. Damn, but the guy was tenacious. Despite being battered and bleeding all over, he merely wiped the blood from his mouth and readied for another attack.
Were all Amazerian Empire warriors this tough? The guy was like unkillable.
Not that I cared. Intent on finishing him off, I mercilessly set both Leo and White Tiger on him. One side of the field was filled with deadly electricity as White Tiger rampaged through it, and the other side flared brilliantly as golden mana enveloped Leo.
"Ah…" Elem sighed and clicked his tongue. "If I don't get seriously, I might actually lose."
"I don't mind if you just lose without becoming serious, though." I suppressed a yawn. "It'll make things easier for everyone, and we can go straight to lunch. Or I can just surrender if you really want to win."
"That won't be fun." Elem sulked. "Let's go all out!"
I said nothing and just waited for both White Tiger and Leo to hit him. Elem, for his part, was unusually calm, which raised my hackles.
"Guys!" I snapped. "Retreat!"
Leo and White Tiger obeyed immediately, but I was almost too late. Shadows on the ground stirred and something whipped out. If I had been a millisecond slower in ordering my Soul Beasts, the two of them would have been ensnared by writhing serpents.
"Rise, Anaconda," Elem hissed. I watched as a swarm of huge serpents slithered out of the shadows, and began to swarm over White Tiger and Leo. Even though the both of them blasted hordes of anacondas away with lightning or Regulus, there were too many of them. Elem grinned as he lowered his sword and charged behind his anacondas.
"…I see."
As expected of someone from the Amazerian Empire. Of course they would be able to summon a swarm of anacondas…actually, did anacondas operate in swarms? I wasn't very sure about that. I did remember an old movie about them killing a bunch of poor humans who were stupid enough to sail straight into its nest.
"You should be honored." Elem grinned. "You're only the third person to have forced me to summon my Anacondas."
"I'm flattered," I replied dryly and took a step back. One of the anacondas lunged at me, its jaws wide open to swallow me whole, but I cleaved it in half with Gan Jiang, then beheaded a second anaconda with Mo Ye.
A searing blast from White Tiger electrocuted another horde of Anacondas and sent their sizzling bodies crashing down onto the ground. At the back, Black Tortoise offered ranged support by slicing the anacondas with highly pressurized jets of water. Leo incinerated another swarm with his Regulus, and his golden torrent almost caught Elem by surprise.
"Hmph."
With his soul beasts unleashed in front of him, Elem could no longer carelessly fire off his devastating golden blasts. Or so I hoped, but…
"Anaconda God!"
All of the surviving anacondas immediately retreated, their massive figures almost melting back into the shadows. I watched in horror as they began to meld together and merge into a single, gargantuan form. An enormous serpent, several dozen times larger than all the other previous anacondas, reared its head out of the shadows and roared.
…wait, what?
"Anacondas don't roar!" I yelled. "They hiss!"
"Who cares?" Elem snapped. "It's more dramatic and impactful this way."
"But it's not realistic at all!"
"We're talking about summoners calling forth mythical creatures and throwing energy blasts at each other with magic swords and spells, and you want to talk about realism?"
The guy had a point there…
Anyway, the gigantic Anaconda reared forward, snarling ferociously. Below, Elem raised his sword and got ready to launch another of those beams of his.
I dismissed Leo and had White Tiger retreat behind Black Tortoise's water barrier. Elem didn't care and unleashed his golden blast, almost cracking the fluid shield. Even as Black Tortoise fought to maintain the water barrier and repair it, the gigantic anaconda crashed physically against it, its fangs piercing through and tearing it apart.
With its great length, it swatted away Black Tortoise with its huge tail, and then coiled around a bellowing White Tiger, attempting to crush the poor Celestial Guardian despite being electrocuted incessantly.
"It's over," Elem said triumphantly as he readied another golden blast of mana. "Unless you're going to unleash your Strategic-scale spell."
To his astonishment, I burst out laughing.
"Don't flatter yourself," I sneered. "What makes you think I'll need to use my nuke spell just to defeat the likes of you?"