Chương 123: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight

Beth bowed before returning to her position, looking over at Blood, who was sitting behind and to the side of the ref.

"Maybe we should get you in for a few?" she asked.

"There is no need," the ref said.

"Experience is split evenly due to the special nature of this arena and your bond. This is also a competition meant for bipedals, so there is no need for her to participate."

"Seems a little…speciest, but sure," Beth replied with a shrug, raising a brow at the ref.

"Just continue to level," he replied cryptically.

"Right," Beth said with an eyeroll as her next opponent materialized. Another woman stood across the dueling lane from her, short but muscular, wielding a maul and wearing a loose assortment of armor pieces. Beth didn't note anything remarkable about her other than her powerful physique and mishmash of armor, giving her a quick scan as the ref started the fight procedures.

Level 65 Human Warrior The woman showed up as a warrior, at least a little better than a young warrior or the like, but Beth wasn't particularly impressed. The maul the woman grabbed from her back did look a little more impressive, but the fights so far had been a little underwhelming. She would try not to get cocky about it, drawing her sword as she waited for all the starting procedures to finish.

Once all the bowing was out of the way, the ref did the traditional start signal, and the two competitors launched themselves at each other. Beth had to say, she was not particularly impressed. The previous opponent had at least demonstrated his high STR stat right from the start, cannoning across the arena in an immediate attempt to smash her apart. This opponent was simply slower, Beth crossing the halfway line before she did.

It could, of course, be an act, the opponent trying to present herself as worse than she really was, but Beth didn't really see the point in doing that in a low-level one-v-one. The two met closer to the opponent's starting circle, the maul-wielder planting her feet and swinging with bulging muscles at Beth's torso.

Unfortunately for the opponent, Beth had plenty of practice with this type of blunt-weapon enemy, having gotten in quite a bit of practice against the kobolds as well as all the various weapon types Baelvyr made her practice against. Deflecting the first strike was easy, Beth returning a rapid overhead slash targeting the short woman's right shoulder. Her opponent stepped back as she brought her weapon around again, smashing at Beth's sword with a heavy chop.

Beth used the momentum, letting her blade go wide while she stepped in with a Swift boosted movement, ramming her left shoulder into the woman's torso. The move seemed to have totally caught the other duelist off-guard, as she didn't present a proper defense nor manage to maintain a very stable stance. As the opponent stumbled back, Beth continued her motion, looping her sword around as she stepped forward with her right leg, bending at the knees as she thrust right into the woman's solar plexus.

The warrior blocked the lunge with the haft of her maul, a rather poor attempt at defense, as it simply drove Beth's powerful thrust slightly downward, her massive blade slamming into the woman's navel. The heavy leather belts the woman had wrapped around her midriff parted like tissue paper in front of Beth's high STR, her sword slamming through the woman's guts before smashing into and stopping against her spine.

Beth immediately reversed her thrust, hauling back on her sword with her right arm while twisting the blade, lacerating the woman's guts and pulling her forward. The warrior attempted to smash Beth again as she was pulled in, but Beth was mostly inside her guard and what little force the woman managed was absorbed by Beth's armor and strong physique.

As Beth's sword left the woman's guts, causing her to stagger forward even more off balance, Beth's armored left gauntlet connected directly with the center of her face, a Crush empowered punch breaking her nose and cracking bone. Beth swung her blade one-handed as the woman staggered back, stepping forward with her left foot as she chopped into the dazed warrior's neck.

Her blade bit deep, Beth adding in another punch square to the opponent's face before grabbing her own blade with her left gauntlet, using both arms to tear the blade through part of the woman's neck, blood exploding into the hot noon air in a red plume. That was apparently enough for the ref, who immediately signaled the end of the fight, Beth's third opponent disappearing in a flash. Beth was more than a little disappointed, having not had a decent challenge from any of the group so far.

She was hoping that she would get to fight something more in line with what she was used to training against back home, but she supposed this was part of the kid-gloves still being engaged. Hopefully there would be some really challenging fights in some of the later stages to make up for what was turning out to be a bit of a slog. Beth continued tearing through opponents like a hot knife through butter, getting a rest every fifth fight.

The only good thing was the high level of the fighters she was up against, the amount of experience she earned from the duels boosting Blood and her quite a bit. She knew there was still some extra magic from the array present, as duels like this shouldn't realistically be awarding any experience, apart from it being a Trial, which itself changed the rules. Beth gave a shrug at that point and stopped worrying about it, just glad that they were getting a decent benefit from her rampant slaughter.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. The two spent a couple hours in the stage, Beth smashing through opponent after opponent, gaining them two levels in the process. After the last fighter fell, a hulking brute of a man that definitely had some giant blood in him, the ref signaled the end of the final fight before congratulating her on passing the "dueling gauntlet," as he referred to it.

Beth gave the ref a bow and thanked him in turn, Blood also giving an improvised bow before the world flashed white and they found themselves standing back in the array room. Beth really hoped one of the stages after five would have some duels or tough sapient fights lined up, as that stage had really only whetted her appetite. Speaking of appetite, it had been since the gap between stage one and two that they had last eaten.

Beth knew they had well over a day before they needed to start stage four, plenty of time for them to get a massive meal and have a quick nap. They moved down to try one of the other restaurants in the "food" corridor, as Beth thought of it, settling on one called the Obsidian Platter. Beth was sensing a bit of a theme with the names, but didn't comment on it as they were seated at a table and presented menus.

