Gale knew exactly who he wanted to fight, and who wanted to fight him as well. Gabriel was standing completely still, his eyes still locked onto Gale with a murderous intent. As Gale dashed forwards, Gabriel followed him with his eyes only, while still not moving a muscle to even prepare for an attack.
With lightning fast speed, Gale lunged his glaive forward, aiming for the small slit in the juggernauts armor. With little effort, Gabriel slightly moved his shield up, activated its ability, and parried Gale’s attack. This sent Gale flying backwards quite a ways until he slammed on the ground back first.
Gale groaned in pain and got up while holding his back. Gabriel continued to stand still in the same spot as if to say that Gale was not strong enough for him to need to move at all.
Gale stood in front of the hulking man and said with utter confidence, “You're truly underestimating your opponent Gabriel. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Gale could hear Gabriel scoff subtly underneath his helmet, but still he did not move. Gale was starting to get irritated with his opponent at this point, so he just decided to go all out to get this over with as quick as possible.
As Gale ran towards Gabriel, he activated his enchantment crystal, the blade of his glaive was now enshrouded in a bright green light. As he got close, Gale feinted an attack towards Gabriel's head, which he fell for, and using the time that Gabriel was distracted he slashed the glaive towards the floor which caused a wind blast to propel him upwards.
Before Gabriel could even react, Gale slashed his glaive in the air and aimed directly at Gabriel's two wrists which he used to hold up his great shield. In an instant the wind blade formed midair and shot towards the tanks wrists.
When Gale landed behind Gabriel, his back to the iron behemoth, all he could hear was the crash of a huge shield as it hit the floor. Gabriel screamed in agony as his hands were cut clean off at the wrists. All the while Gale stood there with a smirk on his face.
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“That’s what happens when you don’t take your opponent seriously. Every battle is one of survival, you cannot afford to risk anything or it may cost your life.”
Gabriel looked at his severed hands on the floor and looked back at his wrists that were streaming with blood. He groaned as he tried to cover the rush of blood with anything at all, but to no avail, he could not stop the bleeding no matter what, he was soon to be a dead man.
After a bit, Gabriel seemed to accept his fate. Falco tried to get over and heal Gabriel, but Demon was ruthless on him and wouldn’t allow Falco to get close enough. Gabriel also knew that Falco’s healing powers were not refined enough to heal this bad of an injury so he didn’t try to get near his teammate either, not that Gale would let him in the first place.
Gabriel turned around and walked toward Gale. Gale was completely ready to have to defend another attack, but that never came. Gabriel walked past Gale and kept walking till he was face to face with Julian. Only separated by the thin magic barrier of the arena, Gabriel took his helmet off with a lot of pain and dropped it to the ground.
As he looked into Julian’s eyes, Gabriel said in a soft but reprimanding tone, “Julian, you knew we weren’t ready for this. We’ve been your disciples for what, a month, and you decide that this is the best way to train us? By putting us in a battle to the death with fighters who probably have multiple years under their belts? It's a stupid decision. It's like you wanted to see us die.”
Julian just looked at him with an emotionless face and said, “I believed that you and Falco, under training of the Knights of Flame, would have been more than ready to overpower some pipsqueaks from the countryside. It seems I was wrong. The Knights of Flame only accepts the strongest into its rankings, so it's only natural that weaklings like you are to get eliminated in favor of stronger warriors.”
Gabriel looked at Julian with anger written across his face, “Even still! Why would you have us so called ‘weaklings’ go up in a death brawl? All you had to do was just kill these intruders and we could have been out of here by now, with all our lives intact! I was loyal to you because I believed that you had honor, but I was clearly mistaken! You’re nothing but a-”
In an instant Julian was upon him, easily surpassing the magic barrier which held the others hostage. In the next instant Gabriel’s head was cut clean off in one swift strike from the great sword. It fell to the ground in a rush of blood and rolled across the floor till it ended up right at Gale’s feet. Gale looked down in silence and then promptly emptied his stomach onto the floor behind him.
Julius stood there with a wide grin, he laughed in a maniacal way and then spoke with a dark tone, “The weak have no place in this world. The Knights of Flame shall rule for eternity. As the strongest for eternity”
