This will hurt a lot, but it's the only way to defeat him without breaking the rules.

He swings his greatsword again and I jump back.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Both arms- Five Times Strength*

I get close and swing my sword downwards. He barely deflects it to the side and steps back. However, that much strength needs sacrifice. My bones can't handle the force and I can feel them screaming.

"How did you-!?"

He extracts mana and forces me to jump back.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Whole body - Four Times Accel*

I run around him and avoid his magic attacks. I start feeling disorientated and nauseous. Then I approach him again and thrust my sword to his chest.

However, his armor deflected the sword.

"Tsk, tough armor. Shit."

He swings his greatsword and I jump back again.

"What's up with that speed!?!? There's no way you can handle it!"

He's almost right, I'm barely holding myself together. But I can last long enough to defeat him.

That armor is too strong. If I am going to destroy it, I need to invest even more force.

I hold the sword with my right arm.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Right arm - Ten Times Strength*

I can practically kiss goodbye to my right arm. As soon as I strike, the bones will shatter and the muscles will literally explode.

But this is not enough. I need to focus my strength on that attack so I can't evade or deflect his greatsword with the sword.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Left Arm - Crystalize Blood*

"Ffffff----"

It hurts like hell! Every drop of blood in my left arm is now solid and hard as a diamond. But at least now I can use the left arm as a shield, but I sacrificed flexibility. I can only move the arm with my shoulder.

"Haaaaa!"

Musclehead launches another bombardment. I avoid the first ones.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Both legs - Five Times Strength*

And jump towards him. I felt my legs screaming in pain after jumping. But at least I get close to him in less of a second.

"A--!"

He barely had time to react. He instinctively swings his greatsword against me from my left side. I use the left arm to protect myself. His greatsword cuts a little of my arm but gets stuck in my veins.

"Wha!?!?"

I thrust my sword into his chest with the right arm. The armor shatters and the sword pierces his chest.

"Bluah!"

The sword continues the trajectory and also shatters the plate armor on his back. The force was so intense that he fell a few meters behind, with the sword still on his chest.

"Shiiiiit!"

My right arm is completely destroyed. The bones are shattered in little pieces, the muscles are a mess and the arteries are burst open. Blood is coming out from many places on my arm. I never felt anything so painful, fire must be a massage compared to this. I get on my knees and try not to look at my arm.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...!"

"Stop! Sir Corin was fatally wounded. Sir Alddan is the winner!"

The crowd cheers, louder than ever. Fuckers. I would love to give them a taste of what I am feeling!

"Al you alright!?" - I can hear Nora. I look at my side and sure enough she is running in my direction.

"Hmph, I need a minute... !!!!"

The greatsword is still in my left arm. The Inner Magic can't be dissipated at will. It takes a while for the effects to disappear. In other words, my blood in my left arm is still solid as a diamond, and the greatsword is still there. I can feel something funny, and painful, in my left shoulder. It must be the blood getting stuck in the arteries, blocked by the solid blood.

Nora kneels close to me.

"Oh my god. I ah... Wait, let me take this out." - She grabs the greatsword and takes it out of my arm. - "What? You're not even bleeding."

She is referring to the wound of the greatsword.

"Ghh, that's because, haa, that's because the blood is solid."

"What? You can do that?" - She looks again, then at my right arm. - "That looks bad..." - She mutters.

"You think...? Haha..."

I don't even want to look at it.

"Let me take your helmet off." - She removes my helmet.

"Thanks. Ghh!!"

Some servants arrive to check up on me and musclehead. Blake is also running towards his Servant.

"Did you get any injury in the head sir?"

"No. Hmph!"

"Ok, please drink this, it will speed up the healing process."

He opens a flask with a green liquid. He puts in my mouth and helped me to drink it. Then:

"Blueh, it tastes like crap friend."

"If you find a way to make it tastier, let me know." - He smiles - "Please forgive my informal behavior."

"Don't worry about it."

He gets up - "Congratulations on your victory." - and run towards musclehead, who is still in the ground.

Nora is still with me, looking at my wounds.

Soon enough, my right arm is starting to hurt less, and I can feel the bones getting back in place.

"It's so frustrating..." - Nora says.

"What is?"

"Seeing you like this, and not be able to do anything to help... If only I knew healing magic..."

"Don't worry, it's the thought that counts."

She smiles.

The funny feeling in my shoulder disappears, and the wound in my left arm starts to bleed. Good, the magic is starting to fade.

She notices the bleeding and panics a little.

"Don't worry. It's a good thing. It means my blood went back to normal."

"Ok..."

The same servant comes back with my sword, he's also cleaning it.

"Here's yours sword Sir. Unfortunately, it has some cracks."

Shit... I'll have to get a new one. It does not have some cracks, it has cracks all over. It's a miracle how it is holding together.

"Give it to me." - Nora asks. He gives the cleaned sword to her. - "How is he?"

"Sir Corin has a big hole in his chest. His ribs are all broken and his lungs are squashed. He passed out because he couldn't breathe."

"Serves him right." - I say.

My wound in my left arm is already healed. My right arm is getting better, but it still hurts.

The servant gets back to musclehead.

I get up, and the crowd cheers as they see me.

"This year champion is: Alddan!"

