Well that’s shit. Metz thought, as Mana suffused his system and the dust kicked up around him. There’s not a whole lot of hope in a battle when your enemy can move a sword faster than a bullet can fly, hell, even spotting the damn thing should have been near impossible. It suggested reflexes many times beyond his own, perception beyond his own, speed far beyond his own. To reliably deflect a bullet was nearly impossible by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d just gone and seen it. All of this told him he was facing what could very well be a mix of his previous two opponents, the speed and perception coupled into one sword wielding maniac. As his view of his enemy grew obscured, he knew he could be in danger of being struck down by an opponent too fast for him to see. The answer was simple, give himself an advantage. 

He weaved quickly, preparing a bolt for use. It was the fastest projectile he had, and always a sure-fire bet when facing off against enemies who could move faster even than his bullets. As of yet, he’d yet to find someone quicker than light itself, and on that day he knew his death was nigh. His second trick was simplistic really, he needed the terrain on his side to limit his enemy’s speed, and the shard in his right hand was perfect for just that. He imagined a scene etched in his mind, the Impaler’s Field, an ancient battleground from Felenr that he knew well. It was characterised by waves of spiked rocks some reaching waist high that essentially made the area impassable at speed and difficult even to walk across. It was not dissimilar to rock pools on earth, but at a far more extreme level. The area around Metz rippled and changed, leaving him with an escape route of clear land directly behind him for twenty feet, but otherwise making the area near inhospitable for his enemy who ran out in the dust. With his vision obscured Metz had no way of knowing where the man was, but he was confident the changes would last long enough, and more importantly slow his enemy significantly enough, that when the dust settled he’d be an easy target. 

The dust was still thick, but slowly beginning to clear almost as soon as it had come, as the area almost five hundred feet in every direction moulded into the spiked death-trap Metz had imagined. If he was lucky his enemy’s speed would turn against him and he’d be impaled in the dust, if he was less than lucky the dust would clear and he’d get to use the bolt or his pistol on the sword wielder.