Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 299: Fighting Match

The two slashes on the man’s body felt solid. The slash had great feedback, and Stanley expected the man to die. However, when he looked back, the man was already swinging his bow in this way once again.

The bow slammed on the side of Stanley’s head and immediately sent a wave of numbed sensation in that area. He quickly rolled to the side, not wanting to get hit any further.

He got to his feet quickly and looked at his opponent, confused as to why he wasn’t dead. He had cut him through his body, hadn’t he?

And yet, when he looked at him now, there was not a single wound on his body. It was as though all wounds on him had vanished somehow, not leaving any impairment behind.

What should’ve been an easy victory at first now continued as if they were back to the starting point once again?

Only, something had changed from what Stanley could see.

It was the green bar on top of his opponent. It had from from being full to being about a third of the way empty. A small bit of the tiny blue bar beneath it had also increased, which made him wonder just what it was.

He quickly looked up at his own bar and was surprised to see a section of it gone already. That damage just now had taken away some of his health points as well.

’I’ll need to be careful,’ he thought. ’I’m not fighting real humans, just some digital conjurations of one.’

The archer readied another arrow on the bow and shot it.

Stanley reflexively moved his sword to the front and the arrow struck his sword directly. It left behind a tinge of numbness, but nothing great.

’Woah!’ he thought in surprise. Something had happened just then that didn’t make sense. He had seen just how off his sword was stopping the arrow, and yet it had somehow stopped.

There was no barrier or anything, and he had even used the sharp end of the blade, and somehow he had stopped the arrow. He looked up quickly to see a tiny sliver of his health gone, which was what the numbness he felt was.

’Was that a mistake or...’

He decided to test it. Since he knew that he couldn’t be wounded, or at least his opponent hadn’t, he could take the chance.

The archer shot another arrow and Stanley quickly placed his sword before him at an angle and managed to stop the arrow again. He did lose a tiny bit of health, but that was surely nothing to being actually hit.

Having found this out, he knew that the rest of the battle would be quickly simple. He rushed back toward his opponent, placing his sword in front of him to protect himself from the next arrow, and quickly slashed him down when he got to him.

He moved around the archer without a pattern, always confusing him and striking when he least expected. Max’s teachings had come a lot in handy now that he was out of strength and could use his skills to the fullest.

The green bar above the opponent’s head continued to lower, and as it did, the blue bar continued to increase little by little. It appeared as though that any time the man did get hurt, the bar increased by a good amount.

Stanley’s own bar was halfway done when he killed the archer. The archer’s bar never reached the full way, so Alex could only wonder what the blue bar would’ve done had he let that happen.

Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t let it happen. It was good to let the archer die.

The archer’s dead body vanished in a burst of light as some sort of noise caught Stanley’s attention. He looked up and saw his health go back to full.

’Oh, thank god,’ he thought. He had been worried that what he had been given at the start was his whole health bar for all the 10 battles. It was a good thing it wasn’t or else he would certainly not reach the 10th match in this way.

"Congratulations on your first victory," the game master’s voice came from all around the arena.

"Your next opponent is here."

Light coalesced from all around the arena and it gathered a few distance away from Stanley. When it finally took form, it was a woman with no weapon at all.

She wore a boxer’s glove and headgear along with red shorts and a white tanktop and started shadow boxing around. Stanley raised an eyebrow in surprise. His next opponent was a woman without any sort of weapon.

Wasn’t the second round supposed to be harder? Or were they all the same difficulty?

"Starting in 3, 2, 1! Begin!!"

Stanley wasted absolutely no time and ran toward the woman. The woman got ready to throw a jab but Stanley had more reach than her with his sword.

He knew just how far away to remain from both her punches and her kick. He only fought back with his sword, which cut her many different ways.

Unlike the archer, the woman did stop some of the attacks. Just crossing her arms together made it so that his sword would suddenly do pitiful amounts of damage.

But thankfully, she couldn’t keep it up all the time as that would’ve been annoying.

Stanley saw the woman’s blue bar slowly increase with time, which was a lot faster than his own. He came to understand thus that the blue bar increased slowly when you harmed your opponent, and fast when they harmed you.

Stanley continued to attack while dancing around the woman with his sword swings. Then, he finally managed to wear her down until she had basically no health left at all.

A single sword swing would end her right then and there. However, it was also at this point that the blue bar on top of her reached the very end.

And then, the girl did something he could not have foreseen.