He needed space. Jelo created distance with Wingburst, the fire exploding from his back and launching him several meters away from Hawkgirl’s reach. He landed smoothly and immediately shifted to a ranged strategy.

He responded with precise fireballs, no longer throwing them in quick succession but timing each one carefully. He aimed for angles that would force her to move rather than simply block, targeting her positioning and cutting off her advance routes. Each fireball was placed deliberately, creating a pattern that forced Hawkgirl to defend instead of advance.

She was pushed into a defensive posture, dodging some fireballsand blocking others, unable to close the distance while Jelomaintained his spacing and projectile pressure. Her forward momentum was halted, and for several seconds, Jelo controlled the tempo of the fight.

But Hawkgirl adapted again.

She stopped trying to weave around the fireballs and instead made a decision that showed either desperation or absolute confidence. She charged straight through the next fireball, accepting the hit rather than avoiding it. The compressed flame exploded against her chest, but her ice armor held—cracksspiderwebbed across the crystalline surface, but the structural integrity remained intact.

The direct approach caught Jelo off-guard. He’d been counting on the fireballs to keep her at range, and suddenly she was inside his defensive perimeter, her momentum carrying her forward even as flames dispersed around her.

She landed another heavy blow, this time to his midsection. The ice-reinforced fist drove deep, and Jelo grimaced as the impact registered. His health bar dropped significantly, the damage much more severe than the previous hits. He staggered backward, his breath catching in his virtual lungs.

This fight was requiring far more effort than he’d anticipated. Hawkgirl wasn’t just skilled—she was adaptable, switching strategies when one approach stopped working, always pressing forward regardless of damage taken.

Jelo made a decision. He committed fully.

He activated Inferno Strike, channeling his fire into a single concentrated attack rather than dispersing it across multiple techniques. The flames gathered around his right arm, condensing and compressing until they burned white-hot at the core. The heat was intense even in the virtual environment, the power building as he shaped it into focused devastation.

The technique required a moment to charge, and Hawkgirl saw the buildup. She rushed forward, trying to interrupt before he could release it, her ice-covered fists already swinging.

But Jelo finished the charge first. He drove the Inferno Strike forward in a straight line, the concentrated fire launching from his arm like a battering ram of pure elemental force. The attack wasn’t a projectile that could be dodged—it was a linear explosion that filled the space between them.

The strike overwhelmed Hawkgirl’s guard completely. Her ice reinforcement shattered on contact, the crystalline armor breaking apart into fragments that dissolved into data. The remaining force of the Inferno Strike caught her center mass and threw her backward across the arena. She flew several meters, her body tumbling through the air before crashing hard against the stone floor.

She slid to a stop near the edge of the combat zone, her health bar flashing red and nearly depleted. Her ice armor was gone, the defensive layers completely destroyed by the concentrated attack. She moved, trying to push herself up on shaking arms, trying to rise and continue the fight.

But the system had already made its calculation. Her health had dropped below the threshold required to continue.

The system’s voice echoed across the arena, clear and final: “Match over. Victor: Jelo.”

Hawkgirl’s avatar froze in place, prevented from continuing by the match parameters. The combat zone began to dissolve around them, the terrain starting to fade back into the neutral loading space.

Jelo remained standing, breathing hard despite the virtual nature of his body. The Arena Nexus simulated physical exertion remarkably well, and he could feel the phantom fatigue from the sustained combat. His health bar showed he’d taken significant damage—more than in any of his previous three fights combined.

He was genuinely surprised by how much effort the fight had required. Hawkgirl had pushed him harder than the D2 and D3 opponents from earlier, forcing him to use both of his newly acquired skills and still requiring everything he had to secure the victory. Her adaptability, her willingness to take damage to create opportunities, and her raw physical power had all combined to create a genuinely challenging fight.

He stood there in the fading arena, still processing the intensity of what had just happened, wondering again exactly who this Hawkgirl was and why she’d sought him out specifically.

Her voice cut through his thoughts, direct and demanding despite her recent defeat.

“Who are you?”

Jelo didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned the question back on her, his tone carrying equal parts curiosity and defensiveness.

“Who are you?”

Hawkgirl scoffed, the sound dismissive and slightly bitter. She stood slowly, her movements still fluid despite the fatigue that should have affected her avatar. Her hawk mask remained fixed on him for a brief moment, unreadable and mysterious as always. Then she turned away without answering, offering him nothing but her back.

She walked off across the dissolving arena floor, her lightweight outfit shifting with each step. The terrain continued to fade around them, but she moved with purpose, clearly intending to leave without further conversation.

As she walked away, Jelo’s gaze dropped to her backside for a split second, before conscious thought caught up with instinct. He immediately forced his eyes back up, focusing on the fading horizon instead, a flush of embarrassment heating his face even though no one could see it.

Almost immediately, an uneasy feeling tugged at his mind. It was vague and formless, like something hovering just at the edge of awareness. The sensation was strange—as if something about this moment was familiar, important, significant in a way he couldn’t quite grasp. As if there was a connection he should be making, a recognition that was trying to surface but couldn’t quite break through.

The thought never formed into anything coherent. It remained elusive, slipping away even as he tried to focus on it. The feeling faded like mist, leaving only confusion and a faint sense of unease in its wake.

Jelo exhaled slowly, letting the strange moment pass. He dismissed his interface with a thought and initiated the logout sequence. The Arena Nexus began to dissolve around him completely, and his consciousness prepared to return to his physical body.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep