Fen saw the surprised look on his opponents face for a second before he crashed into her. It seemed that she had no idea that her opponent would figure out her location from a single dart, otherwise she would've poured much more energy into her attack.
Fen swung down his new Iberian short sword in a simple slash with an Vitality-enhanced arm intending to finish the fight in a single strike while she was surprised.
But a Stage two Knight was no pushover.
The Chosen, Kara, had worked hard to reach her current position of power. In fact, she was considered a genius among Knights, able to reach Stage two while she was still so young. She had some of the best combat instructors available and took full advantage of her talent to absorb as much information and techniques that she could.
Even while surprised she sidestepped Fen's strike and pushed forward with her own weapon, a longsword gifted to her from her mother. It's longer reach was useless when Fen was already so close, but she had no other choice but to use it.
Fen's sword was pushed aside and Kara thrust her own weapon inside his seemingly-open guard. However, her opponent's next action completely broke her expectation.
He showed no intention to block her strike as he stepped even closer to her, taking the full power of her attack into his chest. But while Kara thought the fight would end just like that, Fen smirked from within his Thunderbird helmet.
The armor he purchased from the Shop was worth the large expenditure of points. Kara's longsword only left a deep scratch in the chest-piece after using up all her strength while Fen's hand ripped his dagger from his body to stab into her neck.
'She's stronger than me.' In the same situation Fen was certain that he wouldn't be able to leave such a deep mark into his armor. 'But she's probably been a Knight longer than me, so that's to be expected. Strength isn't everything; I can still win.'
A Knight's strength came with time. The higher their Stage, the faster their strength would develop until hitting an inevitable pinnacle unless they reached the next Stage. So, although they were at the same Stage, Kara spent a longer time developing her strength.
But Fen had more experience. While his opponent indeed used some flashy weapon techniques to catch him off guard and cause some more damage to his armor, that was the extent of her ability. Fen spent a whole two months doing nothing but throwing himself into fights, spars, and life-or-death struggles for survival until his instincts developed his own style of fighting, one which involved little else except pure violence.
Feints? Useless. What was the point of trying to trick an inhuman opponent like a Lesser Dragon? It was much easier and more effective to gather his power into a single point and penetrate through the defenses of his opponent rather than expect them to fall for a trick.
And what was the point of armor if he wasn't going to use it? Rather than blocking a strike Fen would much rather just let his equipment absorb the power of his opponent's blows and use that saved time to deal more damage to his opponent.
Whether she feinted to the right or left it didn't matter; Fen always charged straight forward and used his weapons to blow past whatever protections Kara had and leave a deep bleeding gash on her body. Though, small injuries like that were nowhere near enough to be fatal to a Stage two Knight like her so Fen had to expend more effort to accumulate more and more wounds on her body until her Vitality was sucked dry from her attempts to recover.
And his attacks weren't done without planning.
Fen took every opportunity to drive her in the opposite direction of her Chosen ally, pushing Kara farther and farther away from her only chance at help.
Meanwhile, Kara gasped as she felt another stab lacerate her thigh. 'This guy, he's weaker than me but I still can't get a breather...! Fuck, give me a break...'
Her armor was essentially useless against Fen simple penetrative style of fighting, the metal was forged custom to her body and was meant to leave her movements free while preventing slashes from damaging her but Fen's strength combined with his use of stabs utterly broke past her weak guard. 'Davos never taught me anything about fighting somebody as crazy as this!'
Whenever she opened her mouth to get Hondo's attention to come and help her Fen stopped his assault and threw out a small item that she quickly grew to hate.
[Wave Disruptor]
[Properties: This small mechanical device has a single use and will destroy itself immediately after being injected with magical energy. After being supplied with sufficient Mana, the device will emit a wave of Mana so thin and so highly tuned that it will disrupt any sound in the area from going farther than a few meters before collapsing into the machine and imploding soundlessly.]
Fen had used up four of these devices before Kara finally stopped attempting to use sound to gain Hondo's attention. 'Tch, I'll have to endure and hope that that useless guerilla notices something and comes to help me.'
Even though Fen had pushed Kara back a significant distance from her original surprise attack location, it was nowhere near enough to prevent the sounds coming from their battle from going all over the forest. When Hondo came to check in on her, all he'd have to do was use his enhanced sense of hearing to follow the sounds of battle coming from their battle and come to help her.
