“As I said, you can go ahead and take the Quest!” said Hawk.

“No. It would be a dishonor to do so. Duel me for the Quest.” Replied Blitz.

“Sigh… fine…”

As the Leader of the largest Party in Naut City despite being only a few days in, Blitz gathered quite the crowd around him as spectators for the Duel. On the other hand, Players of Naut City outside of Zoe and a few others were yet to know the brilliance of Hawk. The early members of the top Parties gathered as well. While most Party Leaders thought of Blitz as the bottom of the top, excluding Zoe, all them expected Blitz dominant victory.

Holding a single sword at hand, Hawk calmly waited the countdown to end. In contrast, Blitz was agitated and wanted to end fast. As soon as the Duel began, both Players clashed with each other.

The moments their swords connected, a straight line of flame threw Hawk way with extreme force. Flare Blitz, Blitz’ Ability, was currently the highest damaging Ability in Naut City. Hawk lost three-fourths of his Health to a single strike. Wasting no time, Blitz connected to massive pressure on Hawk, who was barely able to fend off his attacks. To all who watched, it was clear Blitz had an overwhelming advantage skill; however, Hawk barely yet consistently avoided or blocked attack after attack.

When a more skilled Player is attacking a less skilled one, the more skilled Player slowly but surely forces an opening on the less skilled one. Not only was the pressure higher on the defensive side, the less-skilled Player was more prone to make a mistake. What the top Players saw that others couldn’t was that Hawk was not being pressured for an opening. Neither was he slowly getting cornered.

It was here where the top Players’ opinions began to turn. Maybe Hawk was a decent Player after all; however, no one among them but Zoe believed he would win. On the latter end of the ninth second after Flare Blitz was first used, Blitz swung an easily-blocked overhead strike at Hawk.

Once again, a line of flame surged through two meters of the battlefield; however, everyone was greeted with an image of Hawk in striking distance behind Blitz with two swords at hand.

The moment their swords connected, Hawk side-stepped and avoided Flare Blitz. Hawk landed two slashes with his twin blades before Blitz could reorganize himself, losing 22% of his Health.

To everyone’s surprise, Hawk was pushing back the supposedly higher-skilled Blitz, top Players knew that when Blitz failed to force an opening or corner Hawk, Hawk had already read through Blitz’ fighting patterns. In the same way, Hawk couldn’t counterattack himself since Blitz was also understanding his battle patterns through Blitz natural fighting instinct.

The gamechanger was Hawk’s dual-wielding. Everyone wowed at the stark contrast between the defensive Hawk with one sword and the hyper aggressive Hawk with both swords. Finally, Hawk broke through Blitz defenses and attacked him on the eight second after the second Flare Blitz. Skadi’s Caress mini-stun as well as the surprise factor of being mini-stunned allowed Hawk to land two more hits in addition to the first, dealing a total of 36% to Blitz health. Of course, there was opening after Hawk’s combo since he attacked with both blades to land more hits. Hawk was still two strikes for defeat and Blitz only one; however, Blitz, at 26% Health still had one more Flare Blitz without defeat to recoil.

Everyone knew the path to victory for Hawk was to take the attack and finish Blitz with a counterattack; however, at the heat of the moment, Players would instinctively avoid or block any attack coming to them. Blocking would spell demise as Blitz would end with an unavoidable Flare Blitz. Avoiding would definitely not make it impossible to win but would bring it to the line of improbable.

Hawk unhesitatingly took the attack. With a grin on his face ended the Duel in victory.

The rest was history. Hawk got various offers to join Parties or create one himself, all of which he declined. Eventually, he got annoyed and started wearing a cloak to hide his identity. Of course, a single person wearing a cloak would be suspicious, so the early members of the top Parties wore cloaks to help him.

More important was the discussion between Hawk and Zoe the evening after the Duel with Blitz.

“I thought you were just playing more defensively against a more skilled Player but it was all a bait.” Said Zoe.

“Indeed. Forcing myself to play defensively as well hiding my dual-wielding created an extreme shift in playstyle when I changed it that allowed me to outplay his movements that I could already read to an extent. Although, if the battle went on, I would have lost, with or without Flare Blitz. Hyper-aggressive playstyles are more prone to mistakes. The mistakes are more punishing as well. I would commit a mistake far earlier compared to Blitz’ more polished skills. Also, he would get used to my true playstyle as well.”

“You figured all of this out in the short moments before the Duel. Combined with knowledge of Flare Blitz’ properties, you won.”

“Just to clarify, I did not know Flare Blitz’ cooldown.”

“Then how did you avoid it? It’s one of those spells which you can only avoid when you know it’s coming.”

“Flare Blitz is theoretically barely avoidable through reflex I think. I can’t do it. It needs to be someone with no distractions in mind and professional athlete level reflexes. Putting that aside, I predicted it would come at that moment. Otherwise, that attack of his held no purpose and was different from the other attacks. It neither attempted to push me into a corner, force an opening, nor aimed to confuse me. By logical conclusion, the goal of the attack was to make me block; thus, finishing me off with Flare Blitz.

All of Blitz weaknesses were revealed then, not only to Zoe, but to all top Players. On this moment, Blitz’s future of being underestimated and Hawk’s future as a respected Player were secured.