As Ye predicted, a few parts of the fence hanging above him dropped down and blocked his path forward. If he tried to go around the obvious pathway in front of him it would take a considerable amount of time and drag the fight on unnecessarily. All it would take is for Bravo to just keep skirting around the outside edge of the fences and he would buy enough time for the rest of his arsenal to arrive. Plus he could enter it whenever he wanted, forcing Ye in anyway, so it was far better for Ye to just bite the bullet. With his enchantment he was strong enough to take on all obstacles and threats anyway so there was no reason not to charge ahead. He stepped into the field of fences and he could feel the nearby electricity crackling away all around him, tickling his skin and trying to latch onto his flesh. It was as though the jolts were attempting to excitedly leap off the fence and shock him as though it were their life mission. The good thing about these fences were that they could be seen through because they were chain link, meaning Ye could find the correct path quick enough. What he really had to worry about here was the swarm of bees dotted throughout the maze that would hamper his progress and try to force him into uncomfortable positions. They didn''t need to outright kill him, the bees simply needed to push him into the fences and that would be good enough. Any kind of shock Ye suffered would lead to the rocket launchers unleashing all hell upon him immediately afterwards. Despite being surrounded on all sides, Ye didn''t slow down his dance down the dangerous corridors and opted to take them at full speed. the sooner he cleared everything the better. If he wasted time in the maze more and more fences would drop, changing the layout and making his life harder. For his own sake, he needed to be fearless and remain confident in his control of his movement.
Ye rounded a corner and very nearly grazed his arm on it but the way he expertly drifted around it made him look like a professional racer who could always take the optimal line. Maintaining his speed meant the swarm of bees were not able to launch an attack on him before he could gain his bearings back so he dove into the horde before they could corner him. Ye led with a spinning slash, after positioning himself in between the bees, and this tactic paid off as he wiped out nearly half the swarm immediately and that was before any of his petals had even detonated. Approximately six petals were slashed during his attack so an identical number of miniature flower-shaped fireworks detonated around him, cleaning out the remainder of the bee horde. Usually the bees were much more competent but Ye, with his enchantment, taking the lead and aggressing first meant they stood little to no chance. The rest of the bees were currently trying to navigate through the holes in the fences and box him in but if Ye kept barrelling through the bees at the front then they wouldn''t be able to catch up at this rate. The launchers had been waiting patiently for an opportune moment to strike but, at this point, it was looking less and less likely they would be so lucky. Bravo, who was positioning himself so that he could take pot shots at Ye, ordered the launchers to just to start firing at will otherwise they might not even get a chance to fire at all. With another swarm of bees intercepting Ye, Bravo firing off seeds with his rifle, and the launchers all kicking off, it looked like Ye was about to bite the dust but the look on his face suggested otherwise.
A certain kind of serenity was all that adorned his face. There was no worry of the situation deteriorating despite the circumstances, that what Ye believed. He had the talent to get through this so he took in every problem headed his way and created a triage-esque list of things he needed to accomplish in order to stay alive. First, swipe at the bees and create a wall of fireworks to keep them at bay temporarily. Ye needed time to think and act on the other, more important problems so not being distracted by the swarm of metal was imperative. He used mana to guide a bunch of ten blossoms in front of him and lined them up vertically before taking a mighty downward swing and creating a blast of vibrancy ahead of him. The bees'' weak wings weren''t even able to flutter, let alone hover, within the blast radius and so they were all pushed back away from Ye, giving him room to focus on the next set of tasks which were easily going to be the hardest.
Next up was a seed bullet but dealing with it was tricky for an entirely different reason than was to be expected. Bravo had missed this shot by roughly an inch. So why was that a problem? Surely it was a good thing for Ye as he wouldn''t need to factor it in to his plans? Not quite. See Ye''s goal here was to sever the seeds in two and use them to create mini fireworks as well. Any plant or nature related object he slashed with his enchantment would cause a colourful explosion, and the seeds very much counted towards that, so his opponent''s ammunition could benefit him provided they were in the right place at the right time. Ye''s grand plan was to use Bravo''s seeds from his gun to block the rockets by detonating them in the perfect spots but this first seed was misaligned and mistimed with the first rocket. In order to correct Bravo''s missed shot, Ye danced a half step back followed by another half step towards the left. He leant to the right and swung up and left to slice the seed in half just as it was flying across the rocket''s path.
