Chapter 587: Individual Tournament 13

Kicked Bucket collided with Boyd, which was what he had expected to happen since the fellow hadn't jumped. Inwardly, he smirked as he had gotten a good hit in and was about to say something when his face changed. 

The Battle Bearer noticed that instead of continuing forward, he was stuck in place as Boyd's axes continually ground against his shield and prevented him from moving forward. Kicked Bucket's face was filled with horror even as Boyd smirked within his spinning animation. 

Ha, what a joke! 

Just as Kicked Bucket knew about Boyd's skill, the same held true for the Maverick who had worked alongside him and Uno in many raids. The moment Boyd had begun this skill, he had already predicted what would happen next. 

He had duped Kicked Bucket through his actions, misleading the fellow into getting the erroneous idea that his Ultra Colossus skill could be interrupted! 

If a 12-minute skill could be so easily interrupted, then who would bother using it? How could it be called a Legendary Class skill then? 

Boyd had given Kicked Bucket the idea that his skill could be interrupted by the fact that he leapt over the Holy Light Wave, which was actually unnecessary. 

Ultra Colossus was a powerful skill, but it had many weaknesses. The range was one and its speed was another. It could only work on someone within touching distance of Boyd and on a wide battlefield, anyone sufficiently fast enough could run around to avoid it. 

In this limited arena, such opportunity was less, but not impossible for certain core members. As such, the one thing Boyd needed was to get Kicked Bucket himself to run over and lay down his dog life. 

How best to do that other than to make him feel he could abuse his only invincible skill to disrupt Boyd? Now that he was in the clutches of one of the Five Generals, his death was certain. Once caught in the whirlwind of Ultra Colossus, you would be treated as stunned and would suffer the hits until you either died or Boyd's skill elapsed. 

That was how it was balanced. Relatively easy to avoid, but once caught, it was KO. 

Kicked Bucket got to experience the lovely feeling of being tossed into a meat grinder and being shredded to pieces right after his skill's duration elapsed and he lost his invincibility. 

His high Defense didn't help him, rather it became a hindrance as extended the time he suffered the tearing pain until he was turned into slabs of meat on the ground. 

Many in the crowd directly threw up or had eyes that showed they had just seen something traumatizing. The core members by the side grimaced and felt sympathy on Kicked Bucket's behalf. 

As for Uno, he simply sighed and shook his head. His protégé had actually dared to challenge someone who even the Vanguard would have trouble going against. Trying to actually one-up Boyd meant that he had thought he could have one-upped his master. 

As such, his end should serve as a good wake-up call, because Uno himself would not be nearly as merciful as Boyd. 

Boyd jumped down the stage with his axes slung over his shoulders and his body covered with blood, a wide grin on his face. The Africans in the crowd cheered and venerated his look while Shani had to clamp her legs as she felt heat in her lower abdomen. 

So handsome! 

Kicked Bucket was revived, and his expression was locked in a grimace of horror. He shivered and fell to his bum, but no one mocked him. That experience was something no one could beat their chest and say they would get up from afterward. 

Fourteenth match winner: Eye Patch (Boyd)! 

15th Match: Killer Queen vs Gentle Light! 

On the left, Keira jumped onto the stage and caused a small crater where she landed. She breathed out lightly and crouched, stretching her knees out and tapping her thighs then her calves to loosen them up. 

Keira was a tall female at 6"1 with lightly tanned skin. Her eyes were shaped like flattened trapezoids and her brows were narrow as well as sharp. She looked very dangerous and violent, and her hazel eyes only buttressed that. 

Her red hair was tied into a warrior's ponytail, her attractive face was symmetrically oval-shaped and her figure extremely fit. She had slightly thick lips that were dark red, contrasting her skin color. 

Keira had a C-cup chest and a smooth B+ grade booty that was invigorating to see, especially in her battle attire. 

