Sam met with Arkiv without much difficulty. After all, the situation is not extremely tense for the rest of the players since it is not the Palace of inheritance of their own.
They don't have to try super hard for the rewards. It is kind of a tacit agreement within them that they wouldn't risk too much into other's Palace of inheritance.
Except for Sam.
But they didn't hold it against him. He is kind of a whetstone for all of them.
Now, Sam stood with the bow in his hands as he stood in front of Arkiv.
"I didn't expect that we would be battling in archery. I heard from the people of the western continent, that you have some sick archery skills, but by the time we met you switched to the guns. How about we bet on this?"
"What do you want to bet?"
Sam asked with a smile.
"If I win I want a couple of handguns."
"No. I am not betting with them."
"Why?"
"They are the weapons of Mass destruction. They are not for others, ask something else."
"Then why is it okay for you to have them?" He asked with a sulky look.
"There is no amount of destruction I can't create without the guns that the guns can do. So, stop with this stupid talk and ask something else."
"Okay, then. Only Archery the one who lost will owe other a favor."
"Sure."
With that, both of them took their arrows and shot at each other.
The arrows clashed mid-air and there is a faint explosion due to the clash of the spiritual energy.
The arrows started flying from either side as they continuously shot and moved around. Straight shots, trick shots, multiple arrows, everything turned into chaos as they moved around and dodged each other's attack. The exchange was pretty intense.
To be honest, Arkiv's archery is better than Sam's but there is a flaw as Sam has a superior body, more elements and on top of all of that, his bow is superior.
So, he managed to stand on an equal footing with Arkiv.
The rest of the players are watching this intently.
Most of the time, Sam is shooting fewer arrows than Arkiv, but the Arkiv's arrows have a problem as they wouldn't connect. Sam is using his earth element to his extreme advantage as he started building a defensive structure.
It is not even a simple wall, with just a stomp, he is disappearing into the ground, creating a trench, creating obstacles for Arkiv, and making him lose his balance.
Arkiv was extremely frustrated. Sam is not using his methods to attack, so it doesn't count as him cheating and in the battle of archers it is extremely normal to do these things.
But he is really frustrated with all this and Sam is being a pain in the ass.
They are doing more damage to his mental fortitude than the body itself.
The whole area turned into a chaotic mess.
Sam is having some fun and there is a wide grin on his face. Even though this limited his abilities, he really is feeling the adrenaline rushing through as he got more and more excited by the contest.
But soon he was on a back foot as Arkiv's techniques became more and more refined. Now, for every arrow, Arkiv shot there are extra arrows that are manifested with pure spiritual energy.
At first, the number is small, but soon each arrow is creating five, ten, dozen, and two dozen arrows, and every arrow made of spiritual energy is exploding.
Sam couldn't find a proper way to deactivate this, as every elemental arrow he is throwing is not effective and even the main arrow which the origin of the manifestation is hard to eliminate for some reason.
He couldn't find another way out of it, so he once again changed his bow to recurve mode for faster shots and activated partial elemental fusion and void style at the same time.
Sam's golden body made the spectators excited as this means, things got serious, Arkiv is also having the time of his life as he was never tested this much. If Sam fought at full strength and full arsenal he is sure that he would lose. But now that it is only a test of archery, he has some breathing space and can think of counter-attacking.
It is now a tight competition and when he saw Sam's change, he is even more ecstatic. But he is also pressured as Sam's attacks increased in not just intensity but also of quantity.
He is attacking like crazy.
In the part where Arkiv is winning with technique, he is compensating with speed and every arrow has void style which gave him the upper hand. The arrow doesn't even need to hit Arkiv to cause damage, all he has to do is to make sure that the arrow reaches near enough for him to get affected by the explosion.
The situation reversed.
While the battle was going extremely intense, something happened.
An arrow hit Arkiv and he fell down. Sam was about to finish him off, but at this moment Arkiv dropped his bow and held his head with both his arms and rolled on the ground as he screamed on top of his lungs.
Sam halted his actions and activated his energy vision to see if something is wrong with his energy circulation.
But there is nothing wrong with his energy circulation.
Sam ran towards him and so did the other players, but they couldn't figure out what is happening.
Sam tried to hold him in place and check what is wrong, but all of a sudden Arkiv opened his eyes. His eyes turned a bit different. There is a weird black glow in it and he caught hold of Sam's arm.
Sam has already deactivated his elemental fusion and he couldn't react in time. Sharp energy entered his arm and the bone, the flesh everything broke. Even his feather coat was damaged as he bled profusely.
Everyone took a step back.
They didn't expect this turn of events, Sam also felt like something is not right. This energy is not exactly similar to Arkiv's energy.
The flow is extremely different.
Sam forcefully took a step back and looked at him coldly, he knew something is not right.
A golden glow surrounding the hand and started healing it.
He looked at Arkiv who stood up and picked up his bow and started examining it as if he saw it for the first time and looked at Sam with an extremely creepy and twisted grin.
Sam examined him closely and said to the rest of the players.
"Take a step back, don't interfere."
Everyone did as they were told and Sam activated his partial fusion as he also took out the bow. Once again the battle of archery began.
This time though, Sam was suppressed. It is a one-sided domination and Arkiv is cackling like a crazy idiot.
But Sam is constantly thinking about what happened.
Arkiv's moves are extremely familiar to him but the current moves are nothing like his own. There are some similarities, but the fighting style is extremely different.
But Sam could still sense some faint familiarity from the fighting style, he saw it somewhere. And he observed it closely before.
But he couldn't figure it out.
Only after taking some hits and destroying his coat in several places, did Sam understand, his eyes widened in disbelief.
He stored the bow away and changed his fighting style. His partial fusion turned into complete fusion as he changed into his laser form and zoomed towards Arkiv.
The sudden change took Arkiv by surprise and before he realized it, there is a large hole in his shoulder and a chunk of flesh was removed off of that shoulder.
Sam threw the chunk of flesh away and took out staff as he started his attacks. The arrows that are coming at him were not exactly a problem anymore as he started hitting Arkiv continuously and this time he is like a leech sticking close to his skin.
Everyone is a bit shocked. Sam is not someone who goes back on his word so easily just to win a fight. They knew that much, but they didn't voice any opinions on the sudden change as they noticed something is definitely wrong with Arkiv.
And the fight is not going well for Arkiv, first reason is that Arkiv is already exhausted before this weird change and now he is recklessly using his energy and overexerting himself.
Now the surprise attack from Sam that missing chunk of flesh is also extremely taxing,
Sam who has superior endurance and multiple fighting styles is bound to have an advantage and it showed easily.
Soon, Sam pinned Arkiv to the ground and held the staff to his throat as he pressed his legs on it, he just took the mount position on Arkiv and held his head with as he closed his eyes.
He used his spiritual sense to initiate a mental attack as both of their energies run rampant.
