Knightly Duel

...How did I end up in this situation...? Velios found himself face to face with the knight captain herself. "Uhm... Didn't you say we were going to do this alone?" The two of them were surrounded by a huge crowd, spread out in a circle around them, all of them watching. "I, captain of the royal knights, Artemisia asks of you a duel." She spoke in the same serious tone as always, but Velios knew that was only on the outside. He found it weird. He understood the different reasons why one would lie, or maybe change their outer appearance. In her case, she acted like a different person, someone she truly wasn't. Velios had seen that often, and so he knew, Artemisia had no reason to hide it. She wasn't constantly in life-threatening danger. To Velios, it looked like a hobby of hers, since he didn't see the reason behind him. Velios considered that blasphemy against the people who had no choice, against the people that literally had no other way of surviving.

Velios was in a weird predicament. He already knew before hand that he was going to win, since she couldn't possibly hurt him enough to make him lose. The problem was that he didn't like attracting attention. At a young age, he had learned why. The idea of it was etched into his mind by those older than him. "Never attract unnecessary attention," is the exact phrase that he always got told. But, that being said, Velios also had no idea of how much stronger she was than most other people. If Velios showed even signs of being able to react to her strikes, it would instantly register him as a "strong person" compared to the average one. But Velios didn't know that. To him, almost everybody was as slow as each other. That's when he came up with an idea. Wait... What if I constrict myself using as much of my magic as possible? Hmm... Yes! What a great idea. Velios really only thought of that because he wanted an excuse to continue training, otherwise he would never have thought of it. 

Through the use of magic, he greatly constricted himself. Though he convinced himself that it was merely a way for him to be able to hold back, he spent way too much effort on creating the magic. Through creating a magic circle that not only constricted his movements as it was, enough to literally make someone uncapable of moving, Velios applied so much extra force that the weight of him that a single one of these magic circles would be equal to a whole pyramid in weight alone. The only reason he was capable of hiding the fact that he was manipulating magic at all was because the size at which he did was so small and precise that only he could have been able to do it. Through copying the magic circles over and over, similarly to how he could copy the advanced fire spells in his first fight with the dragon, he copied these small and precise magic circles, basically as if they were lines of code that Velios were copying and pasting. 

The only reason the ground under him wasn't breaking was because he was constantly strengthening while at the same time forcing a huge area under them to spread out the weight so that it all wouldn't be focused on a single point. It didn't matter how much of his magic he used, since he wouldn't need it anyway. "Are you really going to fight without a weapon? We do have extra weapons." Artemisia stood there, starring into his eyes with sword still in sheath. "Yes, since I can't really use swords or any weapons for that matter." Velios tried to hide the fact that the weight wasn't affecting him. His whole body was constantly bearing the weight of the magic circles applied to his body. "Are you saying that you don't have any skills? Not even the basic kind?" Artemisia held the handle of her blade, preparing to pull it out before stopping herself, releasing her grip on the blade. "You sure are an anomaly, aren't you?"

Artemisia threw away her sword, the sound of metal crashing into the ground echoing through the flat field before she grabbed her cape with one arm, removing it and letting it fall to the ground just besides her sword, only her golden plated armor remaining. She simply starred towards his direction, indicating that she was fully intent on giving her all in the fight. "Let us begin." Artemisia sounded confident and did not let her voice falter at all. In the crowd that had formed mostly consisted of knights, but also other influential figures who had access to the knights' quarters. That being said, both Yotsuya and Arthur were there in the crowd, talking to each other. "Yotsuya, is he really the guy you were talking about? The same that-" "It is." Yotsuya didn't let him finish, a feeling of happiness overwhelming him yet again. Although it had been two days since he found him, he still couldn't believe it. 

"Is he strong?" Arthur asked, looking at him. Yotsuya couldn't stop looking forward, his eyes locked onto Velios. "Even if he is exactly as strong as he was before, he was still strong enough to defeat a flame-magic using giant earthworm with just his hands and that was before any human had magic." Yotsuya continued looking forwards. Arthur shrunk back a little after hearing that. "Are you serious? Didn't you tell me that it was like over six months ago? And he did it bare-handed?! Wasn't the desert notoriously known for having one of the highest kill to death ratio's because of the sandworms? It took parties of tens of adventurers to even take down a single young sandworm and those parties were stacked with equipment and had artifacts as weapons!" Arthur began to remember more and more news from months ago. His thoughts interrupted by Yotsuya speaking again. "And knowing him, he's probably many times stronger now."

