Battle Against Naomi

Shiro smiled, he had given her the opportunity to prepare just so he could dampen her battle instincts she had been fighting since so her instincts were at its peak which could make defeating her very hard.

Shiro scanned her with his martial awareness, she was an energy cultivator so she was probably the type who would like to keep her distance.

Her cultivation was two stages higher than his but in front of his dual cultivation all that meant nothing.

He climbed the stage before her which looked weird to the spectators because he had to be assisted by Lydia, Naomi looked at Shiro who had already climbed up the stage she then smiled before climbing it too.

"Are the two of you ready?"

The referee asked both of them, when he received their confirmation he waved his flag signaling the start of the fight.

Naomi jumped back until she was outside Shiro's martial awareness range, three magic circles formed one after the other almost instantly as vines shot out of the ground around Shiro.

Shiro smiled before activating his eight steps rotating blank evasion technique, he dodged all the vines just barely by dancing in their center, the vines continued to chase after Shiro but his speed allowed him to be able to continue dodging while paying attention to Naomi's movements.

Naomi saw Shiro easily dodging the vine attack so she started casting another spell, magic circles continued to form as more attacks were spawn towards Shiro. Shiro kept on dodging, Naomi was far away so he couldn't see what she was doing neither did he know what direction she was in, and she had not used any spell that flew in a straight line she had set up precautions for him already.

Shiro found himself in a bind all he could do was dodge, he kept on dodging while waiting for Naomi to run out of spells to cast, Naomi on the other hand was not even feeling stress at all, she knew that Shiro didn't have a long range of sight since he needed help in doing some certain things meaning that right now, Shiro had no idea where she was, if she could just continue like this she could win.

Just when she thought she had won, Shiro's body turned into a blur and vanished, this was the final stage of the evasion technique. Shiro's blurred figured moved around trying to locate Naomi, his martial awareness was on full power as it frantically scanned the area.

Naomi looked at Shiro as he ran pass her, she didn't know the range of his sight so she didn't realize that he had already seen her. Shiro saw her and passed to throw around the idea that he had not, he wanted to end this fight in one move.

Shiro moved a meter away from Naomi just barely at the range of his martial awareness, he bent down in a kneeling position while putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

[Sword Style; First Form; Sword Draw]

Light weaved past the arena in a blinding speed and landed right beside Naomi, a clang sound was heard as his sword was knocked away, Shiro was confused, how did she block his attack?

He looked back at her and smiled;

'It seems that I underestimated her a little too much'

Shiro walked slowly towards Naomi by now Naomi knew that hiding was useless, Shiro had already drawn her out into close combat she looked at her hand which was still trembling from the impact.

'He's strong'

She smiled at Shiro cutely before advancing towards him, if Shiro wanted to fight a melee battle then that was what she was going to give him.

She dashed towards him while casting a spell, magic circles formed at various speeds as each of them were directed towards Shiro at point blank, Shiro didn't have time to debate his moves he quickly activated his evasion technique and began avoiding the spells.

The spells Naomi used on him were spells with short cast time which made dodging a little hard for Shiro, even when using his evasion technique, Shiro still couldn't find a way to attack.

He continued to avoid the attacks he could while using his sword to block the once he couldn't, Naomi herself didn't let down, she continued to advance towards Shiro while hurling short cast time spells at him, the more she advanced, the harder it became for Shiro to avoid her attacks.

The spectators who saw this were laughing crazily, the boy who had so brazenly challenged the 1st position was being showed his place, they were already angry at Shiro for the way he challenged Naomi so seeing him suffer helplessly made them happy.

Shiro smiled, Naomi had done exactly what he had done in the past, learning melee combat to cover the weakness of a ranged fighter, but as someone who had done this his whole life, the weaknesses of such a thing lay bare in his eyes.

Magic users needed concentration and cast time, being able to engage in close combat while casting spells showed just how high her level of mental fortitude was, however, spells could be interrupted and there was nothing one could do to stop it.

Shiro continued dodging Naomi's attacks while keeping watch of her cast times, she had been spawning spells for a long time now so Shiro had more or less memorized the cast time for all her spells, he waited patiently for her to cast her longest spell then he struck, his sword danced around swatting all the other spells that were already heading towards him, he then shot forward and grabbed the arm she was using to cast spells.

She didn't use a wand since she needed her hands to be free for melee combat so interrupting her casting was just a matter of speed, Shiro grabbing her hand was more than enough to make her lose concentration which made her entire spell fail, she looked at Shiro who simply smiled at her. It was time for his counter attack!

Shiro sent a palm which struck her on her chest and pushed her back, he then used the momentum to hit her stomach region with the back of his sword, the hit sent her skidding a few meters back which gave Shiro enough time to steady himself.

He then rushed at her again and began dishing out attacks, Naomi was now in the same situation Shiro was once in, she couldn't see the attacks coming as Shiro directed all of them to come from her blind spots, he needed to make sure that his chain of attacks would lead him to victory.

Shiro didn't use the sharp side of his blade, he didn't think it was necessary to cause her bleeding injuries so he only used attacks that caused pain.

The spectators were no longer smiling, Naomi was being pommeled and there was nothing she could do about it.

Naomi looked around, Shiro was no longer in her field of vision, and just like his attacks he had also gone into her blind spots adjusting himself to remain hidden. Naomi understood the mechanism behind this, it was about being able to read your opponent's movement while constantly remaining in their blind area, the shear difficulty of this was absorbed as one needed to know the enemies fighting style and reactions to certain situations perfectly to be able to pull off such a thing.

Vanishing steps, this was the name of the martial arts technique that Shiro was using to dominate this fight.