Arthur was standing by his second tower down the middle lane, while Lucas was stood by his. A distance of about 80 meters of ground stood in between them. To left and right of the path was the forest.
In the middle, the NPCs were fighting, locked in a stalemate. As one knight would die wearing a red sash a blue knight would die wearing a blue sash. As soon as the ten of each army had died they would be replaced with another ten.
The two of them stood just staring at each other from the other side of the path.
"What are they doing, they've been standing like that for five minutes." A man said watching the game.
Arthur was giving Lucas all the time he needed to prepare for this fight, while Lucas was picturing one more time how he wanted the fight to go. He wasn't planning to lose like last time.
Finally, Lucas made the first move coming forward towards Arthur. At the same time, Arthur decided to match and meet him in the middle.
Lucas drew his long katana blade and struck straight down. Arthur simply flowed the path of the sword as it came down and used his sword to alter it's the path to the side making the strike avoid him.
Lucas continued attacking him aggressively putting his full energy into every strike, afraid that if he put any less in he would be defeated.
The two of them continued like this for five minutes with Lucas attacking and Arthur blocking.
The crowd outside were getting excited.
"Wow, could you attack continually like that for five minutes."
"Of course not, I would be worn out by now."
"Lucas is amazing!"
VSW was known for its realism, as you attack more with your character in the game, it would take a toll on your mind. You could feel the tiredness of the characters being reflected back onto your body. It was a true game that tested your will power, mental capacity, reaction time and skill.
To everyone on the outside, it looked like Lucas was dominating the match and all Arthur could do was block. Lucas was the only one getting more and more nervous as the match went on.
"Why don't you attack back, you did the same thing last time!" Lucas shouted.
Lucas was baiting him, he had watched the fight between him and Novis over a hundred times. He felt that Novis excelled at blocking but was weak at attacking, that was where he would counter and win the game.
Then, like a flash of lightning Arthur swung his sword and sliced Lucas's body in half.
Lucas was sweating but then realised that his body was completely fine. To everyone outside Lucas had just suddenly stopped attacking for no reason.
But Lucas was sure his body had just been sliced in half. Lucas decided to ignore what just happened, all he knew right now was that he was fine, he went to attack Arthur again.
But then the same thing happened, Lucas felt like Arthur had attacked him and cut him in half.
Lucas's body was now shaking, he couldn't believe what had happened. His mind was on the verge of breaking, in his head he had just died twice but for some reason, he was standing there alive.
"I can't go on....."
The system suddenly declared that the game had ended. Lucas had no will to continue the fight any longer. He knew he had lost.
"Huh what's going on, did Lucas give up already, but Arthur didn't even do anything yet?" Novis thought.
To everyone who was watching the match from the outside and to Arthur on the inside, they had no idea what was going on. They couldn't understand why Lucas had quit when he was doing so well.
Arthur and Novis switched control of their bodies as they left their capsules. The whole time Novis was unable to see Lucas face for Lucas had his head down facing the floor, while his hands were tightly gripped into a fist.
"What happened Arthur, I don't understand, did you beat him that bad?"
The room was silent, no one knew what to say to Lucas and Lucas just stood there with his head down.
"Lucas, don't be down, you were amazing all your attacks so powerful and strong, and every attack I could feel the power behind them."
Novis tried to cheer Lucas up but the words were just going through him.
Novis didn't know if there was anything else he could do, he thought perhaps it was best for him to just leave and give Lucas the time and space to heal.
"Alright, I'm going to go now."
But before Novis could leave Arthur wanted to say something.
"Novis is it okay if I take control quickly?"
Arthur then said to Lucas
"Stop trying to chase the person in front, instead become your own person and surpass him."
Novis then had left the shop.
For some reason, the last words that Arthur had spoken had managed to reach him. Lucas could only think of one thing when he heard those words, his father. When Lucas was younger he had always admired his father, he was the best player in the world. He tried everything he could to catch up to where his father was right now to the point where he even used the same character.
Lucas understood what Arthur was trying to say to him, he was saying that he was not his father.
This whole time Lucas's fighting style had just been a cheap imitation of his fathers. For as long as he could remember he had always been chasing that big back of his. Lucas himself had always carried the burden of being the number one's son.
What Lucas needed to do was not try to imitate his father, but to surpass him.
Lucas felt like there was this giant invisible wall in front of him and he never knew how to bring it down, but the answer had just appeared in front of him.