Arthur turned his head away from Yotsuya, looking forwards at the battle which was about to start at anytime. Velios was struggling to move as the fight begun, the only thing saving him was that he could react to her attacks as soon as her muscle fibers began to move. With the time he was given before each attack, his mind was working thousands of times faster than he currently was, making everything seem much slower than usual. With the right distance, he could make it look like he barely dodged the attacks. Velios could see her organs move and shift, her muscles twitch, her blood pumping and her organs working. Velios could see and observe everything with great detail, mostly due to all of his senses being extremely advanced. As the fight continued, Velios kept on blocking and dodging, his movements gradually improving. But Artemisia noticed something. Velios was taking zero knockback everytime she hit him. 

All of the knights watched in shock as Velios was managing to hold his ground against the royal knight captain. Most people would have already lost around this point while fighting her but the two of them continued. As soon as Velios noticed he was adapting to the weight, moving faster and swifter than before, he added multiple magic circles more. Everyone was left shocked, even Arthur, his body covered in bandages stood there completely mesmerized by not only the power of Artemisia, but by the dexterity of Velios' technique and prowess, blocking precisely and dodging with top accuracy while keeping perfect distance at all times. Despite that, there were two people that were unimpressed. "What's he doing...?" Yotsuya was talking quietly to himself but Arthur who was standing behind them snapped out of the battle as a result of Yotsuya's words. "What do you mean? Is he not as strong as you thought he was going to be?"

Yotsuya heard Arthur but continued looking forwards at the battle, observing Velios even closer. "No, it's not that... He's... weaker than he was before. He's slower." Yotsuya was the only one out of all the people who had previously seen him so he knew better than anyone else. Compared to the movement he had seen before, what Velios was displaying now wasn't at all his top speed and that was compared to over six months ago. As soon as Yotsuya realised that Velios was holding back, he began to wonder. How strong was he really and for what reason did he have to hold back? Yotsuya kept on observing the fight, leaving Arthur as he kept on trying to ask Yotsuya about Velios only to get ignored. As the fight continued, there were still yet things that Velios couldn't hide from his opponent. Because of the magic, his mass would technically be in the billions of kilograms which meant that he took no knockback from the attacks. The other being his durability. Even when he blocked, most people would get some kind of wound whether it would be a bruise or even a broken bone from having been punched by her. Velios had so far taken zero damage.

The knights who had stayed quiet were now cheering for the both of them. Not a single one of them realised how exciting it could be to watch someone just stay on the offensive. Although she didn't show it, Velios could easily tell. She was growing increasingly more frustrated. The slight hint of facial expressions clearly told Velios "stop running away and punch me back already!" which Velios didn't really want to do. With the weight Velios would have behind his punch might just crush or kill her and Velios didn't want to take that risk. Although it didn't look like it, Velios was having the most fun out of anyone there. He was restraining himself so much so that it felt like he was fighting like a normal human again to a certain degree. But at a certain point in the fight, multiple minutes after they had started, something had changed in Velios and Yotsuya was the first to notice. 

Artemisia had applied more and more magic to herself, strengthening her attacks by tenfold and Velios was clearly much more amused by it, having fun while struggling to dodge them with all of the weight he was constinously applying. Velios was slowly being consumed by the battle, slowly forgetting the circumstances which they were fighting in. Velios started forgetting about the crowd, following up by the difference in strength and even forgetting why he was holding back. Yotsuya had seen this version of Velios once before and he knew what happened. It was the same face Velios had when he completely obliterated the earthworm in the dungeon after having lost his arm. "Velios! Wait! Don't do it!" Yotsuya couldn't even move his body as he was screaming. It was already too late for him to try and stop it. Velios suddenly moved much faster than Artemisia could react and out of nowhere, she got hit with a devastating blow right in her stomach, instantly coughing up blood as she could feel multiple organs blow up from the pressure, bones smashing into tiny fragments, her body almost snapping in two as Velios' arm fully extended into her stomach, sending Artemisia flying away.