Martial Online.

Crack!

The room started shaking as more of the ground started vanishing.

It was already clear that there were more lava pits on the ground than solid footing!

Clang, clang, clang!

Sounds of weapons clashing reverberated throughout the room as Julian and Ambrose fought fiercely near one of the lava pits.

There wasn't a lot of room left for them, as the lava was surrounding them on all sides.

Ambrose breathed heavily as he smashed his shortsword at Julian's block, trying to break through his defense and gain the upper hand. It was unsuccessful.

The sweat continued rolling down his face as his exhaustion was getting near.

He also couldn't use Muscle Defense as when he did, Julian would instantly attack him and try to push him to one of the lava pits.

Julian had realized his greatest weakness with Muscle Defense—the inability to move!

Therefore, Ambrose couldn't remove his exhaustion anymore, as Julian was simply not allowing it!

"High Pain!" Ambrose swung his sword, but Julian effortlessly parried it away.

It was frustrating, as no matter what he did, Julian had an answer.

Ambrose tried to use one of his stun effect attacks on Julian, as when he was stunned, he could try to push him down to one of the lava pits.

"Howling Rage!" Ambrose screamed out loud.

The sound attack struck Julian and left him momentarily disoriented.

Ambrose quickly ran forward and moved his shortsword to a thrusting stance.

"Kanone!"

The sword shot forward, and as it was about to skewer through Julian, he somehow disappeared into thin air.

After the sword hit nothing but empty air, Ambrose turned around and saw Julian reappear behind him.

They quickly clashed with their swords again, and both got pushed back from the force of the impact.

'How did he teleport like that?' Ambrose wondered with a frown.

Julian looked calm as he rushed after Ambrose and started hacking his sword mercilessly down on him.

Ambrose used the Basic Parry to deflect the strikes, but even that wasn't enough to hold back the merciless attack.

Therefore, one of Julian's attacks landed on his left shoulder and created another bleeding wound.

"Howling Rage!" Ambrose screamed once again, even though the exhaustion was threatening to consume him.

Julian's pupils dilated, and he quickly covered his ears in an attempt to block the deafening roar from reaching his ears.

After the shout was over, Julian tried moving and was able to. He nodded to himself and rushed straight at Ambrose, continuing another bout of fighting.

'How the hell did he find the weakness in a second?!'

Ambrose desperately thought.

Julian clearly switched gears as his attacks became even faster and stronger.

With each exchange, Ambrose was pushed closer to the edge of defeat.

As Julian swung his down, Ambrose quickly used Nachbilder to evade the strike and then screamed from the top of his lungs.

"Ambrose's Slaughter!"

An illusionary image of Ambrose appeared behind him, and stared down at Julian with a menacing look.

Julian didn't look fazed and rushed forth, and slashed through Ambrose's waist.

"Ngh!" Ambrose groaned loudly.

The skill—Ambrose's Slaughter—was a gamble as it didn't work against players that were higher leveled than him.

He never believed that it would work against Julian, but he didn't think there were any other choices.

With Ambrose's Slaughter, there was also a side effect that struck Ambrose. It slowed down his thinking ability for a second only, but that was enough for Julian to punish him severely.

It told a lot about how much pressure Julian was giving him as he had to gamble on something that had almost zero chance of success!

Julian charged right back at him, not giving him a single second of room to breathe. It was incredibly suffocating to fight someone like him.

'This is even more frustrating than fighting Mars!'

Ambrose watched as Julian rushed after him and thought that the time had slowed down for a moment as everything seemed to move at a slower speed than usual.

It was just his mind racing at an unusual speed, trying to process the situation and come up with a plan.

…

In the real world, in Jesse's room.

Jesse's body that was lying on the bed started shaking as the headset started crackling with electricity—it was as if the headset was about to blow up!

At that moment, messages started to appear on the visor.

[Reality Augmentation Headset Working At 100%!]

[Applying Intelligence Algorithms…]

[The User's Intelligence Amount Has Increased By 50%!]

[Reminder: This algorithm is in the beta phase and might have some side effects. Use with caution!]

…

Ambrose felt like an electric current ran throughout his brain.

For some odd reason, he was able to think more freely and creatively than ever before. He also had a few new plans for his current predicament that he couldn't think of before.

'How didn't I think of those before?'

Ambrose chuckled and thought it was quite obvious, but now that he thought about those, it seemed so clear to him.

As Julian was about to launch another attack, Ambrose suddenly stabbed his sword through the black rock ground.

"The Crack World!"

Crack!

The ground cracked and spanned across the entire room. All the solid footing disappeared, and the black rocks started drifting in the lava pit.

Julian staggered side-to-side as he almost fell to the lava, but at the last moment, he managed to stand tall while trying to steady himself as he stood on the uneven block of black rock that floated in the lava.

Meanwhile, as Moriarty and Zadkiel were trading blows, they were also swept by the sudden attack and had to stop their attacks momentarily to balance themselves on the floating blocks.

Ambrose pulled out his sword from the ground and smiled.

The Crack World—another skill he created, and this was an area-

of-effect skill that could be used for many different things.

Now, he used it to speed up things and make it so that the room wasn't as safe a place to fight anymore.

It also forced Julian to stop his relentless attack, as if he attacked recklessly, he could accidentally fall to the lava.

At that moment, Ambrose used his Muscle Defense and created another arm from his left shoulder that was fully made of muscle. It looked like a massive, pulsating tentacle.

It was pretty ugly-looking, but it was very handy.

Ambrose used his muscle tentacle to grab his previously fallen shortsword, which was still clutching his separated left arm. The sword almost fell to the lava, but he managed to save it just in time.

However, he couldn't save his left arm, which fell to the lava and vanished into the fiery depths.

At that moment, Ambrose released steam from his muscle tentacle and recovered all of his lost stamina!

He didn't have to fully transform into a raging, muscular monster. This muscle tentacle was enough for him to release his exhaustion!

And then Ambrose tried to control his left sword with the muscle tentacle. Even though it was quite hard, he now had a lot of range as he could stretch the tentacle to incredible lengths and reach faraway enemies.

"Excellent." Ambrose chuckled. "How didn't I think of this before?"

Some distance away, Julian stared at Ambrose and nodded with a slight smile.

It looked like he was quite impressed.

'Not bad. That's good. It's a different kind of fighting between two master swordsmen. Usually, our fights are decided by strategy. Though skill and strength are important, strategy is the key.'

So far, during his time in Martial Online, he has never recognized any of the players as master swordsmen. Now, he thought of Ambrose as someone of the same level of skill and expertise as him.

'Bring it on!'

For the first time in a long time, Julian felt his fighting spirit surge inside him.