Riven didn’t respond to Lance and simply launched forward, his feet pressed against the ground hard as he traveled meters in seconds.
Lance raised his sword over his head, his eyes glowed gold. "This has been a long time coming!" he roared and slashed down. The sword cut through the air fast and let out a massive golden arc that traveled toward Riven at an impressive speed.
Riven used Flame Wall immediately. The sword arc slammed into the wall and shattered it, but it was also destroyed in the process.
Riven pushed forward and slashed. Lance blocked, and Riven was pushed back a few feet. He found his balance immediately and countered.
Another string of exchanges happened fast, but the two sides had no clear winner. Riven then stopped all of a sudden and gripped his sword in a different stance.
He stood with his side facing Lance, his feet spread apart in a horse stance and his sword raised over his head, pointing at Lance.
Lance didn’t know this stance. He was a bit confused by it, but he didn’t care. A golden flame erupted all over his blade; it burned bright and hot.
Twilight lit ablaze in a blue flame, but Riven didn’t move after that. He compressed the flames until they were a few centimeters away from the blade, then he dashed forward with one foot.
He twisted his body, making a clean slash for Lance’s abdomen, an insanely fast slash that Lance would have a hard time dodging.
Out of desperation, the golden flames spread all over his body and blocked the attack, creating a thick layer of flames around him.
But Riven wasn’t disturbed by this in the slightest as he followed up with more attacks, slashing faster and faster with every strike.
Lance blocked some and allowed the flames to take care of some, but he was still getting pushed back fast. Golden flames and blue flames exploded as they crossed their swords, shockwaves spreading all through the arena.
But even with all this, the two were yet to get serious with their battle, as they had been holding back the major chunk of their powers and abilities. It seemed all of that was about to come out.
Golden flames suddenly burst out of Lance, taking the form of tendrils. They attacked Riven, and he immediately used Flame Wall. The wall was destroyed, but he had gotten enough time to retreat fast.
The two of them stared at each other. Lance pointed his sword at Riven and the flame tendrils shot at him, moving very fast.
Riven also pointed his sword forward. He used Flame Blast, and the stream of fire shot forward and slammed into the tendrils.
A massive explosion followed. Dust rose, debris and everything went flying, the shockwave blasted over the face of the crowd, causing them to yell enthusiastically. The battle was getting good with every passing second.
As for those that knew Riven and Lance, they knew that when the flames came out for Lance and Riven also began to use his signature Flame Blast, then the battle was getting serious.
It was at this moment that the winner would be decided.
From the cloud of dust, three flame arcs tore through. Lance saw them and dashed, dodging each one of them. Riven burst through the flame, his feet barely touching the ground as he slashed, attacking with another flame arc.
Lance dashed through it, his flame tendrils shot forward, coming from different directions to catch Riven, but Riven leaped high into the air. The tendrils changed direction and were coming up, but then he used Flame Blast and obliterated them from up there.
Lance frowned, but he wasn’t done yet. He channeled all the flame into the tip of his sword, looked at Riven in the air, and pointed the sword at him, one blast to destroy it all.
It shot out like a laser beam. Riven reacted, but he couldn’t do much about it, and the beam slammed into him. He was thrown back, slammed into the ground, rolled, slammed into the wall of the arena, and cracked it.
Dust rose high and the entire arena went quiet, everyone wondering if Riven had been defeated. Lance watched with eagerness, waiting for the dust to clear.
As the dust settled, everyone saw Riven’s figure standing. When it was fully gone, he was there, without injury, none at all.
When Lance had used the attack, Riven had managed to use Twilight to take the brunt of the strike, and that saved his life in that moment; otherwise, he would have died.
Riven moved his neck to the side, a bone popped. He jumped on one foot, then bounced to the next.
"I’ve been taking this easy all through, but I think it’s time I finally END YOU!" he muttered. Boom.
He kicked forward, his speed shocking. Lance quickly got into his stance, ready to fight. Riven smirked, leaped into the air, and then—
Flame Blast. Flame Blast. Flame Blast. Flame Blast.
Blast after blast after blast came raining down from the sky. Lance was petrified by this sudden change.
He believed that Flame Blast was Riven’s heavy attack, not something he could use in such a way. But he was wrong.
If only he had known the bag of tricks Riven had, he would have never agreed to the duel. If Riven had brought out blood magic, it would have ended even sooner.
But for his blood affinity, he didn’t want to show it off much, because he knew that in the coming future, it was going to be a very vital trump card for him.
Lance looked up at the sky, and without any other option, the flames clung close to him like body armor. Then he started running, running as fast as his legs could carry him, dodging the attacks.
Explosion after explosion hit the arena. The ground was blasted into bits, the arena shook, and everyone was on the edge of their seats.
Riven landed and started looking for Lance through the dust when flame tendrils shot out and came for him. Without time to block, he dodged. Each one stabbed deep into the ground.
Riven rushed forward through the dust, but then he sensed something was very wrong and immediately went low as a golden light passed over his head and slammed into the ground below, followed by an explosion.
The dust settled and Riven saw Lance standing there, surrounded by what used to be his golden flame mana. Now they had turned into small floating balls of golden flame mana that exploded on impact.
Riven looked at them and recalled what they were, a very pesky and dangerous skill Lance used in the story when he had to deal with a lot of enemies.
The balls followed an uncertain path to their target and were very hard to dodge. If they all came at once, it would be a very difficult issue.
But there was a way to get away from them. He pointed his sword at the ground right beneath him and used Flame Blast. He was thrown up into the air immediately, very high.
Lance thought that Riven was about to do the same thing as before, so he fired all the balls at Riven.
When the balls had to go up and hit something, their paths would become more linear, allowing him to counter without much issue.
He waited for the right moment, watching as they approached quickly, and then used Flame Blast when they were all close.
The Flame Blast collided with them all and the explosion that followed was massive. It blasted Riven higher into the air.
He spread out his hands as he started coming down, already locking down on Lance’s location. He immediately used another spamming of Flame Blasts, and this time, they were stronger than the last.
The attacks slammed into the ground as Lance struggled to dodge all of it. Riven landed on the ground and watched the dust settle, thinking he would have won, but he had forgotten, Lance wasn’t just any opponent.
Lance stood there, his breaths heavy. But there was something different about him now. His sword was vibrating, letting out a low humming as it shined, and a pattern lit up on his face and hand.
"Tsk, I see why she would send someone like you as well. You are a monster, Riven, but you are still sitting on my position, and I’ll have it.
Curse your own luck for what’s about to happen, because now, you’ll die," he said.
Riven looked at him with a serious expression. He looked at Lance carefully for a few seconds. He knew that he had seen this form before, ahd then finally he recalled
"When did he unlock the Hero State?" Riven muttered as flashes of images from the official site of the story came to his mind, and he remembered the patterns.