Bang
BANG
The seed was destroyed in the exact position Ye wanted so the rocket that came sailing towards him was blocked perfectly and harmlessly exploded a few feet away. The residual blast was taken care of by a few redirected flowers by Ye who''d taken such an issue into account back when he decided to take care of things in this manner. He wasn''t done yet though as there were a whole host of incoming projectiles that were still on their way. Annoyingly, even though the timing of the next few seeds were perfect their angle was troublesome. Point in case, in order to block the next rocket with another seed, Ye had to lean backwards like he was playing a game of limbo. This caused the seed ot miss his head and end up behind him. Ye poked the rear of the seed and the ensuing firework dealt with the rocket approaching him from behind. The next seed needed to take a 90 degree turn to be in the correct place so Ye swivelled his body to the right and kicked it, forcing the seed''s direction to change mid air before being cut clean through by Ye''s sword and making itself useful for the swordsman''s cause. Some seeds were impossible to make use of and these were instead deflected into the bee swarm to pre-occupy them and delay their re-acquisition of Ye as a target. In this manner, ducking under seeds, jumping off some, and even flicking a couple, Ye was able to blow up the first wave of rockets aimed at him without suffering any injuries. A few of them had gotten caught in the fences nearby so Ye kicked them backwards, throwing them into nearby swarms and taking them out without having to worry about them in the future. He followed up these rapid spin kicks with another slash to take out the leftover bees from the first swarm he encountered here, clearing them out for good. No bees, no rockets, and nothing more than a few seeds from Bravo that Ye was more than capable of batting away with his sword all meant it was a good time to advance. Some more of the electric fences had dropped down, shifting the position of everything within the maze slightly, but it wouldn''t stop Ye for more than a few seconds as he trailed behind his own divine sense which was busy forging a new path directly to Bravo.
Ye made a great amount of progress, and was a now no more than a few seconds away from Bravo, but he encountered another wave of rockets and was halted in his track. Unfortunately, this time, Bravo had wizened up and was no longer sending any seeds Ye''s way to avoid potentially lending him a helping hand indirectly. This didn''t mean Ye had no option to recreate his earlier trick, however, as he was capable of redirecting his nearby flowers and using them in the same way. Plus he had control over them so putting them in the right place was actually far easier than relying on Bravo. The main problem with this was that he had less defensive options for a while as the flowers took a while to come back after use. To mitigate this, whenever possible, Ye kicked some of the nearby bees into the rockets to block them that way instead. This was incredibly risky because of how tiny the bees were. Angling his kicks to send the bees exactly where he wanted was challenging but also meant he was temporarily unable to move that foot around. Ye had to resort to one legged hopping to centre his gravity where he wanted to be during most of this wave of rockets. There was still one more rocket but, oddly enough, Ye could sense a seed coming from behind. Ye wasn''t entirely sure why Bravo fired such a convenient bullet but he didn''t have enough time to send his divine sense out and inspect everything in detail. Instead, he simply performed a 180 swing to cut the seed into two. As he turned around, however, he had to pause his attack halfway through lest he blow himself up. Bravo had shot a seed, yes, but he''d also thrown another poison grenade alongside it and a slash would have cut both at once. Ye would have stopped the seed but been forced to inhale some poison. This was a clever trap Bravo had thrown out when Ye least expected it so the situation was looking pretty rough. The seed wasn''t going to just wait in mid air for Ye to sort things out, the grenade would detonate soon, and the rocket was on the same path as before. Ye halting his attack gave him time to think but not a lot as he had to be quick about his next move to defend himself.
...
