Chapter 288: X-Ace Clash (Part 6)

Point-of-View: Ariella Velle———————————————————————————

"There’s really no need to be so fired up, you know. Frankly speaking, I’m at a pretty overwhelming disadvantage here," Remarked Jin with a wry smile, as we both stepped onto the arena and took our places.

"Maybe so, but that’s no reason to take you lightly. Being at a disadvantage doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to lose," I pointed out objectively, the countdown starting as the barrier formed around the arena.

He’s the only Ranger in the world who can fire arrows made of pure Elemental energy, and I’m not about to disregard that. A direct hit from one of those won’t be pretty.

Rangers are generally looked down upon compared to most other Classes, since a lot of people assume that Elemental Mages can do the same thing that Rangers can, but with a lot more variety, and they’re also considered the weakest Combatant Class.

But it isn’t as simple as that.

Rangers’ Mana tend to be more destructive that the Mana of Elemental Mages, and they have much longer ranges and accuracy...and with this guy and his purely Elemental wind arrows, all that is magnified significantly.

Now, then, time to focus up. It’s about to begin...

The instant the countdown ended, he raised his right hand towards me, his index finger pointing forward and his thumb pointing up, before a rapid wind arrow came shooting towards me with immense speed.

"[Blaze Ignition]!" I exclaimed, boosting my power by fifty percent.

As the fiery glow of my Skill emanated around my entire body, I raced across to my left as the projectile closed in on me, hitting the spot where I’d been standing before erupting in a burst of slicing wind streaks as it collided against the arena, drilling a narrow hole through the floor, with several cuts appearing around it.

I then sprinted across the arena as he unleashed a rapid volley of wind arrows towards me, narrowly evading them and struggling to maintain my balance as each one erupted with a sharp burst of force as they struck the arena, I-...huh?

Oh, crap!

He’d used his arrows to shepherd me straight towards a corner of the arena, I’m trapped!

As another wind arrow came shooting towards me, I raced forward and sprang up, creating a pole of Negative Energy to vault myself up and over the arrow, which hit the part of the arena behind me and erupted, before I shot straight towards him at full speed.

Woah, that worked really well for something I literally just came up with on the fly, I’ll definitely be adding it to my arsenal.

I fired out a barrage of small but rapid Negative Energy bullets towards him, as he raced away while firing out more wind arrows, grimacing as my flurry of dark, shadowy bullets intercepted and triggered his arrows well before they could reach me.

I then swiftly fired a Negative Energy blast at the floor of the arena, a thick cloud of dust bursting out as my blast collided against the floor and erupted, before I raced forward, creating another pole of Negative Energy and vaulting myself over the dust cloud.

I angled my upper body down as I reached the peak of my jump, Jin’s gaze shifting up towards me before he quickly fired a barrage of wind arrows up towards me as I fired out sharp bursts of Negative Energy from my feet to launch myself down towards him.

I swiftly intercepted the incoming arrows with a flurry of Negative Energy blasts, triggering them before they could reach me, before unleashing another pressurized burst of Negative Energy from my feet as I closed in on him, my speed spiking sharply as I swung my right fist towards his head with a concentrated jet of Negative Energy behind my elbow to drive my fist down with more force.

My fist grazed his right cheek, triggering a fiery burst from the side of my fist as he tilted his head across, a trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth as I shot past and landed behind him, my feet skidding forward before I spun around and lunged at him as he turned towards me with a wind arrow charged up.

I grabbed his forearm and pulled it across as he fired the arrow, which shot off to the right and hit the barrier, before a sharp wheeze rang out as I slammed my knee onto the middle of his stomach, a fiery explosion erupting upon impact.

He’s got both Elemental Immunity and Status Effect Immunity, and while the latter doesn’t make any difference to me, the former means that my flames have no effect on him...but the same can’t be said of the explosive force triggered upon impact against my Blaze Ignition!

I didn’t bother trying to dodge as he drove his left fist towards my side, his eyes widening as a powerful, fiery explosion erupted the instant his fist made contact, knocking his arm back as he winced in pain, before he let out an agonized gasp as I slammed my fist against his stomach, targeting the same spot I’d struck with my knee, triggering another fiery explosion, sending him flying back through the air.

He gritted his teeth as his feet hit the arena, before I shot towards him as he just barely managed to keep himself from falling.

As he stumbled back and keeled over with a wince of pain, he stiffened as I closed in and leapt towards him, forming spikes over my right knuckles with Negative Energy.

I drove my right fist towards his head as he shakily began to try and take aim with another wind arrow.

But he was too slow, my shadowy knuckle-spikes getting within a hair’s width of his forehead, before he got teleported out as the barrier triggered.

I let out a slow exhale as I deactivated Blaze Ignition, the glow around my body fading, before I strolled across the arena and hopped off, stretching my arms up.

"You weren’t even close to being at full power, but every one of your strikes hit like a truck, pretty sure my ribs are broken," Remarked Jin with a grimace, clutching the lower half of his ribcage.

"Oh, uh...sorry, my bad. Your arrows turned out to be more of a threat than I’d anticipated, so I attacked with more urgency that I’d planned," I replied with a sheepish smile.

"No need to apologize, injuries are to be expected in a scenario like this...on the bright side, at least I didn’t get as badly injured as the pair from the first match did," He sighed wistfully.

Yeah, that’s a fair point.