Straight out of the gate UMAGA rushed in on Rudra his curved Paneka coming in from the top. Rudra sidestepped to avoid the strike and countered with a extended Excalibur .

Rudra thought it was a guaranteed hit , however UMAGA in a display of a bizzare dodging technique managed to avoid the strike. Now with both men having avoided each other's initial attacks there was only one move both had in mind , that was the basic kick.

Rudra's left kick met UMAGA's right , and although Rudra felt the strength of UMAGA , ultimately without the eternal rage skill activated , his strength was not Rudra's match. Hence he was sent flying for about 5 Meters.

Shock spread across UMAGA's face , as he never thought the frail looking human infront of him was actually stronger than him.

And while he was down on the ground , he saw the bone chilling image of Rudra looking down on him , as Rudra said

" Ohhhhh , PUNY strength

".

This infuriated UMAGA beyond any measure , puny was exactly the word he told Rudra before the start of the match , however now it was clear that his strength was inferior...hence , He was more puny.

Doing a Kip up , the man stood up , and let out a war cry that riled up the crowd , and beat his chest with his fist that was not wielding a sword. And for the first time in any matches he changed his fighting posture from straight to turning southpaw , his shoulder pointing towards Rudra , as his dominant hand wielded his sword , this highly bothered Rudra , he had never seen the brute use such a stance.

The stance was actually the distinction between single and dual sword wielders , while dual sword wielders had a wider stance , that could deal greater damage utilising their two attacking arms. The disadvantage was clear that they left more surface area for opponents to attack on.

Compared to dual wielding specialized for attack , the single arm sword wielding was a more balanced and complete way of fighting .

----------

Derek Ray : Hohoho , mind games being played by Shakuni ,as he comes on top of the exchange of power. How high must his strength stat be to even out power the barbarian UMAGA.

Lee Dixon : well we don't know the exact reason behind his absurdly high strength , is it an artifact? Is it a skill? Is it permanant ? . Meanwhile UMAGA has let out a war cry , and changed his stance to a proper sword fighter , how shocking.

Derek Ray : I don't think we have seen this stance from UMAGA prior to today Lee , he usually uses his brute strength to outperform his enemies , however he is standing upright like a refined fighter now .... I wonder what's the reason .

Lee Dixon : Seems like Shakuni is as perplexed as you are Derek , look at him approaching cautiously , the pace of this battle has slowed down .

--------

Rudra approached UMAGA cautiously , he had his fair share of fighting one handed swordsmen , however except for the traditional posture , none of UMAGA's moves made sense , the footwork he was weaving was erratic and had no rhythm , his stance though tight had many openings .... Was it a bait? Was it a trap?

Rudra had no way to figure out , he could take out one of his big moves , but he did not want to reveal them soo soon . Rudra gritting his teeth bit the bait , and engaged in fighting. The curved sword pressed down on elven sword , as Rudra tried to go for thr exposed left arm of UMAGA with the longer range of Excalibur.

However in a move that made no sense to Rudra , UMAGA suddenly stopped his footwork , and moved right in towards the swords trajectory .... Or so it seemed , as at the point of contact where it should have passed right through the man , it passed through thin air , a six foot five muscular man blurred out of Rudra's vision , and he panicked as he quickly scanned for his opponent

Straight ... Not there

Left ..... Not there

Right .... Not there

Up ..... Huh missing .... That meant ....

By the time Rudra looked down. A devastating uppercut connected to his jaw , and it was his turn to be sent flying.

A damage of -1000 appeared on his status screen , as he got upto his feet , spitting a small amount of blood.

UMAGA had a smug look on his face , he had returned the fire.

Rudra recognized UMAGA's skill , it was illusionary steps , a move that was usually preffered and bought on the market by the swordsman and assasin class that created the illusion of a man being there to the eye , when he was not. It was a relatively rare skill book , with a price of 1000 gold coins or more.

Rudra had never seen the man bring out such a move in any of his previous matches , nor did he have memory of the move in his possession. Despite the damage , Rudra thanked his luck , he needed to realize that he was not the only one with hidden cards and hidden moves. That his opponents even the most brute ones had aces up their sleeves and he could never be too careful.

The -1000 damage was acceptable for that lesson. Rudra at this point stopped worrying about exposing his strength too much and actually started to focus on the fight more and more , as there would be no next match if he could not win this one first.

Hence Rudra brought out a OP Skill he had obtained long ago at the necromancers hideout , that he seldom used because of its dark nature.

Rudra used darkness absorb.

Dark energy started to swirl around UMAGA , who was perplexed by the move , he had not seen this before. The darkness energy stung him at various body parts , and drained his health bar by 3000 points.

Rudra however regained the 1000 points lost in HP , as he recovered to full health !

Dark faction players across the world rose in uproar over this , they were all to familiar with the necromancer class move of darkness absorb .... But how did Rudra a light faction knight perform the move?

Rudra often used darkness blast , but it was not a purely dark faction move , as mages and warlocks and many other professions could also cast the move. There were also news about there being a couple of skill books on the market . However darkness absorb was a Bonafide dark faction move ... And Rudra just used it ...... The consequences remained unknown!