This warrior woman wore a red gym bra that hid her cleavage fine, but left her 6-pack abs on display. Her thick legs were bound that skin-tight black leggings which highlighted the contours of her butt down to her ankles in detail. 

She wore black battle boots that were ridged with spikes, and had a pair of gauntlets on each arm that was compact and deadly. 

In contrast to her, Lucia came up from the right side of the stage gracefully and demurely, looking like a traditional princess lost in the modern-day. 

She was a lovely 5"8 woman with soft features, easily looking like someone from high society. She had short blond hair and expressive blue eyes; a famous combination of nobility due to eugenics. 

Lucia had a gentle and warm smile that lifted up the hearts of all onlookers. Her skin was extremely healthy and creamy like Eva's, and she also possessed red lips. 

She had a bust that was at least an E-cup, a size that was only just below monsters like Loving Aunt and Sublime Notion. Her backside was a little more modest at C+ grade, and that was mostly because it was shaped well, not because of the size. 

She wore a holy set of white robes that had the cardinal cross, as well as a golden staff that shone with divine splendor. 

Looking at these two beauties of different styles facing each other, many eyes moved over to Silent Walker and Intellectual Monkey. After all, it was no secret that these two were affiliated with them romantically, and the fellows smirked knowingly too. 

Amber then called for the match to begin and the two women got into the fight. Lucia had little offensive capabilities as she was mostly a support class, but nothing stopped her from casting her support abilities on herself, right? 

She slammed the buff of her staff down and cast ordinance upon herself! 

｢Ordinance – Active skill 

Effect: Bless an ally with the divine ordinance, allowing them to increase their damage, defense by 150%, attack and movement speed by 30%, and 2-second invulnerability. 

Duration: 5 minutes 

Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣ 

After buffing herself, Lucia smiled plaintively and then cast another skill. 

｢Shield of Light – Active skill 

Effect: Grant an ally a shield of Light Energy that repels 30% of all physical and magical damage, and can be spread to up to 5 allies with the percentage of protection reduced accordingly. 

Duration: 10 minutes 

Cooldown: 2 minutes.｣ 

With this, Lucia had become almost 3 times harder to kill and even an offensive fighter like Keira would have a tough time beating her shell open. However, this was not Lucia's limit, nor was it for a support class at the Legendary Rank. 

Lucia had two special passives that enhanced her defenses even more, making her practically a turtle in this battle. 

｢Light's Ward – Passive skill 

Effect: You, the Divine Bishop, are an important facet of holiness on the land. As such, you have a natural divine barrier around you that repels 70% of all damage types, regardless of source.｣ 

｢Light's Flow – Passive skill 

Effect: As the one blessed by the divinities to lead the land, you have an incomparable closeness to the element of Light. All light-based skills and techniques are boosted by 120%.｣ 

With Light's Ward especially, the amount of damage one could deal to Lucia was reduced by 2/3rds, and whether that amount could even shatter her defensive barriers was up in the air. 

Keira had rushed over as quickly as she could but she couldn't beat the cast time of the two skills, and so her fist collided with the barrier surrounding Lucia, making the entire arena quake. 

However, the woman beneath simply remained smiling as she took less than a hundred points of damage after everything was calculated up, and that was a mere dent in her current HP. 

Keira gritted her teeth, then grinned malevolently. She of all people knew how Lucia fought, as they were both members of the Three Pinnacles. Lucia would watch you break your sword on her defense and then tire you out before hanging you to dry. 

Keira knew this, but she still smiled crazily. After all, such a target was perfect for her to unleash all her pent-up dissatisfaction from fighting foes that were too weak to even take a single hit from her! 

Keira was usually very cold and heartless when in battle mode, which got her the moniker Killer Queen, but she was feeling a fire burn up in her as she was facing a friend on a - somewhat - friendly stage. 

