Chapter 500: Finish Him

Julius felt guilty for some reason. He didn’t know if it was his fault, but he might have influenced Aubrey a little bit. He watched as she pushed herself as she fought the shield warrior with a maniacal grin on her face.

Her clones were powerful, but the way she fought kept her constantly in the midst of the chaos. It was a good tactic, but it was also more dangerous than hiding behind her clones. Still, that wasn’t who she was at the end of the day.

She was the type of person who would drop her sword to the ground so that she could pound her fists into her opponent’s skull. He tilted his head in, though. Perhaps she was more like him than he initially thought.

Unfortunately for her, this shield warrior was pretty good. He was sneaky fast, especially for someone his size and with his armor. He also had top-tier strength; that shield must have weighed a lot, and he managed to sling it around like it was a dinner plate.

The sheer endurance and healing made him a monster, though. Aubrey couldn’t pin him down; no matter what she hit him with, he kept getting back up. His healing skill didn’t seem to rely on life mana either. As a matter of fact, it almost felt like it was absorbing mana from Aubrey’s attacks to fuel it.

This meant that the more she attacked him with mana, the more he was able to heal. Julius didn’t know if Aubrey had realized this quite yet. However, it seemed like she had come to recognize that physical attacks worked better on him than her prismatic beams.

Of course, fighting a brute like him in close combat wasn’t something that anyone sane would enjoy. He frowned and looked down at himself, trying to ignore the wave of envy racing through his bones. If he was being honest, he wished it had been him fighting the shield warrior instead of her.

The fight kept going on. The swordsman was out of commission, and blood was leaking out of his body like a leaky faucet. The healing potion he had chugged down his throat had barely done a thing for him. Julius still kept an eye out for him in case he wanted to rejoin the fight. He was more than happy to dish out a little more pain on these scumbags.

Aubrey kept on the assault, but she wasn’t able to find a finishing blow. It wasn’t like her attacks were weak either. With her strong, crystal-like skin, her attacks were extremely hard and carried a lot of force.

It was just that the warrior kept on healing whatever damage he accumulated. Was this what it was like fighting himself? Someone who could heal whatever damage their opponents could dish out?

How annoying…

Aubrey was breathing heavily, and he could tell she was starting to get worn out as her endurance gave out. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. The shield warrior was showing some signs of exhaustion as well. His armor was taking a beating as well, which was good.

It had become a battle of attrition, and even Julius didn’t know who would come out on top. But he respected Aubrey’s wishes and stood by, letting her deal with it. If she wanted to test herself, he would be more than happy to keep watch.

He made sure nobody snuck up on them. He had found out that there were a bunch of sneaky bastards participating in this tournament. The number of ambushes he had already experienced was crazy.

He kept his perception as expanded as possible, even concentrating on smaller but deeper probes to make sure nobody was waiting outside his area of perception.

Aubrey was still giving it her all; her grunts had progressively gotten louder as she desperately tried to break her opponent. Her use of clones impressed him greatly. She was demonstrating a level of skill that he hadn’t seen from her before. She had gotten a lot stronger in these few months. He was proud of her.

Too bad her opponent was formidable. Julius doubted there would be many people in the tournament who could take this level of punishment. The combination of quality armor, a shield, a strong body, and a healing skill was a difficult combination to deal with. Fortunately, she had already handled the other swordsman before it had drawn out like this. It might have gone very differently if she hadn’t.

She made another good decision to retreat when the warrior suddenly exploded with power. His shield became a hurricane of destruction and tore apart every one of her clones within ten feet of him. She had barely gotten out of the way in time.

While she had one of the more durable bodies he had faced in Tier 3, that last attack had been dangerous. But he smiled when Aubrey realized the same thing as him.

The warrior looked like he was getting nervous; that last attack screamed desperation. It wasted a lot of mana for a whole lot of nothing to show for it.

Aubrey grinned like a wild beast, and it looked like she had found some hidden stamina, pushing herself even harder. She kept on dancing around the warrior, always one step ahead, getting in and out. She made sure the warrior was punished for every overextension or lapse in concentration.

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Finally, after what seemed like forever, Julius noticed a laceration on the guy’s face that was not healing.

Did his healing skill finally run out? He asked himself. Even Julius wouldn’t be able to heal himself nonstop; either his mana would run out, or the strain of doing so would prevent him.

Aubrey must have thought something similar, because she started committing to her attacks more. The wounds on the warrior began to accumulate, and he could feel her excitement grow.

But he smiled when he felt what she was doing and internally applauded her.

All of her clones started to close in, using sheer numbers to subdue the guy forcibly. Her opponent was being completely suffocated with attacks from all sides. There was no way for him to block everything, and he turtled up desperately trying to survive. However, just as the attacks were reaching a peak, her opponent exploded with aura and mana.

A weird golden field erupted from his core. All of his wounds healed within seconds as the golden light covered his entire body. He suddenly moved way faster than anything he had displayed up to this point.