“That’s some plan.”

The man’s voice floated over to Seven calmly as he swung his sword down at her and listened to the satisfying crunching sound of a successful kill.

‘This is getting tougher and tougher.’ He thought to himself as he couldn’t help but feel a grin tugging at his lips.

It was always a pleasure to win against a strong opponent.

“I don’t even know where to begin with it.” Seven revived with a jump and immediately shot magic blasts at her opponent, even though he was only a few feet away she was already confident enough to leap immediately back into battle, “It’s fine if you don’t want to do it. You’re not even part of our team and it gets you in a lot of danger.”

“Ha.” Nastin grinned as blue lights danced around him in the wonderful symphony of battle, each magic blast held enough power to damage him immensely but his body moved between the shots like a great golden arrow homing in on a target, “I’m honoured that Roxxy thinks I could do it, and I’ll admit I like a challenge. But I think you are all underestimating the strength of the players that will be participating.”

Seven stone shifted backward and grinned as she aimed a perfect shot between Nastin’s eyes, at this distance she couldn’t miss, only for her expression to turn into a frown as he sliced his sword upwards and cut the blast in half. Streams of colourful magic showered harmlessly over him as the force itself was negated and only the colourful display was left partially intact.

He was getting faster every day.

“These will be the greatest players of Zodiac Online. Sure, there are some skilled players that won’t have concentrated on levelling up,” He thought of his own team who had spent most of their time getting their skills up to scratch rather than fighting monsters exclusively for experience, “but we should assume that the opponents are all at the same level that we are at. It would do us no good to send a single person to try and kill five. Let alone with a handicap.”

Seven wanted to respond to him but she suddenly found herself running for her life as the paladin caught up to her before she could get either an attack or a word out of her. His sword cleaved at her body and she used most of her mana to stone shift several times out of his way. She still wasn’t good enough to force him to back away from her with her magic blasts.

Or rather, he was too skilled to allow her to do such a thing.

“That being said.” Nastin held out his hand and Seven shuddered as she suddenly found herself hitting a golden wall of light with her back, she hadn’t even seen him use his skill, “I don’t think it is the worst plan in the world. If I am being honest. You are very skilled, as is Archy, but aside from TidalWave you three don’t have a wide variety of attacks.”

Nastin took the opportunity of surprise to narrow the distance between himself and Seven. His body was already glowing with power as his buff magic activated and Seven tried to move around the wall to get away from him. Unfortunately, it was too wide and Nastin’s sword met her head-on as he finished the duel.

-85

-100

“Okay.” Seven came back with a huff, “Break time.”

She opened a trading window and sighed in regret as she gave Nastin a shiny blue pair of boots. It wasn’t an item he needed but they’d developed a certain system of honour in their duels against Dark Horse and Colt’s crew.

“Best of five next time?” Nastin took the item with grace and smiled at the tired magi.

He was earning quite a lot of gold by selling the items he got from her, but even he could tell that soon enough it might be him that was losing the items to his opponent. After the Corruptor fight he’d gone to duel Seven and her friends only to find that he was winning far too many fights. His team wasn’t fairing the same, but Seven had still felt bad and felt she was wasting his time with her selfish requests for duels.

So she’d decided to offer him and his team an item for every best of three duels they won. Nastin remembered with a smile as he vigorously disagreed only for Seven to force him to accept by constantly offering him items. Finally, he gave in, she had enough gold apparently to not care about losing some and he wanted to duel her at her full strength.

And he’d actually managed to win back the items he and his team had dropped when they’d died back at the Corruptor fight.

Her team had followed her lead in their duels with Colt’s Crew and Dark Horse.

The only one who had refused was Archy. He had held onto Gyro’s green bracelet since he’d gotten it. Apparently it gave him increased accuracy and a 5% increase to his rate of fire. The Korean archer hadn’t been impressed but once they’d dueled a few times he’d respectfully allowed Archy to keep the item.

Grenda had been incredibly mad that Archy was willing to give her item back without any fuss.

“You got it.” Seven continued to stay on the floor as she quickly brought back her breath, “I can do this all day.”

“Ha.” Nastin could tell Third’s role-playing attitude was definitely rubbing off on her, Zodiac Online wouldn’t cause her any physical stress and even if it did, the game would immediately eject her from playing if it sensed a dire change in her body.

‘But she has gained a bit of weight lately.’ Nastin couldn’t help but feel a bit of concern for his online friend.

