"Li," protested Launcelot. "I would not want to burden you with this duel when it is mine own."

"It is no burden, Launcelot, and take a favor when it is given to you. It will make your life a lot easier, trust me," said Li.

Faye put a hand on Launcelot's shoulder and began to pull him back. "Now those are wise words to listen to. How about you actually sit down and get some rest for once."

Launcelot nodded, admitting defeat, and went back with Faye and the rest of his party to watch the duel unfold. With them, Tia and Zagan went as bonus spectators.

Leonid eyed Li with great interest, the grip around his spear tightening until his knuckles turned white.

"Your posture, the way you approach me, you intend to fight me bare handed? A brawler?" said Leonid.

"Maybe, maybe not. This is a fight. It's your job to find out, isn't it?" said Li.

"Never have truer words been spoken." Leonid smiled. He cracked his neck and flourished his spear, his bulky form capable of manipulating the lengthy, almost cumbersomely large weapon with graceful ease.

Small rushes of wind blew out from the movement, causing little pieces of grass and foliage to lift up before falling slowly back down.

"All of you will need to make space. I would not want those lesser to be dying by accident."

The knights marched backwards, clearing out more than enough space for Li and Leonid and granting them what was essentially full free range of the main road and the surrounding forest.

Leonid widened his stance and tilted sideways to make the target of his body narrower for Li. He poised his spear to Li, the crystalline red spear tip glowing hungrily with bloody crimson. It was pointed towards the center of Li's mass, tilted downwards as it were in relation to Leonid's own massive frame.

"Make the first move," said Li. He crossed his arms and shrugged. "That way, I can actually tell when this duel has started."

Leonid did not need any more encouragement. He disappeared to all eyes except Li's. Li himself disappeared for an instant as well, and when they finally stood still, visible to the spectators, there was a silence as everyone beheld the sudden destruction the two had wrought in just an instant.

Li was a meter or two to the side from his original position, and Leonid had seemingly teleported far behind Li, his stance deep and low with his spear thrusted outwards like he had just charged.

Behind Leonid, there was a trail of shattered rock on the main road with wisps of smoke curling up from them from the high velocity charge.

Leonid was glowing faintly red, his breath steaming. That was [Blood Boil], a vampiric racial skill that boosted stats temporarily at the cost of health. Though, judging by how Leonid's veins were not pulsating visibly through his skin, it was a lesser variant of the skill used by those with degraded vampiric blood.

Li also recognized the charging skill Leonid used.

It was [Heroic Rankbreaker], a powerful charging attack that did significant damage, extending its range and dealing more damage for every target it hit. It was meant to clear out wide swathes of enemies and was part of the higher leveled [Siegebreaker] subclass meant for mounted warriors.

For now, it seemed, Leonid was suited more towards dealing with larger groups of enemies, as was expected of a general who led armies and fought armies.

Li's eyes flashed white for a split second as he analyzed Leonid, gaining a sense of all his stats and abilities.

===============

Name: Leonid Drozdov

Level: 60

Race: Lesser Dhampir

Class: Warrior

Subclasses:

-Duelist

-Lancer

-Siegebreaker

Stats:

STR- 100

AGI- 140

INT- 60

Racial Passives:

-Blood Sense: Can sense organic enemies regardless of whether there is visual contact or not. Heightened against bleeding foes.

-Bloodmend (Lesser): Grants permanent lesser regeneration

-Dhampir Glands (Lesser): Passively enhances physical stats. Effect boosted during the night.

-Dhampir Constitution (Lesser): Slight resistance to critical strikes. Allows for a small amount of fighting time even when HP reaches 0. Extended by killing other units, but time gained has diminishing returns.

-Resistance to Poison

-Resistance to Sleep

-Resistance to Curses

-Resistance to Mind Control

-Resistance to Insanity

Items/Equipment:

Heavy Lightsilver Legionnaire Armor Set (5 Pieces [FULL])

Rank: Rare

Armor that shines with the light of the sun. Grants bonuses to health, health regeneration, and resistances to status effects. Has an active ability to cleanse all status effects and restore a percentage of missing health.

Trueblood Heartseeker

Rank: Mythic

A spear forged by primordial vampires that roamed lands of eternal shadow.

Possesses an exceptionally high attack rating with scaling that improves depending on the purity of the vampiric blood wielding it. Attacks have a high chance of causing the bleed status effect that chips away a percentage of max health every second.

Has an active ability to cause the next attack to gain 100% accuracy and ignore all armor, barriers, and defenses, striking with a guaranteed critical strike that executes enemies if they are below 15% health.

================

Surprisingly, Leonid did not have a subclass as a knight, a beginner, all rounder subclass that helped with offense and defense equally.

