The King's Beloved

~ [Music Recommendation: "The Last Hunter" by Naoshi Mizuta. (Final Fantasy XIII-2 OST) - available in Youtube] ~ Please listen to it in loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter XD ~

Ba-dump! Ba-dump! Ba-dump!

The crowd's hearts thumped loud and their throats went dry as they waited on who would make the first move. The contestants kept on staring at each other for a whole minute now and their anticipation just grew worse.

Wooooosh!

At last, the man with the golden eyes made his first move! He quickly glided in the air, as if skating, and aimed to attack Elliot - wait, no, he aimed for Rania! He was so fast that he managed to kick Elliot away and throw him at the other end of the arena, while immediately shifting to Rania and conjuring magic to attack her - a ball of wind. All of this happened in just a blink of an eye!

"Barrier," Rania conjured a barrier to protect her in an instant and she managed to survive the concentrated ball of wind aimed at her.

Elliot, too, was able to cross his arm and form a barrier on it, just in time for the kick and guarded himself. He was thrown off balance but still remained unscathed. He got worried for Rania and immediately looked towards her direction when he regained his balance. Good thing Rania was able to cast a barrier. He breathed in relief upon seeing so … however, Rania's barrier crumbled and broke like glass after taking the damage from the ball of wind. The opponent's spiritual concentration was really too strong.

"Voice activated magic, huh?" the man with golden eyes deduced after seeing how Rania used her magic. His lips curved into a cheeky smile. "Interesting. Too bad it's not as strong as mine". Then, he lifted both of his hands and aimed at Rania again but this time, light beams came glowing from his fingers.

"Earth Walls!" Rania quickly conjured, blocking the light beams, and ran away from the opponent to get some distance. The light beams destroyed the earth walls and collapsed, filling the surroundings with smoke and dust. Rania kept on casting tall earth walls and vine traps all over the arena as she ran away, to block the vision of the opponent and reduce his speed.

Elliot helped Rania put some distance as he suddenly popped out in front of the opponent, giving him a surprise attack from his Zweihänder. With a giant swing, the man with golden eyes was taken aback and flew to the other end of the arena, bumping on the tall earth walls and passing through them, as they fell one by one like domino pieces.

The crowd were appalled from what they just saw. It was a battle of a different degree compared to all they had seen for the past couple of years. No, not only a couple, but for a whole decade, or maybe even a millennium - if someone was able to live that long! For the first time, the man with the golden eyes was caught off guard and dirt got into his clothes, much to his dismay.

"The Holy Zweihänder …," the man whispered to himself as his eyes fixed on Elliot's sword. "As beautiful as ever but … why is it so weak?" a hint of annoyance could be heard from his tone.

Then the man with golden eyes changed his target to Elliot. He conjured his own sword from his right hand - a beautiful rapier with a green handle and a feathered ribbon at its pommel. He launched towards Elliot and welcomed him with a strong attack from his thin rapier. It might be thin, but its strength, combined with the man's magic, was not something to be taken lightly. A strong gust of wind blew off the whole arena when he landed his strike to Elliot's Zweihänder.

Elliot felt the strength of his attack. He was able to block it and withhold it, but he had to use both of his hands. Sweat started to trickle from Elliot's and the opponent's forehead. After a whole minute of pushing towards each other's swords, they split apart and came back for another strike.

Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank!

Their swords kept on slashing and attacking each other. Sounds of metal clanks echoed through the whole coliseum as the two battled against each other. The impacts it produced were so strong that it sent gust of wind all over the place. They were so fast that the crowd had a hard time following their movements - teleporting and popping out here and there, attacking, then gone again only to pop up on another area and slash through each other again.

A couple of minutes had passed as they continued to swing their swords against each other. While they were busy fighting, Rania conjured a thick and dark mist in the whole arena until everything was pitch black and nothing could be seen within the area. 

"Such great swordsmanship and skills, I'd applaud you for that," the man complemented Elliot. He stopped attacking for a second and stared at him like a predator to its prey. "However, you're not using the full potential of your sword. What a shame," he shook his head.

"Huh?" Elliot was confused. "Full potential? Do you mean this - Zweihänder, third form". Then, Elliot's sword changed its appearance - the handle became purple scales, and the golden ribbon with bells tied on its pommel became a tail of a snake.

"Nope, that's just 20% of its real power," the man shrugged.

Elliot's eyes widened. Never had he thought that there was more to the Zweihänder than what was taught to him by the other guardians.

"So this … was not its full potential?" Elliot thought to himself. Turning towards the man with golden eyes, he asked, "You … Are you the guardian of this realm? And how do I unlock this full potential that you're saying?"

The man smirked and crossed his arms. "Since you're a great swordsman, I will tell you who I am. Indeed, I am the guardian of this realm, and you may call me Ventus!"

"You named this kingdom after yourself?" Elliot raised his eyebrows.

"Ack! T-that … is because," Ventus gave an awkward expression like someone caught into doing something naughty.

Elliot chuckled at him. "Too tired to think of names, huh?"

"R-right" Ventus answered nervously.

"Figured, the other guardians are like that, too".

"Ha ha ha!" Ventus laughed awkwardly. "Well, anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is you not even using the full potential of your sword!"

"Way to dodge a bullet," Elliot teased. "But yeah, how do I do that?"

Ventus thought for a moment and decided, "I don't like teaching but I can show you instead. Heh, that's if you can copy it after seeing it once".

Elliot gulped and kept his gaze towards Ventus, without blinking his eyes.

Then, Ventus raised his rapier and channeled his spiritual energy towards the sword. If Elliot was not observant enough, he wouldn't notice that the way he channeled energy was different from simply imbuing spiritual energies to weapons. It was different in a way that … it seemed as if he was forcing an evolution towards the weapon. Yes, like morphing it into something new!

Glowing light enveloped the body of the rapier and little by little, it transformed into a different weapon - a recurve bow with green and white metallic limbs shaped like a feather and adorned with green gems. Its grip and arrow rest had golden embellishments, and the bowstring was silver in color.

"A bow?" Elliot thought in his mind. "But it was a sword before. So the true form of the rapier was a bow? It does look more powerful and the energy it emits is more apparent than the rapier. But a sword is a sword, and a bow is a bow. They have different uses. And this is its full potential? I don't understand," He tried to ponder more about the matter but Ventus suddenly resumed on attacking him.

Ventus conjured a spiritual arrow from his hand and used the bow to aim at Elliot. In a split second, he aimed and released it, much to Elliot's surprise. Good thing he was able to dodge it but it caught a few strands of his hair. And the place where the arrow landed - an empty land from far away - got utterly destroyed in an instant.

"Now that is 50% of this bow," Ventus commented. "I had to hold back since I don't really want my realm destroyed, ha ha ha! But you get the gist of it, right?"

"I see," Elliot replied as he turned his head towards Ventus and looked at him directly in the eyes. "I understand now. The full potential of a weapon …" Then, he tilted his head towards the Zweihänder. "Hmm … wonder what I should call it?"

"What are you saying? Don't tell me you got it from seeing it once?" Ventus couldn't believe what he was hearing from him. "It's not an easy skill you can just learn in an instant. It takes years of practice and -"

But Elliot wasn't listening to him. He was already preoccupied with his own thoughts.

"Ah! I know," Elliot talked to himself. "I'll call it … Verus Mode".

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