Adventures of the last Wild Dragon-Chapter 191: The Colosseum (9)

Luna stood opposite a dwarf in full plate, it polished surface reflecting the light, he hefted an axe in one hand and a shield almost as big as his body in the other. He was a walking tank that looked to focus almost entirely on defense, still his axe was particularly vicious looking with a singular sharp point on the back end.

"Let the fight begin!" Called the announcer as he started the fight. The dwarf stayed in place, wanting Luna to move towards him. She smiled wide happily accepting that challenge. She did not dash forwards like normal, instead she slowly advanced, focusing on her illusory dash skill.

Luna had been steadily improving this skill as she became more familiar with it. Initially she could only summon a single illusion, now she could summon 2. But the fact remained that she had to dash to utilise the illusion aspect of the skill.

Normally this would not be an issue as she tended to be fast moving, but she wanted to delve deeper into the illusion aspect. She felt like it had a great synergy with her Arctic powers. Luna focused on forming her illusions, picturing the details she wanted to display.

Her form blurred momentarily before it split into 4, each ’Luna’ steadily advanced, splitting up to slowly surround the armoured dwarf.

Yet Luna was not yet satisfied with this small improvement, she wanted the illusions to be real, to be able to actually interact with the world and, more importantly be able to directly attack her opponents.

How could she do this, well naturally her first thought resolved around her natural affinity, that of the cold, ice and the arctic. So she tried to freeze the illusions.

She manefested her Arctic domain, frost spreading out around her. Yet it only spread around her real body, so so focused projecting her presence to envelop her illusions and to manifest her nascent domain around each of her copies.

Slowly frost began to spread around them too, each of their steps leaving behind a trail of frozen sand. With the first step completed she then moved to the next step, freezing the illusions themselves. This, it turned out, was quite the challenging endeavour.

Trying to freeze a literal illusions was something that shouldn’t be possible, yet Luna had managed to freeze the concept of time before, so why couldn’t she freeze an illusion? After all this was magic, nearly everything was possible with magic if one simply tried hard enough, or at least she had come to believe that after spending so long with Violet.

Slowly her illusions began to crystallise, their footfalls left an actual impression on the frozen ground below them, most seeped off them as the frozen air around them encountered the warmth of the rest of the arena.

Luna was pushing her mind to its limit as she pushed her skills to do as she demanded of them. It was a daunting task, one that she probably should not be attempting in an actual combat situation, yet her foe was seemingly content to await her arrival.

Then, like a switch being flipped everything suddenly fell into place all at once. She suddenly and instinctively knew that her illusions were no longer truly intangible, they were not fully solid either however, instead it was more like they could become solid at will. Luna would no longer have to utilise her ice spears to mimic the attacks of her illusions.

Sensing this Luna smiled wide as she steadily advanced towards her foe. The dwarf seemed to have sensed that something had changed as he no longer looked quite as relaxed as he did previously, his posture now one of focus.

Then once Luna was within 3 meters of her armoured opponent all 4 versions of her dashed forward. Swords made of ice crystallised into her hands in an instant, all 4 versions of her striking out at the same time.

The dwarf was not about to just let himself be attacked from all sides and opted to charge forwards at the Luna in front of him, his shield arced forwards deflecting the blow from his front and left side. His axe swinging low to impact the legs of the Luna to his right before impacting the version in front of him.

Saddly for the dwarf both of those versions were illusions, so his axe harmlessly sailed through both legs and torso to no effect. He grunted in surprise, before grunting in shock when those same illusions weapons impacted his armour, the attacks did not deal much damage to him yet he was still shocked that illusions were able to actually attack him.

That was when the real Luna, the one that was behind him struck, her attack landed with considerably more impact, she was still unable to pierce the armour but it still unbalanced him enough for her illusions to land another blow. This time they dealt slightly more damage than before, leaving small mics in his armour.

Then Luna had a realisation, her illusions counted as attacks, thus her chain strike skill activated, increasing the damage of each consecutive attack. Her smile widened at this realisation, whilst her illusions clearly did less damage than she could, with enough stacks built up... they could truly match her in offensive output!

Thus began her testing. Her onslaught was relentless, never allowing the dwarf time to fully set his stance, recover from the last attack or even get off any meaningful counters.

Sure he occasionally swung his axe through one of the illusions, but that meant nothing and did not hinder them from attacking back. Well Luna did note one limitation, if one part of the illusions was forced to become incorporeal, then the whole thing was forced to be so.

This meant that the illusions could only either attack or ’defend’ at any given time. It was a limitation yes, but not enough of one to truly impact their effectiveness in combat.

Luna used no other skill for the remainder of the fight, relying solely on her illusions and chain strikes. Each consecutive attack from either herself or her illusions dealing more and more damage.

The dwarf was trying his best to respond to the seemingly endless attacks, yet their perfect coordination made his attempts meaningless. What could one man do against 4 foes when each one of them was more skilled than himself? The answer was simple, nothing.

He managed to hold out for a surprisingly long amount of time. Whilst he may not have been as skilled as Luna, his pride as a defensive specialist still shone. He took more punishment than most could, his shield work was truly impressive, nearly always in the right place at the right time. Yet it was not enough.

And soon enough he could hold out no longer. Luna slipped under a reckless swing from his axe, slipping inside of his guard and bringing her sword up in an arc that would remove his head from his shoulders. Or at least it would have if the golden glow did not envelop him at that moment, halting her deadly blow before tellopirting him out of the arena.

The crowd erruoted in cheers at the display of martial prowes, Luna stood there basking in the victory as she read the new system message she received after the fight.

[You have leveled up]

[New skill unlocked - Crystalised Illusion lvl 1]