She had definitely made her avatar just a copy of herself in real life, and that avatar was being updated every time she logged on. Honestly, she was the only person that Nastin was one hundred percent sure was using an avatar that was a copy of her real body because even if she was editing it each day to be slightly chubbier her attitude betrayed her disposition. Nastin could tell she was probably just careless about it or didn’t care.

“Well, it appears we don’t have all day.” Nastin eyed the nearby city of Lum with vigor, “We’ll be knee-deep in opponents within a couple of hours.”

He could feel his heart welling up with nostalgia and excitement just thinking about it. He would probably be able to meet old opponents that had transferred to this game and new ones that were ready to challenge the world. Each one would probably have abilities he couldn’t even dream of.

“Augh. Do we have to.” Seven got up and Nastin could see that cheeky smile on her face that he’d become familiar with, “You’re just liking the fact that you’ll be able to show off soon.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Nastin kept as straight a face as he could, “You know how I am. I love the spotlight. There’s not enough sunlight hitting me in the world, so I need that artificial stuff too.”

They both laughed as Nastin lost control of his expression and grinned. In his opinion, his straight-laced dry humor wasn’t appreciated enough by his own team.

Out of all three groups the two players that could be said to have improved the most in the last two weeks were definitely Nastin and Seven. The reason was fairly simple. They were both monsters and they both enjoyed practicing far too much compared to normal people. They were also the two players that dueled each other the most when their teams met up.

They both had a familiarity and friendship around each other that was hard to obtain except in the rarest of occasions when two strangers happened to share chemistry from their first meeting. Although they spent their time mostly trying to kill each other and concentrating fully on their fights it was clear for all to see that they were having as much fun as kids in a playground.

It was the excitement and kinship of two familiar souls meeting, as well as the respect the two players had for each other.

Of course, Seven wouldn’t admit that she was a genius of any sort no matter how much he tried to convince her she was. She was lacking in confidence and honestly if Nastin felt that if he were in her position he would probably feel the same way. She fought her teammates on a daily basis and they were all players that were originally skilled and yet all had the potential to grow even further. No matter how skilled and rapidly improving Seven was she couldn’t help but lose when confronted by the reality that was her superior teammates.

It was definitely a strange group. Nastin almost couldn’t believe that they’d all gathered together by coincidence.

Now that they’d finished the duels there wasn’t that much to do. The rest of Dark Horse had gone to level up by killing frogkin and Seven’s team were doing their individual things until the competition arrived. They had all agreed to take a relaxing break before the competition to avoid the jitters but Nastin had still felt the need to fight. That was his way of both pumping himself up and calming down at the same time.

“So then,” Seven and Nastin relaxed as they waited for her team to appear, “You’re fine with fighting by yourself? It’s not really going to be a five versus one scenario. We’ll definitely hop in if there are team fights.”

“Definitely.” Nastin nodded, “It makes sense if we wish to win the competition, or at least get as far as we can.”

Seven grinned and thought back to what TidalWave had told her about Roxxy’s plan. It was actually a really simple plan when you got down to the heart of it.

Send out Nastin to fight every single duel.

Seven had done a double-take when TidalWave had explained it to her. Her first thought was that it wasn’t much of a plan, and then her second thought was that Nastin wasn’t part of their team so, of course, he wouldn’t accept a condition as terrible as that.

Then she’d remembered the kind of person that Nastin was and realised that he would probably be happy to do it.

Then Roxxy had explained it to her and answered her questions and it began to make more sense. It wasn’t that TidalWave, Archy and Seven were too weak. Or even that Gyro was. It was that most of them didn’t have much variety in their techniques.

“When fighting enemies that are as skilled as TidalWave and Nastin it’s impossible to go into a lot of fights without them adapting to your attacks.” Roxxy had explained to her, “So because Archy and Gyro can only fire arrows, and because you don’t have a wide range of spells, you’ll all be taken down quickly if you participate in the competition.”

Seven had realised pretty quickly what Roxxy meant. She had done it herself a few times as well. When opponents showed their moves to her before she fought them, she was able to discover their timing and abilities and exploit them to win a fight. She had done it to Colt when she’d seen him fight against TidalWave, and her opponents could do it to her as well.