Ye let out a short chuckle and shook his head as an idea had very much formulated in his brain but it was a troublesome one that could potentially go very horribly wrong. Still, if it worked then everything that ailed him would be dealt with in one fell swoop... But if he failed.... The rest of this fight going ''poorly'' would be the understatement of the year. What he was about to do was something he''d never tried before so he was just going completely with the flow on this one. He rapidly swapped to a reverse grip on his sword so that his palm was facing outward. Ye then followed that rapid switch by flicking his wrist upwards and letting go off the sword, throwing it a short distance into the air. Leaning his head down, Ye caught the sword handle with his teeth as his open palm caught grenade. With a swift flick of his head the blade of the sword was dragged through the air, barely managing to catch the seed and slice it into two harmless halves. Keeping the momentum of his turning head, Ye placed his left foot backwards and twisted his body around to chuck the caught grenade straight at the rocket.
BANG
Phew. Ye briefly closed his eyes as he dropped the sword back into his hand and took a sigh of relief as his plan had miraculously worked out. Utilising his teeth as a temporary third hand, or more accurately second as he only had one arm to begin with, was an idea he toyed with regularly. He''d seen other swordsmen do similar things and given his lacking second arm it always looked like a useful ability for him to learn. Though things worked out this time, if he''d needed to block anything more powerful than a seed he would have been toast. Granted one single bullet piercing him wouldn''t be the end of the world but the usefulness of teeth wielding had been made abundantly clear to Ye who swore he would practice this unusual trick in the future to make manoeuvres like the one he just pulled off simpler to execute.
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The poison grenade and the rocket were detonated a fair distance away so Ye wasn''t required to send any flowers to block anything this time. Now that he''d fully dealt with the second wave of attacks the path to Bravo was crystal clear. The elf had changed up his location a bit since Ye last paid him any attention but it was still close enough that he could catch up and end the fight for good. Bravo struggled to contest Ye at close ranges before but, now that the enchantment was in play, his loss was all but guaranteed already. Bravo could try running but that would throw his Base weapons out of whack and he wouldn''t be able to find another set of them so conveniently. He could move towards them but they were still too far away and Ye, on his flying sword, would hunt him down in no time. Bravo''s best course of action was to hold his ground here with what he had available to him even if it was still a losing plan.
Ye turned one last time and was now face to face with Bravo once more. The deciding scrap was long overdue so he commanded his blossoms to form a tunnel around them and the fight kicked off immediately after with Bravo taking the initiative. If Ye''s exploding petals were going to be a nuisance anyway then Bravo would rather they hassle him while Ye was defending. Bravo would have to be willing to trade hits here and just let the fireworks him while he maintained aggression against Ye. The alternative was just sitting on the backfoot forever as Ye''s onslaught of steel, fire, and petals never ended. Bravo repeatedly swing his axes, alternating between them to prevent Ye from getting out of this mess cleanly. Of course, in the meantime, the petals were positioning themselves between Ye''s blade and Bravo''s axes, effectively getting pulverised between the two. When they exploded, Bravo''s wrist and unguarded chest and face would be caught in the blast but he soldiered onward without so much as a single grunt. It hurt but nothing good in life ever came easy and the same was doubly true for victory against Ye. He wouldn''t beat the swordsman by being a pansy who was too afraid to get hurt, that was nonsensical and cultivators with that mind set would never get very far.
Bravo tried throwing a few kicks in here and there but Ye''s footwork, even while maintaining his perfect block streak against the axes, was faultless. maybe someone more proficient in kicks could have taken advantage here but Bravo didn''t specialise in them and was simply using everything at his disposal in the vain hope something would slip by Ye''s guard. A few rockets attempted to breach the blossom tunnel from outside but they were unable to penetrate the wall of pink and were rendered useless. Some bees were just about able to squeeze their way into the tunnel but only an even fewer number of them weren''t immediately blown up by the fireworks erupting out of Ye''s blade whenever he clashed with Bravo. Still, all it took was one or two to change the dynamic of a fight and now Ye had to deal with these intruders lest they complicate things with Bravo. This was where Bravo''s insistence on persistence finally showed results because Ye was still busy deflecting strikes and had no time for the bees, leaving him in an awkward position despite his overwhelming advantage overall. Though Bravo was weaker than Ye, he was still a standout cultivator through and through so he was able to find ways of coming back form the brink when he really needed to.