She took her fist back and glared at Lucia who was still calmly smiling while wrapped in her endless layers of defenses. In fact, the woman began using cleric spells on herself while Keira was gazing at her, adding more and more barriers that could last more than 2 minutes even if their protection amount was low due to balancing. 

"Hmph, it seems you think you can weather my attacks, huh Lucia? Well, let me show you the power of my fists!" Keira declared as she bashed her knuckles together, creating a reddish aura around her arms. 

｢Pugilist - Legendary Class (Rank 3) 

Skills: Fighting Will (Passive), Battle Body (Passive), Fists of Fury (Active), Palm of Wenjie (Active), Dragon's Barrage (Active), Flurry of Kicks (Active), Aura Protection (Passive), Aura Manipulation (Passive). 

Starting Stats: Str 60, Dex 30, End 30, Int 10, Spr 10, Cha 10, Lck 10 

Exp gain rate: 100% 

Rank up difficulty: 75% 

Class weapons: Any unarmed. 

Class skills: Any Fighter, Unarmed, Aura.｣ 

｢Fighting Will – Passive skill 

Effect: You are a fighter who never breaks nor bends when the battle calls. Your unarmed attacks are enhanced by 30% and your movement and attack speed are increased by 50%.｣ 

｢Battle Body – Passive skill 

Effect: As a Pugilist that has trained to become the ultimate fighter, you have achieved the Battle Body physique. Your Strength is increased by 500%, you possess 100% more Stamina and your attacks possess the Tremor effect, which is potent at cracking shields of all kinds.｣ 

｢Fists of Fury – Active skill 

Effect: Channel your rage into your punches, unleashing a set of blows that are unending and full of white-hot fury coming straight from your heart! Each attack deals 10% unarmed damage and you possess invincibility for the duration of the skill. 

Duration: 30 seconds 

Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣ 

｢Palm of Wenjie – Active skill 

Effect: Condense the aura of martial mastery into your arm, unleashing a potent palm attack that executes a chosen enemy. 

Note 1: Enemy must possess less than 3% HP. 

Note: Only works on enemies at your Rank or below. 

Cooldown: Once per enemy.｣ 

｢Dragon's Barrage – Active skill 

Effect: Channel aura into yourself. Your attacks lose all the benefits of your class passives or any modifiers, instead they possess their own modifiers that have no cap and increases with each hit. 

Note 1: Attack speed is set to your default without any modifiers. 

Note 2: A combo counter will appear above the user showing their number of cumulative attacks and the current damage modifier boost. 

Note 3: The user and the target cannot move while the skill is active. 

Duration: 1 minute. 

Cooldown: 30 minutes.｣ 

｢Flurry of Kicks – Active skill 

Effect: Charge into battle with your legs outstretched, dishing out a barrage of kicks that possess 40% of your unarmed damage with each strike. 

Duration: 15 seconds 

Cooldown: 15 minutes.｣ 

｢Aura Protection – Passive skill 

Effect: You have gained some mastery over the Legendary Aura. It now forms a shield around your skin, protecting you from 20% of all received damage and cannot be dispelled.｣ 

｢Aura Manipulation – Passive skill 

Effect: You've gained some mastery over the Legendary Aura. It now forms a mass that you can bend to your will in order to strengthen your attacks, but comes at the steep cost of Focus and Stamina.｣ 

Keira showed a crazy look as she breathed in and threw out a single punch. She had activated the Dragon's Barrage skill, which was one she had never used outside of training before because it was impractical for any battlefield with its stringent rules and weaknesses. 

Her punch seemed slow. To the eyes of the audience and even the core members, it appeared as if it was a turtle's movement speed, but the truth of the matter was that Keira was moving at normal human speeds. 

The crowd and everyone else had just grown used to the insane speeds of the rest of Umbra's members and had taken that to be the norm, yet even the weakest member of Umbra was far beyond a superhuman. 

Keira had bent her knees and stretched them out on either side. Her current posture was like a martial arts student learning how to center their gravity and maximize the power of their punches. 

