Shocking!
1143 Words
Aaron’s Blazing Form greatly boosted the damage of all his fire-based skills and tripled his base stats. His weapon transformed along with his predator, enhancing all his basic attacks. He could now deal continuous fire damage with each s***h of his weapon.
“I’ll give you one last chance to surrender and join my team,” Aaron said, hoping to drill some sense into his opponent through intimidation. He knew a mere Aeromancer was no match for him in this transformed state. Any sensible player would just pull back from such an unbalanced fight.
Madeline, however, didn’t look the slightest bit dismayed. She didn’t take a step back, but stared right into Aaron’s eyes. A furious battle cry erupted from her mouth and her eyes turned spotless white. Both her axes flashed silvery gray, gleaming with an intense energy. Her neat ponytail came undone, her skin turned pale and a fierce wind lifted her off her feet.
As Madeline floated above the ground, a feeble white aura surrounded her agile form. Aaron felt a powerful gust of wind blowing in his direction and his Z-band beeped a warning tone. He now realised that Madeline too had access to multiple forms.
“What the f**k just happened?” Zach asked, befuddled.
“Surprised? I can transform as well.” Madeline channelled her strength to her forearms and boosted her agility with a special ability.
“Let’s finish this, once and for all,” Aaron exclaimed, summoning his Firelings to join the fray.
A fight between an Aeromancer in her Whirlwind form and a Pyromancer in his Blazing form was no small spectacle. In seconds, the online viewer count doubled, as more people joined the stream. Gilbert had hoped for such a fight to go down and he had got exactly what he wanted.
Aaron activated his dodging ability and rushed at Madeline. His blade clanged against her solid metal armour, cutting through her steel pauldron like butter. Madeline flourished her axes, but missed Aaron’s head by inches as he ducked at the last moment.
Missing her attacks made her even more furious. “Ability: Trance of Pain!”
Aaron noticed that she changed her stance from attacking to a more passive one. Instead of trying to strike him down, she focused on blocking his attacks. Aaron went full force at her, landing quick s***h attacks which caused her to stagger backwards. Her twin battle axes held up perfectly, protecting her vital points. Aaron had managed to whittle down her metal gloves, and her fingers were charred by the extreme heat. He wanted to push the advantage and charged up his blade for a final strike.
As soon as Madeline saw his blade flash white, she crossed her axes together, activating her Defensive Barrier ability. Aaron delivered a fully powered blow, slashing downward with all his strength. His flaming Naginata broke through Madeline’s defences, parting her interlocked axes and pushing her back.
The attacks had whittled down Madeline’s HP, dropping it to 75%. Her already punctured armour had suffered considerable damage, leaving her defence rating compromised. Aaron clearly had the upper hand now, or so he thought.
“Sister!”
“Stand back!” Madeline gestured Isabella not to interfere. She wanted this to be a one on one duel.
Zach too folded his scroll back and backed away. Only Aaron and Madeline remained on the frontlines, poised to tear at each other’s throats. Aaron expected Madeline to consume a potion and re-assess her strategy, but instead of falling back to recover, she dashed straight at him. Her recently activated ability, ‘Trance of Pain’, was an ace which Aaron had no idea about. This ability boosted her attack speed and damage by 10% for every 100 points of damage she sustained. Aaron had dealt over 500 points of damage to her, which meant she now had 50% extra damage and attack speed.
“Blade Twister!”
Madeline stepped down on the ground and stretched out her two axes in opposite directions. Her ability transformed her into a spinning whirlwind of steel and rage. Aaron had already used up his dodge ability and it was impossible to parry axe attacks at such speed.
“Radiant Protection!”
Madeline’s spinning axes shredded Aaron’s cloth armour to pieces, sending him flying into the opposite wall. His protective sphere had absorbed most of the damage from the attack, but even that wasn’t enough. Boosted by Trance of Pain, Madeline’s ability had delivered an astounding damage output, cutting Aaron’s HP in half and leaving him bloodied all over.
Aaron didn’t stay down for long. Despite being affected by the bleeding status effect, he didn’t show any signs of pain. Staggering back up, he reached for his inventory.
“Reaching for an HP potion? How pathetic!” Madeline scoffed.
Aaron paid no attention to her words and pulled out his special weapon— the Kurosagi. He had no use for the Naginata anymore and put it back in his stored items section.
“I don’t need any potions to defeat you. This will be a fair fight,” Aaron said, equipping the steel-tipped chain whip.
“A cheap chain whip? Is that your best weapon?” Madeline mocked. “And here I was thinking you might be a challenging opponent.”
Aaron coiled the whip’s tail around his right hand and grabbed the rest of it with his left. “You should have done your research.”
Madeline wasn’t planning on giving him any chance to strategise. With only 50% HP left, all she needed was another powerful attack to bring him down.
“Ability: Berserker Charge!” Screaming aloud, she dashed toward Aaron, her twin axes ready to chop him in half.
Aaron spun his whip over his head and then quickly darted its metal tip towards Madeline. “Activate weapon talent: lightning enchantment!”
Sparks of electricity cracked in the air as the chain-whip became enchanted. Its metal tip struck Madeline’s breastplate right in the centre, discharging all the stored electricity into her armour. The shock brought her to an abrupt halt, cancelling out her charge skill and stunning her. She yelled in pain as the electric shock paralysed her muscles and drained her HP.
Aaron could have finished her right there, but he pulled out the steel tip embedded in her armour and put his weapon away. As Madeline came crashing down, face-first into the ground, he walked up to her and tossed a Restoration potion.
“I defeated you, fair and square. Now don’t make me eliminate you.”
Isabella ran up to her sister, tears welling in her eyes, and tried to pick her up. Madeline was left with just 5% HP.
Aaron extended his right hand to her and calmly added, “We shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves. Our real enemy is Gilbert.”
- Writer
