บท 161: First Challenge.

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(Aden's P.O.V)

For the first time in...ever, I felt my bending leave me. No, not leave but simply get locked away. The familiar heat I had grown used to below my navel had cooled off considerably. Up until then, I'd never realized just how much I relied on my bending abilities. It wasn't all bad things I suppose. Agog before me grunted a little, leaning on his lance for support. The restriction had also hit him hard. His demonic energy was similarly shackled, leaving the both of us fighting in an even playing field.

"Begin!"

Once the word was dropped, dust rose up behind Agog as he took a running leap. He reached 20 meters at the apex of his jump and came down with the force of a wrecking ball.

"Yarrgh!"

A metallic clang! Rang out as I used the broad side of Equity to block the strike. The force pushed me to my knees with a grunt.

Agog pulled back and shot his foot forward, aimed at my solar plexus, I spun out of the way, still on my knees and swiped out Equity, lengthening the blade to a saber form. The edge of the blade met the long shaft of his lance and sparks flew out. I used the impact generated from the clash of weapons to pull away in a roll, standing up swiftly just as the pointy end of Agog's spear shot towards my head.

I leaned back and watched the bladed end sail over my face then get pulled back to aim for my neck. Equity changed to it's short sword form and diverted the shaft of the lance to the side. I grabbed his weapon near the blade and tried to haul his body towards me using my superior strength. I had him just barely beat out in that category. Yet he outclassed me in my base speed. I could have traded my strength for his speed in this particular fight any day. Speed was key in a weapons fight.

The moment I touched the lance, spikes appeared on its length and stabbed into the hardened skin of my palm. I winced in pain and let it go just in time. He had tugged it, aiming to shred my skin into strips of flesh. Ducking under the fast stab of the spear, I pointed Equity at him and the sword suddenly lengthened from 12 inches to 50 meters.

Agog tipped back out of the way and stepped to the side just as Equity changed form into a heavy sword, slammed down onto the ground and cut into the arena. Agog twirled his spear to his right hand, then blitzed towards me covering the distance in a split second. Equity changed form into the short sword once more and I brought it up to block his slash, only for him to pull his hand back and throw the lance at me.

I widened my eyes as the Lance hit the handle of my weapon in such a precise angle that I was forced to let go. Both weapons flew away to land a few meters from the two of us.

Agog came in with a devastating punch to my right cheek, I intercepted it, but was too slow to evade the next combo which was a second fist aimed at my kidney and once I doubled over in pain, an elbow strike to the top of my head. I blocked the elbow with my forearm, feeling the muscles of my hand seize in pain. The distraction caused by the pain kept me from seeing the knee strike to my face that threw my head and body back. I almost blacked out from the hit.

My body sailed through the air disoriented but not too out of it to use a technique Canary had taught us on how to tuck and roll. Surviving a fall was the first lesson we had had with her. I got back to my feet, ready for his follow-up move. My forearms came up in a guard across my chest, successfully blocking the hard double kick from the demon.

The force behind the attack sent me flying towards the wall of the stadium. A breath of air escaped my chest at the tough hit. Everything was beginning to hurt now but I wasn't done. Not even close. Even as I said that, my condition looked sorry. My nose was broken and I had a split lip while my opponent looked no worse for wear.

"Agog!! Agog!! Agog!!"

The hoard cheered for him. The noise shook the stadium, reminding me of a football match only this was much much crazier. They adored him while all I could hear about me were insults and threats. Oh well. You can't have it all.

I left an impression of my body on the hardened stone and flipped away from the his knee strike. While in midair I held out a hand, landing on the ground just as Equity flew into my grip. Agog had meanwhile bounded off the wall and was coming down on top of me with his fists held together for a hammer fist. Equity was held behind me, concealed.

His fall brought him closer to me and I waited until he was almost on top before slashing out my sword to horizontally split him into two. The swing was unfortunately diverted by a timely intervention from his lance, which sped from the side to knock Equity back. He gripped his lance while I used the momentum from the pushback to spin. Equity changed form from the saber to a replica of Thor's Stormbreaker. As it was a bladed weapon, Equity could take on it's form. The only difference was that the hammer side was much bigger than Stormbreaker's.

I heaved and with a grunt landed a massive strike to his side using the hammer. Agog shot off like a bullet escaping a gun. He slammed onto the bars closing off the arena from the outside and bent them. Equity changed form into a Katana as I took a second to rest a little. The crowds that had been cheering for Agog were now a bit quieter. I could feel their shock and surprise at the turn of events. None had expected me to make a comeback from the heavy onslaught Agog had dealt me. To be honest, that attack had mostly been a lucky hit. But they didn't need to know that.

I eyed Neron, who was sitting imperially on his throne and brought a hand to my nose, fixing it in one swift jerk. My eyes teared up and I blinked to clear my vision. A drip of blood fell down my nostril. Lazily wiping it off, I pointed Equity at Neron. The demon ground his teeth but said nothing.

Those few precious seconds I'd bought helped get rid of my fuzzy vision. Agog could hit, alright. It felt like I was fighting someone much physically stronger than me despite having the definite edge in terms of raw power. In other words, he could leverage his strength better than I could. And it all started and ended with his footwork.

Somehow the way he moved allowed his muscles, to all work in tandem to exert the level of force required and that was it. If I was to win this, I needed to somehow get to that level over the course of our fight. That or find a way to hit him with another surprise attack. Something that was definitely easier said than done.

