Chapter 343: Broken Bamboo

———Karra———

<11: 34 am>

She stared at the sword that was snapped in half from all the abuse it had received throughout the fight. Broken in half and effectively not even a weapon in any real capacity anymore. It’s now more akin to a random branch of stick you found on the side of the road, or a rock.

“<Oh dear! Without a weapon to even the odds, what will Emmie do now?>” Rico spoke up as the audience grew loud with discussion. Funny how what she said is technically not wrong, but it sounds like a very sarcastic commentary.

*Throw* *Evade* *Crack* *Shatter*

She threw the broken sword at such high velocity it’s more comparable to a cannon shot, with Luik barely leaning away as to not get hit straight in the head. The moment it hit a wall it shattered into dozen pieces, no doubt spooking the people sitting close to it. The invisible barrier that shields us from the stray attacks means that it’s not really something we actually need to worry about.

*Crackle* *Rumble*

Emmie then began powering up, letting some energy leaked out that caused the sensation of the whole world shaking from the act. With the dishes and bowls remaining rather still, it’s clear that the actual effect is on the superficial side.

Of course, being able to influence everyone into feeling such sensation truly conveys the disparity in power between her and her opponents, and I’m certain what she has shown wasn’t even a fifth of her full strength. She has been really snowballing in terms of growth.

*Shine* *Blast* *Leap* *Boom*

The first thing she does after powering up is to launch a glowing ball of energy towards Luik, who jumps out of the way as she naturally wouldn’t confront the explosive projectile that she can’t be sure she can just tank head-on. The blast naturally hit the invisible wall and no doubt caused a small flash bang for anyone near the area of impact.

*Leap* *Swing* *Zip*

Emmie quickly jumps towards the rabbitgirl still in the air, and Luik with her limited options in the air could only swing her blade at the approaching girl in a blue dress, who quickly changes her trajectory and simply flies past it instead of directly into it.

*Swing* *Block* *Crash*

Emmie fly up right above Luik and swung her fist down on her, and the challenger could only manage to turn around to face the incoming fist and block it with her blade, but without the ability to pin herself there she was naturally thrown back down by the impact, barely managing to not land on her back but still dangerously close to breaking something on the way down.

*Blast* *Blast* *Blast* *Blast*

Staying in the air, Emmie began throwing around energy attacks, creating a rain of attacks that Luik can do nothing but to block or avoid.

*Dash* *Boom* *Leap* *Boom*

She chose to avoid the rain of projectiles, running around and avoiding getting directly hit by them or the resulting explosions.

Emmie then landed back down after enough time, placing herself on the other side of the arena she cornered Luik into.

*Dash* *Zip* *Swing* *Evade*

Emmie then ran towards Luik, closing the gap between them in less than five seconds despite the massive size of the arena and being on two opposing ends, appearing to the side of Luik before trying to deliver a right hook that she barely managed to avoid by leaning back just in time. She was already at the edge of the arena, so she didn't dare to make any huge leap that she might miscalculated and throw herself off the map. If Emmie didn’t close the distance between them so quickly she might’ve mapped out an escape plan that would’ve created distance between them instead of making her do an on-the-fly maneuver like that.

*Swing* *Duck*

This time a left hook meant to hit Luik who is close to being off-balance. She managed to shift her standing position and ducked down in time.

*Swing* *Evade*

She wouldn’t take this lying down so she quickly tried to retaliate. It naturally missed with how haphazardly she readied the attack while still being in an awkward position. Emmie simply took a few casual steps back to avoid it.

*Leap* *Dash*

It’s a small window of time, but she used that to quickly get out of dodge and ran away, first with a kick that launched her away with a big burst of speed at a low angle before landing back down and continuing to retreat, not aiming to stop moving.

*Dash* *Swing* *Evade* *Dash* *Swing* *Evade*

Emmie then followed and the two began running around the arena at high speed, trying to take pot shots at each other, running around with their fists and blade ready to hit.

Neither of them have taken a clean from the other, even in the first phase. Luik with her superior stamina and durability is no doubt barely winded even though the fight has lasted longer than the previous record of that cleric.

They are zipping around the arena and no doubt being a pain to observe for most audience members. Neither side is giving up ground or are content to stay still. Normally this would mean Luik will be the first to stop. Even if she still has a lot of energy to work with, she naturally can’t out-stall someone who has so much strength she could easily tear her into a hundred pieces with a single attack. I mean she wouldn’t be keeping up pace with Emmie in the first place, but that’s besides the point. Emmie could lower her damage output and speed to make it a fairer fight, but her mana pool is a different matter.

*Blast* *Blast* *Blast* *Blast*

Probably bored to the prolonged stalemate, Emmie began throwing out generic magic attacks again, covering more ground in the arena and making it harder for Luik to find an opportunity to close in for an attack.

