Limitless Path

It was about a minute before the duel on field four wrapped up, Beth having observed for a handful of seconds before dismissing both of the fighters. It wasn't really arrogance, but they were both little better than the last opponent she had faced on this field, someone with few if any skills at Silver or Journeyman rank. She was more interested in the ref, the piece of cloth she wore wrapped around her chest barely containing her large breasts while what she wore around her waist could be called a thong only with a little generosity in the application of the word. Many others seemed to be distracted by the woman's state of dress to one extent or another, though Beth did notice that a decent number of people were either used to her charms or simply uninterested and ignored her skimpy outfit. Beth definitely appreciated what she saw, but she also didn't think making a pass at her a good idea for a plethora of reasons, including the woman's obvious power and likely seniority.

She was brought out of her thoughts as the duel ended and it was her turn in the arena, the previous two competitors barely getting time to bow and run off the field before Beth and her opponent were impatiently gestured on. Her opponent this time was a very tall, very thin woman that had extremely pale skin, visible on her face as her headpiece was some kind of crown or circlet, also leaving her long, curved horns exposed. Her appearance was quite striking, and Beth found herself a bit puzzled, not able to work out if this person was a sapient beast using humanization, or if that was the way her species appeared.

She didn't have very much time to ponder, as the ref went through the opening spiel, ready checks, and starting of the fight in what truly felt like record time. The woman Beth was against blurred forward, not necessarily from her speed, but whatever movement skill she was using created an effect of blurry afterimages by the very nature of its operation. It did make her opponent a bit harder to track, though that wasn't much of a concern as the tall woman charged directly for Beth, not trying to circle her or waiting for Beth to engage first. Beth made her blade appear as the woman closed in, darting forward herself and making the first swing, the woman having very slightly re-adjusted when she saw the greatsword in Beth's hands.

Beth's first strike was with her buffs running, but not with any empowerment, just starting the fight with a bit of a probing attack. The woman didn't make a weapon appear at all, which slightly surprised Beth, though she found she was battling a kindred spirit when the lady punched away her initial strike, leaning back slightly and smacking the flat of Beth's blade. Even with that movement, the woman's arm blurred a bit, leaving a slightly blurry afterimage, and Beth knew that her movement skill was somewhere in Silver, likely towards the higher end. She tried to confirm that by pushing both Swift and Beastly Body to the max and coming back around with a horizontal chop, followed by a reverse slash, then letting go of the hilt during the follow through and punching at the woman.

Her opponent responded quite well, displaying a very high level in her unarmed skill, but her speed did suffer a bit. The blurring effect of her movement skill was a nice little confusing effect, but her lagging behind by the time Beth's punch nearly connected with her jaw showed that her speed skill was probably not quite at silver[9], and likely she didn't have a second boosting skill. Beth's combination of both Swift and Beastly Body was a bit rare, as most people didn't get the opportunity to get two decent self-boosting skills that stacked so neatly, and many people early on their Path chose to focus on only one boosting skill, as spreading oneself too thin could often lead to bit of weakness. People striving to go very far on their Path also had quite a long lifespan, so it wasn't really ever too late to add new skills and focus on integrating them with already well-mastered abilities.

Beth continued to push her opponent as she continued to gauge what she was up against, her aggression in some ways mirroring the opponent she had just finished off a handful of minutes ago. She was interested to see if the tall woman had some aces up her sleeve to pull a reversal, more excited by the prospect than cautious, though she wasn't entirely disregarding defense and situational awareness. She slashed out with a series of quick sweeps, able to reverse her large and very heavy blade surprisingly quickly with adroit movements, still probing the woman's defenses. That drew out the first of her aces, and also answered Beth's first question, as her opponent summoned her Presence, meaning she was definitely some form of humanoid sapient rather than a beast in human form.

The woman's Presence was a long, ethereal cloak that settled about her shoulders quickly, made of some type of red and gold fabric, quite a contrast with her pale skin. Beth's response was immediate, her opponent again displaying visible surprise at her very quick summoning of her own Presence and just how unaffected by her opponent's Beth appeared. She launched forward in a furious series of attacks, finding that her speed was a bit lower than her opponent’s, though not by very much, but her raw power was above her opponents, the difference made even starker when Beth used a skill. A strike infused with Monstrous Blow sent the woman staggering back slightly, Beth noting how the woman's speed skill made even that motion appear blurry and slightly less defined, and Beth gave her no time to recover.

She leapt forward again, swinging slightly low to force the woman to back up a bit while deflecting the strike, giving Beth space to return with a massive, forward charging overhead slash, aiming to split her opponent from right shoulder to left hip. The woman didn't have enough time to fully move out of the way, forced to block the strike with both her arms, crossing her armored vambraces and accepting the strike in the crook of her forearms. Beth put a huge amount of force and mana into the blow, seeing the woman's knees buckle from the immense power crashing down into her and, in that single second before she could do anything else, Beth twisted around on her right foot, pivoting at her hips to throw a full strength high kick into the woman's torso with her left leg.

The woman reacted with remarkable aplomb, now that Beth wasn't pressing down on her arms for that fraction of a second, managing to just get a part of her right arm in the path of Beth's leg. It was good enough to crumple her light armor and earn her a broken bone in her forearm, but not good enough to fully stop the kick from slamming into her side and cracking a few ribs, sending her staggering to the side and almost off her feet. As she was trying to recover, Beth brought her blade back around, having removed it during her kick, swinging it in from low and to her right, directly towards the woman's chest, forcing her to try to block while still off balance. She barely managed it, but was again caught as Beth changed the swing into a punch, her left fist hitting the woman square in the nose before following it by hopping forward slightly while spinning in the air. The spin ended with her greatsword smashing into the staggered woman's right side, finishing Beth's earlier rib-breaking effort and lifting the woman entirely off her feet, her side now deeply cut open and spewing blood across the ring.

