Child of Destiny

……

Arthur and Leonard arrived at the special training ground after being led by Ribbit. And right after entering they immediately felt the high mana density of the place.

Whistle~?

“Now, this is what you can call a perfect training ground. I guess you spend that mana core in perfectly,” said Leonard while patting Arthur’s shoulder.

Hearing that, Arthur couldn’t help but feel dejected once again as he remembered what happened earlier. “D*mn! Why does it have to be me? You can also give a Mana Core!”

Leonard started chuckling when he saw Arthur’s reaction before saying. “Of course, it has to be you. You are the one that got tricked by that NPC not me. And since it was your fault, you need to take responsibility for it.”

Arthur clenched his right hand into a fist while saying. “D*mn that NPC! If not for him being Shin’s personal attendant, then he will already be dead. ”

“Speaking of it, did you know that NPC somehow reminds me of your Big Sis. Those leading questions are pretty much similar to what she will do,” said Leonard while stroking his chin.

When he heard that, Arthur’s body suddenly turned stiff as he got an intense chill that ran through his back. “Now that I think about it. That NPC is really strange. He is definitely a ‘Hidden NPC’. I wonder where Shin managed to find that guy. Tsk! Such a lucky b*st*rd.”

Hearing that, Leonard suddenly smirked at Arthur while saying. “Didn’t you just say that his ‘luck’ is because of you? How come you are rejecting it now?”

“Tsk! I must admit that there is still some type of luck due to that snowballing effect. And there is another type of luck that is nothing but pure luck; something that is impossible to explain,” said Arthur with pursed lips.

And he turned his head at Leonard with a knitted brow before saying. “How about we forget about that for now and have our match now? I’m quite itching to wipe away that smirk of yours.”

When he heard that, Leonard suddenly grinned widely and said to Arthur. “Heh! You better be careful this time. Who knows? Maybe I am that one that is going to win for this round.”

Arthur suddenly chuckled after hearing that and said. “I wonder about that.”

Then he immediately took his battle stance without further ado. First, he placed his left foot forward while squatting his hips a little. After that, he placed the round shield on his front before resting his long spear on his right shoulder.

That stance was quite odd for battle. But the moment he took it, the air around him became heavy, which was enough to suffocate someone.

At the same time, he also released his Aura Manifestation, signifying that he didn’t want to have a warm up and wanted to go all-out from the very start.

Due to this, the air surrounding Arthur became much heavier compared to before; especially when a golden dragon with a pair of huge bat wings, manifested behind him. And despite the arrogant look that it was wearing, this dragon still seemed to be too sacred and holy given the aura that it was giving.

Meanwhile, Leonard suddenly curved his lips further upwards when he saw that Arthur decided to go all-out from the very start of the battle. And despite feeling all the heavy pressure coming from the latter, he still refused to back down and welcomed the challenge instead.

With a thought, a pair of war-axes with twin heads appeared on both of his hands before taking his battle stance. Well, it was hard to say if it was really a battle stance since Leonard just lowered the war-axes on each of his sides while also lowering his center of gravity at the same time.

But despite having a strange stance and lowered guard, it was still hard to say that he was full of openings. In fact, the air around him seemed to be too dangerous, which was pretty hard to approach; he looked like a beast that was ready to pounce on its prey at any given time.

At the same time, he also released his Aura Manifestation. And that figure that manifested behind him was a huge lion with crimson furs together with blazing paws. And right after its appearance, the lion immediately released a furious roar as if it was challenging the authority of the golden dragon.

Roar! Roar!

And with two deafening roars, the two beasts started wrestling against each other, signifying the imaginary battle between Arthur and Leonard; each twitch and slight movement of their bodies, signified the next move that they were about to use.

This mental exchange continued for quite some time before Leonard failed to control himself anymore and immediately changed forward. But before he could even get near Arthur, the latter suddenly launched forward while swinging his spear at Leonard.

That forward charge from Arthur was too sudden and was enough to catch Leonard completely off-guard. And together with the natural range of the spear, it was quite impossible for Leonard to do a counterattack.

But despite this being the case, Leonard still forced himself to kick the ground below him as quick as possible before doing a spin-roll in the air to dodge the striking spear with a very small margin. And right after, landing on the ground, Leonard immediately relaunched himself forward while throwing a downward swing with the war-axe on his right hand.

‘Extra Skill: Savage Chop’

With this, the tides of the battle suddenly got an immediate turn around. But even if he was suddenly placed in the disadvantage, Arthur was able to turn it around for another time by doing a couple of simple movements.

