Nathaniel took out a small diamond watch from his pocket and signaled both of them to start.
Nathan immediately went for the hit as he knew mages and gunslingers both had a common weakness – the lack of defense. He also knew about Arnold’s summoning abilities, on the other hand Arnold didn’t had a clue about his abilities. Nathan was gonna win inevitably, the only thing left was to see whether Arnold would be able to survive for 10 minutes or not.
“Wait something is wrong…” Nathan suddenly stopped rushing towards his opponent.
Before Nathan realized what was going on, Arnold’s aura got completely changed and his powers increased at an insane rate. The thick and strong force covered his body, as if a demon had taken over Arnold’s body. At this moment, Nathan realised he didn’t actually know much about his opponent’s ability. It was as if somehow Arnold ‘evolved’ after his last battle against that thug.
“You think just because you’re a brawler you’ll easily win against me?” Arnold’s voice thundered inside the room, even Nathaniel was surprised a bit by the sudden increase of Arnold’s power.
Unknown to them, Arnold had just activated his new ability [BERSERKER’S RAGE] and instantly his attributes got a big boost. Arnold could feel the new power raging inside him. Without wasting anytime, Arnold started shooting at Nathan, but most of the bullets just bounced off him and he was unaffected by them.
“I don’t know how a mage like you acquired an ability that can only be used by brawlers like me but it wouldn’t save you. The moment I get close to you, you’ll lose.” Nathan was all smiles as he slowly progressed towards Arnold.
“You want to get close huh?” The corners of Arnold’s mouth rose, and the desire of battle appeared on his face. “How about this then?”
He activated [ RAPID FLASH ] and the next moment was standing right in front of Nathan, but before Nathan could do anything, countless bullets rained upon him, but these were no ordinary bullets… these were the magical bullets that Arnold had learnt to craft during his fight with Bob. Although Nathan wasn’t troubled by the bullets as the energy shield generated by his aura was more than sufficient to protect him, still whenever a bullet managed to ‘hit’ him, that part of his body immediately numbed.
Arnold focused on Nathan’s joints and continuously fired ice bullets on them, soon Nathan’s legs gave out and he fell over. Arnold wanted to use this momentum, and keep firing at him but before he could…
BAM!
Blood spurted out from his mouth, but Arnold endured the pain. He thought that Nathan’s legs gave out due to the numbing passive of the <Enchanted Ice> bullets, but actually Nathan willing stepped out so that he could deliver a punch to Arnold. Just one punch from Nathan managed to reduce Arnold’s health by 700 points.
“Tsk. I missed the mark.” Nathan shook his head. He wanted to hit Arnold on his chest but as he was under heavy fire, he missed his target.
You missed your target, broke through my plasma shield and still took so much of my health? What type of monster are you? Arnold thought.
“Can you get more serious now? Just bring out your summons already. I want to test their strength.” Nathan taunted Arnold.
“You want to fight my summons? Feel free to knock yourself out then.” Arnold wiped the blood of his mouth and summoned everyone out.
Nathan’s mouth twitched when he saw not only the number of golems around Arnold had increased but some reddish brown wolf like creatures were there as well! And that wasn’t all, including Arnold, now he had to face 14 opponents simultaneously!
While Nathan was still in shock, Arnold proceeded to use [ENHANCEMENT] on each and every summons of his. Thanks to his mystic stat, he could now summon up to 6 Frost Golems and 7 lava hounds. But the surprises didn’t end here, after the enhancement, 4 out of his 6 golems were now enhanced to rank B and Marshal was permanently enhanced to rank B+! 2 of his lava hounds were permanently enhanced to rank B as well. A second head popped out of the 2 permanently enhanced lava hounds and their stats went up significantly. Furthermore their passive changed and now when the enhanced lava hounds were destroyed they won’t split into 2 hounds but into 3 smaller hounds!
The results of his [ENHANCEMENT] skill were way better than he had expected. Before the fight Arnold knew he was going to be defeated, but now… if he play his cards right he might even win!
“Now, tell me how many of my summons do you want to fight at once? 2, 3, 5, 10 or do you want to fight with them all together?” Arnold smirked, Nathan wasn’t the only one who knew about the benefits of taunting his enemy. Arnold was well versed in this art as well!
“You… dare to mock ME!!!” Nathan shouted.
Just like it happened with Arnold, Nathan’s power levels were suddenly increased as he charged towards to golems surrounding Arnold.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
Mini shockwaves were generated whenever Duke’s and other golems punches connected with the punches thrown out by Nathan. Nathan was clearly at an disadvantage, because not only he was facing two B+ ranked summons who had not one but two sets of arms and wielded strong weapons, another bunch of golems and hounds randomly joined to hurt him again and again. The hounds were specially annoying. Nathan had managed to crush one of the hounds but rather than decreasing his workload, it further increased it, as 3 smaller hounds emerged from the broken bits of the hound he had destroyed so easily.
Arnold looked at the clock which was present at the far end of the hall. Only one minute was remaining for this test to end.
One minute remaining… Duke and the others should be be able to stall Nathan till then. Arnold nodded and lowered his guns, why waste his mana on making bullets when his summons had everything in control?