Elven Legacy

"Welcome everybody to the final and most anticipated day of the Noble Tournament! Today we have four quarter-final matches, two semi-final matches, and one final match, all to determine who is the strongest among the younger generation! Now, I know no one cares about anything I say and is just waiting for me to officially start today's tournament, so without further ado, let the first match of the day BEGIN!" Shouted the Announcer with incredible passion and excitement, causing the coliseum to erupt in cheers and yelling.

Once the Announcer disappeared from the arena, Alf and her opponent arrived shortly after; I don't know who her opponent is, but considering he made it this far, he must be pretty powerful, and he didn't disappoint my expectation.

This time Alf wasn't able to end the match with one attack like she's done previously, as the boy managed to escape just before the hammer landed on his head, though that didn't stop Alf from continuing to smash him with her hammer; however, the boy always managed to escape just in time, although he evades every attack, he hasn't once tried attacking.

Luckily he didn't stay passive for too long as when he saw a window to attack, he pulled out a dagger from his waist and headed straight toward Alf with speed even faster than he used when dodging, seemingly catching Alf off-guard slightly. When he got close, he stabbed his dagger aiming at the back of Alf's leg, though right before the attack connected, Alf's skin seemed to take on a slightly rough texture, and when the dagger connected to the back of her leg, it merely made a slight scratch.

'Hmm, must've been a defensive technique, and she seems pretty proficient in it as well; even I would find it somewhat difficult to bypass that defense,' Thought Elif as he did his best to observe the characteristics of the technique, such as looking for weak points, or even areas to avoid attacking.

The boy didn't seem surprised at how ineffective his attack was as he vanished from his spot, doing so just in time as the place he was previously at had been crushed by a hammer.

The fighting continued, with Alf constantly on the offensive but always being too slow to catch her opponent, while the boy would always evade Alf and try attacking her when he had a clear opening.

"At this point, it just comes down to either Alf getting exhausted or if her opponent makes a mistake, just one hit is all Alf needs to change to outcome of the fight." Commented Elif, looking over to the very alert Mandy standing beside him.

"Are you just going to stand there doing nothing, or what?" Asked Elif, feeling slightly bored as he usually appeases his boredom by conversing with Illumia.

"My apologies, Prince Elif, I was focused on guarding your safety." Answered Mandy with a bow before quickly returning to seriously guarding Elif.

Seeing how Mandy acted, I shook my head and ignored her before focusing back on the fight, which had just entered the peak, I would say, as Alf's opponent swapped out his dagger with another one, and this new dagger radiated its own killing intent.

'Illumia had said to acquire killing intent, you must reap a living beings life, and in order to increase your killing intent, you must continuously kill, though while she briefly mentioned it, she did say a weapon could acquire killing intent, it just required a vast amount of killing with that specific weapon.' Thought Elif, anticipating the day he would finally acquire his killing intent.

As the battle continued, you could see that his new dagger managed to bypass Alf's defensive technique since it would leave cuts all over her skin; however, it wasn't like Alf's defense was useless as none of the cuts were that deep, though if she does get cut enough times, she might bleed out.

Even though Alf is currently in a disadvantageous position, her facial expression doesn't show much worry, which leads me to believe that she has a plan; however, calling this a plan might be a bit far-fetched, in my opinion.

Alf, who had been mainly on the offensive, suddenly stopped attacking and just stood there, resting her hammer on her shoulder as she eyed her opponent in the distance.

It took me a second to figure out what Alf's plan was, but once I realized it, I didn't know how to feel about it, as the whole reason Alf stopped attacking is that she's too slow to react to her opponent when she's attacking, so now that she's just standing there eyeing her opponent, she'll be able to counterattack if he were to attack her. Though this would usually be ineffective; however, since her opponent is using an artifact, he needs to supply it with large amounts of his own Qi to keep it active, so the more prolonged the fight drags on, the worse the situation will become for him, especially considering the moment he stops supplying the artifact Qi, Alf will most likely start attacking again.

