Sen lunged, raising his hand and feet and the two entered a pretty impressive one-on-one. Well, two-on-one, because Jesse was definitely targeting Sen when he got the chance.
The two swords clashed. While Angelo was in no way more talented than Sen—this was someone who had killed hundreds with his bare hands and massacred thousands with weapons in Terran alone—he was able to hold on due to Jesse’s assistance, as well as his weapons and equipment.
There were plenty of close calls, with Sen almost hitting him at his few openings. The dude was really fast and was a legitimate martial artist, in contrast to him, a civilian before the apocalypse. At some point, Angelo realized he could only defend himself and depend on his equipment to keep alive.
In fact, if he wasn’t fully clad with armor and defense clothing from Lenny—a couple of extra equipment he could afford being one of Baron’s cousins—he probably wouldn’t be able to stand up right now.
Further, he had his other cousin Jesse nearby, shooting arrows whenever he could, giving him some breathing time whenever things got too close. He did lose his sword at some point though, but fortunately he still had a few copies in his space (also a rich guy benefit).
Sen’s eyes twitched when he saw the man let out yet another Class D weapon. "Annoying!" He yelled, his attacks hastening, and Angelo’s eyes twitched when he felt the durability of the equipment take a lot of hits.
Jesse tried to assist him but the man was quick to block his attacks with his sword. Angelo wasn’t fast enough to take advantage of the openings that happened while he did so.
However, other than Jesse, there was also another archer in the area helping the fighters there. At some point, they luckily hit Sen’s hand and forced him to let go of the sword.
The two archers immediately pointed at the man, but he ran to an alley and off their line of sights. Sen took out his remaining gun—an emergency one left in his space—shooting at the other archer which happened to be easier to target.
"AH!" He yelled. Fortunately, only his hands were visible but it was hit and he was rendered useless.
"Sorry!"
"It’s okay!" Angelo yelled, "Go get treated!"
Angelo lunged at Sen to disable him as fast as he could. Sen didn’t want to lose his remaining gun and put it back, focusing on fighting against the young man with his fire.
"HYAAA!!" Angelo yelled as he raised his hand and attacked, using his wind element to assist in his movement at inopportune times. Angelo was passionate and used all the skills he learned here.
However, it only took a few minutes to be reminded of the gap between the truly skilled and the amateur.
Even Jesse’s shots which had slowly focused on their battle weren’t much use, because Sen’s superior instincts would have (increasingly bigger) fire blocking the way. While it couldn’t completely burn the arrows, it was enough to weaken and even deflect them, rendering them useless against Sen.
Sen’s fire would grow a little bigger learning from him and Jesse. Soon, his swift movements were unable to be blocked by Angelo’s armors anymore. His armor had taken a lot of hits due to his inability to catch up and defend from the barrage and he started to feel a couple of cracks forming.
Class D weapons were far superior to Class E weapons, but elementalists’ damage would still have some effect on it. Done enough times, it could still cause major damage.
Sen had entered a groove of beating him up and the poor former-civilian could only depend on his equipment to survive. Sen had started using him as a shield, so the archers couldn’t target them anymore without hitting Angelo.
The next thing he knew, Angelo was already thrown to the floor. "OOFFF!" And, before he could sit up, a strong force pushed him down, and he was kicked repeatedly.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World