Charged battle

"Hmm, her claws can shred top-tier mutant realm weapons with enough attacks. She is three tiers stronger than you in all areas and her moves are seriously unpredictable.

Even if you use Siruzen's sword, there is a very high possibility you would still lose in the examination. But your chances of completely destroying her when not observed by prying eyes are almost 100 percent.

You will probably not be matched with her unless there was no alternative, so don't worry too much" said Abel.

To be honest with himself, although Kane is exceptional, he could not fight to the best of his capability and his opponents were much stronger than him by a lot. The chances of him winning all of his matches or even making it to the finals were next to zero.

He could only hope that Kane would at least make it to the latter stages of the examination.

The announcement for the fourth match was made. The competitors this round were Uthal Hakimi and Qusay Moghadam.

Qusay sighed and looked at Kane before saying "I guess it's my turn. Wish me luck".

"Good luck" Kane replied. Qusay stood up from his chair and joined Uthal as they walked toward the teleportation platform.

They were soon teleported onto the stage. The referee walked forward and stood between them. He looked at the two competitors to make sure that there was nothing wrong with them. He then walked back and waved his hand signifying the start of the match.

Uthal took out his bow and a quiver of arrows from his waist pack while Qusay unsheathed his broad sword and took a defensive stance as he waited for his opponent to make the first move.

Uthal did not keep him guessing as he took an arrow and aimed at Qusay before firing.

Qusay squinted before reacting lighting fast and knocked the arrow out of the air. A huge grin formed in his mouth. He knew that this was just a probing shot but he was capable of easily defending against such caliber of attacks and he did not even use his mutation ability.

Although his opponent had a trump card, he had one himself. He only needed to be careful and the match would be as good as won.

He gathered his energy and ran towards Uthal. Uthal became serious, he would go all out but would not use his skill for now.

He jumped backward and used the consecutive shots skill to shoot five arrows at his opponent. When he landed on the floor, he charged up and shot an arrow using the piercing shot skill just a few seconds later.

The arrows flew through the air as if they knew where Qusay was going to be.

Qusay saw them and quickly adjusted. He was battle-hardened and was the only one in the mutant realm examination who did not come to Edan city through the teleportation gate.

He joined a caravan that left Raml city and was headed for Edan city. He had seen his fair share of fights and knew the correct strategies for dealing with most archers.

Coming into melee range would drop their combat effectiveness by a lot and stopping to block their arrows would only give them enough time to relocate and continue sniping from afar. He had to dodge the arrows.

The first arrow to arrive was not surprisingly the one shot with the piercing shot skill. It was a lot more faster and powerful than the others and was pinpoint accurate.

Qusay, with one hand on the grip of the sword and the other on the flat used the other flat side of the sword to redirect the powerful arrow in a split second.

He used his momentum which lessened only by a bit to perform a spin that allowed him to dodge four of the other arrows and swat the last one away before resuming his dash towards Uthal.

Uthal was not surprised by the development. Arrows shot with the consecutive shots skill sacrificed speed and accuracy for the sheer number of arrows that could be shot at the same time.

He had nothing to worry about as he had already relocated when he combined a leap with his previous attack.

He calculated Qusay's trajectory and used consecutive shots once more. This time he did not stop and rained arrows at his opponent.

Qusay was shocked by what he saw. They were arrows almost covering up the area in front of him.

Even though the arrows were not accurate, they were shot in a way to make sure he wasted time no matter the route he chose.

Qusay knew he would waste even more time if he chose to go through the sides so he decided to take the direction that led him straight to his opponent.

He took his sword and ran through the rain of arrows. He concentrated and the arrows looked like they had slowed down a little bit.

He chose the best route and moved through it. Be it dodging the arrows he could dodge or cutting down those he could not dodge, he knew he was making progress.

His grin widened as he knew he was getting closer to victory. He was also aware of another weakness of archers, endurance.

Archers who either shoot a lot of arrows consecutively or shoot arrows for prolonged periods would experience muscle fatigue, cramps, and soreness in the muscles of the arms, wrists, hands, shoulders, and neck.

This would severely reduce their accuracy if they still insisted on shooting.

Uthal was shocked by the way his opponent maneuvered his way through the arrow rain.

He could already feel the soreness in the muscles of his right arm after he shot twenty-four arrows at Qusay. It was time to give this match his best shot.

He dashed to a safe distance while Qusay was almost out of the arrow rain. He took out another quiver of arrows that contained thirty arrows.

Qusay who had just gotten past the arrow rain was soon met with another.

Uthal had used consecutive shots once more to fire all thirty arrows. This time he used his overcharge ability to empower half of the arrows and he even mixed up the order.

This way, the varying speed of the arrows would definitely confuse his opponent. If Qusay did not use beast blood mutation ability he would definitely lose the match. He was hoping Qusay would not think too much of it.

Unfortunately for him, Qusay did notice the difference and responded in time too. He activated one of his beast blood mutation abilities, dragon rage.

Elemental energy flowed from his core into every part of his body. The elemental energy quickly ignited and was converted into some sort of stimulant that increased his capabilities to absurd degrees.

His perception and brain activity increased tremendously and his pain perception was greatly suppressed meaning that he could go beyond his normal limits. His skin turned red and steam could be seen rising from his body.

The arrows which were not augmented by the overcharge skill slowed to a crawl and the others that were augmented with the skill had their speed reduced to the point that he was able to knock them out of the air with moderate difficulty. He soon for to work.

CLANG! CLANG!! CLANG!!!

To Uthal, Qusay almost turned into a blur and began to work his way out of the arrow rain.

His face turned dark as he knew that his chances of winning were zero. His shooting arm was beyond sore at the moment and it was already cramping up. Although he could hold his own in melee combat, he knew he did not have a snow ball's chance in hell to defeat a seasoned swordsman like Qusay in melee combat.

After all, his overcharge ability was inferior to Qusay's dragon beast blood mutation ability. Overcharge could increase the output of the specific party of his body the skill was used on while Qusay's ability could drastically improve every aspect of his body.

These facts made him realize that he could not win the match if his arrows could not hit his opponent.

He raised his hand and looked at the referee before saying "I forfeit the match".

Qusay who had cleared the arrow rain suddenly appeared before Uthal and stopped. The edge of his broad sword was already inches away from his opponent's shoulder.

Uthal's back was drenched in a cold sweat. If he had given up a little bit later, he would have needed the referee's help to stop Qusay from hacking off his arm.

The referee called the match to a close and declared Qusay the winner.

Kane was shocked by the match he saw. He was completely convinced that Qusay was a lot stronger than Azzah. He was even wondering if his upgraded rock body skill would even mean anything against a full-powered Qusay.

'You should add that guy to the list of people who might knock you out of the tournament my dear student' thought Abel.