Keira's first punch connected and showed a damage number of 1, which was the minimum. A combo counter then appeared above her head which showed that she had reached 1 hit and her modifier was currently set at x1. 

She then released another punch which was just as slow, but the numbers on both sides changed to 2 and 1.1x. Keira made a third punch, which was marginally faster than before, but one would need fine senses to notice it. 

Her second punch also did 1 point of damage, but her third one did 3 points of damage. She then released a fourth punch which was noticeably faster than her first two and the counter changed to 4 hits and a modifier of 1.3x. 

Her damage increased to 5 points, and she didn't stop. With each punch, her hit counter increased and so too did her modifier. When it hit x2, her punches were twice as fast as the first ones and her damage also much higher. 

Keira's attacks kept picking up speed and her focused expression showed how invested she was into this attack. Lucia who was behind the protection began to frown ever so slightly, but still remained calm. 

She simply cast a healing auto-attack on herself, which canceled out all the damage Keira had done so far. Normally, healing auto-attacks did very little in the grand scheme of thing, and even with a Legendary Class, Lucia wouldn't rely on such a thing. 

However, her class was impeccable in this regard, and she had two passives that made her current gambit seem even more overpowered and invincible. 

｢Divine Word – Passive skill 

Effect: The Blessing of the Divinities had been spoken unto you. All healing skills and techniques are boosted by 250%.｣ 

｢Aura of Recovery – Passive skill 

Effect: An area of 5 kilometers around your body will automatically recover 5% of all allies' health every 30 seconds, and fully restore health, mana, and stamina every 5 minutes they remain alive and within range.｣ 

With Divine Word, her healing prowess was much greater and was enough to turn even the trashiest cleric healing skills into top-tier ones for the same cost and cooldown! 

Aura of Recovery was more of a long-term thing, but its 30-second recovery could come in handy against Keira's onslaught. Lucia planned to outlast the woman as her offensive capabilities were average, so her next move was simple. 

Heal, heal, and more heal! The Holy Bishop kept healing herself to prevent death until Keira wasted all her skills and Stamina, then she would attack her to break the stalemate or even bring the match to a forced draw! 

Lucia couldn't help but smile and regain her confidence when thinking this. Even though Keira's attacks became far more ferocious as she built up steam, it was still not enough to break Lucia's shields and natural defenses. 

Every punch of Keira's now created an illusory image behind her, one of an Asian dragon that was coiled around her body. She had reached 25 hits and a modifier of 3.4x, her counter rising and rising as she picked up speed like a torrent. 

Now, her fists left shadows and cracks on the arena as she layered more and more on. Lucia who was on the receiving end and unable to move away began to sweat slightly as she healed profusely, trying to overcome the increasingly dangerous amount of damage Keira was dealing. 

By the time 30 seconds passed and Keira had reached 139 hits, her modifier had reached 14.8x and was still rising. Her raw damage was now at a whopping 2 million per hit. 

After Lucia's 70% resistance which brought it down to 600,000 and her Shield of Light reduced it by 30% which meant it was now 180,000 damage per hit. With Lucia's increased defense by 150% on top of another weaker buffs and shields she had put on herself, she was taking 90,000 damage per hit! 

This was almost all of her HP, and she was barely able to abuse her ability that buffed her healing spells to stay alive. However, Keira was only halfway done with her skill, and Lucia knew that she had lost by this point. 

She was smart enough to save herself the embarrassment, so she gracefully admitted defeat, while her friend canceled her skill and breathed out heavily. They gazed at each other and laughed, shaking hands professionally right after. 

Armonia glanced at Silent Walker with disdain, as if to boast that his woman had come out on top. Meanwhile, Silent Walker scratched his head in confusion. 

This was a tournament for the top 32 best fighters and you wanted him to be ashamed that his woman, who had a SUPPORT class, had made it in and lost? 

If anything, she likely broke some record by just qualifying!