Chương 253: Limitless Path Chapter Two Hundred Seventy-Seven

The opponent gave a barely passable bow before he hurried away, the near-nude ref also chasing Beth from the ring immediately as there were more fights already lined up. She left the arena floor, but instead of returning to the lobby or elsewhere, she first decided to check her rankings on her communicator. She was able to find her stats after a minute of searching, seeing that she had a grand total of two fights, two wins on the Individual Ladder.

She also found while navigating the menu, though she should have thought of it before, that she could do the sign-up part remotely without having to go to a counter, though she couldn't do check-in remotely. That at least meant she didn't have to run up to the lobby every time she wanted to do a new match, though she would have to go to 1S01 and check-in every time to get assigned a field for the fight.

She went ahead and registered for her third match of the day, feeling that desire to keep fighting until she just couldn't go anymore starting to take over. As long as she managed to control it to some extent, it wasn't particularly bad, but now that she was over the initial nervousness of doing ranked matches, she was really feeling feisty, the thought bringing a near-feral grin to her face.

She made her way over to the registration counter under the stands and waited for her emblem to ping, leaning against the wall across from them in the meantime. She noticed one other person doing much the same, but it was pretty clear that most people either waited in a lounge or somewhere more comfortable, and with the speed the matches cycled, there wasn't much need for any seating in the area.

Which was proven true as Beth's emblem pinged just under a minute after she started leaning against the wall, and she pulled it out right away, walking over to the counter. She handed the same attendant the emblem and was quite briskly told to go to individual field one before they turned to help the next person. She was back on the arena floor in just a minute, striding across the metal and tiles to the very far end where the first field was located, finding her opponent there and waiting.

The ref was also clearly of the mind to get things rolling, as all the refs had been that day, the tall man emphatically gesturing for them to both take their positions. Beth spent the few seconds it took her to get into place studying her opponent, a short woman wearing some form of leather armor with two long knives at her waist. Beth was reminded of a certain someone, but shook it off when the ref asked the contestants if they were ready.

After the initial quick bows, the ref wasted no time in starting the match, and Beth was slightly surprised that the woman appeared to vanish in a puff of smoke. It was all an illusion, however, as she was very quickly reminded of the active camouflage as portrayed in one of her favorites, Ghost in the Shell.

It was even worse than the portrayal in that series, which was mainly just so the viewer understood where the characters were, as Beth's very keen senses and modified eyes could still detect the woman's presence. She advanced cautiously, however, not wanting to either appear too hasty nor to give away that she still had the other woman in her sights.

She realized after a moment that while she wasn't staring, looking at the rogue so much was going to give away that she knew where the woman was and that she knew the woman was circling to try to get Beth's side or back.

She tried to only just glance at the woman out of the corner of her eye, still moving forward slowly and waving her sword cautiously in front of her, noting the ref just shaking his head slightly, but whether that was from thinking she was outmaneuvered or seeing through her having detected the rogue already, Beth didn't know.

The woman had been patient right up until the end, but Beth didn't even need to keep her in eye-line to detect her charge, whatever the skill the rogue was using not fully masking the noises she was making. Beth could hear not just her footsteps but also the slight creak and jangle of her armor as she burst forward, going for some kind of backstab, possibly even a skill version of the move.

The hit never landed, however, as Beth played rather dirty, waiting until the woman was inches away before summoning her Presence and turning with a rapid twisting of her hips, throwing her weight around to put full force behind a Monstrous Blow while also moving her torso from where the rogue expected it to be. The edge of Beth's sword met the outside of the nearly frozen woman's right arm and shoulder with a crackling squelch, the rogue's flesh tearing apart as her bones were shattered.

The rogue went flying across the arena, slamming into the barrier so hard Beth could hear several more bones breaking even from twenty feet away. Before the woman even had a chance to slide down the clear forcefield, the match was ended and a medic was running onto the field, something that hadn't happened in either of Beth's previous bouts of the day.

Even though the arena fully restored competitors when dealt a fatal blow, cases of extreme damage were still checked thoroughly by a qualified medic to make sure that everything had been fixed and put back in its proper place. The woman still gave Beth the traditional bow, which she returned, before the medic took her away for the day, and the ref then shooed Beth off 'his' field. She returned to the hallway, putting herself in the queue for a fourth time while telling herself it would be the last of the day.

Just this one, a last fight, and then she would be done for the day and not do any more. But… it was still early, and she certainly had the time for a fifth, and a sixth, and maybe even a seventh, and that was before it was even dinner time. She had to shake herself out of it, giving her own cheeks a firm slap to center herself right as her emblem started to buzz in her stat screen.

She registered for her next fight at the counter, getting assigned field one again, which had apparently not been taken by anyone in the interim. The tall man acting as ref gestured impatiently for her to take a spot as she approached, and she had to wait for three minutes for her opponent, which did not make the ref happy at all. It didn't appear the man that showed up had been particularly trying to snub them, as he hurried to the field and gave a contrite bow to the ref before he even started his spiel.

The ref frowned at him but did nothing else before launching into his standard opening, listing the rules and making sure they were ready before starting the match. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. As slow as the man had been in getting to the ring, the wiry fellow certainly wasn't slow in getting across it, as he blurred towards Beth in a rush so fast it made the air snap around him.

Beth didn't mess around this time, and a good thing she was serious from the start, as she quickly found the man to be a match for her. He was extremely fast while still hitting very hard with the dual maces he wielded, every strike of his making Beth's hands tingle and start to go numb. She exchanged a series of blows with him, slicing her sword back and forth in horizontal chops to try to dull his aggression, while still observing his actions.

