Chapter 12: Rise of the Junk Turtler

Several minutes before the battle.

"Your first task is to replace the person holding the book," Kaftan said

"How would I do that?" Xylos asked.

"All you need to do is defeat him in battle and take his place outside the book. Once you defeat that person, you can take control of the person's body in the real world for several minutes. During that time it is up to you to bring the book to a safe place." Kaftan said

"Once you do so, let me know and I'll deactivate the beacon which should throw off the pursuers. When you exit the book, the person that you possess will be unconscious for about a day so you can make your escape then."

"What if I lose?" Xylos said.

"You'll have to find another way to keep the book, from being placed in a vault. At that point, you can join us for hibernation or something else." Kaftan said nonchalantly as if he encountered similar situations in the past.

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Xylos prepared his equipment and watched his opponent intently. For the past 6 months, he spent most of his time creating a combat system based on a game he created. It involved defending, dodging, and parrying attacks to generate resources to cast powerful spells, attacks, and abilities. Focusing on his opponent, a target indicator appeared and the game system loaded up.

Before the announcer even said "Go!", Carly phased out of existence. Soon after, an attack indicator appeared from behind Xylos, and he barely had enough time to turn around and raised his shield.

Carly wanted to finish the fight as soon as possible; with the amount of strength Carly put into that strike, he expected to knock his opponent's off-balance but to his surprise, he was sent hurling backward. Then, a light red orb appeared above his opponent. He regained his balance and tried the same attack. This time just before he was about to his opponent, he stopped and retreated; a sharp spear with dense mana was just centimeters away from his chest. He retreated and threw a dagger at his opponent.

Xylos saw an aim line from his opponent, it was heading toward his head; shifting his head slightly to the right he avoided the attack. This time a blue orb appeared. The enemy then threw three at the same time, two times in a row. The aim lines were set up in a way that was impossible for him to dodge. The green orb vanished, and a moment later a wall of wind deflected all six daggers and 3 more green orbs appeared.

Carly cursed inwardly. He expected that his opponent wouldn't have many means to defend against ranged attacks since his opponent looked like a regular person with some enchanted equipment. But from that exchange, he knew his opponent has a shield that knockback on contact, a melee weapon that can probably penetrate his light armor really easily, some form of magic that requires those orbs to cast, and some means to sense the which direction he would attack from regardless of how fast he moved. Taking all of that into account, he knew that he won't be getting of this place any time soon. "Who the fuck are you?" Carly called out.

Xylos ignored him; two green orbs disappeared and two invisible wind arrows flew at the opponent.

Carly sensed the distortions in the air and quickly dodged to the side. The arrows curved and hit him but he didn't feel anything; it was pathetically weak. Two green orbs than reappeared above his opponent's head. His opponent then cast the same spell as two more invisible arrows flew at him. This time he didn't even bother to dodge, and as expected no damage was dealt.

Xylos was crying inside. He expected his attack to be weak but not so weak that the opponent wouldn't feel a thing. "Help me here Kaftan." He prayed, but all he heard was restrained laughter.

"Haha, you created such a cool system but why is it so weak. Maybe you can slightly nudge him if you combined three of those orbs together." Kaftan joked in his head.

"The system is in test mode so all its features been dialed down so I won't kill myself while testing it. I can defend forever but there will be no progress, who knows what can be happening outside now." Xylos responded,

"Fine, if all you did was defend it would get boring quickly," Kaftan said as a countdown timer and what looked like a health bar appeared on the stage, "Whoever has more health at the end of 60 seconds is the winner and any attack will reduce that health bar. That is best I can do right now."

Carly watched as the opponent's health bar, and a timer appeared on the battlefield. Then, two more weak homing wind arrows flew his location. With some suspicion, he blocked one of the arrows with his blade and let the other one hit him; a bar showing his health appeared and it decreased a tiny bit. He swore again; this match was like the combat simulations he went through in the past; the person with the lowest health before the time is up would lose.

The system that he used in the past disregarded ineffective attacks but it was not the case here. He didn't want to find out what would happen if he lost.

He took out a second sword and quickly closed the distance; there was no way his opponent would be able to block all the attacks. As long as the blades can touch him, he would stand a chance.

As his second blades collided with the shield, Carly's entire body was knocked back again. He looked at his second sword in surprise; it was enchanted to cut through almost everything but instead, he didn't even feel anything before he was sent flying. He was at a loss. He can't get close, his ranged attacks gets dodged or deflect, and he was behind on health even though the opponent's attack doesn't do anything.

Xylos watched as the opponent become more and more frustrated with each attack. It seemed that his opponent was some sort of warrior and needed to land attacks in melee to be effective. The repel enchantment on his manhole was definitely a bane to most melee fighters. As long as any weapon approaches within 5 cm of the shield, it would instantly send out a strong repelling force that could easily send a grown man staggering back. His opponent was smaller than average so it worked even better. His attacks are fast but straight forward, as long as he can match the shield in the direction of the attack indicator, his opponent would be repelled.

No matter what Carly did it would be the same result. If either weapons or his body came close to the shield he would be repelled. The manhole was large enough to cover over half his opponent's body. At some point, his opponent even put away the spear and was simply holding the manhole with both hands. His opponent would fire off all sorts of colorful spells every once in a while but it would only make him slightly warm, wet, and tingly if he felt anything at all. Even worse these pathetic attacks would chip off his health. He hesitantly started casting a spell.

Xylos watched a large fireball slowly formed above his opponents, 10 seconds later it flew toward him in slow motion "What the heck?" Xylos said.

"Yup, he isn't a legendary, why did you think he was so easily pulled into the book. At most, he would be a second or third stage warrior. He does have great unique passive though; if your system didn't have those attack indicators you wouldn't know where and how he is attacking and die right away" Kaftan said.

"What kind of unique passive does he have?"Xylos said as he pointed his stabber at the Fireball that was flying toward him.

"You'll find out once you possess his body," Kaftan said.

When the fireball was about 5 cm away from the tip, it was sucked into the stabber.

"Flame blade!" Xylos shouted triumphantly as a large blade of fire flew at the enemy.

Carly was surprised for a moment since only a high warrior can project a sword attack, thus he crossed his blade to defend the attack elemental attacks however when it landed the whole thing felt like a warm wind passing through his body. He was pissed off, he never encountered such a pointless opponent. He felt wronged, and there was nothing he can do about it.

A few more pointless exchanges later, time ran out. "Fuck you, you piece of Junk Turtle!" Carly glared indignantly at Xylos. Then. he faded into rays of light and disappearing from the arena.

"Finally, I'm glad I set the timer to 60 seconds. Any longer and I would have died from boredom." Kaftan said as he appeared before Xylon, "Anyway, off you go make sure that you bring the book to a safe place."

"What would be a sa..." But before he can finish Kaftan flicked his forehead and his body collapsed on the ground.

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"Carly, are you alright?" A voice said, as Xylos slowly regained consciousness...