Once again I'm on stage and a man stands on the other side holding the same dulled sword as I in one hand. He seems eager to fight as he stares at me with a little cheeky smile while changing his posture every few seconds.
"Begin!"
We charge at each other as our weapons erupts in our Qi. Mine the standard grey color while his was a fiery red.
'It seems the fire element is pretty popular or something like that.'
We both swing our blades in a similar style before clashing in the middle and crossing our swords. All the while having a toothy smile while slowly increasing the Qi supply to his sword. The weapon's aura slowly grew until it started to emit heat that started making me sweat a drop or two.
I broke our stalemate with a kick to his shin or at least I tried to. He disengaged when I did so and dodged my kick jumping backwards a little bit before charging towards me once again.
He had twisted his blade and positioned it to stab me around my chest area so I tried my best to block it. It instead slipped right around my sword and directed hit my chest forcing me back a few steps.
While his sword was near my chest and mine was near his I decided to counter by rushing at him and slashing down at on his exposed torso from his right shoulder diagonally down. As his weapon was still behind mine when I struck him he didn't have enough time to react and pull back his weapon to defend, leaving him open to take my hit. He only took a single step back but that was enough.
My slash wasn't as impactful as his stab on me, but a hit is a hit! The area I was hit was still a little painful as the heat from his fiery Qi still lingered around burning that part of my body a bit. I quickly took care of that though by sending a bit of my own Qi to that area and it canceled out. His Qi or what remained after was only on the surface of my skin and wasn't injected so it was quickly repelled.
'Oh, good thing that actually worked. I didn't even know if trying that would help.'
We rushed forth once more and I kept trying to attack and damage him all the while trying to duck or block his which didn't turn out too well. After around a dozen exchanges I had only managed to hit him around two times while he blocked to rest of mine. He had hit me one time more than I did to him. Those spots also burned a little, but was canceled soon after by my own Qi.
'If this kept going I was going to lose I need to find a way to disorient him or something. Maybe I could somehow disarm him. When him me the first time I had managed to retaliate since he couldn't defend himself. What if I only go with counters and a few prodding strikes pushing his weapon away when it got close?'
And so that was my new strategy as I headed up to him. I sent in a quick thrust without much power, quickly retracting the strike when it was blocked and he responded with a hit, perfect. When his weapon got close to me I took my chance elbowing his hand holding the sword hoping he would drop it. It only flung his hand away along with it, I didn't count on him dropping it anyway all that mattered was that he wouldn't have time to block my attack.
I slashed upward from his waist to his left shoulder and used the remaining momentum to go for a thrust. The thrust was only halfway through when I saw his sword coming in from the side to deflect my thrust. He had got it, hitting my sword away a bit before going for my legs. Jumping backwards to dodge it I narrowly avoided it cutting up parts of my robes.
Unrelentingly he charges forward to keep up his momentum and even unleashes some fire Qi based ability. His sword becomes engulfed in flames as he come nearer wildly swinging around and steadily increasing his speed.
Around a meter distance from his sword the temperature increases sharply. I was of course inside that area of effect from his constant barrage of attacks and sweat started accumulating faster.
The heat was just mostly very uncomfortable, but it was manageable. He swung at me and I dodged once more only to find out the part of the robe he had slashed has catch fire from his sword's effects.
He just kept swinging at me like he had unlimited stamina or something giving me no time to stop the fires spread. It had been a part of the lower section that hanged off my waist and it was steadily spreading upward.
I had to stop this cycle and so I stopped dodging his attacks. When I first started to do this I thought he might tire out after a little while more, but it seems I was mistaken.
'Aren't people supposed to get more tired as the fight progresses? Don't tell me this guy is a protagonist, is he? He's probably just good at keeping backup strength that's all, hopefully.'
I stopped backing up and instead held my ground as his downward strike came and blocked it. Once our swords connected I pushed up to knock his sword out of the way a bit.
Instead of slashing at his chest or even doing any damage I just kicked him in his abdomen to push him away. Once my kick connected he flew back a few meters landing on his back.
I couldn't question why he seemed so weak to that kick at the moment as the fire had already reached my waist, the heat radiated into my body from this extra piece of clothing.
I scrambled to take off the part of my robe that was burning, but before it fully came off it had made it to the main body of my robe. Luckily it had only just made it so I quickly took care of it using some quick patting to put out the small flame that was slowly expanding.
By the time the fire went out I looked back up towards my opponent and it seems he is still getting up.
'Huh? Now that I have a bit of time to think, why did he go so far from my kick? Don't tell me he's immune to bladed weapons or something. Well might as well try.'
When I reached him he had gotten back up on his feet. I swapped the weapon I was holding into my other hand to get ready to punch him. A smile was still seen on his face as he tried to attack me from my side.
Raising my sword to meet his I couldn't handle the strength he had put into that hit with a single arm that wasn't even my dominate one. The blades pushed onto my body and then I struck him in his abdomen with a punch I've been winding up the entire time.
He coughed as he was forced back a few steps and looked a little stunned. I took my chance to run up to him and punch him in the face, except nothing happened but the movement of his head as it turned to the direction I punched.
'Huh? Where is the reaction? Maybe another.'
This time I hit him on the chest and once again nothing happened. A slight amount of panic ensued as I wondered what went wrong and he started to regain control of his body. After the third hit he once again became aggressive and started to attack.
'What the fuck! It worked the first two times! Why isn't he affected now! What am I doing wrong!'