Right after the signal, the beast king suddenly approaches.
He unleashes a straight punch with his right hand with fluent movements, and I use the shield to block, but I’m still pushed back.
He keeps attacking, and I use the shield, and sometimes the training sword to block.
He not only punches, but kicks too, but I can handle it if I remain calm.
But I have no room to counterattack in this flurry of offense, so I’m stuck defending.
“You can’t beat me if you just block!”
He’s right. I don’t see how I’m going to win like this.
I could fight while using magic, but that’s surprisingly tricky. I could also catch him off guard if I used Transfer or Space-Time Magic, but I’d prefer to not use that in front of people. Those should also be saved as trump cards.
Then regular magic… I try using Fire Arrow and Stone Bullet, and he doesn’t even dodge them, he punches them away.
He dodges a Wind Cutter, but even that he does with minimal movements.
I wasn’t using my full power, but is this why he said I could use magic?
I’m not going to scare him with this. But apparently the people watching are impressed every time I use magic.
“Not bad, but not enough!”
I’m still blocking with my shield, but his power seems to be going up. And his speed too.
I try to keep him in check by firing magic when I can, but it barely works. And the longer this continues, the less I can attack, putting me fully on defense again.
No wonder everyone thought I’d lose. But I’m sensing some fine magic energy flow while we fight. By using Magic Energy Detection, I can see the beast king is clad in magic energy.
It’s the way he uses it that’s good. He doesn’t release it constantly, instead enveloping himself with the least amount he needs while he fights.
Beast people with a lot of magic energy are rare. Sera doesn’t have a lot either.
I don’t feel a lot from the beast king either, but it’s clear he uses it without waste.
He’s also cladding his gloves with it when I fire magic.
That way of blocking takes away a lot of magic energy, but it also leads to him not having to move much.
The path to beating the beast king should be to make him spend that, but…
This time I try using area of effect magic. Of course, he keeps attacking, so if I hit him while he’s too close, I’ll suffer damage too.
But I should have the beast king beat when it comes to magic energy capacity. And I have Natural Recovery Boost, so I recover what I spend quickly.
I keep using Firestorm or Tornado, but neither works against him.
At first I wonder if his equipment won’t burn, but it should be fine, because his whole body is covered in magic energy.
I’m starting to think I may be overdoing it, but…
“Now this is a fight!”
The beast king yells happily, so I get that thought out of my mind.
I should be thinking about how to end this quickly. He won’t be happy if I don’t give it my all either, and after coming this far, I really want to win.
I don’t know if he figured out why I’m using area of effect magic, but he starts evading more widely when I use it.
He probably thinks since area of effect magic catches his whole body, it will spend more of his magic energy.
This is where I go on offense for the first time. I use feints and swing my sword here and there, but sadly, nothing connects.
The gap in our experience is too great in a simple mock battle. There’s also the fact that holding a shield puts me on defense by default.
I think about dropping it and fighting with just the sword, but I wouldn’t be able to block his attacks with it.
If I used just the sword, he’d adapt and attack with all his limbs. And I wouldn’t be able to evade him with the way he moves.
I’ve also been trying to keep him outside of the reach of the sword, but… He easily steps forward and close to me.
That’s probably because the gauntlets and greaves he has on his limbs are both for offense and defense.
I’m sure this is the result of him trying all sorts of fighting styles too.
“Should we end this!?”
Time just passes, with neither of us able to strike at the other. But his magic energy has gone down to the point where he only has a little, and I have plenty. The problem is that defending against those intense consecutive attacks is doing a number on my spirit.
I’m only able to deal with those intense attacks thanks to Parallel Thinking, but back when I wasn’t used to doing this, I ran out of SP and was wounded by a tigerwolf.
I take a deep breath, and hold my sword tightly while preparing two spells to end this.
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Thanks for the treat.