Instead, his build was specialized for dealing with both single targets and large armies, though of course, that meant he would not be amazing at both.

Overall, not a greatly optimized build, but it was one that made sense in the context of this world as he needed to both be a strong individual combatant and capable of dealing with larger bodies of enemies.

Still, with his high level compared to the rest of this world, it meant that it would have likely seemed like he was an overwhelming master at both.

Li stepped back again as Leonid rushed in, this time moving slower now that he was not using a skill.

A flurry of spear thrusts rained on Li, appearing like countless streaks of crimson as Leonid used [Hundred Strike Volley], a Lancer skill.

Li weaved through the intense flurry.

Normally, in the game, attacks like this would hit or miss depending on a flat percentage chance based off of the agility stat, but in this world, the agility stat just gave Li the raw speed to just weave through the attacks with ease.

On paper, Leonid's agility stat was actually somewhat similar to Li's at his base level, but Li, like every competitive mage in Elden World, had consumed the [Elden Seed], an item granted to every mage that finished the base campaign which bestowed a permanent bonus scaling to strength and agility based off of intelligence.

The bonus scaling was not nearly large enough to make a mage player capable of standing up to any dedicated combat classes, but it did solve a balance issue where mages that had invested entirely into intelligence at the level 100+ stage would miss every single hit and die in one shot to most attacks by combat classes in that same level range, sometimes to even level 80 or 90 players that caught them by surprise when they had no barriers up.

The bonus stats granted by the seed were, coincidentally, also what Li tapped into when he fully activated his physical senses. This made Li immensely strong and fast compared to almost anything in this world, and when he buffed himself with his own spells, that disparity only became wider.

For now, though, Li would only very slightly dip into those stats, curious as to what he would witness from Leonid.

"Oh?" said Li as he took another step back. He felt the slightest bit of impact on his left hand where he had narrowly failed to avoid a spear thrust. Of course, Li's strength stat, the stat which boosted resistances and health on top of melee damage, was monstrously high, far higher than his agility, and so the spear simply did nothing, bouncing off his skin.

"You managed to touch me. I did not think you were capable of that."

Leonid breathed out, getting more and more limber. "You are unbelievably strong and fast, I will give you that, but your movements are untrained. Eventually, I will read the patterns of your evasions, and then, my strikes will land somewhere vital."

"I see," said Li. He had an idea that martial skill was a new dimension that mattered in this world aside from raw stats, but he had yet to find anybody that had been able to demonstrate that aptly because they were too weak.

Leonid was weak too, for sure, but he had invested so much of his stats into agility and had what seemed to be unparalleled martial prowess that combined together, they let him attack with much more finesse than what his stats would indicate.

Li estimated that even a level 70 to 80 brick wall of stats would have difficulty evading attacks from Leonid.

Leonid struck again, not letting up pressure. He used [Duelist's Dance] to constantly boost his movement speed while nearing enemies to never let up distance, and he threw out attacks at breakneck speed, using moves that boosted the speed of his attacks like [Flash Lance] and [Swift Strike].

Li played along, dodging, and every so often, Leonid would move in a way that managed to graze him.

One time, it was a feint, another time, it was an oddly arcing strike, another time, it would be an unexpected hit using the butt of the spear.

It became evident what Leonid was going after. He was essentially using a common PvP tactic of trying to unleash as many hard to avoid hits as possible to whittle down an enemy to low health quickly so that he could execute them.

This also synergized with the spear's bleed effect, as the more attacks he unleashed, the higher chance to inflict bleed. Unfortunately, Li was immune to the status effect.

In the end, aside from seeing a demonstration of martial arts, the combat strategies were nothing new, limited to revolving around the few pitiable items that the mortals here called strong weapons.

"Okay," said Li. He tapped into just a little bit more of his latent physical stats. He grabbed Leonid's spear midway during its arc towards his head. He did not bother to grab the spear safely at its shaft, and instead, just held the crimson spear tip in his hand, knowing it did nothing to him.

"I've seen enough. Now, do you surrender this duel? Do not throw away your life when thousands of your men depend upon it."

Leonid grunted as he tried to pull the spear back, but it would not budge.

Because he had invested so much into agility, he did have nearly any of the strength that Li did, even at Li's base. Li thought the man would be surprised, or that he would panic, but he did not give up, instead letting go of his spear and balling his gauntleted hands into fists.

Well then, Li thought. Have it your way.

Li used his free arm and punched Leonid in the chestplate.

A concussive boom surged throughout the air as the sound of denting metal rang. Leonid's body flew a dozen meters backwards like he had been flung from a massive slingshot until he slammed right through a tree, and then another tree, and then another, until finally, he stopped.

Before the trees could fall, Li snapped his fingers, repairing the damage to their trunks.