The Insider System

Chapter 229: Putting On A Show Pt.2

Lake started to think enough time had passed and was pretty sure him not doing anything else now would look weird. He already knew how he could win this fight without making it look like it had been easy. He waited till he got hit again and tripped forward further than someone would allow themselves to even if you were faking because it gave your opponent a straight shot at your head and neck.

The Demon Worshiper seemed to see this as an opportunity to end the fight and shot a spell at his face that would be impossible to dodge if you didn\'t have your footing. Lake was fine enough to get out of its way by using his hands to push himself to the side. This left him on the ground in front of the Demon Worshiper which was the weakest position you could be in in a fight that he knew of.

Waiting until the Demon Worshiper attacked again Lake spun out of the way and threw his knife at the same time his arrow was coming in for an attack. His knife would get there first and when the Demon Worshiper dodged he would hit them with the arrow. Surprisingly that wasn\'t what happened and instead of dodging they held up a dark red layer of mana as a shield and his dagger hit it and vanished.

Trying to recall it to his hand, Lake found nothing happened and realized his knife was gone. Lake wasn\'t happy with this but decided he should focus on the fight instead of worrying about his knife. He still had high hopes of his arrow being able to hit the Demon Worshiper since they were facing the wrong direction to be able to block it.

Seeing the arrow plunge into the Demon Worshipers side Lake used the chance to get onto his feet and back off. It was just one arrow and he had no delusion that they would die from it. Recalling his arrow to his Hand, Lake used Crunch and Imbue Fire on it before sending it out again.

With this it would look like he was finally ready to go all out and that they had entered into the final part of the fight. Flying the arrow towards the Demon Worshiper Lake took out his bow and pulled back another arrow before firing it at the Demon Worshiper at the same time they were dodging the flaming arrow.

He wasn\'t the only one that pulled out a new trick, at the same time he was firing his arrow he was hit in the back making his shot go wide but that wasn\'t the only thing he had to worry about. A spell he had never seen before came flying towards him from one of the Demon Worshipers hands and right when he was about to dodge it his ring activated and blocked it.

Seeing the bubble his ward ring made around him the Demon Worshiper paused and wanted to talk again but Lake decided to ignore him and think about what he was getting hit in the back with again. He was starting to think he was getting hit with magic and the only reason his ring couldn\'t stop it was because it was forming to close inside his ward.

It wasn\'t like there wasn\'t Unholy or dark mana in the air all around him so he guessed there might be spells that could form away from the caster that were perfect for attacking someone inside a ward. It was probably why it was so weak. If all things were balanced a spell that could appear anywhere would be weaker than one formed near the mage.

As someone that practiced a bit with magic he could guess someone would have to have an impressive degree of skill to even use a spell like that. Done thinking about this, Lake started to listen to what the Demon Worshiper was saying. "How many more hits can it block before it breaks, one, two, you\'ll be dead soon."

It seemed the Demon Worshiper had started to talk to themselves after he had ignored the first thing they had said. It was fine Lake really didn\'t think there was a reason for them to talk anymore other than to catch their breath or gather more mana after a big attack or at least that was what he was pretty sure they were doing stopping to talk now.

Lake hadn\'t stopped flying the arrow around for another attack though so it hadn\'t really worked for them. With it about to hit them he drew another arrow back and let it fly towards them at the same time and once again he was hit from behind and the arrow he shot didn\'t get anywhere near the Demon Worshiper.

The fight continued like this for a while while Lake tried to think of a way to kill the Demon Worshiper now that his original plan to use his knife arrow combo had failed. With his knife gone and his bow not working since he kept getting hit in the back whenever he tried to shoot at them his only real option was to use his sword and get close to them or try and overwhelm them with low level spells.

The spells wouldn\'t really work because his fire magic was too weak to matter so his only real option was to use his sword. Pretending that he was about to shoot another arrow at the same time as the flaming one was coming back in for an attack Lake waited to get hit in the back to rush the Demon Worshiper with his sword.

He didn\'t use Crunch because he didn\'t want anyone to know he could slice through almost anything with any attack because his arrow had already shown this ability and he didn\'t want the people watching to know it wasn\'t an archer skill. Right now when they ran off after the fight was done they would report him to be an archer and if he showed any real skill with the sword that would change.

Swinging his sword at the Demon Worshiper\'s neck they dodged and Lake swung again just in time for his arrow to arrive. Lake knew the Demon Worshiper wouldn\'t dodge this and would most likely use the spell that had destroyed his knife again. He was fine with this because it would allow one of his attacks to land.

Lake wasn\'t too surprised when the Demon Worshiper decided to block the arrow instead of the sword and felt his sword hit whatever they had on under their robe and stop. He guessed he hadn\'t swung hard enough to break their armor. This made him wonder if his first arrow that had struck them had actually done anything.

He had assumed they had healed it through some means but it was possible that they hadn\'t had to. This made him think they might be wearing the armor he was going to take to replace the ones that they had destroyed. If they were strong enough to block his swing they were most definitely better than what he was wearing now.

He had an idea how he could take it from them too. It would also help him finish this fight; the only problem was the people watching. He didn\'t want them to see him recall something other than his arrow to him for the same reason he didn\'t want them to see him use Crunch on his sword.

He knew how to fix this he just needed to run at the moment he was going to use Retrieval on their armor. He needed to touch it once before he could do this though so he had to switch to hand to hand for a while. Putting his sword into its sheath, Lake moved in and threw a punch at them.

They blocked with the spell he had seen disintegrate his arrow and knife so he stopped his punch and moved around them to do it again. Sadly their shield spell wasn\'t static and they were able to turn it as he tried to get behind them. After a few circles the shield started to fade and Lake had to dodge back away from them as the Demon Worshiper used what was left of it as a projectile.

Lake recognised this attack as a spell they had been using earlier and realized he was using an attack spell as a shield this whole time. It was a smart way to use a high rank spell that disintegrated anything that touched it. Moving in again Lake didn\'t give them any time to gather any mana and instead of using a punch grabbed onto the robe they were wearing and ripped it unveiling the armor underneath.

With that out of the way all he needed to do was land one attack with his hand on their armor and he would be ready to take it from them. Pulling out another arrow and turning it into a Magic Arrow, Lake let it fly into the air after using Crunch and Imbuing it with Fire. With this the Demon Worshiper would block the arrow and let him land a punch thinking their armor would keep them safe.