While Kara steeled her will to endure his attacks, Fen faced a similar dilemma. He also noticed that their fight was taking too long and that the Warrior might actually be able to intercept them before he could finish her off. The forest area around them was stained in red blood from the amount of times he repeatedly cut through her body and armor, but it still wasn't fast enough. If something didn't change, the Warrior would arrive and Fen would have to fight against two combatants at the same time all while struggling to keep himself alive.
'Shit, I wanted to save energy for the Stage three guy, but I have no choice. I'll worry about the consequences later.' With a face twisted from reluctance, Fen started stirring his circulating Vitality and forced the river of Vital energy inside his body to surge into his short sword.
Fen immediately felt a burning sensation running through his body coming from the hand holding the Iberian sword. His cells started vibrating and consumed more and more energy at a rapid pace to boost his power. The energy was mostly recovered from the Marks which sucked in the ambient energy in the environment, but Fen was still reluctant to waste it.
But he had to admit, the effects from his sword's ability made the expenditure more than worth it. His body was much stronger and faster than before. Gripping his short sword, Fen sent a horizontal slash filled with Vital energy at his opponent.
'Yes. What's the point of buying a powerful item if I don't use it to it's potential?' Fen thought while smiling from the spray of blood his strike created.
****
"Where the hell is she?" At the same time, Hondo was running through the forest searching for traces of his teammate. He realized two minutes ago that it was too quiet in the forest considering that Kara was already supposed to have ambushed their opponent, and when he wasn't receiving any messages from her he burst into action, crashing through the trees to find either her or their Opfer opponent.
Powerful bursts of his crimson Aura flattened the trees and created a path for him to run through. If there were any animals left in the forest, all they'd hear is a thunderous crash and a blur of red energy, and then Hondo would be gone just as fast as he appeared.
At Stage two, a Warrior would finally gain the ability to control energy of their own with the creation of the Aura core after shutting off their bodies to external energy like Mana and Vitality. The only downsides to their transformation was that it became much harder for other people to use both support and healing magic on them because of their passively circulating Aura, but that issue could easily be fixed by exhausting their Aura. Though, doing that was impossible on an active battlefield...
They also couldn't use Mana, but Hondo never had the head to memorize the different spellworks anyways.
Warriors were able to regenerate their own cells using Aura so they didn't need healing magic unless their body was severely damaged or their genetic information was forcibly altered by a powerful Knight.
Using his Aura, Hondo enhanced his senses and quickly discovered the battle between Kara and Fen; it was a few hundred meters away, but thanks to his powerful limbs he would be able to reach it in just a few moments.
While he operated his Aura to strengthen his legs and run, he frowned. "Shit, I might be too late." His ears weren't picking as much sound as they were, as if the fight was just about to end.
But Hondo could only grit his teeth and run faster. He couldn't abandon Kara. Even if they weren't allies right now, she was his friend too! He understood her level of power because the two of them practically grew up together; Hondo refused to believe that his friend would die just from a single opponent with lesser strength than her!
While he could beat her in a duel, that was only logical considering the difference in power between a Stage three and a Stage two Empowered. The difference in power between the Stages increased exponentially the higher the Stage until it was as if you were fighting an insurmountable peak, and Hondo was considered Upper-Stage three as well. Of course, if Kara chose the same Class as him and put in the same amount of effort into her training as she did with her Knight training then she might even be more powerful than him.
That was just how talented she was!
No matter what she put her mind to, Kara would've thrived. She wasn't like him who only managed to advance to Stage three thanks to a lot of luck and hard work.
When Hondo arrived to the scene of the battle, the area similar to if two savage beasts had rolled and fought to the death in the forest. Trees were savagely cut in half with tree limbs laying all over the dirt, and the ground itself was also disturbed with deep furrows left from powerful attacks and blows of energy.
And at the center of it all was Fen with his armor covered in damage and broken parts with a red-stained bone helmet on his head. The youth was gasping for breath and was staring at the opponent laying at his feet.
'Damn, I should've remembered that the closer someone is to death, the more dangerous they are!' He grit his teeth while manipulating his energy to recover his wounds as quickly as possible.