*Dash* *Zip*

In a bold fashion however, she chose to run straight at Emmie despite all the spells being thrown around and Emmie continuing to move around and making the idea of quickly closing the gap between them an impossible task. There is no way Emmie wouldn’t take notice of the approach and act appropriately, as in peppering her with more magic attacks.

*Leap*

Luik then jumped towards her, avoiding the barrage of attacks that were launched with the aim of hitting her when she was grounded.

*Blast* *Slash*

Emmie threw out another magic attack, but Luik cut right through it and it became inert.

*Swing* *Block*

Luik swung down her blade and Emmie simply chose to block it with her two arms. The sharp blade hits the soft flesh yet it doesn’t even do so much as give her a mark. The gap between them is still too much for Luik to deal damage to her, at least not without whipping up that glass cannon strats, or maybe just swinging the sword a bit harder.

*Swing* *Block* *Swing* *Block* *Swing* *Block*

She still tries to attack Emmie to no avail. Just her arms alone will do the job at blocking the incoming sword swing, and if anything she doesn’t even need to stay defensive if that’s all she needed, she can just tanks it while Luik try to wails on her, but I guess it would look quite ridiculous and seems undignified to Luik.

*Leap*

Seeing that it’s not working and that Emmie would probably not entertain the idea of letting her hit her so many times, Luik wisely chose to distance herself from Emmie to think of another approach.

I can’t really say it to her at this point, but the fight has stalled out to almost ten minutes. While neither side were stalling per se, since the wasted time was from them actually moving around trying to hit each other, there was an actual struggle and not just them staring at each other for that long. Still, I fear that Emmie and the organizers won’t let this last for longer than that if the power gap between them is this large. They’ll probably see the idea of extending the match as not worth the time.

“<Looks like neither side is going to buckle soon!>” Rico suddenly commented as both sides were still assessing their next move. I guess they are nearly reaching the invisible time limit.

Luik quickly held her weapon to her shoulder, as if to signify aggression. It looks like that comment from Rico lets her figure out the conundrum she’s in. Regardless of how much she enjoys the fight or wanting to see how long she can test Emmie’s patience, the situation this fight is held under means she is running out of time that she can’t negotiate.

**Dash** *Block* *Evade* *Block* *Evade*

Her movement is more frantic and there is a lot more oomph in her strikes that Emmie can still easily tanked with nothing but her arms. While it seems to cause her to visibly flinch, no damage was done to her. Meanwhile, she can barely avoid all the fists coming her way, Emmie’s movement is very fast and smooth, making it hard for her to be sure about the fists’ trajectory and overshoot her dodging attempt, causing her to begin losing more ground and having less time to counter.

*Blast* *Evade*

Another energy blast from Emmie that Luik barely dodged by leaning to the side.

*Swing* *Blast* *Block*

Luik then retaliates with a sword beam that does connect, but like with other attacks it can only slow her down and not do any damage, and that’s being generous.

*Leap* *Shine*

Emmie suddenly jumps away to the edge of the map before quickly gathering mana and form a giant ball of energy.

*Launch* *Clash*

Thrown with speed that would make even the most advanced of aircraft green with envy, the giant projectile was sent towards Luik who has no time to dodge such a fast ball of destruction coming her back, forcing her to try to repel it with nothing but her sword and raw power.

*Slash* *Fizz*

She managed to overpowered the attack and cut it down, but by the time she does so, Emmie is already out of her view, causing her to briefly panic before noticing the elephant in the sky.

Emmie floats there with her right arm raised up and begins gathering energy.

*Shine* *Rumble*

The massive ball of energy forms into something that once again causes the sensation of rumbling akin to an earthquake. Before Luik could begin to interrupt the buildup of the spell, since she was distracted by the smaller attack just now, Emmie had more than enough time to conjure a much bigger attack.

A lot of people watching are quite anxious at the sight, but the people around me are relatively calmer, simply looking a bit surprised at the scale of the attack Emmie is already pulling out.

No one is saying anything for a while now, trying to not take away attention from the first serious fight in this event that is now coming to a close.

*Shine* *Swerng*

Instead of trying to attack Emmie now, Luik has chosen to stand her ground and erect a barrier around herself. The ball of energy is so massive that there is no room for her to avoid it.

*Throw* *CLASH*

Emmie throws down the giant bomb, and Luik intends on tanking it with the barrier and the energy ball clashing, pushing on each other as the world seems to shake and the sparks of light causing the match to become impossible to observe with just your eyes alone.

Wind blows wildly, and many people probably can’t even watch the fight with how bright it has gotten, and the struggle isn’t even over yet. Luik is still trying to push the attack back or at least try to tank it. I don’t know how well she can do against it. This is the one attack that could seriously harm Luik if it gets a clean hit on her.

One side will buckle, and that will ring the end of the fight. It’s been going on for almost an entire minute, the suspense is no doubt intense for those not used to seeing this kind of struggle.

*Crack* *Shine* *Crackle*

But soon enough, the equilibrium breaks.

*BOOM*