With his reaction, I'm willing to bet he also figured out her plan, and instead of deactivating the artifact, he starts supplying it with even more Qi until the dagger can no longer contain anymore. Alf, in the distance, responded by slammer her hammer on the ground beside her, and shortly after her rough-looking skin became even more jagged, with small thorns protruding off of her skin.

Before anyone could blink, the boy used his movement technique at his fastest speed yet; almost comparing to my top speed, and then an explosion erupted from Alf, and though the smoke covered them, with my divine sense, I could still see them.

'Alf won; I expected as much.' Thought Elif, with mild excitement as he looked at Alf's figure that stopped the boy's dagger with just her skin.

You could see the boy tightly grasping onto the dagger as he tried stabbing it right into Alf's chest, yet the blade barely even pierced a centimeter deep in her skin before it stopped moving altogether. The boy, now entirely exhausted of Qi, tried pulling his dagger back, but before he could, he was knocked unconscious from a swing of Alf's hammer slamming into him.

The moment Alf won, the audience started shouting Alf's name loudly in great excitement as she flew back toward the VIP area while some servants took the boy's unconscious body off the arena.

'That was quite a good fight, but Alf's defensive technique will be a pain to deal with, especially considering Hokori isn't meant for piercing.' Thought Elif as he prepared to do some quick image training before his match started.

Once the time for my match arrived, I stopped meditating and stood up while grabbing hold of Hokori and flew down to the arena, landing directly across from Starlet, who emitted a combination of confidence and seriousness.

"It's a pleasure to battle against you, Prince Elif; I hope you take this battle seriously." Said Starlet respectfully with a slight bow as she eyed Hokori, still sheathed.

"If you wish for me to unsheathe Hokori, then I suggest you force me to take this fight seriously." Replied Elif nonchalantly as he rested Hokori on his shoulder, though his words had irked Starlet.

Seeing Starlet's irritated face slightly amused me, but I didn't show it on my face, and although it sounded like I didn't take her seriously, I did, as Starlet was one of the few contestants who could genuinely harm me.

The moment the match started, Starlet performed her movement technique as she headed toward me while attacking me with several sword techniques, all of which were filled with sword intent, though it wasn't nearly as strong as my intent. Tightly gripping Hokori, I swung him down while launching a large Heavenly Scar that plowed through every single one of her attacks as it headed straight toward her. However, its power had been considerably weakened by then, allowing Starlet to destroy the attack quite easily.

When Starlet arrived near me, she swung her sword at my waist, to which I swiftly parried with Hokori before flashing away in the distance using the Elven Body Flicker while attacking her with a large purple palm. She launched a few attacks at my palm, intending to destroy it, but only a couple of cracks formed on the hand, so she tried swiftly evading it; however, unluckily for her, I could control its direction, so I had it follow her while she attempted to constantly avoid it.

She must've realized I could control it as she started heading back towards me, most likely trying to attack me, and unfortunately, I'm not proficient enough in the technique to be able to attack while also controlling it. Dissipating the large purple palm that followed her, I quickly brought down Hokori as I blocked a sword wave that Starlet struck me with before launching a Heavenly Scar back towards her while once again manifesting a large purple palm to attack her.

She evaded my sword wave, but because I manifested the purple palm behind her, both of my attacks collided, resulting in a large explosion, sending Starlet flying through the air before she managed to stop herself mid-air. However, she did receive some injuries, just nothing serious.

With a little chuckle, I began launching a bombard of small Heavenly Scars at Starlet, forcing her into a tough position, to which she could only block them since if she tried escaping, she'll get hit by one of my attacks. This continued for a short while before Starlet suddenly performed something new, which caused all of my attacks to get destroyed, much to my surprise.

'Now we're talking, finally getting interesting.' Thought Elif, as a smirk adorned his face while he prepared for the proper fight ahead.