BXBX NOVEL Chapter 747 - Shield-Breaker
Clicking his tongue, the Grandour looked back into the arena, continuing to watch the fight. Morgus was in the middle of running back toward his opponent, once more swinging his pillar right at the shield. And again, the same thing as before happened. The pillar stopped moving in an unnatural way, and the shield bearer moved out front and attacked the half dragon with a surreal amount of force. This happened again and again and again, already making this fight the longest out of all of them.
However, even then, Morgus didn't back away. He continued doing the same thing over and over again, as if he was faced with a challenge. The challenge to get through that shield through brutish strength. That was, until a certain point in the fight. The half dragon let out a loud yell of annoyance, after getting more and more agitated throughout the fight.
"Argh, fuck! How's that shield that fucking strong?!" Morgus yelled out, before pressing his pillar into the ground. He buried his fingers in its grooves, and started to breathe heavily and loudly. It didn't take long until his breath became practically visible, as a poisonous green air flowed out of his mouth. Black dragons were also known as 'Plague' or 'Poison' dragons. Rather than with fire, they had a stronger connection to disease and poison, something that even showed itself in Morgus' magical element. While it was a body-strengthening element, a sort of poisonous energy flowed through it as well.
Morgus' mana was spreading throughout his body, and that same green mist seemed to flow out from underneath his scales, practically enveloping him completely. The Grandour looked at Eisen the moment he realized what was going on, "You would use something cowardly like poison?!"
"How is this use of poison cowardly? It's simply part of who Morgus is. Rather, the fact that you just used someone that built an invisible maze filled with traps was cowardly. That whole thing was based around hiding behind something that nobody else could see." Eisen pointed out, "And in the first place, do you really think that a little poison can really do a lot of damage against a giant warrior? If so, then you need to train them better." The old man said immediately, and then looked back at the arena. Morgus was going to go all out now, considering that he finally used his body-strengthening magic. The half dragon moved forward, grabbing onto the pillar with one of his hands, before starting to run. A bit away from his opponent, Morgus slammed the pillar into the ground, pushing himself up on it as if he was trying to vault over something. And well, he did. He pushed himself high into the air, dragging the pillar off the ground with him. In the air, Morgus twisted his body around, once more slamming his thick metal pillar downward. Just that this time, the target wasn't the ground, but rather the shield bearer herself.
Not having expected Morgus to suddenly change his approach like that, she struggled to fully lift up her shield in time. Morgus' pillar hit the shield when the shield bearer was in an awkward position. The magic placed onto the shield stole any momentum or power from incoming attacks, just to allow her to put that strength into her own next attacks. It was impossible to pull the weapon away once it touched the shield. However, this was only the case for the initial attacker. If the shield was pulled away, it would allow for the attacker to pull their weapon away too. Since the shield-bearer made use of the effect of locking down her opponent's weapon to then get the chance to attack, she was in a tough situation now. Since she couldn't steadily move the shield down while keeping up contact with Morgus' pillar, she couldn't attack him that easily, or at all, without him getting the chance for a counterattack. So instead, she just had to stay there, locking down both herself and Morgus at the same time. The only issue with that was that there was now a constant amount of force pushing down on her shield, meaning that the power gathering up in her gauntlets was continuosly increasing more and more. This was both a blessing and a curse, however. While this would allow for an even stronger attack once she finally found a gap to attack Morgus, it was obvious that an item like this didn't have an infinite capacity. The gauntlets would start to break down sooner or later, and she didn't want to find out what was going to happen to her the moment that they did.
But of course, Morgus was no fool. He wouldn't just wait for something to happen now. Throughout the couple dozen times that he attacked his opponent, and was then attacked with the same amount of power in return, he had realized that the shield could absorb his power somehow. And while he could obviously use this chance, where his body was completely hidden behind the shield, to sneak behind the shield bearer and take her out this way, he wanted to do something else instead.
He could have won easily throughout this fight, especially once his opponent started underestimating him since he only attacked in such straightforward ways, but that was boring to Morgus. All these fights that happened until now, they were all boring. They didn't show off the true power of the champions chosen by Eisen for this tournament. The raw strength possessed by those trusted by the first man that peaked.
Morgus slowly let down his body, and hooked the claws on his feet onto the sides of the shield, where this power-absorption effect didn't seem to be a thing, and started to push down on his pillar. And of course, right now, neither the shield bearer nor the shield itself were giving in to the amount of force that Morgus was pushing down onto it. While hooking himself onto the shield, he tried to use the full strength he could muster through his superior draconic body to destroy this shield. This object clearly created to stop any attacker in its track, something that the audience seemed to be more than just aware of. They knew all about the other champions of the current Grandour, at least.
While everyone else was trying to figure out what he was trying to do, Morgus' intentions were immediately understood by Eisen. He could see the elemental mana accumulate within the shield bearer's gauntlets. It was shining brighter and brighter the more it concentrated. The amount of force that Morgus was continuosly adding onto the shield was incredible, honestly. It was obviously less than the initial impact, but since then he had overcome that amount by a few times already.
"Did time freeze? What in the nine hells is going on?" The Grandour asked with a deeply confused expression. The audience as well was still trying to figure it out. That was, until about a minute later. Eisen had been watching the mana accumulate in the gauntlets, and then at some point, it started to leak out. They were no longer able to hold onto all this raw force. More and more mana poured out of them, until finally, the gauntlets on the shield bearer's arms simply shattered apart, its shards being thrown throughout the arena in a powerful explosion. Of course, the shield bearer herself suffered extreme damage as well, but it seemed like none of her vitals had been injured. She should be fine with a few concentrated potions.
But that wasn't all that happened following the explosion. The moment that the gauntlets blew up, the force accumulating in the shield had nowhere else to return to, so it experienced things the way it was supposed to in the first place. With creaks that echoed through the arena the moment that the shards of the gauntlets all settled down on the ground, Morgus was bending the shield right around the tip of his pillar. Until finally, it cracked in half after having been bent too much.
Morgus dropped to the ground, landing surprisingly elegantly. He lifted his pillar into the air, and let out a loud scream to declare his victory, while the shield bearer passed out from a mixture of the half dragon's poison and her wounds received through the explosion of the gauntlets.
As the audience sheered, seeing what had been achieved that day, Eisen turned his head to look at the man sitting there, utterly perplexed, "That... that shield was made by some of our best... But that... what sort of pillar is that...?"
"It's just a pillar of solid steel enchanted with the ability to change its size together with its wielder." Eisen pointed out, "Sorry to tell you, but that came from Morgus' own power." The old man said with a laugh, while the eighth champions started to make their way into the arena. Of course, it had to be properly cleaned up for now, to make sure the metal shards from the gauntlet didn't bother the two people that were going to face each other here.. The Paladin Argon stepped into the arena first, pressing his fists together excited for a good fight.