Agog fell to the ground after extricating him from the now folded bars with a wince. A hand held his chest gingerly as he eyed me from across the distance in a cold frustrated anger.

"You are unrefined. Like impure iron. Had you been given enough time...then this battle would not be over so quickly. As it stands, I have over a millennia of experience. Give up human."

Those were the first words he'd spoken to me ever since we'd both faced off in the arena. The crowd roared in approval. Mostly. It was surprising to hear Agog get insulted as a few demons shifted sides to chant my name. 'Hello, mom and dad, you won't believe this but I'm famous in hell!'

All jokes aside, I smiled a little, feeling my injuries get healed by my enhanced healing.

"So it only takes one hit to get you talking huh? Good to know."

Agog narrowed his eyes and stated,

"Fuck you."

I raised an eyebrow at the uninspired insult and shrugged. Uninspired it might have been but...why fix something that isn't...

I didn't have enough time to complete that thought as Agog decided the time for talking was over. He gripped his lance on his right dominant hand and sent forth slashes and swings that had me scrambling backwards to evade. This time he was relentless. Abandoning conventional skill to just go at it using his experience. It almost felt like he was teaching me how to fight using a lance. The possibility of it being a trick entered my mind but when I jumped away to make some distance, Equity flowed out and changed forms from a short sword to a replica of the Lance on Agog's hands.

A brief smile of satisfaction flashed on his lips before his face changed into an expression of anger.

"You dare human!"

His spear dipped low and rested on his right leg for a split second before I looked back at his face, all the while paying close attention to his hidden message. 'Watch my footwork.'

He leaned forward and I immediately dodged to the side, the lance in my hands coming up to deflect the slash aimed at my chest from the right. Agog pulled back while shifting his left leg. I jumped over the swing from the shaft, aimed at sweeping my legs from under me and slammed the lance in my hands down at his form.

Agog brought up his own weapon in a slanted positioning, causing Equity to slide off the length of his lance in a shower of sparks. Agog shoved me away, to which I transitioned into a low roll and got back up a few short meters away. Agog came in fast. The pointed end of the spear was dipped down, the broad side facing me for a reason. He lacerated the ground with the blade, leading to dust rising up and covering my eyes.

Knowing I was fucked if I couldn't see, Equity immediately changed forms into it's Dragon Slayer form and blocked my front. The swing of the spear landed near the handle of the large sword and scraped by my shoulder, leaving behind a torn sleeve of my trench coat and a gushing wound. Luckily I'd timely blocked the hit that was racing towards my heart. I ducked and turned Equity into a whip sword, slashing out in a spin to send him back while I blinked my eyes open.

The sword whistled through the air and I heard a wince come from my right side while I blearily blinked my eyes. They cleared up and I was finally able to see more than a blur. Agog was cautiously walking around me, looking for an opening I'd wager. My heart on the other hand was slamming inside my chest. That had been too close for comfort.

It was clear that while he was willing to show me a few pointers, probably to make the fight more interesting for him, his main priority wad still to win. And the fact that he had almost skewered my heart with his Lance due to a dirty trick, showed me I wasn't fighting at my level best. And...I didn't know if I could. He was a demon, deviousness was in him.

"Enough posturing! Agog, finish him!"

Neron spoke up from his throne and Agog stiffened. He looked back up at his lord and nodded his head. When the helmet wearing Demon turned to me, he was deathly serious. I breathed in to center myself and bring my full focus to surviving this.

Equity hummed in my hands comfortingly. It was time for the final clash. In an unseen signal, we both disappeared from our position. There was a clash in midair, which resulted in a massive shockwave that raised the dust in the arena and blew upon the demons in the stands as we used our full strength to fight.

The impact threw us both back. I landed, my feet digging furrows under me and shot back towards Agog. Our strikes made the air hum. A slash was deflected here by a hack. A stab aimed at my belly was diverted to gouge flesh off my hip, a kick was evaded in favor of leaning back and colliding my fist with his chin. He moved with the action but was out of it for a few seconds, his spear coming up through instinct alone to block my own from stabbing through his chest.

Dark blood poured off his chest from the slash I had inflicted on him while he flipped away, using the butt of the spear to ward me off. I moved in with purpose. I could win this! I could actually...My feet faltered. The knees lost strength and I was left clutching my chest in agony. Pain squeezed the breath out of me, while my skin started feeling hot and feverish. What was happening?

I looked at him where he was holding his spear, pointed out straight at me and came to the likely conclusion that I had been poisoned.

"Your...spear is poisoned?"

I questioned, the wounds inflicted on me by the spear felt numb. How had I not noticed it before? I looked at the skin of my injured palm and saw the green tint coloring my dried blood. The wound was still healing but not nearly as fast as it should have.

Instead of answering the question, Agog snorted,his eyes shining with ridicule.

"This is hell, and I am a demon. What did you expect? A fair battle? Yield or die."

I swallowed. No matter how stubborn or confident in my skills I was, this was my loss. It was already getting hard to move. Though I could tell my body only needed some rest to flush it out of my system but as stated before, in a high speed battle like this, the slower one would probably lose. I looked Agog in the eyes and although my heart burned in rage, both at myself and my opponent, I muttered the words I had been afraid of, ever since the fight had begun.

"I yield."