Chapter 347: Draven VS Adrian II

Draven was forced to stop his charge mid-swing. He brought his free hand up to his face and felt a sharp stinging sensation in two different places. The four wooden rings had hit exactly two spots twice each in a fraction of a second.

He pulled his hand back down and looked at the blood smeared across his fingers.

He looked up at Adrian with an expression of genuine surprise.

"You," Draven breathed out.

Adrian didn’t wait for him to finish. He raised his staff and dashed forward to close the gap himself.

He swung the wooden pole directly at Draven’s head.

Draven didn’t even dodge. He just raised his bare hand and blocked the staff with his palm. He grabbed the staff with his strong grip and violently swung his arm to the side.

Adrian refused to let go of his weapon.

He went flying through the air along with the staff. Draven was literally swinging him around like a ragdoll stuck to the end of a stick.

"Whoooooooa!" Adrian yelled as his feet left the ground.

Not even two seconds later, Draven ripped the staff out of his hands completely. Adrian was forced to release his grip and went flying backward. He twisted his body in the air and managed to land on his feet, skidding across the dirt for a few meters before he caught his balance.

He immediately dug his heels in and dashed right back toward the warlord.

Draven tossed the wooden staff to the side like it was garbage and charged forward to meet him.

But their speed wasn’t equal at all.

Draven crossed the distance and appeared directly in front of Adrian before Adrian could even react properly. The marquis had his arm pulled back in a punching position, but he didn’t actually throw a punch.

Instead, he just stepped forward and rammed his massive bicep directly into Adrian’s face.

The sheer force of the blow was absurd.

Draven skidded to a halt a few meters away while Adrian was launched backward. He spun in the air completely upside down before crashing hard into the ground.

Adrian scrambled to turn around the second his back hit the ground.

He looked up and saw Draven already high up in the air. The man had his wooden axe raised high over his head and was coming down like a meteor aimed right at the spot Adrian was laying in.

Adrian didn’t panic. He just pointed his finger at the warlord.

The wooden staff that had been tossed a few meters away instantly shot off the ground and flew directly at Draven’s head.

Draven was forced to swat the flying staff away mid-air as he came down. It was a simple distraction, but it was more than enough. It gave Adrian the tiny fraction of a second he needed to roll out of the way before the axe smashed into the dirt where his head had just been.

Adrian immediately cast Gust.

A blast of wind exploded from his position and shoved him backward to create some much-needed distance.

The fight just dragged on from there.

Adrian used whatever tiny openings he could find to leave a little bit of damage on Draven. He controlled the chakrams from a distance while engaging in close-quarters combat with the staff. Every single hit Draven landed on him was a massive, bone-rattling blow, but Adrian just tanked them all.

Claire stood on the sidelines watching the fight.

Anxiety pooled in her stomach the longer the spar dragged on.

She knew exactly what Adrian was capable of. He hadn’t used any of the newer spells he had created. He wasn’t using the mana strands infused with lightning. He wasn’t using the frost energy strands, and he also wasn’t using the overpowered beam of pure plasma that he had used to put a hole in the enemy general not too long ago.

It just confused her. Why wasn’t he using his strongest weapons?

She just couldn’t figure it out.

But Adrian had his own reasons for holding back. He just wanted to test out his limits against a real powerhouse without relying on his most destructive magic. He wanted to see how much of a beating he could take while testing his reaction speed and a few other minor things.

So he just continued getting beaten up.

He took heavy blow after heavy blow while leaving tiny bits of damage on Draven whenever he slipped past his guard.

The fight lasted for almost an entire hour.

Finally, Adrian raised his hand and waved it in the air to give up before he collapsed backward onto the ground.

Draven dropped his wooden axe onto the ground and stood there panting heavily.

The two of them just stared at each other from across the plain field while sucking in lungfuls of air.

It was extremely clear that both of them had sustained a lot of damage. Well, Adrian had definitely taken the brunt of it.

Draven had dozens of cuts all over his body. There had to be at least twenty or thirty different bleeding wounds on his arms, chest, and face. Most of them were very shallow, and a few were slightly deep. But luckily, none of them were deep enough to cut through any major arteries or veins.

It was almost like Adrian had intentionally aimed for the spots that weren’t actually lethal.

Adrian just laid on the ground staring up at the sky.

Claire immediately rushed over to him. She dropped to her knees in the dirt and carefully supported the back of his head with her hand.

Adrian looked up at her and gave her a weird, goofy smile.

His face was completely bruised. His left eye was swelling shut and his cheek was covered in dirt and blood. He looked just as bad as he did back when he got jumped by those high elf mages.

He took a deep breath and tried to exhale. Blood immediately sputtered out of his nostrils and he started coughing harshly.

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