Showing Off

(Julius Argenti POV)

As the barrier activated I got in position, staring down my opponent. I didn't have much information on my opponent, so I had to be cautious of her abilities.

I heard from word of mouth that Selina Graves had the light attribute and was more of a long-range fighter.

Though I shouldn't underestimate her physical attributes. Her level of enhancement and reinforcement techniques should've reached a high level if she was number 1.

She didn't have a weapon so she either fought hand-to-hand or created weapons from light. Based on her stance, I guessed the latter.]

As soon as the match started, I immediately dodged to the left. Appearing a split second later at my previous position was a light beam.

"tsk"

Selina clicked her tongue as she summoned blades of light, preparing to fire them at me. I immediately started moving from left to right, not worrying about how I'm looking, towards her.

If she locked onto me, I had no way of dodging the light beams mid-flight. After all, they travel at the speed of light, travelling at around 300 million metres in a second.

So how could I dodge the light beams you may ask? Well, I dodge the beams before they are fired.

In return for the speed, light users had to expend more computational power to create and manipulate light. If know where the beams were going to hit, they posed no threat at all.

As I approached her, I had to make more outrageous movements to avoid getting hit by the light. Despite her best efforts none of them landed.

Selina attempted to retreat backwards. But I caught up to her quickly, I swung down my massive greatsword.

She barely managed to counter it by forming a blade of light. I shattered the blade after a few swings but she just reformed it.

Suddenly with her other hand, she started pointing at me, with a red light being formed from the tip.

I knew I wouldn't be able to block it in time, I used the flat edge of my blade to block the hit.

Selina followed up with a swing to my neck with her light sword, but I cut it down with a water sword I created with my other hand.

'Light attribute users are truly annoying.'

I was glad that the light attribute had some weaknesses otherwise it would be the most terrifying attribute.

As mentioned before, using the light attribute required a lot of computational ability by the user which meant there is always some indication of an attack being used before it is actually fired.

The reason she had to point her finger at me was to accurately aim and build up her attack. Summoning a light beam out of nowhere would require a lot of brainpower that she didn't have, especially when she had to concentrate on my attacks as well.

I guess this was the cost of being by far the fastest attribute. And if you say the electric attribute is also fast, you'd be correct.

But if you say you could shoot lightning bolts, I would call you an idiot and to go read a physics textbook.

Shooting lightning from your hands was a dumb thing to do for several reasons. First of all, air is just a terrible conductor of electricity, meaning if the lightning bolt even hit, it wouldn't hurt.

Secondly, aiming the lightning was extremely hard. Electrons will always try to trade electrons with the closest object, which usually was the ground.

Trying to attack someone from a distance was not only extremely hard but also stupidly impractical. This wasn't fiction.

Rant aside, I still had to deal with her constant barrage of laser beams. The only way could stop her was to keep this sword fight.

But, as a person who specialised in speed, Selina was extremely hard to catch. As I was chasing her, she suddenly turned around, using the momentum to kick my head.

I tried to catch her leg, but it was moving too fast, so I settled for deflecting it. Instead of being knocked off balance, she used her other leg as a springboard to jump backwards in the air while charging an attack.

'Shit I can't dodge this.'

"{Laser Parade}."

I reinforced myself beyond my maximum as braced for the attack. It was wide ranged-attack, so I couldn't dodge it. I felt my skin searing as the heat rays hit me.

Following up on her attack, she created a light sword and attempt to swing from above to defeat me. But I blocked with my sword and flipped backward.

"Well you had your chance to shine, so I'll stop holding back."

As soon as I said those words, she started frowning. My words may have sounded arrogant but they were the truth.

At first, I had nothing on her, but after a few bouts, I was sure of her abilities and knew most of her abilities.

I had already created countermeasures but held off from using them as I wasn't mean enough to ruin all opportunities for her to shine.

But now that she had shown all she had, I could reveal my bag of tricks.

"Don't get cocky."

Well, she's pissed. That's an easy way to gain an advantage.

She charged up more laser beams, but I created a shield from water to scatter the light rays.

Then I reformed the water shield into projectiles and froze them, then fired at her. She used her light sword cut them down.

Hiding behind my projectiles, I quickly closed the gap between us. As I got close, I brought my sword up, ready to strike.

I put my full weight behind my sword and shattered her sword of light.

She quickly reformed her sword of light to attack me, but I unleashed my killing intent to stun her. My {Haki} or bloodlust caused her to freeze for a split second.

Though it wasn't comparable to someone like Umbra, it was still terrifying for a girl like her.

In the second she was frozen, I swung my blade at her neck, slicing her head off. Or that's what would've happened if the barrier didn't exist.

"THE MATCH IS OVER. JULIUS ARGENTI WINS."

The speaker announced my victory as I walked off stage. I looked at all the S ranks, hoping to catch their thoughts but they all remained stoic. Some only gave approving nods.

Though I'm sure I have caught their interest. I really wanted to have an S rank teacher that fit my style. If I learned from them I was sure to become stronger.

Though I owe Umbra Moria a lot and he was a great teacher, the fighting style I was suited for was wildly different to his, so he wasn't the best teacher for me. He even said so himself.

Trying to fight like him would only result in me stifling my potential.

I turned around and saw Selina collapse on the ground in shock. She probably never expect me to be that strong.

For the number 1 student in the final year of school being easily defeated by an underclassman must've shattered her pride. And maybe she is still being affected by {Haki}.

Anyway, it wasn't my problem. I gave her time to shine. But all that mattered was I looked good.