Beth finished the fight by running all her buffs at the absolute maximum, becoming little more than a smear of darting afterimages as she closed the distance she had just opened by knocking the woman away. She caught up to the woman easily and moved past her, bringing her greatsword around as she did so and slashing it into her opponent's side with enough force that she could feel her own muscles tearing, the amount of mana she dumped into the Monstrous Blow causing all of her joints to snap and pop as she nearly cleaved the woman fully in half. The match ended instantly and one of the few medics on the arena floor sprinted over at a high enough speed to create a thunderous sound, not quite a sonic boom but a powerful, thunder-like clap from a large volume of displaced air bouncing around.

Beth's martial artist opponent had been fully healed by the arena, but she was clearly having some difficulty re-orientating after being split apart, struggling on the ground a bit. The healer took hold of her and rolled her onto her back, slamming his hand onto her chest and pumping healing mana into her with a brown and green glow, some kind of nature and earth aspected spell. The spell wasn't really effective in terms of healing the woman, as she was already at essentially perfect health, but it also clearly had a soothing affect, calming the very tall woman and letting her get her bearings before sitting up. Despite their usual impatience, the ref didn't say or do anything during this time, allowing the young woman to be treated and for her to recover enough to get up and bow to Beth, who returned it before they both exited the field.

Beth knew her streak would end eventually, but she was on a roll and really in the zone, her blood really pumping now. She signed up for another battle as she left the arena floor, returning to her place waiting by the counter by 1S01, ready for her emblem to buzz in her stat screen, which she still found strange. She had no idea how her being able to sense the emblem doing something in her stat screen worked, but she was so inundated with strange magic oddities at this point that she didn't really question it. It didn't take that long for her musings to be interrupted by the very thing she was thinking about, pulling her emblem out and striding over to the counter, getting told to go to field one again as soon as the attendant scanned her emblem.

She hurried out across the arena floor, though she had plenty of time, as the man who was several minutes late had demonstrated earlier in her matches. She also needn't have bothered as she had another wait, the match before hers still ongoing when she got to the edge of the ring. She wasn't alone, either, at least in terms of people waiting on the arena floor, as there were plenty of people scattered about. If it were an official tournament day, the more senior members holding gold or platinum emblems would have been on top of that, not wanting loitering, but on a standard day where people were just going for experience or chalking up another win or two, they didn't care as much about emblem holders chilling out.

The fight that was still proceeding in the ring she was scheduled for was a bit more interesting than the last one she had had to wait out, with both participants leaning heavily into casting. The fight was interesting in that it wasn't just an exchange of spells from range, but involved quite a bit of moving on both their parts as they maneuvered around each other to get advantage. Both of them threw fire around as they moved, the most common kind of casting Beth saw at lower levels, likely because many people considered it easy to learn while still having good damage. It also showed that Soph was a bit exceptional, considering she had already moved heavily into frost and lightning before even doing a single rebirth.

The fight wrapped up with both contestants having nasty burns, another positive for fire, at least if a person was on the casting end, and it looked like the woman who lost had just built up too much damage from taking repeated hits to keep going. They were both fully healed and chased from the ring by the ref, neither needing a medic to run over and check them, and the ref impatiently gestured Beth to the field. They didn't have to wait for her opponent, either, as the woman had been part of the loose group of people hanging around the floor and walked over as soon as she saw the field was free.

The ref went through the starting motions rapidly, clearly knowing both fighters knew what they were doing, having seen Beth several times already that day and likely the other woman as well. Once he got their bows he immediately moved through the countdown and started their fight, gesturing and commanding them to start at the same time. The other woman dashed towards Beth as soon as the ref's arms were moving, charging across the space rather quickly.

Beth expected another serious fight, based on the woman's speed, and cautiously blocked her first strike, deflecting the opponent's staff weapon with a quick slash. She frowned a bit after that exchange, deflecting the next strike the woman made, and then the next, frowning even more as she did so. She countered an overhead swing and then accelerated, blurring towards the woman and chopping at her from the side before reversing the swing on the block and swinging at her from low to high. Beth knocked the woman's weapon out of position and cut into her armor with the second strike, lashing out with her right leg to kick the woman in the chest and send her staggering back, nearly falling onto the arena floor.

She was quite sure of it now, that what she had been frowning about initially was true; the woman was weak. Sure, her speed was pretty impressive, almost on par with Beth's, but the woman wasn't particularly good with her staff, and her physical strength was quite lacking. Beth hadn't put nearly her all into that upward swing and had still managed to blow the woman's guard apart, something that would not have been possible if even one of the two, her skill or strength, had been at least a match for Beth's.

Beth had encountered people about as strong as her, and she had encountered people much weaker than her, but this was her first fight against someone who had pushed only one aspect of themselves super high. Beth suspected what she was seeing was someone who had stats a bit lower than her and had only gotten a speed skill into Silver, and high into Silver at that. The woman's DEX matching or exceeding Beth's meant that, with her speed skill active she moved nearly as fast as Beth could, but in every other way she was far inferior to Beth. Beth took advantage of that to hammer her mercilessly, driving her back across the dueling field before eventually splitting her from neck to left hip with a massive cleave. The only reason the fight took more than a handful of seconds was the woman's speed, but that could only stall Beth for so long.