Sword, Spear or Magic!

Freya exploded from her position and in the blink of an eye, the two weapons clashed. Nazbur performed three quick thrusts, and Freya parried each of them before replying with a horizontal slash. Nazbur blocked the slash with his spear's pole. Surprisingly, the wooden pole didn't even suffer a single scratch after its clash with the steel sword.

The orc expertly rotated his spear around the sword, trying to hit the female with the base of his spear. Freya retreated a step to avoid the attack, and then lunged forward with a few thrusts of her own. The orc warrior also rolled to the side to avoid the thrusts, and subsequently soared out of his roll with his spear aimed at Freya's head.

Freya, who was in the middle of her thrusts, barely had any time to avoid the attack. She twisted her neck as swiftly as possible to avoid the attack, but failed to avoid it completely. The edge of the spear grazed past her cheek, opening a small cut about an inch wide below her left eye.

However, Nazbur also didn't come out of the confrontation unscathed. As his spearhead grazed the female's face, her hand had coiled into a fist and embedded itself firmly into his abdomen. The impact had sent him retreating a few feet, resetting the two opponents.

From the quick confrontation, Freya understood one thing. Nazbur mastery over his spear just barely outclassed her mastery of the sword. While he was not a master of the spear, the superior range of his weapons and its very nature as a superb thrusting weapon, gave him an advantage over Freya. While Freya's techniques were not as good as his, her speed and strength easily surpassed him.

On the other hand, Nazbur also understood something from the clash. It was that the small and puny looking female body was hiding a tremendous strength and speed. Even if he could easily predict her almost amateur thrusts, her speed made it very difficult for him to dodge.

The two opponents stared at each other only for a moment before jumping forward for another clash. Freya leaped into the attack from a lower position, thrusting her steel sword from the ground up like the rising sun. A swift blow from the orc's spear easily changed the attack's trajectory, leaving the swordswoman in an overextended position.

The Spearman took full advantage of her position as a spin of his weapon brought its back end swiftly into her ribs. The impact drove the air out of her lungs, but the woman managed to keep her wits. She took an iron hold of the end that hit her and brought down her overreaching sword in a downward slash.

At this moment, Nazbur almost panicked when he tried to withdraw his spear yet it refused to budge and the steel sword continued on its path towards his head. He barely managed to turn the spear in diagonal position, parrying the slash slightly. Unfortunately for him, it was not enough, as the sword continued toward the ground, it managed to clip his outermost toe.

The Orc only groaned as his toe was severed and threw a punch at Freya, trying to free his weapon. Yet the woman saw the punch coming from a mile away and easily dodged it by twisting under the spear and pushing it back to disrupt his balance. The maneuver succeeded because the Orc's balance was already trippy from his lost toe and he fell to the ground but still refused to let go of the spear.

He used both of his hand to grab a tight hold of the weapon, and even used his uninjured foot as a pivot to spin the spear out of Freya's hold as he fell backwards. He rolled back in retreat and managed to recover his weapon as Freya reluctantly let go of it, resetting the two of the once more.

However, this time he came out of the clash with a missing toe, while she only had hurt ribs. Nazbur tore a piece of cloth from the shirt under his armor and tied it around his toe quickly. He then stood up slowly and rebalanced himself. The Orc looked at her with murder in his eyes.

"You're dead, weakling." He shouted in his tongue as he held up his spear aiming at her. He ran at her with surprising speed. His first two steps out of synch but he soon regained his footing. He spun his spear like a staff as he approached her, the spear twirling in a circle.

As soon as he was close enough, he swung the arc downward on the swordswoman's head with all his power. Freya instantly brought up her sword to block the attack, but the spear fell short of it. Instead, it continued downwards, where it planted itself into the ground and Nazbur used it as a pole to swing into her, his good foot hit her in the stomach and sent her flying.

She was thrown back a few feet and just barely recovered, only to see the Orc was already executing his second attack. It was, once more, a downward slash, but Freya easily saw that it would also fail to reach her. So she brought her sword over her chest to block his next kick.

'No!' Art failed to warn her as the spear changed its trajectory in an instant and turn from a downward slash into an upward slash. The tip of the spear cut through her leather gloves and left a nasty slash along her forearm. The attack had not ended, however, as the slash then turned into a thrust and headed for her upper left chest. Freya barely able to shift her shoulder as another cut appeared just on her right shoulder.

"Enough!" Freya shouted in a mixture of rage and pain. "Wind Explosion!"

A light gray magic circle between the two before an explosive force sent the two opponents flying in opposite direction. However, this time it was Freya the recovered first as she had expected the explosion. She held up her uninjured hand and quickly cast two first circle spells.

"Lightning Flash! Fireball!" Her spells manifested as a stream of blue lightning erupted from her hands, followed by a raging ball of fire. Casting the spell, Freya immediately ran towards another spot on the battlefield.

As Nazbur managed to recover from the sudden explosion and turned to look at his adversary, he only saw a stream of blue lightning rushing into his face. The Orc swiftly leaned back to avoid the unexpected spell. He succeeded as the lightning flew over his head harmlessly. Unfortunately for him, the lightning spell was only a distraction. While he was still leaning back, a ball of fire landed to his right and burst in a fiery explosion.

The fire scorched his entire right body and the explosion threw him like rag doll to the left. He flew through the air to his left, where Freya was already present with her sword held at the ready. Nazbur saw his enemy waiting for him to arrive, he tried to move but he could not move his body mid-air and the burns on his body punished even the slightest movement of his muscles.

The Orc saw helplessly in fear as the final swing from the female's sword ended his life mercilessly. A silence enveloped the whole battlefield as the Orc's decapitated head rolled across the ground. The silence was quickly pierced as Freya roared a liberating scream into the vast sky.

[You have killed a level 34 Orc, Nazbur. +7842 Exp]

[You have levelled up to Level 26! +10 Distributable Stat points.]

[You have gained a Rare skill book.]