Way of the Knights

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Inside the formation, the five people arrived at the arena.

The first thing they did was to admire the the scenery and marvel on how real this feels. They felt like they were truly present at that stage and if it weren\'t for Raven saying that only their consciousness is transported, they would really think that the doors they entered earlier were really connected to this place.

At the first sound of a gate opening, the tension on their body rose and they vigorously searched to see where the sound came from.

Paul immediately raised his shield in vigilance. His face then became a little solemn as he saw a Ferocious Blood Bear walking out of the cage while snarling at him. As the ground quaked along with the bear\'s march, Paul inhaled sharply and decided to meet the enemy head on. While his shield was raised, he too marched forward towards the bear, as soon as the distance shrank, the bear abruptly raised it\'s paws, which were the size of Paul\'s head, and sent it down in attempts of shredding Paul into pieces.

Paul\'s eyes constricted, he immediately raised his shield and blocked the attack. He was successful but he felt his body sank and a disbelieving yelp escaped from his mouth.

He felt like he was struck by a canon, but it was just a casual attack from bear. He looked up and saw the bear wounding up another attack. He yelled: \'Oh hell no!\' On his mind and moved out of the way causing the attack to miss.

With that successful dodge, he lifted his spear and thrust it towards the heart of the bear. Paul briefly celebrated when he felt his spear connected but he quickly realized that something wrong, he pulled the spear quickly and moved out of the once more.

He looked up only to see that his attack didn\'t even cause a wound to the bear. He then started panicking causing him to realize that the bear\'s attack was already coming. Though he ended up blocking the attack, he still felt his chest cave in as he skid backwards.

"Shit…is this really an illusion? It hurts like hell!" Paul exclaimed as he went back on the defensive. Now that he experienced the heaviness of the bear\'s strikes, he now doubted his ability to block which dropped his battle prowess by a significant amount. Because of this doubt, he resorted to merely dodging the attacks of the bear while weaving in some attacks here and there. But no matter how much he struck the bear ignored it, seemingly unimpressed by the way he attacks.

It came to the point where Paul realized that if this sort of situation continued, then he would definitely die in a miserable manner, he was panicking since his pride as a man cannot allow that to happen so he repeatedly cursed and searched for a way to counterattack efficiently.

In his desperation, his spear struck the foot of the bear. Surprisingly, he felt his spear sank and the sensation of penetration.

He then heard the bear snarl in pain, just beside his ears. It then lowered it\'s upper body and opened it\'s jaw in attempts of swallowing Paul\'s head. Like Raven always told them, \'once you gain the upper hand, don\'t let go.\' He then lowered his stance and lifted the shield at his core, with a ferocious charge, he bashed the opened jaw of the bear. The bear ended up with a bloody mouth and lost few teeth in Paul\'s retaliation.

Paul\'s body forcefully resisted the impact, due to Raven\'s tips, because of his stance the rest of the impact he will receive will go towards the ground beneath him. The constant beating of the steel dummies actually showed a decent result.

But still, the fight isn\'t done yet. Once again, Paul lifted his spear and struck the vulnerable target according to the available choices. His spear poked the eye of the bear, as the eye popped like a balloon, the blood of the bear splattered and some landed on him, Paul ignored this.

The bear roared in anger and pain, after whimpering because of it\'s lost eye, it\'s started a flurry of random attacks, because it\'s vision was blurred with the lost eye, the bear didn\'t realize that Paul actually retreated causing it\'s attacks to be dodged effortlessly.

Paul once again lowered his body. He started to gather momentum while waiting for the right moment to strike. After it\'s rampage, the bear was visibly exhausted, as it slumped on the ground with a loud thud. Paul\'s eyes flashed and he released all of his gathered momentum through his legs.

Paul flew upwards like a comet, his shield crashed into the bear\'s face which caused it to cave in, it even made a few satisfying, bone shattering sounds which was like music in Paul\'s ears.

As the upper body of bear fell with a loud crashing sound, Paul used that chance to borrow the magic of gravity on his spear which was aimed at the head of the bear. The bear raised it\'s paws with the last attempt to defend itself but Paul\'s momentum was too great. His spear ended up piercing both the paws and the skull of the bear.

Paul heaved a sigh of relief. He withdrew the spear and roared at the cages with overwhelming provocation. After releasing his pent up stress, he smiled and saw that there was a platform that appeared behind him. He raised his brow and walked step by step towards it.

With every step that he took, he felt his body grew heavier and heavier. His vision became hazy and he became so weak to the point where he was already limping. He searched for reasons why he was experiencing this and found a rather recent memory that he completely forgotten.

"Looks like I celebrated to early."

This was his last words before he lost consciousness and experienced his first death.

***

Mark wiped the blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, he glared at the Evil-eyed Mantis in front of him while also not daring to lose his vigilance.

This was the first time that Mark encountered an enemy that was very fast. Not even in the occasional sparring with his friends, were there times that someone managed to be faster than him, not even Raven.

Mark\'s clothes were ripped in many places, his body was also grazed in multiple places. His wounds were leaking blood continuously and his vision was starting to get somewhat hazy. On the other hand, aside from few scratches, the mantis was completely fine. It even had the energy to play with it\'s food, which will definitely irritate Mark to no end if he knew.

His eyes constricted as he saw the mantis disappeared after he blinked. He quickly relied on his sharp instincts to block where the attack was coming from.

Sparks flew from where Mark\'s swords and the mantis\'s claws met. Mark was once again forced to backwards and another part of his clothes were torn open. By now, he completely forgot that none of this was real. He truly treated this as life and death encounter.

Mark breathed in heavily, he felt a sharp pain as he did, it seems that anytime soon his body will lose it\'s basic functions. He figured that he gotta step it up or else he will go down without truly doing a serious damage to his enemy.

Seeing it\'s prey struggle at death\'s door whetted the appetite of the mantis, it was now drooling obscenely as it charged once more in attempt of beheading Mark.

Unbeknownst to the it, Mark actually entered a strange state where he already discarded everything and wholly focused on just killing the mantis.

\'I want to kill.\' Was the only thought present on Mark\'s mind right now.

Primal Lightning Serpents were never a prey. They were predators. Not even knowing how he did it, Mark moved twice as fast as what the mantis was expecting. His movements were quick and accurate that he managed to slice off the left claw of his enemy in one motion.

The mantis blanked out before emitting a piercing shriek of pain. It glared at Mark while also mourning the loss of it\'s claws. It\'s killing intent were now at full gauge but Mark completely ignored this. There was just one sentence that\'s still keeping him alive.

\'I want to kill.\'

The mantis moved once again but this time it was more vigilant. It attempted an attack at Mark\'s neck but he didn\'t move since his instinct told him that it was a feint, which turned out to be true since the mantis reappeared crouching while it\'s claws were aimed at his legs.

Mark stabbed his sword on the ground which blocked the attack, his other hand them moved like a phantom and hacked the remaining claw of the mantis.

Another shriek from the pain and the mantis were now basically unarmed. It was at this moment that Mark went in for the kill. The mantis screeched in fright as it fled in all over the arena. It became quite confident as it saw that Mark was slower that it but a hair-raising whisper ended the party.

"Stop running away from your problems."

One slit on the neck and the head was separated from the body. It was also the same time when Mark\'s vision went dark and he saw nothing again.

Mark now experienced the baptism of his first death.