Applauses, cheers... Anyone would feel happy I reckon, but to be completely honest, I don't care. I was forced to enter, suffered enough pain for a year and now I feel like crap... The accel I used earlier is making me nauseous.

I loose balance and Nora quickly supports me.

"Whoa there. You should wait a little while before getting up."

"Thanks, but I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Ok then, let me help you."

"You're going to get dirty with my blood."

"You think I care about that?"

She puts my left arm around her and grabs my waist. I look at where the prince is. His grin is one of the most infuriating ones I have ever seen.

We walk out of the arena.

...

.....

........

"I must say, I was kinda surprised you didn't show up for the champion ceremony." - The royal bastard says.

We are with the prince inside of a carriage. We are heading somewhere outside of the capital.

"Didn't feel like it." - I reply.

"It's fine it's fine, I'm not judging you."

"Vanadis, could you just tell us where we are going? You made us come with you all this way for what?"

After I exited the arena, I was invited to go back in a few minutes later to be congratulated and wave to the public. I refused. Then, after Nora changing into new clothes and I cleaning up mine, we exited the coliseum. The royal bastard ordered us to enter a carriage as soon we left and wait for him. When he came back, he refused to tell us where we were going.

"I already told you, it's a surprise." - He opens the window - "Hey, driver, stop on the next inn."

"Yes your highness."

He closes the window. It's already night. We are far away from the capital.

...

We stop at an inn. It's isolated from the closest town. Behind it there is a forest.

"Not the most luxurious place but it will do. Let's rest here." - He opens the door and exits. Nora and I follow.

Behind us, there is another carriage with some maids exiting and there are 8 knights on their horses.

"Take care of things for us would you?"- He asks one of the maids. She replies "yes your highness" and goes inside the inn.

A few moments later, everyone leaves the inn. It seems like he rented the whole inn for us...

"Well then, I'm going to my room. And uh, in 10 minutes you both come to my room. We have something to talk about."

He turns his back and enters the inn.

"Seriously, what's up with him?" - I ask Nora.

"How should I know?"

"*sigh*"

"I guess we'll find out eventually. For now, let's enter and see if they have something to eat, I'm starving."

We enter the vacant inn.

...

10 minutes later, we make our way to the bastard room.

Nora knocks on the door. - "Can we enter?"

"Yes."

She opens the door and we enter. Vanadis is sitting on the bed and the maid, the same one from the other night, is standing next to the bed.

"Well then. Now that you are here, we can start our little meeting."

He gets up and walks towards us. The maid gets behind him.

"So, where do I start? Hmm... In short I need you both to do something for me."

The maid gets closer to him.

"No, to be more specific, I need Al-- Gah!?" - The maid slits his throat with a knife.

He falls to the ground with his hands covering his neck.

"Gah--ah!?!?" - He tries to say something as he looks back at her.

"Sorry, it's nothing personal." - She says that with a smile to the prince. Then she looks at us - "Same for you... HELP, THE PRINCE WAS MURDERED! HELP!"

What the fuck!? She wants to frame us!?

Two knights kick the door open. They see us with blood in our clothes and the knife on the ground. The bitch tossed the knife to our side without us noticing.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

We should comply. If we don't, we will only look more guilty and that's what the bitch wants. Nora family is powerful so--

"AL LET'S RUN!" - Nora screams as she uses Physical Magic to throw the guards away. They didn't have time to summon negative mana - "QUICK! THROUGH THE WINDOW!"

What are you doing!?!?

She uses physical magic again to destroy the window. Then she jumps outside and I follow.

"STOP!" - Another knight yells.

I quickly summon my bow and an arrow and shoot him in the head.

"KYAAAA!" - Nora screams.

There was another knight behind us. Nora is on the ground and she is bleeding from her right thigh. The guard had slashed her with his sword.

Before I had time to summon another arrow, Nora extracted 8000 mana and burned everything in front of her. The Knight, who was either Violet, Blue or Light Blue mage, didn't have any chance and was disintegrated.

"Al. Help me! Agh!!!"

"Hang in there."

I pick her up in my arms. There's no time to be careful so I just hoped that I didn't hurt her too much when grabbing her legs.

*Type: Inner magic - Location: Whole body - Double Accel*

I run as fast as possible into the forest.

"Nora! Why did you run!?"

"She is with the Black Poison!"

"Who?"

"It's an assassin organization agh-! They must have planned this! They must have wanted us to surrender!"

"..."

"Al, I did the right thing right!? They wanted us to surrender right!? So then--! So then--!" - She's almost crying.

In the heat of the moment, there is no right or wrong choice. We choose what we think is the best choice. Nothing more nothing less. Only later we can look back and think if it was the right choice or not. For me, it was easy to keep calm and think rationally because I am used to it. Nora on the other hand, probably never dealt with this kind of situation.

Now that I think about it, most would have just ran away without thinking. But she identified the maid, formed a theory and acted on that. Now she's doubting herself, wondering if she made the right choice. And my question just made her doubt herself even more.

"Don't worry, you made the right choice."

"Uh?" - She looks up at me, with tears in her eyes.

"You acted on your instinct. I trust you. So there's no way you made the wrong choice."

She covers her face in my chest, crying.

To be honest, I lied. I don't know if she made the right choice or not, how could I know? I said that to calm her down. But later I should ask her for more details.

Her injury is serious. If I don't treat it, it will be infected.

I need to find a place to treat her.

************