The main issue was that she, Gyro and Archy relied on their basic attacks for their main damage. If they’d had a second attack they could mix in to deal damage like TidalWave’s reaper’s fury or Nastin’s holy blade aura it would be a different story. Both of the warriors had attacks that hit further than their basic attack range and so could mix up their styles of fighting to cause enemies to be wary of them. Seven had utility spells but her wind blast wasn’t too useful for damaging, and her ice bolt spell took too long to cast. She would be dead before she managed to fire it.

So Roxxy had come to the conclusion that only TidalWave or Nastin could fight until they met a truly powerful enemy or team. Especially if it was a series of one on one duels or similar format. She told Seven that in the end she had made her decision based on a single factor; TidalWave’s second chance ability, don’t fear the reaper. If TidalWave still had that ability in the most important fights then he would be able to take a fatal hit and possibly win them a crucial match.

Roxxy didn’t want their strongest frontline fighter to lose his most important ability if one of the early opponents was too skilled or got lucky.

“And so you picked me to fight for you.” Nastin’s voice interrupted Seven’s flashback.

“Huh?”

“I assume you’ve been thinking about the plan since you spaced out for twenty seconds while staring at my nose.” Nastin joked with a chuckle.

“Oh, oh, oops.” Seven’s face flushed and she nodded, “Yeah. I just wish I had another attacking spell, or two.”

She had been given an explanation by Third as to why she shouldn’t waste her future potential in creating spells, and she agreed with his logic. But there was another way to learn spells; The library belonging to the Magi Guild of Lum.

Unfortunately, all the good spells took over a week to learn.

‘Third is going to be even stronger after this.’

The wizard had spent the last week going through the library’s spells, cataloging and learning the ones he thought were good to know. He was probably still deep in meditation learning in the library as she spoke.

“Well, not to worry.” Nastin spotted Archy and Roxxy coming towards them from the signet woods outer ring, “You’ll be able to jump in whenever you want. I don’t want to steal all the fun from you guys.”

“Damn straight.” Archy walked up to Nastin with a smile, “The moment you fall down I’m coming to save you with arrows. If I happen to get distracted and you die in the process then I guess I’ll just have to fight them all myself. Oh well.”

“You are definitely capable of that.” Nastin agreed, he was completely sincere, he knew the archer’s skill, “But I’m afraid Gyro will probably beat you to it.”

Archy’s face twitched at the mention of the other archer.

The two were definitely not on good terms, even if they acknowledged each other's skills.

Nastin was almost certain that it had something to do with the fact that Gyro reminded them all uncannily of Third. But that couldn’t be the case, because he was certain Archy and Third were the closest of all the group. That was the impression he’d gotten from all their play bantering at least.

‘Perhaps he doesn’t like it when he thinks someone is imitating his close friend.’ Nastin shook the thought out of his head.

Even if the two archers didn’t get along they were both on the same wavelength in their intention to win the inter-city competition. Unlike Seven and TidalWave who were rather flippant about the entire event and didn’t care if they won, Archy was extremely competitive and Gyro seemed to have professional pride in himself which meant he wasn’t going to lose if he could help it. Nastin could relate to that. His team probably wouldn’t care about an event like this but he had always felt that overcoming new challenges was one of the funnest things he could do. That meant defeating every opponent that came his way, strong or weak.

“Oh-oh-oh,” Roxxy waved excitedly and dashed past the silent Archy as two new figures came into view, TidalWave and Gyro, “Looks like the gangs all here.”

“That guy is not part of the gang.” Archy rolled his eyes as Roxxy pointed at Gyro and then moved to meet up with Seven, “You look like you had a fun time, ready to try out those skills in the main event?”

“You bet.” Seven lifted her fist to show her strength, “Those guys won’t know what hit them. Unless they see my attack coming,” she hesitated, “Or if they guess that I’m a magi from my robes. You know what-”

“-They definitely won’t know.” Archy’s frown turned into a bright expression as he saw Seven fumbling with her words, the girl was definitely lacking in confidence despite all the duels she’d participated in.

Admittedly she lost more than she won by a large margin, but she couldn’t help that considering her opponents. He and Nastin laughed at the same time and shared a knowing smile.

If it came down to a fight between any random player at the competition and Seven they’d put their money on Seven winning.

“Two hours…” Seven stared at Lum absentmindedly.

They would rest until there was only a few minutes left, and then bishop Trei would come and collect them to be transported to the competition area.

“Alright then.”

Roxxy took the lead as they all walked towards Lum.

