BXBX NOVEL Chapter 746 - Pillar Versus Shield
"How..." The Grandour let out, slowly turning his head toward the old man seated next to him, "How did you get your hands on a half-dragon?"
Grinning slightly, Eisen looked at the Fire Giant, "I told you. I\'m Eisen de Grandour, son of the first chief of the fire clan, and father of the god of dragons."
"...Preposterous." The Grandour replied immediately, "There is no way you could be the true Eisen. It is simply impossible!"
"Why are you fighting it so much? You already know it\'s true, don\'t you?"
"...Bring out the next of those lizards." Instead of acknowledging what Eisen said, the Grandour looked back into the arena. This showed Eisen that he was right. This Giant beside him, despite not wanting to admit it, truthfully already knew that Eisen wasn\'t just an imposter. But well, admitting it now wouldn\'t do him any good anymore either way. He was going to be crushed by Eisen anyway.
The old man took a deep breath, and made a choice between the two possible half dragons that could go next. The last fight would be fought between him and the grandour himself, and the fight before that would be fought by either of their strongest champions. For Eisen, it was Kiron. So now, he just had to pick either Morgus or Argon to fight in the next round. Both Selena and Rudia fought with precision and expertise rather than raw strength. Maybe, following those two, Eisen should go the opposite way, and pick the one that fought using raw, brutish power the most out of all the Half-Dragon Knights.
"Morgus, your turn." The old man said, and with a broad grin on his face, the battle-maniac half black-dragon nodded his head. He picked up the pillar standing next to him and threw it over his shoulder, pushing his fingertips into the grooves made for him to grab onto. Kiron handed him the gigantification potion, and then gave him a quick nod, "Good luck."
"Heh. As if I need luck to beat these show-offs." The half black-dragon replied with a broad, toothy grin, showing off his sharp fangs. Morgus was brought into the center of the arena, and proceeded to drink the potion. As his body continued to bulk up and grow in size, he threw the glass bottle to the side, making it shatter in the middle of the arena. Eisen was a bit bothered by that, but he doubted that Morgus or his opponent were going to be hurt by those tiny shards of glass at all.
Soon, Rudia made her way back to the viewing area, which had now been filled up more and more with the champions that the old man chose to fight for him. Now that they were giant like this, the area did become a little crowded, though.
"Good job out there. That was a tough ability to see through." Eisen said, and the red half-dragon smiled at the old man with a smug expression, "But of course, it\'s me we\'re talking about, after all." She replied, standing right next to Selena and the others behind the old giant, excited to watch this next fight unfold properly. Morgus\' fights were simply... satisfying, to say the least. He had an incredibly honest way of fighting. He didn\'t use feints or tricks. The fact that he nearly only relied on his brutish strength was a nice change, and incredibly fun to watch in action.
And then, the person that Morgus would be fighting stepped into the arena. It was a fire giant holding a huge tower shield in front of her body. The sheer amount of metal that it would take to create something like this was simply unbelievable. But then again, this place was also known for how dense the earth was with metals.
"Hah, you\'re just gonna give me an easy target like that?" Morgus asked with a loud laugh, already pumping himself up for the fight that he already knew he was going to win. But despite that being the case... Eisen felt sort of weird about something. The tower shield that the fire giant was holding was obviously made mostly of steel, but there was also a large amount of magic on its surface. He couldn\'t directly identify it, but he figured that there was some trick to this. This fight might not be as simple as Morgus was hoping it to be.
It didn\'t take long until the bells were rung, and the duel officially started. Morgus pushed his fingers right into the grooves of his metal pillar, grabbing onto it as close to one of the ends as possible, before starting to run forward. The pillar was scraping over the ground, making it crack apart. That was enough to completely eradicate a village or small town of regular-sized people... maybe they should try to make Morgus more mindful of these things. Not that he was going to give him another gigantification potion after this whole ordeal.
Eisen let out a deep sigh, and chose to just wait for once. He was still nervous about that layer of magic that was very clearly fused into the metal-coating of the shield. It was definitely elemental mana, and as far as he could tell, it was a unique element. If one considered that it was placed onto a shield, it was easy to imagine it to be something as simple as an element that increased the defensive capabilities of something, but Eisen\'s intuition told him that there was more to it. And it seemed like he was right, as well.
Morgus soon stopped, pushing his feet into the ground, while swinging his pillar at his opponent. However, his opponent stayed calm and collected throughout, and simply turned her body to place the tower-shield between herself and the pillar.
The moment that Morgus\' metal pillar hit the shield, the echoes of a heavy impact sounded out through the arena. Usually, you would expect the shield-bearer to be pushed back, especially considering her stance behind the shield, but she simply stood in place completely. And on top of that, Morgus\' pillar was still touching the shield in the same spot that it had initially impacted with it. Usually, it should have been bounced back, or slid over the surface of the shield at least a little. But somehow, it seemed like the pillar was... stuck. Morgus had been trying to push the pillar downward to slide it away from the shield, but it simply didn\'t work.
"It\'s not adhesion..." Eisen muttered quietly. If the pillar was simply glued to the shield, then Morgus should be able to use his raw physical strength to pull the shield, if not together with the shield-bearer, away. But that wasn\'t the case. With his truth-seeing eyes, Eisen had been able to see what was going on with the magic placed onto the shield. It was forming ripples that moved outward, and right into the shield-bearer. She was wearing thick gauntlets that covered her arms up to her shoulders. At first, Eisen thought that this was simply so that she could protect her arms more easily from the immense impacts she must experience as a shield-bearer. After all, she didn\'t seem to have any other weapons on her to go with the shield. But the moment that the mana seemed to settle in the giant\'s gauntlets, the old man had a hunch at what was going on.
The fire giant pressed the shield into the ground until it seemed to be able to stand on its own, and, hidden behind it, slid past the shield and attacked Morgus directly. Still trying to pull the pillar away from the shield, Morgus had a tough time getting away. He wasn\'t particularly agile anyway, so he might not have been able to dodge even if he could freely move around.
With a single hook-punch, the giant made direct impact with the side of Morgus\' torso. Usually, that wouldn\'t have been an issue. As a half-dragon, Morgus had incredible natural defense. And even considering that, his physical resistances were incredibly impressive. That\'s why, a normal punch from this fire giant might have done a bit of damage, but it should not have been anything to worry about. Normally, at least.
But as Eisen watched the magic that had settled in the giant\'s gauntlets shoot out forward into Morgus\' body, followed by the black half-dragon being pushed through the arena after a surreally strong impact, he understood what that magic was all about, and he realized that this might actually get quite interesting after all. It might be prolonged for a while too.
Confused at what was happening, Morgus looked around. His pillar was still in his hand, and had finally been removed from the shield. With a deep glare, Morgus stared back at the fire giant, grinning broadly. If he was smart about this, then he would still be able to win this fight pretty easily, though. If he had just half the analytic ability that Selena or Rudia did, then Morgus would be totally fine.
However... "Hah! You\'re stronger than I thought! But putting glue onto your shield is pretty fucking dirty, don\'t you think?!" The half-dragon yelled out.. Eisen let out a loud groan, knowing that Morgus had absolutely zero ability to figure out the trick behind what just happened.