Chapter 89: Quarterstaff Fighting
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Seeing how the red Magi-breaker was rushing tpwards him in a murderous manner, Baiyi quickly lifted up his hand and said, "Er... E-Excuse me! Please wait a moment!"
Gracefully, the Magi-breaker came to a halt as well. Curious, he asked, "Yeah? Are you going to surrender now?"
"Oh, no, no, no. That's not what I meant," Baiyo shook his head, "I just did not expect you to be so powerful. Not to mention the addition of your armor that was fully forged by anti-magic metal. As you can see, I'm not prepared at all for this duel. Look, don't you think there's something that is lacking with me?" Baiyi lifted up both of his hand and turned his palms up, signalling his lack of weapon.
"I got it!" The Magi-breaker nodded his head and took the initiative to turn his head towards the referee by the side of the ring, "It looks like Master Hope is going to show us some moves with a magical staff now. Can you get one for him please?"
"It'd be better if you could get one that is hardy," Baiyi added.
There was no reason for the referee to refuse such a request so he rummaged through his storage pouch and took out a magical staff before throwing it in Baiyi's direction. With a quick movement, Baiyi took hold of it and after he inspected it, he could see that it was a fairly refined wooden staff that was overcast with a thin layer of copper. It was probably a staff that was usually used by the students during practice.
He casually waved the staff around to test it out. After getting used to the feeling of the staff in his hands, he nodded towards the Magi-breaker and the referee, "Alright, let's resume the match!"
The interrupted match once again started. Using the new staff, Baiyi engaged in a close range melee combat with the Magi-breaker and with the help of his vast experience as well as a variety of magical effects and some spells that he cast from time to time to block the Magi-breaker's view, he finally managed to extricate himself from the situation that he was in and struck a tie with his opponent.
Seeing such superb performance, President Rhansey could not help but exclaimed loudly, "This would be the last resort for a sorcerer when faced with a Magi-breaker. A direct physical melee combat with the Magi-breaker! Of course, this is not a really good solution, so unless you have absolutely no other choice, I suggest that all of you never ever use this tactic!"
In a second, an argumentative discussion broke out in the arena. The Magi-breaker was somebody who excelled in close combat and its unique Mana-break Chi prowess was an extremely virulent existent towards a sorcerer. If one accidentally hurt himself and allowed the Mana-break Chi prowess to enter his own body, it would cause a huge havoc and disorder in the body of the sorcerer, in which the chaos of the Mana would eventually crush his body into pieces. That was why having a close combat battle with a Magi-breaker was no different than a suicide attempt.
A Soul Armature was no exception. Even though he would not directly face death as he was already dead but a Soul Armature who had lost all of the Mana in his body would be nothing but an empty useless armor.
"S-Sis Tisdale? What should we do? Mr. Hope seems to be in a life-threatening situation right now!" Mia who was watching the entire ordeal by the side was already close to tears. Panicked, she grabbed on to Tisdale's clothes and asked worriedly.
Tisdale was not feeling any better than her. With her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest as if she was praying, she was so anxious that she could not even utter a word. After hearing Mia's question, she finally stuttered, "H-He should be doing just... f-fine! T-Teacher is very strong... That's r-right! He's strong! He w-will be alright... I-I guess?"
As a result of her anxiety, her words were somewhat incoherent. Even if she did have strong faith in Baiyi's power, faced with such an unusual opponent, her faith could not help but falter slightly. It was far more dangerous than battling with a normal Fighter!
Baiyi had no idea that the two girls were biting their nails and were worried sick about him while he continued to get entangled with the Magi-breaker but if one looked closely, there was actually no sweat on him at all. It was partly due to his faith in his own strength as he knew the Magi-breaker would not be able to touch him at all; at the same time, even if his opponent did manage to inject his Chi prowess into his body, there was absolutely no way for the miniscule amount of Chi to threaten his true Void power nor was it able to disperse his soul from the armor. That was why he was feeling totally at ease engaging in close combat with the Magi-breaker.
The more he relaxed, the more agile his movements and skills were. The two of them were locked in combat for quite some time. No matter how flowery or non-flowery the movements that the Magi-breakers used on him, none of them were able to penetrate Baiyi's armor. As a matter of fact, he was dying to blast another round of Chi Fury but Baiyi was so fast that he could not keep up with his speed at all. Not only that, there was also the obvious gap between their strength.
After all, Baiyi had already cast all sorts of boosts on himself beforehand and in his current state, he could even defeat the Fighter from the Dole family so what was there for him to be afraid of in front of that guy? The Magi-breaker could not even come close to even one strand of his hair, let alone injecting the Mana-break Chi prowess into his body. Baiyi was the one with the upperhand now, with a few beatings here and a few blows there, dents had began to show up on the weaker parts of the anti-magic armor.
"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! Looks like I would have to eat my own words now! I certainly did not expect Master Hope to have such a profound skills in quarterstaff fighting! It's amazing that he could actually turn the situation around!" President Rhansey continued to chatter in excitement, "Speaking of quarterstaff fighting, let me tell you about the history of melee combat skill. In truth, this skill had long existed since thousand and thousand of years ago in our world. At that time, this skill was a compulsory technique that all sorcerer would learn. Unlike now where it is regarded only as an optional fitness class, the quarterstaff fighting was a true melee combat skill!"