“Let’s go do this.”

****

The theocracy ruling Lum was definitely devoted to Verm and wanted everyone to know.

The bishop had led them through a hallway filled with murals depicting Verm’s adventures. The god had apparently been extremely adventurous for a priest god and his demon-slaying conquests were the stuff of legend. The ever-watching presence of his eye symbol hanging over them was starting to give Seven the shudders.

She preferred Barnacle’s informality compared to the cathedral and church complex they were walking through now.

“The portal is this way, brave warriors.” Bishop Trie finally stopped their group in front of an open door.

“Woah.” Seven’s eyes sparkled as she saw what lay within.

A fully equipped and functioning teleportation gate. The circular contraption was made of a material she didn’t recognise and inlaid with dozens of gems that bled their different colours into the magical portal that shimmered in a steady rhythm. The rainbow lights that resulted gave off a feeling of magnificence and grandeur which seemed at odds with the drab stone walls surrounding them.

“Very good.” Archy was taking a picture of the portal for fun, “Really gives us the feeling of piety we’re meant to feel, am I right bishop?”

“Absolutely warrior.” Bishop Trei ignored Archy’s sarcastic tone and gestured to them, “We shall head along after you. Your group will be transported to the arena, and all non-designated members will be transported to the stands to watch your team triumph.”

“That means me.” Roxxy pointed to herself and smiled.

“How is this going to feel?” Seven didn’t know how realistic the game makers had decided to make this.

If it was anything like a roller coaster then she was willing to let her team die before she went through it.

“There’s no feeling. Although you may miss a step due to the sudden change in scenery.” Bishop Trei assured her nothing would go wrong.

“Then tally ho!” Seven led the way and ignored the bishop as she walked through the portal and suddenly found herself in another cold and drab stone room.

“Damn they don’t really give us the five-star service do they?” Archy followed her closely and scrunched up his nose in disgust at their surroundings, “So much for ‘brave warrior’ this and ‘great warrior’ that.”

“Hah.” Nastin replied dryly, they were almost all in the room now, “I suppose they will come for us when it is our turn.”

Seven paced around and realised that she was starting to panic. Even though she had been in hundreds of duels before she wasn’t used to fighting in these kinds of situations. Something so planned was beyond her.

So she decided to check over her team's stats to calm herself down.

Seeing how strong she was always helped her when she was in doubt. At least she hoped she was strong.

Seven: level 42

Health: 129 (+85)

Mana: 92

Vitality: 22

Strength:10

Intelligence: 53 (+17)

Wisdom: 37 (+16)

Dodge: 20

Control: 14 (+11)

Elf racial trait: Gain 1 intelligence per 5 levels.

Class Passive:

Nimble Mage passive: Gain 1 intelligence and 2 dodge per 5 levels.

Dodge: Makes movement during battle easier. It provides a small possibility that enemy attacks will miss.

Equipment:

Advanced Wand of the Magi: Advanced Magic Blast: Deal double your Intelligence as magic damage.

Gold Trimmed Lum Magi Cloak: +20 HP, +6 INT, +4 WIS.

Gloves of the Sorcerer: +7 WIS, +5 HP, +4 INT, +3 CON.

Enchanted Lum Magi Boots (+1): +10HP, +5 WIS.

Lum Gold Trimmed Magical Light Armour: +20 HP, +3 INT.

Advanced Focus Crystal: +8 CON, +4 INT.

Ring of Vitality: +30 HP.

Ring of Mana Regeneration: Regenerate 0.5 mana each second.

Skills:

[Advanced Magic Blast: Fires a mass of magic from your wand. Deal double your Intelligence as magic damage. Cost: 2 mana.]

[Wind Blast: The Nimble Magi must brave death with every movement. To escape their enemies and move into a favourable position they have learned to manipulate the element of wind to their advantage. Effect: Deal 5+(Intelligence) as damage and push away a targeted enemy 1 foot (Enemy must be within 5 feet of you). Cost: 7 mana. 5-second cooldown.]

[Stone shift: The Nimble Magi does not solely rely on their feet to position themselves. The very earth may be moved so that the Nimble Magi will be placed in a favourable position. Effect: The ground below will move you according to the predetermined path you think of up to a radius of 2 feet. Cost: 5 mana. 2-second cooldown.]

