Andrew grit his teeth as a blade slashed his waist, stopping before splitting him in half. Small cuts appeared all over his body and blood dripped from every single one of them.
"Too slow, right idea but you hesitated. Never leave an opening unless you fully commit and youre sure it works." Folen said harshly before dashing to Andrews side and slashing once more.
Andrew watched the blade approach and moved to Repel the large sword with his longsword, both blades slide along eachother and Andrew was pushed back multiple steps.
"Tch, even while weakening myself as much as possible youre still pushed back multiple steps. How pathetic can you be?" Folen ridiculed him harshly as he ran forward quickly to attack once more.
Watching folen approach Andrew readied his sword to counter, But was caught off guard as Folen continued to run straight at him without any complicated movements. Andrew jabbed forward with his sword, which was swiftly dodged by him swiftly as he moved around the hab easily.
"My god, youre so bad at this." Folen practically screamed at him with fury as his blade cut upwards towards Andrews neck.
He panicked using the hilt of his blade to tilt Folens strike sideways, Folen was a little surprised by his utilization of a part of the sword overlooked by most beginners.
"Finally, not a move that wont get you killed." Folen spat harshly as he retreated.
Andrew stood there with his body screaming at him to stop, his body was covered in slits as wide as a small nail. Like a tiger has been playing with him for hours, which was not far off.
"Hey,can we take a break." Andrew grogged out hopefully, he was in no condition to fight even remotely well. Three fingers on his hand were backed up unnaturally as the powerful strikes combined with panicked relocation of the sword gave him bad grip. Forcing his joints out of place.
Folen looked at him with distaste, like he was looking at a pile of mold on a piece of bread.
"No" That single word caused Andrews body to shake.
Griting his teeth Andrew ran at Folen raising his sword with his deformed hand, letting out a small grunt in discomfort.
Pain wasnt the only thing he felt as he used the sword, the more he used the sword. The more it felt out of place, like the sword wasnt his and was begging him to let go.
Pushing through the discomfort Andrew slammed his Blade sideways and watched as Folen dodged with ease. Expecting this he did a full rotation with his momentum and struck again, this time the speed of the attack was much greater. But it was still easily dodged as only the air around him was sliced.
"GRRR" Andrew grimiced in annoyance as he used his full force to bring the momentum up as he spun around.
Bringing the long sword above him he slammed down on Folen, who looked at him with a twinge of confusion at the obvious attack. Folen raised his large blade in front of him to block the seemingly pitiful attack.
Andrew put his full body weight as he felt the air around the blade split around the blade, the strike alone pushed air out as his hair fluttered lightly.
BAM
The two blades collided with a huge amount of force, pushing Andrew back a couple of meters. Colliding with the ground with an audible gasp in pain before rolling around a couple of times. He laid there panting on his side for a couple of moments before watching a shadow approach him.
"That attack was the best thing youve done yet. Still, it lacked so much." Folen looked at him with slight contempt but his gaze was filled with disappointment.
"It had power, But it was easily missguided and it flowed awkwardly." He continued as Andrew turned to face him with a little bit of anger.
Andrew had put all of his effort into this fight, and even with slightly even stats he was pushed around like a meager rat. He felt like he was in a cage this whole fight, like each attack he did was forced by the opponent who played with him with mockery.
"To fix that takes practice, But after fighting you for a while I've come to realize that the sword is not for you. Your movements are pointless with the sword. You want to go fast with power, the sword is all about balance." he continued after a couple of breaths.
Andrew nodded in understanding, he's always felt while the sword was amazing, that maybe it wasn't the best option for him.
"I've noticed that you like to slice and rather than jab forward your first response is to cut horizontally, so something with a heavier top would work better. Do you have any preferences on how it cuts?" He turned around with a serious face, this felt like he was solving a problem rather than suggesting a weapon.
Andrew laid there in thought for a couple of minutes before nodding his head.
"I do actually, I think something that could cause a wide range of damage in the short range." Andrew said demonstrating that he would like something that would connect about a foot or less from where he was holding a hilt.
"Good choice, any further than it should have to be lighter for your stature. A wide range of damage huh… " Folen nodded as he turned around and rummaged through a small barrel located at the outside wall of the small wooden cabin.
The rusted spruce barrel creaked as Folen dragged multiple weapons out before emptying the barrel.
"Not here.." he commented before moving onto another barrel, there were a total of 4 barrels full of different weapons for each use or training.
The vast amount of weapons pooled out onto the ground in fron of him and Andrews mouth slowly opened with the sheer amount of weapons this man had stockpiled up. Spears, sticks, nunchucks,swords and greatswords. Weapons Andrew has never even seen before spilled out on the ground in front of him.
"Ah, here they are." Folen said before reaching down to the bottom of the barrel.
Leaning up to see what Folen might have chosen for him to use Andrew was deeply curios for what he had chosen for him.
Folen straightened his back to reveal two hand held axes, just larger than a hatchet and the rounded blade reached a full half crescent moon shape as it curved towards the blade. Each axe had a small point on the top, supposedly used to jab anyway. Each axe was completely black besides the top inch and a half of the metal edge. The total sharp edge had a depth of 5 inches, enough to lodge deep into any living being Andrew could think of.
Folen tossed him both axes which slammed into the ground as Andrew tried to fumble to catch them but failed.
Picking each of them up Andrew got a better look at the royal looking engravings on each of the sides, Like curled clouds they surrounded the backside of the upper bladed edge. Now having a hold of each of them Andrew could twirl them around using the momentum held by the weight each of them had. The crescent blades each had a small hole at the bottom, probably to attach to his waist.
The top pointed edge on the axe was around two inches and held an imposing thickness as it sharpened into a point barely visible to the regular human eye.
"Woah" Andrew couldn't help but say as he guided his hand up and down the imposing pressure the two alluded rage and dominance.
A small crest laid on the back either the white cloud engravings. A Wolf with two red eyes stared back at him.
"Oh that, that's just an identification crest. I branded all of my weapons with it." Folen looked at Andrew whose gaze was caught on the crest.
"You don't need to worry about that, you can keep them. Although it's one of my best works, no one uses small axes anymore." He shrugged as he turned around.
The two axes leveled themself out in Andrews hands as he gave them a couple swings, doubling them up sometimes.
The two axes that resided in his hands just felt more correct than a sword, it gave him a sense of belonging as the weight distribution was just like he wanted it to be.
"Now that we have found the best option for you, lets test it out now. Shall we?" Folen said as he walked back out into the large grass opening.
Andrew nodded hurriedly and ran out behind him to give his new friends a chance.
Folen looked towards him once more before raising his sword to wait for Andrew to get ready. Andrew stumbled into a weird unfamiliar position because of the new weapons and looked up towards Folen and nodded eagerly.
"Alright, lets get this started." Folen said while narrowing his eyes and charging forward with a raised sword.