Chapter 498: Skewered.
“Did you see that? What happened?”
“I don’t know… Did his enchantment malfunction or did he not activate it correctly?”
A few merchants murmured among themselves as they saw Gerhard flung to the side. His chest plate had been dented by a strike from a large sword, but the mithril armor held firm. The onlookers noticed his confidence when attacking; his swing was wide and forceful, leaving him open for his opponent's devastating blow. Although the armor remained intact, the impact sent him rolling for tens of meters, ending with a collision against the arena wall.
The audience erupted in a mix of murmurs and gasps, trying to make sense of what they'd just witnessed. The other knights, seated in the stands, exchanged uneasy glances. It was becoming clear that this duel was not following the rules of conventional combat, at least not for Sir Gerhard.
Up in the stands, Count Graham’s face twisted with a mix of rage and disbelief. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the arms of his chair, eyes burning holes into the two combatants. The plan had been for Gerhard to win decisively and no one had expected Robert, a mere Tier 2 knight in a strange new armor, to stand a chance against a seasoned Tier 3 warrior like Gerhard. But the tide of the battle had shifted, and one person in the audience knew why.
Roland allowed himself a small smile, though it went unnoticed due to his helmet. Everything was unfolding just as he had calculated. The rune system he had designed wasn’t just for protection and power, it included specialized enchantments like the rune inhibitor, which could disrupt or nullify certain magical energies within a set range. Gerhard had unwittingly walked right into his trap.
His skill at dispelling enemy enchantments was quite extensive, but creating a device to mimic it wasn’t easy. There were limitations, and only thanks to his thorough espionage before the arena fight was he able to succeed. Roland knew exactly what type of armor Robert’s opponent would be wearing and the magics it relied on. The combatants from the other side were restricted from using overly powerful magical equipment, a fact Roland cleverly exploited. It was one thing to develop a smart system that could target enchantments during combat, but quite another if he knew in advance what to target.
Gerhard possessed a full set of mithril armor with only basic shielding enchantments. His weapons were similar: his sword carried a limited lightning discharge spell that wasn’t quite of the highest tier, and his mace had an enhanced impact rune that was more of a pseudo-tier 3 enchantment. Roland had advised Robert to defend himself during the first half of the duel, frustrating his opponent with his defensive stance. Then, once his foe grew reckless, he would activate the enchantment inhibition system and use the confusion to launch a counterattack.
"Get up!”