Sworded Affair-Chapter 234: Fair Play

Chapter 234: Fair Play

Now able to see her surroundings again, Emma found a new addition to the hall: the loser’s section, where those who lost but survived were sat on simple wooden benches, having earned the chance to watch the rest of the event. Crystal Light was there, arms crossed and sulking, alongside a few others Emma didn’t bother to scrutinize.

[He performed decently for a non-combatant. Just goes to show that enough expensive equipment can carry even a mediocre wielder a long way.]

“That swap might have gotten me if I was still human,” Emma admitted. “Or if he was wearing armour, making me swing harder than I would against a regular human neck. Well, One With Everything would’ve kicked in at that point, but still, he was a tricky one.”

[Indeed, and on that note.

Crystal Lite defeated!

500 XP gained.

Level up!

True Form: Level 18 Damned Apostle

Anima: 500 EXP: 14,474/15,000

Congratulations on reaching Level 18, if your Class was a person they’d finally be allowed to vote.

Modifier active! Levels earned during the ongoing event will be allocated solely to sword improvements.

Choose two of the four modifiers below:

Stalwart Sword: Epitaph becomes indestructible.Sacred Sword: Epitaph does additional damage to enemies of the Evil alignment.Sword x Sword: Epitaph can fire beams of anima directly from its tip. Toxovolia is removed due to being made redundant.Sworded: Epitaph refuses to be wielded by anybody else.]“Very funny,” Emma shook her head as she read the choices, eyes landing on the fourth and final option in particular. “That would’ve been nice to have just a few minutes ago, completely unintentional, I’m sure.”

Potential practical joke aside, the list was far shorter than most of her recent level ups, largely due to the theme enforced. Shorter didn’t necessarily mean simpler, however, not where choices were concerned. Stalwart Sword had been an option before, albeit under a different name, and just like last time, while she could see uses for it, her sword breaking wasn’t much of a problem when she could summon it back in top form immediately afterwards. Sacred Sword looked attractive in the manner that all damage increases did, but at the cost of being rather vague as to what it would target.

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[Sword x Sword selected. Summon Unholy Sword {Epitaph} modified:

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Sword x Sword: Can fire beams of anima directly from its tip.No Pal of Mine: Capture the souls of the worthy, gaining a simulacrum of equal level to the User. Maximum 1 active per 10 levels, rounding up. 10 minute cooldown when defeated. Captured: The Leech King, Sir Bearington, Earthbound Immortal, Antipode, Duplicate, Monitor Lizard Flying Sword: Epitaph can change size, and fly up to 60 miles per hour.]Emma immediately locked in the third option, because out of all of them, it was the upgrade she could see doing the most for her. Not having to swap between sword and bow form would increase her flexibility by removing the delay between melee and ranged attacks, something that was an objective upgrade in every combat situation. As for the final option, Emma disregarded it entirely, because being able to dismiss Epitaph at will meant that the risk of it being wielded against her was limited to her reaction speed in stopping it, which wasn’t very much time at all. Ultimately, the choice for her second modifier was between Stalwart Sword and Sacred Sword.

“I’ll leave it there for now,” Emma decided, seeing no harm in waiting until a clear answer presented itself later on.

Refocusing back on the event itself, Emma found that most of the circles had already popped, returning the victorious combatants to the stage. Interestingly, the loser’s gallery was still the same size as before, indicating that technical victories were a distinct minority, and most contestants didn’t survive, or at least had to be extracted by a lifesaving technique or substitute. A single circle remained, one that Emma stared at intently, eager to move on to the second round.

Any minute now.

[Haven’t you heard of the old saying: a watched pot never boils?]

Emma ended up staring at the final circle for what felt like an eternity, but was probably closer to five minutes, before it finally popped, revealing a severely burnt man who looked dead on his feet, but nonetheless remained standing.

“An excellent display!” Master Europe grinned, giving the remaining thirty two competitors a thumbs up. “For the next round, we’ll be applying seeding to determine your opponent, with the best performer of the previous round facing off against the worst, and going from there. Not very fair, admittedly, but that’s life for you.”

True to his words, the number of circles on the ground reduced to sixteen, this time with a suction effect that pulled Emma and everyone else to a predestined location. The moment her circle was filled, the barrier went up immediately.

“Does this mean I did pretty well in the previous round?” Emma asked, upon seeing her opponent up close.

Emma didn’t think she’d ranked first, as she wasn’t up against the badly injured man who barely made it through round one, but her opponent wasn’t much more impressive to be perfectly honest. Her opponent was a scrawny looking fellow, a head shorter than her and thin at the point of gaunt. Wearing leather armour and a mask, with no fewer than three bows strapped to his back, two of them snapped in half and held together by what looked like glue and duct tape. The third was more impressive, made of a black material that might have been obsidian, though Emma wasn’t familiar enough with the substance to be sure; it still wasn’t going to do much good in a sword fight though, which made her wonder why they were present at all. Did her opponent not have a storage item?

“Same rules as last time, begin!”

At Master Europe’s word, Emma summoned Epitaph and stabbed at her opponent’s heart, while he summoned a machete to hand, stretching the definition of sword in her opinion. Then, her opponent opened his mouth.

“Transfer!”