Sword Duel

Soon it was turn for Blake to fight again, and her opponent was a swordsman like last time. A sword is the most popular weapon among cultivators after all. The opponent this time didn't look like a newbie.

Blake didn't feel any signs of nervousness or curiosity from the environment coming from him, His eyes focused at Blake, this was most likely not his first year here. She could feel he was at the third stage, his Qi was pretty stable and he could have a breakthrough soon.

He had the same black hair and eye as the majority here, except his face was more squarish and his skin was a bit tanned, his stature was also larger than the average cultivator, he looked like someone who practiced combat more than cultivated.

Blake solemnly took her sword out of it's sheath and assumed her usual stance, her eyes meeting his gaze straight on. He was already in his own stance, both were staring at each other to discern their opponent strength.

"Fight!" Shouted the judge as his hand fell down.

Even after the judge signaled to start, both were still staring at each other without even moving a muscle. Blake smiled widely.

*Swoosh*

Blake suddenly dashed forward, she decided to make the first move this time. She sent a fast side swing at her opponent, who blocked it without even changing his expression. As soon as the blades made contact, she spun her body together with her sword at a great speed, attacking from the other side. It was still blocked without much difficulty by her opponent.

She continued to hack at him from all possible directions, sparks flew as their blades kept clashing. The way her opponent blocked her was strange,always using minimal movements to do it, if one didn't play close attention they would even think the sword didn't move at all. It was almost like he was holding a shield instead.

As Blake hacked at him from the side again, a shadow suddenly flew straight at her face. She barely moved her head out of the way as a bloody scratch was left on her cheek. Facing with such a difficult situation, her smile became bigger.

'This guy is the real deal!' He was completely different from the newbie before who was only blindly swinging his sword. He was most likely practicing even before becoming a cultivator.

What happened just now was a combination of defense and attack. He waited for Blake's momentum to die down, and when he blocked her attack, he thrust his sword at her without even removing his sword blade from her's. With agility he didn't show the until now, he ignored the force she was applying with her sword as she was tired and caught her off guard. If Blake didn't feel attack with her Aura, the fight would've ended right there.

Even while thinking all this, Blake didn't throw away this chance after the enemy missed his counter attack. In the half a second the enemy still had his arms extended after missing, she swung her sword from the side.

Without enough time to pull back his sword to block her attack, he tried to avoid it by stepping back. He didn't make it in time and a bloody slash wound was left on his arm. Blake didn't stop her attacks as her opponent was thrown off balance, filling his body with slash wounds until he was able to start blocking again.

Blake had a excited smile as the battle rhythm accelerated, she figured out her opponent style. His sword style was a defensive one that relied on counter attacks, using the sudden increase in speed to catch enemies off guard. This kind of way of fighting was very useful, but it was particularly bad against Blake because it relied on catching the enemy off guard. This obviously was a bad match up against Blake who could use Aura to predict and avoid attacks.

If she keeps up with this war of attrition, her enemy will eventually lose since he is not able to hit Blake, so all she needs to do is keep hitting him as she will eventually win, but...

'This way is really lame!' She smiled almost crazily. She had no intention of having a boring war of attrition.

She looked at him in the eye, he was now visibly more tired but his eyes were still resolute. Her swings were still not able to penetrate his defenses.

'I need a way to get past this guy defense....' She wouldn't be able to overwhelm him with brute force alone. She tried to infuse Qi in her sword as well, but the guy who seemingly had a neutral Qi nature also infused his with Qi and resisted her attacks still,albeit with a little more difficulty.

Blake was running out of ideas when she suddenly had a rather dangerous one. If it fails it can cost her the fight.

'But you know what..'

"F*CK IT!!" Blake suddenly shouted and ran at her opponent. She held her sword like she was going for a downwards thrust, and her enemy was prepared to block when...

She threw sword up in the air.

Her opponent eyes widened a bit. He was shocked for a second, he couldn't understand why did she just throw her sword like that. And that one second costed him dearly.

Blake perfectly caught the handle of the sword that was still spinning in mid air like she already knew how it would move, and the sword that was above her opponent and still pointing downwards, suddenly had it's blade glowing in a fiery orange like the sun.

That fire extended like the blade of the sword was growing, its speed was too fast for her opponent to block it in time. The fiery "blade" hit the opponent's chest, and he was thrown back a little and fell to the ground in pain. He was glowing in red.

The fight was over.

Blake smile slowly subsided as the blade of fire retracted, and eventually extinguished itself, her sword going back to normal. She put her sword back into its sheath and walked towards her opponent who was down in the ground.

"That was a really fun fight. And..Cough...Sorry for the pain and all. I'm sure you will pass next year." She extended out her hand for him to take with a wry smile.

He looked at her for a full five seconds, staring into the air with unfocused eyes. He then smiled, grabbed her hand and stood up. His smile had a tinge of sorrow in it.