They wound up ordering several plates of a fowl that was very similar to a duck as well as a massive pile of steamed vegetables that were similar to green beans, corn, and a red bean that Beth was unfamiliar with. Once they had been sated, they made their way back to the room they had been given, the door unlocking at Beth's touch.

She shucked her gear and helped Blood out of her armor as soon as they got in, the two padding naked across the suite and into the bathroom, where Beth helped Blood shower before spending some extra time under the hot water. They then dried off, Beth giving Blood a hand with the use of a half dozen towels, before making their way to the bedroom.

The two crawled onto the enormous bed together and promptly passed out, Blood taking a decent chunk of the bed as she put her back to Beth, the two asleep as soon as the wolf stopped moving. They woke about four hours later, their high END stat and lack of serious challenge so far meaning that they hadn't needed that much sleep. Beth moved over to the bathroom and went through her morning routine, a little surprised that she didn't have to spend any extra time on the toilet.

Not that she had trouble with any of the food from the CRA, but she knew she was out experiencing the wider universe, eating things that certainly weren't from Earth. As long as she didn't get the runs in the middle of one of the stages, she figured she'd be fine. She got dressed and armored up after she was done with everything, helping Blood put on her armor before they left the room, heading back to the array room.

Beth talked to the woman at the counter, informing her of making the stage private, before heading immediately over to the Warder. She was eager to get the next two stages over with, ready to move on to something a bit more challenging. She went through what had already become the typical routine with one of the Warders, informing them she was ready before moving to the right portal and waiting for the signal. When the Warder gave the command, she and Blood quickly hopped through the glowing blue gateway.

As soon as the bright flash of the transition cleared from their vision, they found themselves standing amidst an entire army. There was no other way Beth could describe it, as there were lines of armored men and women with weapons at the ready standing at the edge of a field. Across from them stood a similar army, bearing red and black flags and colors versus Beth's side's blue and gold. It seemed stage four was an army battle, an old-school engagement of two sword-wielding military groups against each other.

Beth quickly looked around to see if they would have to deal with anything above and beyond, trying to find any cavalry units or even flying units. Finding nothing but more traditional units on the ground around her and across from them, she breathed a little sigh of relief.

It was still the new paradigm she had found herself in, meaning most of these soldiers likely had some kind of boosting skill, and there could be dedicated casters as well, but as long as some multi-ton beast with a knight on its back wasn't going to run her ass over, she could deal with whatever else was thrown at her. Beth had started at the back of the army, on a slight incline where she was able to see down over the lines of what she assumed to be her side, as well as scan the enemy force arrayed against them.

She took a moment to glance around at her faction and analyze exactly what she was working with, seeing that the levels weren't as impressive as what she had just been against. Of course, she couldn't see rebirths at all yet, but she somehow doubted these were multi-rebirth warriors that she was dealing with. Level 58 Elven Warrior Level 58 Elven Protector Level 58 Human Knight Level 58 Dwarven Defender The descriptions went like that, on and on for the people she could see on her side of the field.

Based on the opponents she had just fought in stage three, the last of those being at level sixty-eight, she assumed that these soldiers wouldn't really be anything to write home about. The main concern was her and Blood not getting overwhelmed in the horrific melee a frontal clash of two lines of mediaeval-style foot soldiers would immediately devolve into.' Try to stay clear of the center,'she sent to Blood.' Let's do as much as we can without getting bogged down.''

If that's what you think's best,' Blood replied. Just then, a horn sounded out and a shout went up from both sides before calls echoed down the line Beth was standing behind. Officers repeated the orders as they were called, calling the soldiers to attention before ordering them to form ranks. Finally, the call came out to march forward, the three rows of soldiers in front of Beth and Blood marching forward in lockstep.

The two young women trailed behind the soldiers, not eager to get pulled into the battle at the first moments nor to tangle the soldiers' orderly ranks. The two sides picked up the pace as they moved across the field, moving to a trot for a short while before they closed, moving to something between a fast jog and a run at the end. The two lines clashed with a sound like a simultaneous hundred-car crash, a shock going through the air at so many armored bodies slamming into each other at high speed.

The battle didn't immediately devolve into a wild scrum, the lines maintaining some cohesion for the initial clash. Beth wasn't really able to do much at the start of the melee, not wanting to push through her own ally's lines to get to the action, so she began patrolling the backline, occasionally glancing at the right flank. She was much closer to the right than the left and was worried about the right being pinched or swept, in which case she would be knee-deep in opponents instantly.

The flank looked like it was doing a fine job for now, so Beth returned her attention to the melee, waiting for a chance to jump in. She was more concerned for herself here than Blood, as the wolf's great dexterity and hunting instincts would allow her to harry the enemy in a meaningful fashion from the start while staying relatively safe.

Beth stepped up a moment later when a small group of enemies nearly caused a breach in the allied lines, led by two elites that were of similar strength to the captains she had faced two stages ago. Well, somewhat weaker than those beasts had been, considering the level difference and that these sapient beings seemed a little on the weak side overall, but enough to punch through the normal soldiers. Beth moved into a still fairly small gap, sword drawn and ready, meeting the first of the elites head-on.

She was able to parry the enemy's first strike with ease, setting the captain slightly off balance just from her deflection of his sword. She took the opportunity as both their swords were to the side to punch out with her left hand, smashing the captain's simple faceplate into twisted scrap.

A return swing of hers knocked the captain's blade up and to the side before she punched even harder, using a fully charged Crush to finish her work on the captain's face, a ding resounding in her mind as she smashed the opponent's face into the middle of his skull.