Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

Alex gritted his teeth, yanking the arrow out of his shoulder with a swift, painful motion.

Blood trickled down his arm, but he ignored it, focusing instead on closing the gap between him and Rakul.

The arrow in his foot was preventing him from making any hasty movements however.

With how little time he had, Alex had to choose between one or the other, and chose to heal the wound to his foot rather than the one to his shoulder.

Without his foot, he would basically be crippled in this fight, which was basically a death sentence when considering how fights between awakened went.

But Alex could still continue the fight with one arm incapacitated.

Virtue's Edge was only a one handed sword, so his movements with his sword wouldn't be impeded too much.

With the sword stances Professor Will had taught him, he could adapt very quickly to certain scenarios like this.

He sent a regenerative flame down to his foot, with it starting a regeneration process that would take a few seconds to complete.

But Alex didn't have a few seconds.

It healed enough to a point where he could still walk and run on it, and he sent himself right back into the action.

The healing process would still continue, but Alex would long be enthralled in battle with Rakul before that could complete.

Rakul, sensing an opportunity, continued to rain arrows down on Alex, but his movements were becoming more and more frantic.

With how close Alex had become to him, he started teleporting rapidly, his form blinking in and out of existence across the now empty battlefield.

Each teleportation seemed almost instantaneous, with barely a delay between Rakul activating the talent, and a significantly higher range than Alex's own teleportation abilities.

Not to mention the fact that his energy usage was much, much lower than Alex's was.

Alex grunted as he pushed through the pain baring through his shoulder and foot, dodging arrows as best as he could.

Every few moments, an arrow would graze him, adding more wounds to his already battered body.

Thankfully these arrows only grazed him, leaving shallow wounds rather than deep penetrations like the first two did.

His regenerative flames worked tirelessly on his foot, but compared to the speed of the battle, his healing speed was slow.

He could feel the wound knitting together, but it wasn't fast enough to completely negate the pain and limp in his every step.

Each step sent sharp stabs of pain through his body, but he couldn't afford to stop.

If he stopped, even for a split second, he would be impaled by countless arrows.

Rakul's teleportation made it nearly impossible to predict his movements.

One moment he was on the left, the next he was behind, launching arrows with not so deadly precision.

Alex had to rely on his spatial perception to even have a chance at keeping up.

But although it was nearly impossible to predict Rakul's moves, there was still a minute chance.

Desperation and determination fuelled Alex as he analysed Rakul's pattern.

Each teleportation, while almost instantaneous, had a slight but perceptible delay before Rakul rematerialised and launched another volley of arrows.

Alex needed to anticipate his moves, not just react to them after they had already happened.

Drawing from his training with Professor Will, Alex shifted his stance, preparing to make a move.

He watched Rakul closely, all the while still dodging.

He noted the subtle signs of where he might appear next.

If his teleportation was anything like Alex's, he could only teleport somewhere within his perception.

Alex didn't know if Rakul had spatial perception like he did, so he focused on his eyes.

'Now!'

Alex waited until the very last moment before Rakul teleported once again, but he finally noticed something this time!

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Rakul would shift his eyes away from Alex and look at something else for a split second before they returned back to Alex.

Alex had a feeling that he wasn't just looking anywhere random.

And when he saw Rakul appear, he knew he was correct in his assumption.

'Okay, so he needs to be looking at the place he wants to teleport to… I can make use of this.'

Without being too obvious, Alex waited for Rakul to teleport once again, this time he was focusing his entire attention on his eyes.

So far, Rakul hadn't teleported within 20 metres of Alex, even though he had teleported dozens of times by this point.

It was clear that he was worried that Alex, with his speed alone, might be able to reach him before the short cooldown between each teleportation was over.

This was also something Alex could make use of.

With this in mind, all Alex had to do was wait for him to teleport.

And sure as hell, a few more dozen or so milliseconds had passed, and Rakul began exhibiting the signs that he was about to teleport once again.

Alex waited for his eyes to shift, until…

Whoosh!

Rakul's eyes shifted and he disappeared from his spot.

Whoosh!

But so did Alex!

Rakul teleported about 22 metres away from where Alex was previously standing, but Alex pushed his teleportation talent to the max, and managed to push his range to 10 metres.

Now that 22 metres had come down to just 10.

And this was enough for him to reach Rakul!

Rakul's eyes widened in shock as he materialised and saw Alex already closing in on him.

'Impossible… How did he predict where I would end up!?'

For a split second, the archer's composure broke, and Alex seized the opportunity with ferocious speed.

He launched forward, his foot nearly fully healed by this point due to the confrontation taking longer than he expected.

His body was a blur, closing the remaining distance in an instant.

Rakul hastily tried to knock another arrow, but Alex was upon him before he could release it.

He threw away his bow, taking an emergency use dagger out from his belt, and attempted to deliver a strike to Alex instead.

But with a swift, decisive strike, Virtue's Edge came in faster.

The sword swung forwards, splitting Rakul's shabby dagger in half.

The weapon snapped in Rakul's hands, and the pieces fell to the ground, harmlessly.

Things had become very dicey for Rakul.