[Ice Bolt: By harnessing the element of ice the ancient magi realised that there was more to fighting monsters than destruction. Effect: Deal 3+(Intelligence) as damage and slow the movement of enemies hit by 15% for 5 seconds. Cost: 10 mana. Cooldown: 13 seconds.]

TidalWave: level 43

Health: 187 (+109)

Mana: 26

Vitality: 39

Strength: 74 (+25)

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 10

Merther racial trait: Use your inner magic to hone in on an enemy and throw your weapon at them to deal x2 piercing damage. Weapon thrown will not be usable until picked up again.

Class passive:

Reaper passive: For each successive uninterrupted attack deal x1.1 the damage of the previous (cap at x5 damage).

Reaper Passive 2: Gain 3 strength and 1 vitality per 5 levels.

Equipment:

Fighter’s Guild Sword: +15 STR, +5 HP

Fighter’s Guild Extremely Hard Helmet: +14 HP

Azeroth’s Scaled Armour: +30 HP, +5 STR

Fighter’s Guild Flexible Greaves: +20 HP, +2 STR

Azeroth’s Scaled Gloves: +15 HP

Fighter’s Guild Boots: +10 HP, +6% Movement speed

Fighter’s Guild Ring: +15 HP, +3 STR

Skills:

Basic Attack (Fighter’s Guild Sword): 15+(Strength) damage.

Don’t fear the reaper: When suffering fatal damage survive the killing blow with 1 health point. 30-minute cooldown.

Reaper’s fury: Deal 7 and double your (Strength) as damage in a cone 5 feet in diameter. There is a chance the skill may pass through enemies to also hit those behind them. 20-second cooldown.

Shadow Dance: Passively doubles base movement speed. When activated the skill is activated the bonus doubles for 5 seconds and the target becomes untouchable by physical damage for one second. May still be targeted and damaged by magic. 1-minute cooldown.

Archy: level 42

Health: 122 (+62)

Mana: 20

Vitality: 30

Strength: 56 (+36)

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Dexterity: 53 (+27)

Wood Elf Racial Trait: Accuracy is increased by 10%.

Class Passive:

Fire Archer passive: Basic attacks gain a 5% chance to activate a burn status dealing 5 damage every second, burn lasts 6 seconds.

Fire Archer passive 2: Gain 2 dexterity per 5 levels.

Dexterity: Aids in hand to eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance.

Equipment:

Fire Archer Bow +1 (Partially sealed): +15 Dexterity, +25 strength

Steel Arrow Quiver (4467/5000): +5 HP

Hardened Steel Arrows (4467): +7 STR, +5% Accuracy

Frogkin Helmet of Sight: +15 HP, +5% Accuracy

Frogkin Gloves: +10 HP, +2 Dex

Dextrous body armour: +10 Dex, +4 STR, +7 HP

Frogkin Greaves: +15 HP.

Bracelet of minor accuracy: +5% Accuracy, +5% Increase rate of attack.

Boots of the Lake: +10HP, +7.5% Movement speed.

Skills:

Intermediate arrow attack: deals 10+(Strength) damage.

Flame Arrow: Adds +10 fire damage to the next basic attack. The attack has a 10% chance to apply 5 burn damage on the enemy for 6 seconds.

Flame Body: Cover your body with the flames of your life force, enhancing your body movements and momentum by 20% for 5 seconds. If enemies are within touching distance of player upon activation they take 5 fixed damage. Costs 15 mana. 30 Second Cooldown.

“Well I guess it’s not too ba-” Seven was about to reply but then a message suddenly interrupted her.

[Individual Battle Royale Placement Battle Starting in 5 Minutes]

A clock had appeared on their screens.

“Well.”

Seven gazed at the notification.

“Crap.”

****

[Cheshire: level 40]

Cheshire had never not been confident in himself.

Top one thousand in several games, skilled enough to gain a rare class and praised by all his friends as a genius. It made him giddy sometimes when he thought about how it was easier for him to learn things that others could spend hours or days on.

This inter-city competition was the best place for him to flex his skills and meet other individuals who were at the top of the game. If he could prove himself here then he would at least gain some clout that he could slowly turn into a solid reputation.

At least those were his thoughts.

So when he’d been thrown into the battle royale against seven other players he hadn’t been too worried. All of them were warriors and all of them looked confident, but he was willing to bet he was stronger than they were by a bit. He could tell from the way they looked nervous.