Ye tried to hop back and make enough room for him to take out the bees quickly but Bravo was on point with his speedy reaction times and was ready to punish Ye for this decision. He took a running start and lobbed both buzz axes straight down the middle of the blossom tunnel. Ye had just swung his sword at the bees and, although he''d successfully destroyed them all, he was not in a position to block these axes properly. He''d still be able to but the force behind them was considerable and, depending on how Bravo followed these axes up, Ye could be in a bit of trouble. Still, Ye felt alright as, without his axes, what was the worst bravo could do here anyway? Ye dragged his sword back in front of him just in time to receive the first axe which pushed him backwards a step. The second axe crashed into his guard and crushed it, blasting Ye''s arm back and forcing him to stagger on one foot. This had been unavoidable lest he wished to take two thrown axes to the gut so now it was just a matter of seeing what Bravo had planned.
Bravo rushed in towards Ye and cleared his mind. What came next would be painful but highly worth it so he grit his teeth, jumped, and shot his hands straight upwards. Both hands went flying through the blossoms, all of which shredded some of his flesh and cut deep enough to reach bone in some places, and grabbed onto the electric fence which was incapable of distinguishing friend from foe and zapped him. Bravo had burst his hands through the razor sharp blossom tunnel and suffered serious shocks all so that he could launch himself off the fence roof and drop kick Ye in the face with a devastating impact.
BANG
Crack
Ye had underestimated Bravo''s willingness to injure himself in order to even the fight out again and, honestly, it might have even been better for him to take the axes in his gut. The kick had knocked one of his teeth out, broken a part of his jaw, and blasted him into the electrical fence which then caused him to get electrocuted as well and drop his weapon on the floor next to the axes. Though axes to the gut would have been more severe, at least Ye could have kept his weapon and prevented this entire scenario. Bravo was standing between Ye and the weapon pile so things were devolving into a bare knuckle brawl in which Bravo held the advantage. Throw in the rocket launchers and the bees keeping the blossom tunnel, and Ye''s flowers, busy and the roles had been reversed entirely all because of one mistake on Ye''s part. In order to win, Ye needed his enchanted weapon back so it was going to be a matter of whether Bravo could beat Ye into submission first or whether the floral swordsman could slink by the bulky elf. Either way, many punches and kicks were going to be thrown in this tight space. It was a terrible place to fight like this, what with the fence and blossom tunnel making things infinitely worse, but this was how the fight ended up and there was no point complaining about it now!
Ye had let Bravo set the pace of their fight for long enough so he led with a right hook that Bravo blocked comfortably. Bravo returned fire with his own right hook, intentionally aiming for the side Ye would struggle to defend given his missing arm. It was dirty fighting but effective and he didn''t care about the morality of the punches he threw so Bravo didn''t hold back. With a swift duck, Ye dodged it before stamping forward with his foot to try and pin Bravo''s shoe to the ground. Bravo slid his foot across the floor to avoid that and went for a headbutt but missed when Ye gracefully glided backwards along the floor after a short hop. Just because Ye had been disarmed that didn''t mean his footwork was going to magically disappear. What Bravo really wanted was to injure this dancing pest''s legs as that would all but win him the fight. To that end, Bravo raced forward after Ye and returned the favour from earlier by trying to sweep Ye''s legs or kick them whenever possible. Unfortunately he was made to look a fool by Ye''s carefree dancing that allowed him to elude Bravo''s brutish strikes. That didn''t mean Ye got away Scott free, however, as he did occasionally take a punch to his upper body and there was nothing he could do about that as he was a dancer, not a contortionist.
