Chapter 290 - 290 The Apprentices Do Battle

The next few days of the tournament went by and while there were a few other standout fighters Marcus made note of in the third and fourth blocks, he knew he needed to focus his energy on those that were in block two, especially his match today.

He was going to be in the second match of the day and his opponent was going to be his first mentor, friend, and fellow forgemastering apprentice Gurrom.

Winning this fight was not going to be easy, but Marcus was fairly sure he could pull it off without using any of his unique skills.

'I need to keep them under wraps so that when I bust them out while pretending to Mrazivý contracted spirit no one makes the connection.'

Of course, if it came down to it Marcus was willing to use them, but he was confident he could win without them.

"Lady Geist the first match has ended would you please follow me."

Getting up Marcus left the waiting room he was in and followed the tournament staff member to the tunnel that led out into the arena's center.

Walking out Marcus received an abundance of cheers as he had gained a decent number of supporters after the display, he had put on during his first match.

Nevertheless, Gurrom did not receive any less applause and as the two of them took to the ring and stared at each other as the announcer got right to it and said, "In todays match we have two of the greatest forgemaster in the kingdom Thabon Blazegram's apprentices doing battle. Which one of them will come out on top, the established Gurrom Durand or the newcomer Irene Geist. Now let the match begin."

With the match started Marcus quickly began casting his buff spells one after another planning to use everything at his disposal right from the start.

"Legs of light, Arms of darkness,"

Though Gurrom was not going to just let him do this and threw his adamantine axe right towards Marcus while saying, "Axe auto attack."

With Gurrom's axe flying right for him, Marcus clicked his tongue as he had to stop casting spells and prepare to defend.

Quickly stepping to the side Marcus let the axe pass him by but as he suspected from what Gurrom had said, it abruptly stopped and began chasing after him.

Taking out his scythe Marcus began parrying the persistent axe that continually was swinging at him.

Unfortunately, this prevented Marcus from getting out his spells, since having to fake just saying the few words necessary and timing the spell correctly was difficult under the axe's persistent assault.

"Fire Storm."

Having finished the chant for his tier five fire magic spell, Gurrom released the raging blast of fire right towards Marcus as he was preoccupied dealing with the axe.

With no time to lose Marcus first focused on the axe and after expertly parrying it with his scythe reached out with his left hand and grabbed ahold of its handle to restrain it.

Of course, the weapon fought like hell to get out of Marcus' grasp and continue its assault, but his iron grip kept it in place.

Then with is first problem dealt with Marcus active all of the enchantments on his scythe and sent a large amount of mana into before slashing towards the fire storm that was about to hit him.

The fire storm raged around him as he cut through with his scythe and deployed a mana barrier around himself as added protection.

However, before the fire storm finished raging by, Gurrom yelled out loudly, "Axe split apart."

The double-sided adamantine axe that Marcus had wrestled in his grasp, spilt into two different axes and managed to escape from Marcus' hold.

Yet as the two axes were splitting apart, they gave Marcus enough time to get off a quick spell to turn things in his favor.

"Iron Golem."

His iron golem rising up from the ground, Marcus immediately ordered it to deal with Gurrom's split axe and keep it out of his way.

'Now I can focus on Gurrom.'

As soon as the fire storm receded Marcus prepared to charge straight towards Gurrom and take him out in close combat now that his axe was away, but before he could Gurrom had already finished another spell.

"Inferno cage."

Dozens of pillars of fire sprung up around Marcus blocking him in and preventing him from charging in head long less he be horribly burnt.

And as quickly as it had appeared, the cage of fire around Marcus began to shrink rapidly ready to completely engulf him.

"Voltaic Bombardment."

After casting his tier five lightning magic spell, Marcus' body began to crackle with electricity before hundreds of bolts of lightning began to fly out of him, blasting against the ever-shrinking inferno cage and blowing it apart.

But the bolts of lightning did not stop there as the remaining ones all began flying towards Gurrom.

"Armor, grounding mode."

Giving his armor a command two dozen studs that were embedded in his armor flew of and quickly extended into taught wires that formed into a circle around him, before jamming into the ground.

The hundreds of bolts of lightning flying for him where then sucked into each of the wires and sent into the ground where they were dispersed.

It actually quite surprised Marcus to see, and he knew that any of his lightning magic spells would be useless against that defense.

"Axe return."

Seeing that his axe was being handled by Marcus' iron golem, Gurrom decided it would be put to better use if he brought it back to use himself.

"I must say Irene I am surprised that you managed to block all of my attacks. I had devised that combo to defeat you specifically, and to see you deal with it without much issue makes me feel as if all my efforts were a waste. But now the real fight will begin."

"Heart of the Forge."

A blazing aura far superior to the one Marcus had under the effects of spirit blaze rose up around Gurrom, and Marcus could tell that the spell he had cast was increasing his power by leaps and bounds.

Gurrom then leapt towards Marcus with his axe in hand moving at a speed far faster than Marcus thought possible until he noticed what appeared to be little jets of fire behind him.

"Radiance scales."

Casting his tier five light magic spell right before Gurrom attacked him, Marcus made no move to block the massive axe swing Gurrom was initiating and instead swung his scythe to cut off Gurrom's left arm.

And as he thought even with all the power he had put behind his axe, Gurrom was only able to cleave through around half of the shimmering scales protecting Marcus, before coming to a stop and leaving him wide open to a counterattack.

"Shield expand."

Yet right before Marcus' scythe took off Gurrom's arm, an adamantine shield Marcus had never seen appeared out of an inconspicuous band on his left wrist and blocked the attack.

"Pulverizing Blow."

Activating an attack skill Gurrom swung his axe from overhead, and it quickly began to smash through the remainder of Marcus' radiance scales, obviously being some type of powerful defense breaking attack.