Chapter 748 - Through The Armor

Argon excitedly clenched his fists. Looking down at his chest, he saw the accessory with the symbol of the crystal dragon god Trygan, and let the strength it gave him flow through his body. Of course, the necklace in itself didn't have any particular effects. It was just what it was supposed to be, the symbol of Trygan worn by his believers. But even then, to Argon, it may as well have been an item with incredible stat benefits, since it made him feel much more powerful than he already was.

The half-dragon let the potion he was holding flow down his throat, and could quickly feel its effects. His body grew in size, and so did his armor and gauntlets. Carefully placing the now tiny bottle into the small bag by his hip, Argon then looked forward, waiting for his opponent. And it didn't take long until the opponent was brought out either. Once again, it was a warrior. There was a surprising lack of mages on the fire giants' side, but considering that mages fell short in one versus one duels, it made sense that the Grandour didn't want to take any chances with this anymore. He had lost seven times already, after all.

At this point, the audience didn't even think of this as a true competition anymore either. Rather than that, they had already made up their mind in expecting Eisen's champions to win all of these fights. Now, they were more excited about simply finding out how they were going to beat the Grandour's champion, since everyone that had fought thus far had a quite unique combat style, all considered.

"It seems like this time, you won't be as lucky." The Grandour said with a broad grin on his face, "Your champion uses hand-to-hand combat, does he not? His opponent this time might as well be the worst match for him." He pointed out, and Eisen looked into the arena, inspecting the giant warrior properly. He was wearing thick full-plate armor, and had a generally quite bulked-up build, even compared to other fire giants that tended to be on the more muscular and bulky side. Even though his size was increased through the Potion of Gigantification, Argon was still quite a bit shorter than the giant warrior standing in front of him. Just judging them like that, it was clear that the giant warrior had the advantage of physique, but that was the case a few times throughout this would tournament, anyway. That alone shouldn't give the Grandour such confidence.

The only reason that Eisen could see why he was sure that Argon would lose was that generally, it was tough to go against such thick armor for someone using hand-to-hand combat, even if they were wearing gauntlets. It was simple, really. With a punch, the same impact you placed onto your opponent would be felt by your hand. Going against such sturdy armor with bare hands then meant that, obviously, the fist would give in earlier. Even with gauntlets, the impact was quite damaging to the hand, while the one wearing such sturdy armor would have little to nothing to worry about. Blunt impact was something that such armor defended against pretty well, on top of that. If Argon was using even just a simple weapon instead of guantlets, most of the returning damage would be absorbed by said weapon, but not now, making this practically a battle of endurance. And clearly, this giant was someone that prided himself in his defensive capabilities. Even without having to return attacks, the giant warrior would win sooner or later, simply because Argon couldn't continue fighting at some point. Or at the very least, that was what the Grandour was thinking right now. Realizing this, Eisen couldn't help but let out a loud laugh.

"You really think it would be that easy?" Eisen asked, looking at the man sitting beside him, "He's not just a simple knight. He's the Dragon Knight Order's one and only Paladin."

The Grandour's smile disappeared in an instant, "Paladin..? He's a... Paladin?" He asked, immediately looking into the arena, as if considering the outcome of the battle once more. Soon, he slumped down in his seat, letting out a loud groan, "And when I finally thought this was something you could do nothing against..."

Eisen chuckled, and crossed his legs, excited to see this fight in action. After all, the holy power that was used by Paladins had the ability to simply pass through armor as if it didn't exist. That meant that, while he still wouldn't experience the full on-slaught of Argon's attacks, the giant warrior wouldn't be able to get away with just doing nothing.

Soon, the bells that announced the beginning of the duel rang out, and in an instant, Argon propelled himself forward. Filled with the same confidence that the grandour had just earlier, the giant warrior stood there, his large sword in hand but without having entered any sort of combat stance. He was just being uselessly cocky, as if he wanted to show off his superiority to Argon within this duel.

However, it didn't take long until the bronze half-dragon reached his opponent. Pressing his feet into the ground, Argon redirected all the momentum in his body toward his arm, and pressed his palm onto the solar plexus of the giant warrior. The holy power streamed out of his body and forced its way through the thick plate armor. It was clear that the damage and pain rushed through the giant's body in an instant, as he moved back as soon as he realized he had been damaged.

"What? How did you-" The Giant Warrior let out, staring at Argon's hands, unsure how he had been injured to that extent. Argon let out a deep sigh, "This is a fight, what else did you expect? That you could get out of this without a scratch?" He asked, slowly moving back into his combat stance. Realizing that this was serious after all, the Giant finally entered a combat stance as well. Eisen let out a slight sigh, realizing that Argon had gone easy on his opponent. If he wanted to, he could have finished this in an instant, considering that his opponent clearly didn't take this fight seriously in the slightest. However, Argon was too proud for that. As a Paladin, he made an oath to be honest and righteous, so it seemed like he wanted to fight his opponent head-on. It was honorable, but Eisen figured it was unnecessary. This fight wasn't going to last all too long anyway, if the ones from before were any decent reference.

The giant warrior swung his longsword at Argon, who quickly dodged out of the way backward, using the chance to bounce back forward the moment that the blade passed by him. Having closed the distance, the half-dragon was able to once more attack the giant's torso in a straightforward attack. Just this time, he hit the lower side of his torso, pushing the giant away. This part of the armor was particularly thin to allow for proper movement on the giant's side, so he received even more damage than before.

Slashing his sword at Argon, the giant tried to retaliate, but the half-dragon quite easily dodged once more, passing by under the blade. He was close to the giant's body, and he wouldn't let go of this distance anymore. It was a straightforward way of fighting, but it was still something that put the giant in a tough position, considering that he wasn't able to freely attack with his longsword anymore. Since he was so large and wearing incredibly heavy armor, he couldn't move fast enough to build up distance between him and the agile Argon. The two continued fighting in this manner, with the giant attempting to slash or stab at Argon, while the half-dragon in question easily dodged or diverted the attack, just to then place an attack onto the giant himself.

In many ways, this was still just a battle of endurance, just that the giant had a disadvantage compared to Argon, as expected beforehand by the Grandour and the Giant himself.

The holy power continued penetrating the armor with each attack, and although the giant was slowly getting used to it, that didn't change the fact that he was receiving continuous damage. Maybe it was exactly because the individual attacks weren't that powerful, near exclusively receiving damage through the holy energy, that he had trouble keeping track of the accumulated damage.

However, soon enough, the half-dragon stepped back, as if he was trying to give the giant a chance to attack as well. It soon became more than clear that this bout was about to end, one way or another. The giant as well had stopped underestimating Argon. Rather, it was as if he as well knew that he was going to lose this fight in just another few moments. Even then, he went all out, and used his whole body to swing the blade at Argon. If he was hit by this attack, then it might as well have been enough to take Argon out in just one go. But of course, that was something that the half dragon wouldn't let happen.

Through the accumulated damage to his body, the giant wasn't able to exert the full power that he had wanted to. Particularly, the right side of his body had been damaged, which made the slash lean more toward one side than the other. Using this, Argon hit the inside of the giant's arm in the middle of the slash, creating the perfect openings in the giant's defense. With one more attack, the same as the first Argon put out at the start of the battle, a clear impact with the giant's solar plexus, he ended this duel.

The air escaped the giant's lungs, and he fell to his knees, ending the fight mere minutes after it begun.