Hyperdimension Neptunia | The Bound Warrior

Ch.23 Contest of the Goddesses pt.4

3rd person

As Max descends the stairs towards the tournament grounds, his mind wonders to this new power luthur discovered. He just passed between a barrier of both good and bad, bound and void, and made it his own. Max frowns, Luthur may be much more powerful, but he shouldn't be impossible to beat.

Max walks onto the platform, or at least, what remains of the platform. He walks up to luthur and stops at about fifteen feet away from his adversary.

Max gives a deep breath, then looks at luthur. "I'm surprised, luthur, this new form of yours is strong, I can feel its power." Max says.

"Tch, yes, this combination is quite powerful, perhaps you should use ultimate binding?" Luthur says with no contempt or patience.

"Weeell, I promised noi- Lady Black Heart that I wouldn't use it during this tournament." Max tells Luthur, remembering that they're infront of a crowd.

"Grrr, And you think I care for some promise you made? You either power up or you'll get it worse than that b*stard of a saiyan I beat." Luthur threatens, pulling his blade, which he named redemption, and gets into his usual stance.

Max gets a slight flashback to the hill and eggplant farm he originally fought Luthur on, then, summoning blazefury within an instant, he gets into his defensive combat stance.

Luthur growls with an uncontained rage at max not fighting him at full power, rushes forward at mach 1 speeds.

Max hardly has time to react to this speed as he receives a deep slash to his stomach. Max turns around, thinking that luthur has gone behind him, but sees the tarnished ground. Then max is shoved forward with a gash appearing on his back. He turns around and finds there to be no Luthur there.

This speed!! Max thinks as Luthur appears in front of max for only a second as Luthur round-house kicks max back into a tree.

The tree shatters as max collides with the tree, getting back up and has the time to finally power up to his bound form, hoping that it'll help equal out the battle. Max is finally able to concentrate enough to see luthur rushing at him and is able to duck under an almost decapitating blow. Max throws his blade forward, and it impales Luthurs left arm.

Luthur, not expecting this sudden offence, tumbles mid-air and collides with the ground roughly. He slams into the tree stump that remains from when max hit it.

"AAAH!! Why is it always my left f*cking arm!" Luthur shouts out as he grabs blazefury and throws it like a knife back at max.

Max twists in order to dodge the deadly blade, and rushes back in order to grab it as to not leave himself unarmed against luthur. Luthur, distracted by his arm for only a moment, focuses on Max again and sees him running for his blade.

Luthur dashes forward, putting himself between Max and his sword. "Lost a blade?" Luthur asks, sending chills down max's spine.

Max grits his teeth, he'd prefer to fight luthur with his blade, and even though he can just re-summon the blade, doing so would take a couple of seconds, leaving him far too open for his liking.

"Perhaps." Max says, summoning his pugio in his left hand.

"Heh, well unlike last time you dont have any of your team's blades to help you out." Luthur says, also thinking of their past interaction.

"And you were a lot worse back then, times changed Luthur, this is just for fun." Max reminds, a small tinge within himself feeling like luthur is taking this a little too seriously.

"rrrrm, the past may have favored you well, centurion, but now I have something beyond you, -uh-" Luthur interrupts himself, groaning in distress. "Grr, enough talk! Time to fight, centurion!" Luthur shouts as he charges forth.