Each one may have been extremely skilled but he was confident he could go toe to toe with even the best. There hadn’t been enough time for other players to obtain a mastery of the game compared to him. He’d been playing for hours every day. He even had items that others hadn’t been able to obtain through the normal channels, all because he was going out of his way to fight monsters well above his level.

There were some unexpected setbacks. For one, it looked like nobody from the same city was put into the same section, but that didn’t matter. Since he had been put in a group full of warriors it wasn’t like they would be able to team up against each other. So he was just as likely to win as anyone else in the battle.

But then ‘that’ had appeared. The moment they had all moved to fight each other it had jumped into the middle of the arena and with a single combo of swipes they had all been damaged and forced to retreat. All six of them had come to the same realisation the moment they saw its power. They had to team up against it. They could focus on the other small fries after it was dead.

“M-monster.” Cheshire stammered as that thing got closer.

He wasn’t willing to admit it was a human.

Five other bodies lay around his opponent, all corpses. Their players had long departed from their avatar’s bodies and they had turned gray. It had only taken their enemy a few seconds to down them.

All this was done by a single man.

His speed, his precision, and his strength had completely overwhelmed them from start to finish.

They had been helpless against him during the entire fight.

All six of them were champions of their own city but they had been completely helpless against a single warrior. Now Cheshire was shivering as he came to the realisation that he had been too confident in himself without reason. He knew it instinctively if he ever got the chance to fight this person again he would always refuse. They were a sky above him, something he could never come close to.

He was nothing but a frog in a well.

And this person was as big as the ocean.

“Ha.” The player’s voice was dry as walked carefree towards Cheshire, “Unfortunate. I was expecting more.

He brought his sword down onto his opponent. He didn’t even bother to activate his buffs, his opponent had clearly already given up.

The warrior placed his sword on his armoured shoulder as Cheshire’s corpse turned grey. The last thing Cheshire saw as he left his avatar and revived in the inter-city losers room was the shining name over his killer’s head.

[Nastin: Level 45]

[Congratulations on surviving your battle.]

The system sent Nastin a message and a new timer appeared.

[Next placement battle: 10 Minutes.]

****

The seven ranged opponents watched each other warily. If they shot first then the entire battle was likely to turn into a bloodbath. It was a stalemate born out of the fact that none of them knew each other’s abilities and skills.

With the exception of two people.

Seven’s eyes blazed with fury as she tore a hole through her opponent’s face with her gaze.

“You.”

She gritted her teeth as she came to the realisation that she had been affected more by this person than she realised.

“You.” The player responded in turn with an even voice, “Why is it always you.”

Seven brandished her wand as she raised it without caring if the other players would be forced into a fight by her actions.

She wanted answers.

“You want to fight?”

The player she was facing stood up and drew himself to his full height, dwarfing over her in his purple robes. He raised his wand and instantly her body was wreathed in purple light that caressed her body like fire.

“Then let’s get this over with.”

[Attracting: Level 43]

****

TidalWave could feel his emotions resonating with every swing of his blade as he moved to block his opponent’s attacks. Each one looked as light as a feather in the air but hit like a truck when it finally reached him. He had never met someone as skilled as this in all of his fights.

It was different from Seven whose monstrous potential caused him to push himself beyond his limits. Different from Nastin and Archy who were equal to him, yet specialised in different areas. This was not someone suited to defense like the paladin, and they weren’t a long-range fighter like Archy. This was a person who was in the same field as he was. The same type of player, fighting the same battles he did and coming out his equal.

This was a warrior.

Someone was challenging him in his world and they were capable of winning.

He had never felt so alive in a long time.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.” His opponent’s grin was a large as his as she rained down attacks on him.

He blocked them all perfectly.

She was flying through the air and closing the distance as she moved in ways that a normal human would never dream of.

But he was no normal human. This was his playing field, and he had never accepted anything less than perfection in all his endeavours. He retaliated with attacks of his own, with minimal wasted movements that would have felled any lesser opponent. He surprised her with deadly combo after deadly combo.

“So tell me.” His opponent took the killing swings in her stride and continued to pile on the pressure as she talked to him, “Are you having as much fun as I am?”

TidalWave flourished his sword with a deft movement and jumped back to safety. The childlike expression of joy he had on his face was all the answer she needed. He was the same as her. He raised his sword towards his opponent and his piercing gaze flew to her head and the name above it.

[Violet: Level 43]