Bro, I'm not an Undead!



"Are we really going to kill each other?" Kurtish asked with a bit of sweat rolling his forehead.

He had already begun to construct a barrier around himself as a precaution against a speedy introductory attack. Even if he was adept at close quarters combat, he wouldn't have wanted to be close to Vali without any protection.

That would be suicide.

His style was more suited towards creating an impregnable defence that his opponent would lose hope against. That was, if he wasn't too inclined to go on the offensive for several reasons, like during his match with Skullius.

Vali's smile grew brighter, and with the cute tilt of her head, she gave a chilling response.

"Only one of us has to die and it's not going to be me."

Kurtish gave a sheepish smile, his mana raging according to the spike in his emotions.

There was fear, anxiety and the tiniest bit of excitement.

The latter emotion was sponsored by the feeling Vali's overall image invoked. There was something about her words, coupled with her voluptuous figure that was intensely provocative. Her dark battle dress that only reached above her knees, its immaculate golden shoulder pads and the circular opening over her belly which revealed Vali's toned abs accentuated by the taut, light beige skin, traced her perfectly.

Her dark blue hair was made into a very long French braid that ended in a golden ball and hook, like a scorpion's tail. It was clear, to someone like Kurtish, that it wasn't a simple accessory. It was a Legendary grade artefact.

All this, along with the open toed, battle grade sandals she wore made for an alluring, yet deadly image, and Kurtish almost got impure thoughts from it.

If it wasn't for the dangerous presence Vali exuded, along with the fact that he knew her quite a bit, he might have been inclined to enjoy the view.

Glancing at a specific position within the crowd though, gave him some hope and respite. With his advanced eyesight, he was able to spot the love of his life who waved a handkerchief at him in classic noblewoman fashion. This forced him to remember the humiliating incident he had yet to swallow, where the situation he set up to put Festos and the Bryne Family in their place blew up in face.

Oh, he could never forgive it, nor could he bear to recall the embarrassment his fiancé had had to face because of it.

No.

He couldn't allow himself to let that whole thing happen again.

Never!

As a crystalline white barrier with an irregular shape appeared around Kurtish, he wore his game face and glared straight into Vali's eyes.

"Bring it on!" he called with determination.

Vali offered no words to retort.

She simply got into a simple stance, her open palms extended before her lowered body. The look in her eyes which gave the full range of her intent, unlike her smile, somehow increased the tension for everyone that saw it.

Skullius, who was seated alongside Aurolio had to admit that even with Crude Vision, which didn't graft a clear picture of faces... the simple shape of Vali's eyes caused him no small amount of anxiety.

Just like Aurolio instructed, he watched closely.

Suddenly, it was as if the pristine white platform was slammed on by a heavy giant that fell from the sky!

But no such thing had happened.

It was merely Vali letting her enormous reserves of mana run wild, laying waste to the tranquility that had existed within the bounds of the platform!

That sheer volume....!

It left many gobsmacked, even causing an intrigued smile to appear on Rearren's face.

Slowly, Vali pulled back one of her arms, and balled her hand into a fist.

Skullius felt a large portion of the woman's mana gather into her hand, and as it did, her muscles wriggled, attaining many, strange contours that constantly shifted every second. Then, the skin around her hand grew darker, the flesh buried within swelling in a way that Skullius didn't think could simply be given the designation of good or bad.

'What the hell is happening to her body? Is that just reinforcement with mana?' Skullius asked himself.

No.

That didn't seem like it.

This process continued for a full three seconds before Vali's arm grew to be 1.5 times its usual size!

Kurtish flinched and added another white crystalline barrier around himself while with another hand hidden behind his back, he was preparing a mess of tangling, conflicting barrier formations that were still small enough to fit within his closed palm.

This was looking more dangerous by the second, and it didn't seem like he had the luxury of playing passive.

As Vali's outrageous mana stiffened the air, her voice came, causing a moment of total doubt within Kurtish's mind.

"Are you sure you're confronting me with the right attitude, Kurtish?"

The Wardlock's heart thrummed wildly, and for a moment, he too wondered...

What was he even doing here?

Why did he join the Premium Age Royale again?

Before he could get an answer from his conscience, a straight line of radiant mana streaking from Vali to his position appeared within splits of flowing time!

Its edges were riddled with erratically branching, crooked lines that spilled flakes of thin, excess mana into the air!

'An auxiliary technique?!' Kurtish gulped. 'It's a speed enhancing ty—'

The anxious man was startled to find a blurry smudge that was a speeding Vali already upon him before he finished his rapid thought, her fist coming into contact with his first barrier!

Skullius watching from the tent shuddered and clenched his fist.

'She's fast! Incredibly fast!'

