บท 259: vanish
Somehow, he never thought a great sword could be used in such a way. It was a devastating weapon sure, in an open battlefield, something of that size could cleave through 4 lines of men in one fell swing and keep going. But it shouldn't have any flexibility or speed to take on a lighter battle in a close range melee.
But somehow, Ode had found himself on the passive receiving end of this battle. He was ready to charge in and end the battle the first time Alos came in while swinging his great sword down. In his mind once the great sword stopped in front of it's user it was completely useless because the weapon required momentum to do any damage, it's user would then have to pull it back for the next attack which was quite cumbersome due to the weight, hence it could be called the worst attack of all. Even in war a fighter with such a weapon would chose to swing side to side to maintain their swinging momentum, if they had to start their swing every time, the weight would have them sprawled on the ground by the time they were able to swing the blade 4 times.
It was a super inefficient weapon, trading stamina, endurance and maneuverability for pure unadulterated power. Something the likes of blockheads would use, hence when the sword came crashing into the ground, he had made his step forward before Alos was able to draw his blade back for the next attack. But when he arrived where he thought his adversary was supposed to be, all he found was an empty space.
Cold sweat ran down his back as he frantically searched the arena for the captain. It took him less than a second to see that the captain wasn't anywhere in front of him. His next move was borne out of countless life and death experience as without any warning he decided to turn around and hold his shield up. Just in time to block an incoming force of a great sword swinging sideways.
He'd blocked it in time, but that was not to say that he'd nullified the damage. His shield though considerably new, had served him through enough battles for him to know that it was at least high quality in terms of durability. Now it was bent in the middle like a crushed can of sardines. The impact alone had shaken his internal organs enough that blood started seeping from between his lips.
This was a great sword, a super heavy weapon, trading stamina, endurance and maneuverability for pure power. Or at least that's how it was supposed to be, even if he wasn't the fastest attacker, Ode still didn't see how Alos was able to out maneuver him while in full armor and a heavy weapon, and he didn't exactly give him time to recover much less think about it.
With the previous damage taking a toll on his body, Ode wasn't able to retaliate at all as his legs wouldn't even move like he wanted it to. Like this he was a sitting duck, quietly standing here and blocking blow after blow of Alos's great sword.
Every captain in the spectating stands looked with worry. Like it or not as captains, most of them have sparred once or twice with this malignant star of a captain and knew exactly how heavy that sword was, even Jeral the heavy armored captain took only about 7 of those hits before forfeiting the match. Even if the old man was holding on, with his age the impacts alone should be deadly, and he didn't even have a proper shield to defend with anymore.
After the first blow they could see his legs getting weak, to them, his fate may as well be as good as sealed. Even if Alos wasn't able to hit at 100% every single time to maintain his rhythm, the blows were jarring. Even for them who were just watching, they had to continuously hold their hands to their ears to make sure they didn't go deaf after all this was over. From where they were standing, they could see the bullets of sweat run down Ode's muscled back as he tried to keep himself in the fight.
But with neither side backing down, somehow, this pattern continued... And continued... And continued. At some point the captains watching had turned from anxious, to downright worried, to curious, to astonishment. Why? because somehow, this old man was actually maintaining the status quo after more than 15 hits and counting.
Even more impressive than that was his shield that should've already been damaged after the first hit. By right the third hit should've already completely wrecked it if not the second, and yet up to this point it seemed like it had yet to take any damage besides the very first blow. And it wasn't like the guy had kept on dodging, through the whole fight, the old man had taken on the great sword directly with his shield without so much as a step back.
18 blows... 20 blows... 24... And still both the old man and the shield were relentless. At this point Alos had begun to feel pressure. Like it or not even if he could swing his sword many more times than any of his subordinates there was a limit to using such weight, after more than twenty swings, he could feel the fatigue start to come in.
Something was wrong with this, and he being the opponent of such a monster felt this the most. First off he could feel that his attacks weren't landing as they should which made absolutely no sense as he could see his great sword continuously connect with that damnable shield. And not only did his attacks have seemingly no effect on his adversary, he instead seemed to grow more vigorous the harder Alos attacked which made as little sense to him as how the fight had lasted this long. Little by little the old man's body seemed to grow and for the first time in his career, a single combatant was pressuring him back and began to grow exponentially from a worthy adversary to a monster in his eyes.
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