Great Performance and Instant Defeat

Losing her patience, Filvis started using her Magic at point-blank range. Although very reckless, it was successful at pushing Kisuke back, giving her some precious breathing space.

However, that didn't last long as Kisuke stopped his passive approach and began to pressure Filvis to a greater extent.

'Kuh!!! So it's useless even if I get close. I can't see the extent of his abilities. Our skill levels are too far apart! What else can I do!?' Filvis thought as she started to accumulate wounds that surpassed her passive regeneration. But as further desperation pushed her absolute limits, a certain idea popped into her mind after recalling all the abilities that Kisuke mentioned earlier, '...But if I fail... I might die...'

Kisuke noticed her inner conflict and thought that he can finally end this, "Is this the time for you to be holding back? If you have something in your mind, just do it. You didn't happen to forget the goal of this spar, did you?" With a single large swing, Kisuke threw Filvis back. This time, however, he didn't close the gap.

Filvis gritted her teeth and glared at Kisuke but a second later she calmed down and took a deep breath, "I'll aim for the kill, is that alright?"

Though Kisuke just smirked at her and replied, "You're very much welcome to try~!"

Filvis took a stance and raised her short sword. An instant later, her blood-red eyes shone as she gathered and poured her Ki to her legs, launching her straight forward with great momentum. Filvis then raised her sword over her head, posing to swing it down once Kisuke came within her reach with all her strength.

At this point, Kisuke finally guessed what she intended to do and smiled, 'Fine. I'll accept your challenge.'

Taking a stance of his own, the moment Filvis almost entered his reach, Kisuke did a horizontal slash aiming at her torso with speed much greater than what he had previously displayed until now. At this rate, Kisuke's knife would slice through Filvis before her sword could even reach Kisuke.

The executives that are watching this already knew the result and Filvis should also know it. To their shock, however, Filvis didn't pull back and became fully committed to her attack as if she was willing to exchange her life for her attack to land, "Oi, oi, oi! What is she doing!?", Bete, who has senses only second to Finn muttered followed by various similarly confused words from Ais, Tiona, and Tione.

And as everyone has expected, although Filvis' sword continued descending, she was already bisected by the horizontal slash.

Lefiya only noticed what's going on when Kisuke's knife had already separated Filvis' upper and lower body, "Filvis!!!"

Only Loki, however, noticed the small smile that emerged from Kisuke's mouth.

In spite of the visual effect, Kisuke felt virtually no resistance when he 'cut' Filvis and the moment he was about to deflect Filvis' sword with his free hand, it suddenly bloomed into blood-red mist, along with her whole body and disappearing from his sights.

The next instant, the sword materialized along with the fully intact Filvis behind him with the tip thrust towards his nape, 'You're mine!'

Though the man in question just chuckled and said, "I don't think so~."

Shifting his head to the side, Kisuke easily dodged the sword. Filvis' momentum continued forward without her being able to stop properly so Kisuke also caught her arm that was holding the sword. All of a sudden, Filvis' world spun uncontrollably and before she knew it, she was slammed to the ground, breaking several of her ribs, "Kuhhaaa!!!"

Sometime later, her vision recovered, and saw Kisuke grinning and looking down at her, "Nice try, but your poor handling of Magic and killing intent gave you away before you could even reform."

Filvis stopped coughing and sighed, "In the end, I couldn't even leave a scratch."

"Well, you have to at least divide the whole city with a single slash if you want to achieve that."

"...I suppose that's not a joke?"

"You can do it once you've reached a certain point. That's the kind of existence you are now so don't waste it."

Filvis stared at Kisuke for a short while and figured that he wasn't joking, 'But what kind of existence are you if I'll only be able to scratch you with that kind of power?' She wanted to ask out loud but guessed that she wouldn't get an answer. And even if she did, it would do nothing good for her, that's what her intuition was telling her.

Lefiya then came running with tears on her face, "Filvis!!! Are you alright!?"

"Yes... I'm fine, albeit a bit injured and extremely tired."

Lefiya heaved a large sigh of relief after hearing that and wanted to ask what happened at the end but before she could do so, Kisuke first gave his instructions, "Viridis-san, please take Challia-san to the side and give her a bit of your blood for her to recover."

"As for you, Challia-san, we're still not yet done as we have yet to test your main ability. Once you've rested, we'll continue."

Lefiya helped Filvis to stand up and the latter nodded, "Understood. Thank you."

Still, with a lot of time left until Freya Familia arrived, Kisuke pointed towards the executives and said, "You, you, you, and you. I'm free so spar with me." Kisuke precisely pointed at Ais, Tiona, Tione, and Bete.

The prideful Bete instantly snapped at his rude demeanor, "Huh!? Why do I have to!? And I have a name, dumbass."

Tiona, on the other hand, was already looking forward to this and raised her hand, "I'm going first!"

But Kisuke shook his head and said, "I pointed to all of you so all of you have to come at the same time. Or else, it won't even be a challenge. There's no joy in beating amateurs, you know?"

After that, it wasn't just Bete but all four of them were pissed. As top Adventurers, they have their own pride and it won't allow them to let some unknown guy that came out of who knows where to look down on them. Yes, he's strong and they might even lose a one-on-one fight, but it wasn't enough that it'll allow him to fight off all of them.

"Oi, he's asking for a beating. Why don't we give it to him?", asked Bete while cracking his fingers.

"What a surprise. We're on the same page today.", replied Tione while bringing out her spare kukri knives.

"Sounds fun~ I'll play along!", Tiona added.

Only Ais was silent since her intuition was telling her that it's still hard for them to win but she still nodded in agreement and readied her sword.

The four of them marched forward with great confidence and were ready to bring out everything they've learned these past few months.

A quarter of an hour later, however, all of them were kissing the ground without a pinch of fighting spirit that they had from the start left while Kisuke was just casually whistling as he sat on Bete's body that was almost buried in the ground.

"Is this really happening?", asked Finn with a twitching mouth.

"Don't ask me! I also want an answer to that!", replied Riveria.