In the end, Kara had even sacrificed her limb just to get a single stab through Fen's armor and into his side, leaving a gaping red hole through him. If it wasn't for his toughened skin the strike would've done much more than just leave a hole in him and might have even blow up the left side of his body.
Even now, Fen had to utilize a sizeable portion of his Vitality to close the hole and regenerate the damaged flesh made by her strike. But the end result of the battle was set in stone even before they fought; her lack of experience sealed away her victory by restricting her actions from being fluid enough to fully block Fen's violent blows. Every single one of his stabs and slashes were aimed at her vital areas with the intent of taking her life while hers barely left scrapes on him.
She fought like it was training while he fought to kill. The winner was the natural outcome.
Now without an arm, Kara stared up at Fen with lifeless eyes and a body limp with defeat. She wasn't dead yet, but she was close enough that it didn't matter if she was alive or not. If she didn't receive help immediately then she'd bleed to death; she was barely conscious enough to even realize the state of her body.
After Fen activated the special ability of his Iberian short sword his Vitality started bubbling with unprecedented fervor and his strikes completely demolished her meager defenses. She couldn't win against Fen in his normal state and she knew it; her attempt at fighting was aimed to decrease his strength as much as possible while buying time for Hondo to arrive. His increase in strength only brought forward the inevitable.
Fen was too busy gasping for breath to raise his head but he was more than aware of Hondo's arrival. His Vital Skin skill never deactivated during the fight and was always in use to warn him of the Stage three Warrior's arrival. Taking a final breath, he ripped his short sword out from Kara's stomach and raised it in front of him in a simple combat stance. He shook the blood of his dagger and held the weapon close to his body.
He hadn't used all his power in the fight with Kara but he knew that he couldn't hold back against his next opponent. Tired but not exhausted, Fen could be considered in his peak combat power if not for the noticeable dent in his pool of Vitality.
Meanwhile, Hondo's mind was boiling with rage after seeing the limp body of his friend at Fen's feet.
It took an unbelievable amount of effort to drag his eyes up from her body up to Fen. His mind finally registered his opponent and his combat stance, noticing the worn state of his sword and the strength he gripped his weapons with.
Both his mind and body had different reactions to the grisly scene.
His body unconsciously absorbed the information presented to him, analyzing, 'Two weapons, both with a short reach. Most likely a close-range fighter who uses his Vitality to regenerate his wounds while pressing the offensive; by the look of Kara... that's exactly what happened.' Hondo squeezed his fist and made a loud popping sound from the concussive force his action made. 'To effectively fight, suppress his combat ability by targeting the shoulders and legs if vital areas aren't possible.'
But his mind was just filled with anger. Hondo roared, "You fucker!"
The Aura inside his trained body roared to life in reflection of the rage filling up his mind, bubbling up from his Aura core and enhancing his entire body as his legs exploded off the ground with a *Pang*.
The Warrior raised his axe with his right hand while twisting his hips to deliver the most lethal strike he could while using quick and efficient movements.
Fen barely lifted his short sword in time to block the horizontal blow, his body instinctively reacting while his mind barely realized that his body wasn't fast enough to dodge.
But the strike didn't end with just that. The bulging muscles on Hondo's body weren't just for looks, and now that they were enhanced with rage-filled Aura, his strikes were enough to level entire patches of forest simply from the concussive force and air pressure.
The Warrior was stronger than Fen. It was needless to say considering the Stage difference, but Hondo was so powerful that it warranted saying it.
By blocking the attack the full force of Hondo's strike blew Fen away into the forest until his body exploded through a tree and crashed onto another, his body making a dangerous cracking sound while his bones struggled to keep their shape after enduring such a powerful force.
'Ugh...! Why am I getting déjà vu?' For some reason the memory of himself getting blown away in the first Task by Edmond's magic spellwork came to Fen's mind. 'This shit is weaker than that fucking thing, so get your ass up!' Fen mentally strained his muscles to pull himself off the ground, worried that the Warrior would immediately come to finish him off.
But Hondo gave him enough time to recover. While it would be better if Fen died from that strike, the Warrior needed to check on Kara first while the shock from his attack was still fresh.