In a fit of panic, Kurtish who was on the receiving end of this alacritous motion withdrew the barriers around him and placed them closer to his body, maximising the amount of mana he could funnel into them. They touched his skin, becoming thicker and brighter!

While doing this, he extended his hand which held the chaotic barrier formations in an attempt to make her collide into them due to her speed, but...

Kurtish overestimated his ability to read the movements of a close quarters combat master like Vali.

He didn't understand how she moved, how she turned or perhaps pivoted to change her attack.

All he knew was that he felt a nasty shot of blunt force smash into his sternum, its force tactically directed downward!

...

Kurtish's vision became a spinning mix of colours and trails of light for a moment, while the agony that accompanied this beautiful set of highlights grew so intense that he could taste it in his mouth!

His bones rang, some of them fractured heavily. His flesh met a cool, rapidly moving breeze somehow, and somewhere along his torso, there was discharge.

It took some time for Kurtish to gather his thoughts and figure it all out but...

"Urghh..." he found it difficult to express his pain and surprise in words.

He was lying on the opposite side of the platform to where he had been standing before. A quick look with his dampened vision showed him the network of messy, blood covered cracks a few meters from where he had eaten Vali's fist and the healing web on the thin barrier that surrounded this stage.

Had he...

Had he been hit so hard that he bounced off the platform, smashed into barrier and ricocheted to the other side of this white stage?

Kurtish vomited blood at this realisation. Literally.

Skullius while spectating narrowed his eyes.

That was some monstrous showcase of physical strength.

That one blow could be compared to roughly 120,000 tonnes of force that he could pack casually... added with highly condensed mana.

Also, it wasn't just the strength that was to admire here. It was the efficiency at which it was used. This was because it was clear that if Vali wanted to, she could have killed Kurtish with that one blow.

She managed to smash past both his barriers, but didn't aim for his head because she wanted him alive.

The fact that she maximised Kurtish's barriers' defence while also controlling her physical strength to be just enough to keep him from meeting his makers, was extraordinary!

Kurtish rose and used the regenerative properties of his damaged armour which Skullius remembered well. Kurtish could replenish his mana and heal superficial wounds with it, making him an annoying person to fight.

After all, in this event, one was limited in the number of artefacts they could use and most wouldn't rely on healing type tools only if they could help it.

Sadly for Kurtish, things were different this time.

He was up against someone with a vast pool of mana... and a dangerous technique.

Said lady was casually standing where she had decked Kurtish from, waiting for him to stand up... with something in her hand.

As Kurtish fully stood, recovering a bit, he set to erect another barrier around him with his right hand when... a dull sense of deja vu smote him. A sharp pain almost as extravagant as the one in his chest assaulted him from his shoulder.

The man shuddered.

This feeling, just like when he faced that loathsome worm...!

Kurtish didn't need to look to see that... his right arm was gone!

Vali was holding it for him with a smile.

"You... No! I...!" he stammered as rage built up within his body.

Again!

His arm had been torn off again!

This time by Vali.

The realisation that she had the luxury to lop off his arm at the same she delivered that cruel punch... made what the beautiful woman did next even more impactful.

"I enjoy crushing people like you. Men like you, with great talent but the wrong mind-set for it," she said with a casual expression while a burst of mana coursed through the hand she used to hold Kurtish's arm.

Kurtish's arm suddenly became bloated, its flesh first sagging grotesquely and then beginning to weave into a different shape.

An enormous amount of mana flowed from Vali going into it, quickening the process that the Kinn Family Head intended.

The cells within the flesh and the bone were broken down, replicated, recreated and enhanced. With every second, millions of them were fashioned, all laced with Vali's extraordinary mana!

Soon, a human shape appeared, half Vali's height.

It took on a likeness... Kurtish's likeness, but without the decency of clothing and without the modesty of not showing off vague depictions of the man's more delicate features!

Skullius gaped.

The witnesses gaped.

The stadium fell silent.

A clone of Kurtish had been made, its focused eyes staring back at him but without mirroring the absolute horror the man himself was experiencing at seeing this ludicrous scene.

Yet Vali was not done.

This was actually a new extension to her technique she had been practicing, and it was not limited to mockery.

No.

The clone exploded with nearly a third of Vali's total mana quantity and an array of colours shone over it, all with different textures!

All of them were barriers from the Oldd Family that Kurtish recognised.

Those were his barrier abilities!

The clone had cloaked itself in at least five different types of barriers that didn't encircle it like Kurtish usually used them, but they all appeared on the clone's skin as blips of light that glowed occasionally!

...And after that was done, the clone brought its hands together and formed tangling ribbons of barrier formations that threatened to rip the world open upon meeting rejection...

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