(Aug 22 Continued)

At that moment, the lightning arrows hit me.

At first I felt nothing, all my senses numbed and my vision blurred, it felt as if I was floating in a white space.

But slowly I returned to reality and my entire body felt like it was being stung by a million bees.

The pain was horrifying but I couldn't even scream. I could feel the electric energy squirming into the pores of my skin. I took all of my mental energy just to stay conscious.

I exploded my dragon essence inside of me and released all of my energy at once and pushed all the electricity away using my dragon essence.

I felt like passing out already, and I was sweating insanely.

I looked up and saw the A ranker standing there just watching me.

She smirked at me and said:

"Wow. I guess there's at least one competent person here. But... you seem quite weird, that's an unusual energy you got there pal."

I had to focus just to breath properly, so I wasn't able to reply back to her. It would take a bit before I was able to regain my stability.

I was only glad she wasn't attack me, even though she could probably easily knock me off.

She took a step towards me.

"Hey, mind if I ask you a question?"

Although I wasn't in the right state of mind to answer any questions, I was still glad that she was giving me a bit of time to regain myself by asking questions so I nodded.

"It's a simple questions, why do you want to get stronger?"

Um, what? That was a random question.

I wasn't sure what to answer with so I just said the basic answer, I want to protect those important to me. The typical reason, not too grand, just your average goal in life.

When I had answered I could feel my energy and strength slowly coming back to me, and I looked up at the A ranker, who had a face of disgust.

"To protect those you love? That's why you want to become stronger? What do you think you are? Some kind of hero or protagonist in a novel? Grow up. Just because your strong doesn't mean you can protect those you love, in fact it might even put them in more danger. What would you do if someone placed a blade around your loved one's neck? Nothing, you would watch as they die."

At the time I felt mad for some reason, as if she was mocking my reason for my motivations, but after a while of thinking, I realize she was right. Why WAS i trying to get stronger?

At first I told myself it was to let no one else suffer what I went through, but now it feels different. Yes, I still don't want anyone else to suffer but I feel like it isn't the main goal anymore...

The A ranker sighed, and told me that she wasn't trying to act like some antagonist, she was just curious. She liked to hear stories and motivation of others, it was her hobby or something and she told me my motivation is the most naive, childish and most boring she's heard in while.

I wasn't too happy with having myself being called childish and naive, but I knew she was right.

She raised her bow again, it seemed like our talk was over.

She launched dozens of arrows in an instant and I was still wounded but was still able to roll out of the way in time. She jumped into the air and reloaded more arrows and then shot again.

I jumped back, but the arrows curved towards me and two of them hit me in the shoulders and side of my leg.

The shock was still painful but I got used to it and my dragon essence was able to easily expel the electricity.

I had to focus, I had to predict the path of the arrows, it seemed as it the arrows were following me...

Its as if her arrows knew where I was going... is her aiming THAT good...?

That's when it hit me, the arrows were homing in on me!

I finally realized the arrows were infused with magic to follow me! It was attracted to inner energy, all living thing has inner energy so the arrows would bend towards the person it was closest to!

I see... it makes sense!

So with that knowledge in mind, I created a mini fireball made with my dragon essence and tossed it in the air. As predicted the arrows bended towards the floating fireball, and pierced it causing it to blow up.

My fireball was created using my dragon essence so it was easy for the arrows to get attracted to it.

"Just cause you can figured it out, doesn't change the fact you can't beat me."

And she was right, but I wasn't trying to beat her.

More arrows shot out at me, and I kept jumping back and creating more balls made of my dragon essence to lure away the arrows. She mixed in some normal arrows that shot in a straight line as well to confuse me but I just dodged those.

She was underestimating me and that was good for me.

I rushed forward and grabbed the sword I dropped when I got attacked earlier and infused my dragon essence into it.

But then an arrow shot out and knocked the blade out of my hand, she wasn't letting me even get my sword...

I lowered my defense by removing all the dragon essence in my body and moved it all into speed.

I zipped crossed the platform away from the A ranker and continued dodging, it was easier to dodge and to defend since I was further away from her, which left more time and space for me to prepare and to predict the arrow trajectory.

"You can't beat me if you keep dodging."

I didn't mind what she was saying and continued defending and dodging.

"If you're not going to do anything, I'm gonna end this 'kay?"

And then it happened.

The sky ripped open, and a massive bolt of thunder shot from the sky and struck the A ranker.

A pure golden rod appeared in her hand.

It was trouble, all the hair on my body stood up, I was getting goosebumps and I could feel my legs trembling.

I knew I couldn't give up, I still stood a chance, I had only one goal in mind, and I had only one thing to do if I wanted to win.

Since she was preparing a big attack, it left me a little time to do what I needed to do.

Before she could shoot me, I quickly leaped to my right and knocked off the other dazed fighters that were left in the fight.

This entire time my goal was to cross the platform and knock off the others so I could be the second survivor, I knew I stood no chance so this was the only thing I could do and it worked, but it was still tough as the A ranker gave me such a tough time.

After knocking the other fights off, I gave a sigh of relief but then I realized I was still getting chills...

THE INSANE A RANKER WAS STILL PREPARING HER ATTACK WHEN THE MATCH WAS OVER.

I shouted to the referee to stop the match as it was over and to tell the insane women to stop but it was too late. A massive wave of thunder shot out that I couldn't even see it due to it's sheer speed and destructive power.

The mere pressure of the thunder distorted the air.

I knew I had to jump of, and as I was already by the edge of the platform all I had to do was fall over, which I did.

I didn't even land in the water yet when I lost my consciousness.