Drawn Blade

As if Kies wasn't already doomed and had his hands full trying to figure a way out of this mess, the man didn't let up and continued showering him with magic attacks. He fired stone after stone, hitting Kies with each one. They battered into his cloak, and although they didn't do much damage since his cloak was soaking all of it, it did distract him from getting away from the hole. Kies was forced to put up a barrier to block the attacks before they hit something else other than his cloak...

This is why Kies hated fighting against other mages. In a duel between two mages, the one with more powerful magic usually wins. In this particular case, the man's earth magic was keeping Kies from using his own magic to attack. He was being forced to be on the defensive.

Just a few more seconds before he was back on the ground... And a split second before he went under the ground. The man was letting up with his attacks and continued stoning Kies until his barrier broke. "Ugh... Winds!" Kies called for them to aid him.

Once again, the winds rushed to him, forming a barrier around his body before exploding and destroying everything around him. He also made sure to put more force in front of him, so that the explosion would cause him to fly backward and away from the hole. Kies landed on the ground not too far away and he dusted the sand and pebbles that got onto his clothes.

"You're not very creative..." the man commented. So far, Kies had been using the same magic spells over and over. He pointed that out to Kies and added, "If you keep doing this, then the winner is already decided. I thought you were a lot tougher after what you said, but..." The man shook his head disappointedly. He wanted to challenge everyone at once and while he did take over more than 90% of the contestants, they were all small fry.

But Kies wasn't offended by his comment. The reason why his magic was so simple and repetitive was that he sealed most of it, limiting himself only to basic spells. This was to prevent himself from accidentally using magic that he didn't need. And since he spent most of his time the past few years training his sword, he didn't have much time to work on creating more basic spells. Although he could just use the winds to do whatever he wanted, it was very confining since he only had so much magic to work with.

Right now, if he were to compare himself to the man, he only had a measly fraction of his magic power. It was also around half of Iris' magic power, which wasn't that much... If Iris wanted, she could probably beat the current him in a magic duel. But if he were to unleash his full power... Well, then that would be a different story.

"If you want to fight me for real, then draw your sword?" Kies told the man.

"My sword?" He put his hand on the hilt, hesitant to draw it since he was confused on why Kies would say that. "Why?" he asked. "It would only make the fight tougher. Your magic is nowhere close to mine, much less your sword skills," he pointed out.

"My sword skills?" Kies held up the big sword that Nell gifted him. The blacksmith also repaired it and it was shining, restored to its former glory... But not by him. He couldn't wield this sword correctly, since this wasn't his sword... "This sword... It's not for me." Kies put the sword away and tossed it across the arena to Rui who caught it with a confused look.

"Why are you handing me this?" she asked. She and the soldier had stopped fighting for the time being since the fight between him and the man was interfering with theirs and they couldn't continue until they were done.

"Like I said, that sword is not mine," Kies repeated. He held out his hand and a massive black sword, almost twice the size of the one he tossed to Rui appeared seemingly out of thin air, shocking everyone. There was a collective gasp from the audience and they all pointed at the weapon. It was roughly three meters long and a little less than a meter in width.

"That... What is that?" the man asked in an astonished voice.

"This is my weapon. Get ready." Kies pressed the button the hilt and the sword split into two, turning into a double-sided sword, causing a bigger uproar.

"Just what in the world..." The man drew his sword. He saw that Kies wasn't playing around anymore. That massive sword was definitely dangerous. "A fighting style I've never seen before... This will be interesting..."

"Let's see how this goes..." Kies muttered to himself. He didn't want to unleash his full magic power yet since he didn't want to unless it was necessary. But in the case that his sword was still not enough to deal with the man, then he will. But for now... Hopefully, he could take him down with just this. He was already showing too many cards and he didn't like it. Unleashing his full magic power would be his last resort in the case that even this wasn't enough...

The man waited for Kies to make the first move. He had no idea how he fought since this was his first time seeing a weapon like this. He had seen oversized claymores, curved daggers, chakrams, and certainly two-sides swords before, but he has never seen one like this one. All the ones that he has seen were double-edged, but this sword wasn't. Each side of the sword had one sharp edge and a blunt edge. While the top side had a sharp edge in the front, the bottom side had a sharp edge on the back.

He didn't know how one would fight with a sword like that, and this was also his first time seeing someone holding the sword his way too. Kies' stance made it look like that he was about to stab someone when the sword clearly looked like it was better for slicing and dicing. There were too many uncertainties... He really didn't know how to fight against that.

The two contestants stood motionless. A light breeze entered the arena, picking up grains of sand and moving them along. "Winds." The man raised his sword, seeing that Kies was ready to attack. The winds surrounded Kies, enhancing his physical abilities.

Kies then rushed in, closing the gap between him and the man in the blink of an eye. "Huh?" The man didn't expect Kies to be so fast and almost got stabbed in the stomach by the sword. He blocked the attack with his sword and was pushed back a little.

"Don't blink!" Kies shouted. He proceeded to slash and stab wildly at the man at a speed that was impossible for him to keep up. Kies turned into a literal whirlwind of death and the man was forced to move back. The holes in the ground that he created were now backfiring on him since he had to be careful about stepping into one of them.

The sound of metal clashing against each other filled the arena, deafening all other sounds. Pieces of the man's sword were chipped away with every strike, gradually reducing its width.

"Enough!" The man shouted. A block of earth shot out of the ground, almost ramming Kies but he nimbly jumped back and dodged it.

"Your sword skills... Just who are you?" the man asked, stunned by what just happened. "I hate to say it... But it's better than mine."

"Do you think I would be wearing a mask if I could answer that?" Kies pointed at the cat mask on his face. Though, he himself was somewhat surprised that he was able to beat him with his skills. His style is very similar to Wompa in the fact that it exhausted a lot of energy in a short span of time. However, the difference is that he doesn't get tired at all physically so that wasn't a drawback to using fighting like this.

"I see... Then could you at least enlighten me just what that sword is made out of?" he asked, examining the damage on his sword.

"I can't tell you that either..." Kies said. He was also rather curious as to what the man's sword was made out of since his Aeronite sword could easily cut apart steel like it was paper. Since it could take this many hits from his sword, that sword had to be made out of some very strong material, and probably extremely valuable too. But since he didn't answer any of the man's questions, it was only fair that he didn't ask any either.

"Is that so..." The man put his sword back in his sheath, sounding a little upset that it had been damaged to this extent. It was impossible to fight Kies with his sword now and he had to resort to magic. "Well then..." The man made a grabbing gesture with his hand and the earth responded with the same motion. A mass of earth shot up from the ground and wrapped around Kies. But before it could fully restrain him, Kies cut it apart with his sword and moved away.

*Crunch!* Kies heard a loud noise to his side and turned to see what it was. The moment he turned his head, he saw that it was already too late to get out of the way. Everything around him turned black as it swallowed him.

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