"In ancient time, the number of spells were not as many as what we have right now. Adding on to the unwillingness of ancient sorcerers in sharing spells, the number of spells that a sorcerer learnt in his whole life was very little. When they were faced with problems that could not be solved by magic, they would choose to use quarterstaff fighting to settle them. But now, with the popularization of the Magical Runes, along with the protection and promotion of the Sorcerers' Association towards patented spells, every sorcerer is able to learn all sorts of different magic, enough for them to deal with any unforeseen cirsumstances. This is the main reason why quarterstaff fighting slowly declined in popularity."
"Today, at this moment, Master Hope has once again showed us the subtlety of the quarterstaff fighting. Whether it would be practical or not in our lives, let us give a round of applause for the wisdom of this predecessor!" President Rhansey announced as he started to put his hands together for an applause. Soon, the whole arena was filled with cheers.
"Oh, look how popular you are, Master Hope! I'm a bit jealous now!" The red Soul Armature whispered in Baiyi's ears as he dodged another attack from Baiyi.
"This applause is meant for the both of us!" Baiyi replied humbly, at the same time, lifting up his staff to block the heavy blow that was directed towards him. Because the staff happened to land on the tip of the sword, where it was the thinnest and lightest, the ordinary wooden staff was not sliced into two by the sharp-looking sword.
"Alright, time for me to surrender now!" Baiyi said. In truth, he did not hate that poised opponent of his at all and since the match was just a demonstration for the students, he did not mind risking his image by surrendering as he felt there was no need for them to continue battling it out anymore.
To his disbelief, the Magi-breaker who kept persuading him to surrender just now suddenly changed his stance and said, "No! No! No! You can't surrender now!" Leaping a few steps backward, he opened up the distance between the two of them before he continued, "Master Hope, you've demonstrated to everybody your innate capability and combat level. From magic, combat skills, even your experience and skills of your quarterstaff fighting, everything is no doubt exceptional! Therefore, allow me to apologize to you in advance!" He then proceeded to bow towards Baiyi.
"From the very beginning, I've underestimated your strength and even repeatedly told you rudely to surrender... But after seeing your real power, I must show my ultimate deathblow!" With that, he put his hand on top of his sword and started to stroke the smooth surface from the hilt to the tip of the sword. Following his touch, the area that was touched by his fingers gradually began to be enveloped by his fiery red Mana-break Chi prowess.
"Ah, you're gonna use the Northlander's Elemental Sword Skill?" That was the exact same skill that Baiyi used during his battle with Undine last time. I didn't expect you to know this skill, too!
"It's more than that actually! This is the ultimate technique that I've created myself! I've only used it once in my past life to kill a Holy Level sorcerer but you don't have to worry, Master Hope. Please rest assured that I'll have mercy on you. Showing you my ultimate technique is my most earnest respect to you!" The Magi-breaker announced seriously.
Baiyi's heart became alert at once. The Magi-breaker was clearly much more powerful than other ordinary Magi-breakers and sorcerers. Be it the Chi Fury or the secret technique that he was about to demonstrate, it had proven that his innate capability in his past life was not restrained to Master Level like other Magi-breakers otherwise he would not be able to become a Soul Armature in the first place.
Faced with his serious countenance, a gush of heroic spirit rushed out from Baiyi's heart and enveloped his whole being. There and then, he decided to give up the thought of surrendering and stood up straight boldly before he drawled, "As you wish."
"Watch out!" The Magi-breaker shouted before disappearing into thin air all of a sudden.
"It's the Dance of the Shadow!" The Assassin who had been watching the whole episode from the very beginning quickly uttered a warning. Before she could speak any further, Baiyi's body had already reacted accordingly. Fiercely shifting his body sideways, he managed to dodge a knife that was coming from the side. In a flash, he turned his body around again, lifting his wooden staff up to block the next sneak attack from his opponent that was aimed at his back.
Soon after, a series of attacks were directed towards Baiyi from all angles, with every swing aiming at the angle that was most unpredictable.
Be that as it may, Baiyi was able to block every single hit from the Magi-breaker and although the wooden staff was already scarred and disfigured from his attacks, there was not even once that Baiyi was hit by him.
"Ah... I see that it's a lousy version of the Dance of the Shadow. Looks like he did not complete his whole training! He probably has betrayed the Shadow before he managed to learn the whole technique," the Assassin commented in the Void, "Well, with his level, I don't think he would be able to harm Sir Hope anyway!"
No, it's not as simple as you think... Baiyi replied while making another backflip to dodge the attack, Just take a closer look at my surrounding...
It turned out that every time the Magi-breaker's attacks appeared to be blocked, a wisp of thin threads that was invisible to naked eyes was laid and arranged at places that were not obvious. Those were Chi threads that were pulled to become very thin and refined and was arranged to become a big array of nets that had Baiyi wrapped tightly in it.
"Ah I see... Well, in that case, the technique seems to be quite interesting!" The Assassin changed her mind immediately, "If this was just ordinary Chi thread then it's basically useless to you as it is just too weak! But, if this is Mana-break Chi prowess, well, things could turn out very differently!"