Chapter 322: Clash of Champions (I)

It sped straight for the male elf, Elion Silverwood. Clear shock showed in the immediate stiffening of his muscles. He could understand Uhtred parrying or tanking the attack — he was a Champion, after all, and his abilities were still unknown. But grabbing a stellar heat arrow construct barehanded... then hurling it back?

It was such a shocking sight that for a brief half-second, Elion Silverwood failed to react. But quickly, the elf shook off his shock and sent his intent into the arrow shooting straight at him.

It dissipated into a cloud of radiation, harmless to him, but not to the guards and bystanders at the gates.

Just from that brief exchange, lower-leveled ascenders bowled over, their chests heaving shakily, their eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets.

This wasn’t just any ordinary radiation — many adventurer ascenders of this world had already reached the Nascent Realm, so natural radiation sources wouldn’t harm them. Rather, this was radiation forged from the essence of a Level 58 powerhouse!

Normal Mortal Realm ascenders — regular traders and travelers who didn’t focus on forging up the path of ascension like adventurers did — had already collapsed to the ground unconscious, their cells rapidly dying and failing from the radiation dose.

The city guards, on the other hand, managed to remain upright, though with great difficulty. Only the strongest among them could muster the strength to speak, attempting to halt the fight that had suddenly erupted.

Elion Silverwood didn’t even spare the casualties a glance. He pulled off his hood, revealing his face for the first time. A strikingly handsome, effeminate face stared straight at Uhtred with cold scorn. A deep rage burned in the elf’s eyes — he had taken Uhtred’s act of returning his strike as a personal insult.

In a fluid motion, he extended his hands forward and conjured a blinding white bow out of thin air. He drew his hand back in a smooth pulling motion, nocking the string. An arrow materialized at the last moment — a solid, searing, white-hot mass of stellar heat.

He released it, sending it hurtling straight toward Uhtred.

However, a fraction of a second after he fired, his eyes flickered in yet another shock of surprise.

Uhtred hadn’t been standing idle. By the time the arrow sailed toward him, a projectile shaped like a piercing round — made entirely of compressed lightning and metal elements — charged straight to meet the stellar arrow head-on.

A resounding explosion followed, releasing a burst of radiation and violent electromagnetic energy.

A split second later, Uhtred was the one whose eyes widened in shock. His body moved on instinct as his eyes processed the blur of an arrow still heading toward him somehow. It sped past him, narrowly missing its mark, leaving a long, radiation-suffused sear right across his chest that burned through his vest with ease.

Uhtred’s eyes turned ferocious.

It turned out his new Railgun spell was no match for the elf’s stellar arrow.

That didn’t dissuade him, though. If anything, it filled him with more vigor. He needed an outlet to vent the dark thoughts that had pestered him all through the night, and what better target to vent on than a prideful, powerful elf?

Seeing that his attack had missed, Elion Silverwood calmly nocked another bow. This time, the scorn in his eyes had visibly lessened. It was clear he was taking Uhtred seriously now, realizing he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary human ascender.

Suddenly, Uhtred’s form blurred. He reappeared mere feet away from the elf.

"Your weakness is close range combat!" he snarled, pouncing forward as a crackling battle-axe of lightning materialized in his grip.

He cleaved downward at the elf, preventing him from unleashing his stellar arrow. Elion Silverwood, though caught off guard, still demonstrated the benefits of his higher level. He reacted swiftly and relatively calmly, grabbing his stellar arrow in a smooth, fluid motion.

He used his stellar bow to block Uhtred’s battle-axe cleave, shattered the construct, then followed up with an upward swing of his stellar arrow, using it like a piercing dagger.

Uhtred dodged, leaping back to evade the lethal strike. Without using Slipstream Stride at every second to boost his speed, Elion Silverwood’s movements were significantly faster and sharper than his.

He had already used Slipstream Stride to flash forward the first time, but he chose not to use it again immediately — and for good reason. Against a higher-leveled opponent like Elion Silverwood, hidden advantages deployed at the right moment were vital.

He wanted Elion to believe Slipstream Stride was merely a movement art that only applied to straight dashes and couldn’t be used in complex combat maneuvers.

Uhtred wasn’t calculating deeply at the moment, driven mostly by pure battle rage. But perhaps it was for this very reason that he naturally played his cards this way. He relied solely on his Agility value of 247 and Strength value of 233 against the elf’s far superior values of 403 and 401.

At the same time, he kept an eye on the other elf at the edge of his vision, Eifrith Ra’Elis. She simply stood at a safe distance and observed the duel between him and Elion Silverwood, acting as if the life-or-death brawl had nothing to do with her.

There was an assured confidence in her stance, almost as if she knew — or expected — a specific outcome.

Uhtred dodged another strike from Elion Silverwood with great difficulty. Now that some space had been created, the elf began to flex his level advantage. He pressed Uhtred, almost as if to say: Even though my weakness lies in close range combat, you’re still too weak to take advantage of it!

Uhtred allowed the elf to press. He blocked several heavy blows laced with immense radiation.

Already, he could feel his vision beginning to swim. He tasted the familiar metallic tang of blood in his mouth. The radiation was beginning to affect his organs. He had to admit, Elion Silverwood’s affinity was actually crazy. If anyone else were standing in his place, Uhtred doubted they would fare nearly as well.

But this was only temporary. He could let Elion Silverwood press all he wanted because his focus was locked on a far more vital prize.

Like a hawk, he watched for the slightest opening, and just as anticipated, one presented itself.

Elion Silverwood took a quick step back, deftly switching from a heavy strike to a rapid conjuring motion.

Mid-air, he stretched his hand forward to create another bow and fire off a stellar arrow at Uhtred from close range — seeing as Uhtred was more hardy in close combat than he’d thought.

From this close, a stellar arrow would end Uhtred’s life, or at least injure him severely — Elion was confident that there was no way Uhtred could dodge.

But the moment his feet left the ground to create the gap to shoot, Uhtred pounced.

He activated Slipstream Stride, blurring directly into Elion Silverwood’s space. Before the elf could process what was happening, Uhtred was right in his face.

With all the physical power he could muster, he struck the elf’s outstretched arm just as he was about to nock his arrow. The bow construct loosened in Elion’s grip, allowing Uhtred to press closer.