When he countered her fourth swing with a particularly deft move, she realized that he likely matched or exceeded her in weaponskill. She continued dueling with him for a minute, enjoying the exchanges as they threw themselves at each other, swinging to score fatal blows and just barely dodging or deflecting such powerful strikes. She was grinning ear-to-ear, though no one in the arena could see it under her mask, and swinging her sword even faster and harder.

She pumped as much mana into Beastly Body as she could, letting the raw power flow through her as she started to smash the man back, pushing him across the arena with her strength and aggression. He responded after a dozen such strikes, and that was by summoning his Presence, which appeared as a set of vambraces on his forearms. The vambraces hadn't even fully finished materializing before Beth summoned her own Presence, attacking as the crown was still settling on her head.

The man was totally thrown off by this, Beth clearly able to see the surprise on his face as his helm only covered the top and back of his head, leaving his face entirely open. He recovered remarkably quickly, managing to mostly deflect Beth's first strike before trading several more blows with her in rapid succession. He did develop an edge, now that basically all their cards were on the table as, while his STR lagged behind, his Presence took his already much greater DEX and flung it heavenward.

Beth was really struggling to keep up with his rapid, smashing blows, his hammers turned into a deadly rain of metal and pain as strikes started slipping through her guard, crushing and twisting parts of her armor. She could feel her flesh heavily bruising and a few of her bones crack as he slipped blow after blow through, though her max-silver Pain Tolerance let her shrug off such injuries with barely a care.

The turn came as it often did in such fights, Beth waiting for the perfect opportunity to time her attack for the most advantage. The man had grown a bit overconfident, likely believing that she was on her last legs and couldn't take much more, ready to finish his epic beatdown and claim the win. What he had failed to realize, and was suddenly learning with wide eyes and great regret, was that Beth wasn't nearly as hurt and broken as he had thought, and mistakes even at this bracket could be quite deadly.

Beth proved that to him as he swung both his hammers in an incredibly quick movement aimed at her chest and head that had to be powered by a skill.

She deflected the head strike with a fully charged Monstrous Blow, the strike timed perfectly to hit his blow and throw it off, as well as throw him off balance, which helped as she bulled forward through the chest shot, feeling ribs along her left side crack as her armor caved in, but ignoring it as she lashed out with her left fist, having let go of her blade right after she had countered his head swing.

She infused the blow with Crush, pumping a massive amount of mana into her fist and arm as she slammed her knuckles into his exposed face, feeling part of his cheek and eye socket collapse from the strike. Beth pressed the advantage immediately, instantly following with a horizontal chop coming in from her right that was more meant to entangle his left arm than anything, but she still put enough force in it to heavily crack or outright break the bones of his arm.

Now that she had him locked down, her overwhelming STR, boosted by Beastly Body and then amplified by skills like Monstrous Blow, was able to dish out an immense amount of damage that his speed wasn't able to mitigate. She continued to ignore her own pain and injuries as she lashed out with another punch, followed by a front snap-kick, rolling right into an overhead chop empowered yet again by Monstrous Blow.

The man was clearly on the back foot at this point, and the overhead chop blew past his guard and dug into his shoulder, cleaving his armor apart and seriously injuring his torso. Despite the number of blows and the sheer amount that was happening, the speed at which they moved meant all this occurred in not even ten seconds.

Despite having been on the back foot for a couple minutes, those ten seconds essentially guaranteed Beth's victory, as the man was now very heavily injured, and he was clearly not nearly as adept at operating in such a poor condition as Beth had become. Beth only went even harder after she figured this out, excelling in fighting hurt and damaged, loving nothing more than a dirty and chaotic brawl, perhaps a true reason why she was offered, and chose, the starting class she did.

Getting into that down and dirty brawl thoroughly defeated the man, as he was not particularly tough either, likely not having very much END and no defensive skills, nor was his armor anything to write home about.

After the overhead chop, Beth let go of her sword entirely, which really surprised her opponent, who attempted to take advantage of what he likely thought was a mistake, but a kick to the knee staggering him followed by a powerful punch to the hilt of the blade, still buried in his shoulder, that brought him up short.

Beth hammered the hilt of her blade again, and then a third time, cutting the man's torso apart in a very painful way, her new sword finally ripping free at a painful angle before clattering across the blood-spattered floor. Beth ignored it, directly hammering the man's torso now, finishing what her blade had started with four quick punches, two sets of one-twos that pushed her opponent into the range of fatal damage.

Beth panted just a bit as she released her Presence, having been pushed a fair bit by that fight, but still able to stand tall with another victory. She quickly walked over and picked up her sword, having long gotten the idea that the refs here were far less than patient, exchanging bows with her opponent as a medic came over to do a simple check, not needing to be as concerned as with her previous opponent of the day.

She made her blade disappear back into her necklace, noting that cleaning it was unnecessary as the reset of equipment also meant that it was cleaned after a battle was concluded, quickly hurrying from the ring before the ref could chew her out. She made her way back down into the halls under the stands, registering for another match now that she had wrapped that up, finding that she still had more than enough stamina for a few more bouts.

Her fifth match was set up even quicker than any of her previous, it being late afternoon now and likely the busiest time of day for the individual brackets. The ranked Ladder for solo Awoken was really popping, and they were cycling people through the six individual fields as fast as they could, with Beth experiencing her first ever wait for another match to finish.

She checked a statistic while she waited, curious about the sheer volume of competitors, and found that it was freely available information that most people were Copper Emblems, as that was all that was needed to participate in the individual Ladder.