The two kept beating each other up in a back and forth duel of which there was no clear victor. Ye would hit Bravo more often thanks to his speed and agility but Bravo''s few and far between hits were heavier and generally more impactful on Ye''s health. Ye was also moving around a lot more than Bravo so he was more mentally tired than his foe but he needed to do it. If he gave Bravo any room he would either retreat and pick up his axes safely or pull out one of his other weapons. He still had a shotgun and a bow on him meaning Ye had to keep a close enough distance that he could smack him if the elf tried to reach for it. Ye ran in and tried to sneak around Bravo''s flank but he was halted in his tracks as the elf shifted into his path. With a few quick adjustments Ye was now threatening to escape around Bravo''s right side but he was denied yet again. Bravo had even given up on attacking so long as it meant not letting Ye past as a drawn out fight was in his favour. Ye felt like he was running out of options but there was still one thing he wanted to try as it may very well work. He took a step back, faced Bravo from a slight angle, and leant his arm back. With a kick off the floor, Ye dashed towards Bravo and swung his arm overhead not in the form of a punch but rather in that of a chopping motion. Bravo was wondering what on earth Ye was up to but his heart nearly stopped when he heard Ye shout...
"Sharp!"
Sharp, the art that could make anything into a makeshift sword on the spot. Bravo''s eyes widened and he had to throw himself directly into the fence to his side to avoid the incoming chop... Unfortunately, as he leapt heroically out of the way, he realised he''d been conned again. That bastard Ye didn''t know the Sharp art! He was just saying it out loud to fool Bravo into thinking he needed to dodge immediately or lose his life! Not only had Bravo just moved out the way for Ye, who was already running past to pick up his colourful sword, but he''d even thrown himself face first into the electrical fence which could only mean one thing.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Bravo was zapped again but it wasn''t just his hands this time. He''d kicked Ye into the fence earlier and now he''d gotten a taste of his own medicine. Worse still, the Blossom tunnel hadn''t exactly disappeared or anything so chunks of his flesh had also been torn away mid jump. The result of this fight didn''t need to be explained and Bravo wasn''t surprised to land back in the tunnel with a sword pointed straight at his forehead.
Tsk
Having been robbed twice by this conniving swordsman, who clearly had no honour worth mentioning, Bravo simply kissed his teeth, said nothing, and left after Ye lowered the blossom tunnel. Bravo hopped off the tree, opened his leaf parachute, and abandoned his mission. He acknowledged his loss even if he hated the way it happened. If he started being a sore loser about it then even Theodore might turn around and shoot him with his cannon. There was an understanding with the seasons that once a decision or result was finalised then everyone had to fall in line. Bravo lost so he accepted it without a fuss. It took him no longer than a minute to land with the leaf and start heading for the exit of the town. Bravo was going back to his home planet to train and relieve stress by hunting some dryads and wouldn''t be seen again at the international because he was done here. Bravo didn''t really care if Mako won the tournament, he just didn''t want to be here any longer because he was annoyed and wasn''t sure he could hold himself back from beating up Ye the next time he saw the cheating rodent.
The only proof Bravo had been here at all was the giant Base Of Operations still towering over the coliseum but that was in the middle of disappearing into tiny particles of nature mana. Ye hopped above his sword as the platform he was standing on vanished and he looked rather pleased with himself despite the manner in which he''d just won. A win was a win in the cultivation world after all! Ye watched on as the tree finally disappeared for good and was about to head back down to the coliseum but that was when he realised he''d forgotten something very important! The reason he wanted to go back down to the arena was to spectate the rest of Asha and Theo''s fight, if they could even be bothered to finish it now that Ye had won, and the reason everyone was fighting... Was because of Ares... Who was currently in the middle of falling to his death at impressive speeds! Ye may or may not have gotten a little too invested in the Bravo duel and forgotten to look after the person he was here to protect... Whoops! Still, catching him wouldn''t be a difficult matter so Ye started heading down. This proved to be unnecessary, however, as it seemed two other people were in the middle of catching Ares, namely his two wives who were bickering about who got to hold him after... Maybe what was happening to Ares right now was not a rescue operation, but rather a kidnapping...