Hunter Of The Forest IV

*Crash!* The forest guardian's fist slammed into the ground where Kies was standing, creating another huge shockwave and sending a wall of sand tens of feet into the air. After the sand came back down and vision cleared, Nyana saw that Kies was nowhere to be seen. She quickly searched around for his location and found him on top of the forest guardian's arm.

"When did you get there..." Nyana didn't even see him dodge the attack and had no idea how he managed to avoid it and get on the forest guardian. Not good... Nyana drew her bow and fired an arrow at him. The arrow made it to Kies but just as it was about to hit, an invisible force knocked the arrow aside.

Kies raised his sword and pointed it at Nyana. "Pierce." A thin bolt of wind flew out of the tip of his sword at incredible speeds, tearing through the air and towards the elf. The attack was so quick that Nyana couldn't react in time to it and was hit by it. She stumbled back, clutching her arm where the attack hit. Luckily, she had a layer of magic protecting her body so the attack didn't go through her arm, but she was still bleeding from it.

"Hmm..." Nyana healed the wound in a second and put away her bow again. "Time to change tactics..." Since it was clear now that ranged attacks won't work on Kies, she needed to change her plan. "Guardian!" she called out to the forest guardian to stop Kies. The tree monster obeyed her command and started shaking its arm in an attempt to get Kies to fall off, and it worked. Kies couldn't keep his hold on the monster's arm and slipped off. He used the winds to break his fall and quickly started moving out of the way, seeing that the monster's hand was coming down.

But before Kies could take a step, he felt something wrap around his leg and stop him in his tracks. He looked down and saw that there was a vine grabbing his leg to prevent him from moving out of the way. He looked up and saw that it was Nyana's doing. Kies let out a curse as the monster's hand closed in on him. He used his wind magic to cut away at the vines but he didn't have enough time. By the time he finished, it was already too late.

The monster's hand slammed down on Kies. Sand flew in every direction, and for a moment everyone was quiet. "No!" Iris squealed in alarm. She was the only one who made a sound and the people around her all turned and looked at her. Iris had her hand cupped over her mouth, hoping that Kies was okay. She silently pleaded that he would appear on top of the monster's hand again and that he had somehow dodged the attack.

A couple more seconds passed and Iris felt a sense of dread start building up in her chest. One by one, the people in the audience began cheering and clapping their hands, thinking that Nyana had won... But at that moment, something happened. A strong wind stormed into the arena, surprising and frightening everyone.

A loud eruption deafened everyone's ears, as an explosion from under the guardian's hand where Kies was supposedly buried and destroyed its hand. The forest guardian moved its arm away, also shocked by the sudden turn of events.

"You're still fine..." Nyana said to Kies over the loud winds. Even though it was difficult to hear anything at all, Kies heard the elf perfectly. She didn't sound surprised at all that Kies survived that attack and more so without even an injury. "I expect no less from someone I wanted to recruit," she said with a smile.

"Couldn't you have been a bit more gentle?" Kies asked in a slightly annoyed voice, wiping the sand grains off his cloak. Even if the thing was enchanted, it was still easy to get dirty and he always tried his best to keep it clean as it was very annoying to wash. Furthermore, some of the sand also got inside his clothes and shoes which meant that he had to clean that as well. She knew that Nyana didn't want to lose and was also testing his strength, but wasn't she just messing around at this point.

"I see that you're not very happy with me..." the elf noticed from observing Kies.

"No, not at all," Kies agreed with her statement. "You're just trying to make me reveal everything up my sleeve," he told her the reason why he was rather angry. Instead of taking this fight seriously, Nyana was just using everything she had to make Kies use everything he had.

Normally, that would be okay in an all-out battle where one's life was on the line, and it was also okay in this tournament, but Nyana was going through her arsenal, throwing all the tricks and attacks she had, testing them one after another on Kies to see how he would react. If she had been taking this fight seriously, she wouldn't be revealing these cards so fast, and it wasn't like she was trying to end the battle as quickly as possible.

Nyana chuckled. "As expected, I can't hide that fact from you, can I?" Any experienced fighter would've noticed by now that Nyana was either being extremely reckless with all those attacks or that she was messing around. And taking into consideration the elf's personality, it was fairly clear that it was the latter.

But... "In all fairness, it's my loss," the elf told Kies. She put away her bow and snapped her fingers, causing the forest guardian to sink back into the earth where it came from.

"You're... Surrendering?" Kies said in a surprised voice. He kept his sword raised at the elf, half expecting to say that she was kidding and that she was going to continue fighting, but it really did seem like she was giving up. "Why?" he asked her, demanding the reason why she was giving up. She could still fight, and Kies could sense that she still had plenty of magic left, so why was she just surrendering like this?

Even the audience was bewildered by Nyana's decision and were talking among themselves, trying to understand why she had called her forest guardian back. Throughout the entire battle, Nyana had the upper hand as Kies wasn't able to reach her.

"I can't win against you," the elf admitted to Kies. "My ranged attacks and magic have no effect against you since you can just cast them aside or block them, and my forest guardian stands no chance if you really went serious," she pointed out. "Also..." she smirked. "I got the information I needed. I have no reason to continue this fight," she told Kies the real reason why she forfeited the match.

"So you... D*mn..." Kies knew that he had been playing into the elf's hands this entire time but for her to mess around with him like this... Kies put away his weapon and the referee ran up to them with a confused look on his face, asking why the two had stopped fighting.

"I give up," the elf told the referee, causing his jaws to drop.

"Did... He threaten you or something?" the referee asked the elf, giving Kies a disgusted look. To everyone else in the arena, Nyana was winning by a landslide and it was a matter of time before Kies lost, and only the two of them who were actually fighting knew the truth.

"No. If the fight went on any longer, I would've lost," the elf told the referee.

Of course, the referee didn't believe this even if it was coming out of her mouth. "What!? You had him in the palm of your hands, how could you have lost!?" he asked Nyana to explain.

"He was letting me," Nyana said as a matter of fact. Had Kies fought with everything he had, she would've stood no chance against him. In the first place, she specialized in healing magic while Kies used offensive magic. Her magic was made to support others while Kies' magic was made for killing. Of course she stood no chance. The elf explained all of this to the referee and he sighed. He reluctantly raised his hand and called the match in favor of Kies.

"The winner is contestant 5555," he announced, causing a massive uproar with the crowd. Many of them stood up and threw their hands into the air, demanding the referee explain what happened. Some of them were even trying to jump down into the arena to give Kies a piece of their mind, yelling that he must have cheated or use some sort of underhanded trick to get the elf to surrender. All in all, no one agreed with Kies' victory other than a select few on his team, himself, Nyana, and another handful of fighters who sensed that Kies was hiding his real strength.

But even though they knew the truth, they said nothing since there were far too many people that were against Kies winning and their voices would easily be silenced by theirs. "Sorry about this," Nyana apologized to Kies, knowing that it was partially her fault that this happened."

"It's fine..." he told her. Even if he had won normally against Nyana and defeated her in front of everyone, there were still going to be people that questioned his victory. So regardless of the outcome, he was going to receive this kind of treatment anyway.

Kies ignored the crowd and walked out of the arena. Nyana watched Kies leave before turning around and also leaving herself.

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