First, he used the momentum of his previous attack to turn his body around before placing his round shield forward. Then he suddenly charged forward to greet Leonard’s incoming strike with his shield.

‘Extra Skill: Shield Charge’

Bang!

And with a loud sound, Leonard’s war-axe and Arthur’s shield clashed against each other and created some shockwaves that were sent outwards.

Due to Arthur’s skill being a counter-focused attack, Leonard’s war-axe bounced back after the collision and forced him to take a couple steps backwards. 𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Having a created space between them, Arthur immediately grabbed that small window to throw a follow-up attack. He took a step forward with his right foot while twisting his waist to the left as he threw a forward thrust with his spear.

It was not a skill or a combat technique, but the threat level that it had didn’t lose to either of those two. The perfect setup and precise timing that it had was more than enough for Leonard to treat this attack seriously. And he knew for sure that he was going to be in trouble if he was hit by this attack.

But since he also had a rich battle experience inside the game, he was able to move his body based on instincts. Given that, he raised both of his hands and crossed the war-axes in front of him, planning to block the incoming spear using their surface.

Bang!

With a powerful strike, Leonard was sent sliding backwards despite blocking the spear completely.

“Tsk! Such a heavy strike as always,” Leonard clicked his tongue as he still felt the numbing sensation on both of his hands.

He was planning to resume attacking right after shaking off the numbing sensation but he immediately rejected the idea on the second thought; especially when he noticed that Arthur let that opportunity pass by and waited on the same battle stance at the start of the battle.

Leonard squinted his eyes and looked at Arthur with a little caution. “Tsk! Now this is odd. He refused to chase after me despite having that advantage.”

“Instead of doing his usual aggressive style, he chooses to stay in place and wait for another opportunity to strike? I know that he may let me off the hook this time, but I keep having a feeling that it is not the case.”

Having that train of thoughts, Leonard readied himself for another round. But this time, he waited for quite a few moments before making his move. And after confirming that Arthur really had some patience now, he decided to do a slightly different approach.

Leonard knew that staying a distance away from Arthur would make his situation even harder for him, especially with the reach advantage that a spear weapon had. Given this, he needed to think of a way to close the distance in a short amount of time. “Tsk! Looks like I need to show some of my new tricks, huh?”

After that, Leonard suddenly threw one of his war-axes forward in a very powerful manner and sent it towards Arthur with a great speed, making it very hard to dodge. At the same time, he threw that axe very accurately to make sure that the height of the axe during its travel was perfectly aligned with Arthur’s head and chest.

Swoosh!

Arthur knew what Leonard was planning with that power throw so instead of blocking the incoming war-axe, he chose to deflect it to the side with a leftward swing of his shield.

But even if he was able to swing his shield with a great speed to avoid blocking his own view, there was still a very brief moment when his shield was going to block his line of sight while deflecting the incoming war-axe. And that brief moment was the thing that Leonard was waiting for.

He put a lot of force on his toes before kicking the round in a very powerful manner and sending himself forward. At the same time, there was a footprint left behind on the spot where his feet were previously in place.

‘Epic Combat Technique: Devil’s Footprint’

Clang!

And right after Arthur blocked the war-axe, Leonard was already right in front of him while throwing a downward chop with his other war axe.

Arthur was caught a little off-guard with Leonard’s speed, but he seemed to be expecting that. After all, he knew that Leonard also learned quite a few tricks these last few years of gaming, so he didn’t dare to underestimate this guy.

Given that, Arthur moved his feet with a strange pattern as he also used a foot technique of his own. At the same time, he was slightly swaying his body from side to side while moving backwards.

‘Epic Combat Technique: Dragon Dance’

With those quick strange moments, Arthur’s figure seemed to turn into a blur in Leonard’s perspective and made his chop hit nothing but air.

Right after dodging Arthur quickly threw a quick counter and thrusted his spear forward in a speedy manner.

But Leonard was able to dodge it with a slight lean to the side. He was planning to throw a counter of his own, but before he could even think about it, Arthur was already moving backwards and putting some distance between the two of them.

Naturally, Leonard would not let that happen and immediately gave chase while also catching his other war-axe in the process; that war-axe was deflected upwards and somehow falling on his path, so he caught it along the way.

Right after that, a very intense melee exchange was immediately started, where each strike of their weapons was enough to create some shockwaves on every collision.

Then these two Peak-Godlike Players of the game started to have a very intense contest of powers.

……