Yale sat and ignored the gazes of the others; his only interest was the battle in front of his eyes, he didn't bother with what the others were thinking about him.
After some minutes everyone finished placing the bets, and the expected battle started.
The man indicated to his opponent that she could make the first move in the fight, but that wasn't due to gentleness, it was just arrogance as he was ensured of his victory.
The girl didn't hesitate to attack; she did it without thinking two times about it, making the man smile as he intercepted her sword and made her fall back due to his superior strength. Or at least that was what the man planned to do because he was unable to intercept the sword, which was moved in a strange way and hit his body.
"You are such a weak girl, so I let you gave me one hit, but from now on I will be serious."
That man was shameless, everyone saw that he tried to block the attack, but he was unable to do it. Although no one doubted that the man wasn't serious as he didn't use Sword Qi, which was something that could only be used after reaching the master stage in swordsmanship, it was obvious that he hadn't used it due to underestimating his opponent and not by being lenient.
After finishing his shameless speech, the man infused his sword with Sword Qi, and the girl just snorted while attacking again.
Sword Qi in the master stage was an improved version of the Sword Aura that appeared on the expert stage, but Sword Qi could be manipulated to create Sword Qi attacks, even long-range ones. However, for using them at long range, one needed to be at least at the grandmaster stage, at just the master stage, Sword Qi attacks could only be melee.
Although the man was confident in blocking the attack of the girl, the result was the same as before. Fortunately for him, his opponent's strength was far less than his own strength, so he wasn't harmed a lot by each hit while he would inflict a huge damage each time he hit his opponent.
However, after ten more exchanges, the man failed even to clash swords with the girl while all the attacks of the girl hit him. He couldn't restrain his shame even with his shameless personality because although the damage he received wasn't that much, he was being beaten by a little girl in public, which damaged his pride a lot.
Yale was focused in the battle and smiled after the first exchange as he felt that his previous guess was correct and the girl wasn't just hot-headed and wanted to battle after being offended by that man.
Yale noticed that the sword of the girl moved weirdly enough that if someone had seen her practicing that without an opponent would have called her a fool. However, those moves had proved to be extremely effective in battles and were cornering the man who surpassed the girl by a full rank and one full stage in swordsmanship.
Yale continued looking to the girl's movement of the sword disregarding the existence of the man completely; the man was strong but compared with the prowess of the girl who disregarded level powers and swordsmanship stages, he was nothing. The more he looked at that sword style, the more he felt that there was something mysterious in it.
While Yale continued looking to those sword moves, Yale entered into an enlightenment state, and his swordsmanship advanced to the seventh level of the expert stage immediately.
After some more exchanges, the man was frustrated; he had been unable to hit his opponent even one time while he had been hit every time his opponent tried to do it, that battle wasn't harming his body but was destroying his reputation completely.
"I give up; this battle has no sense. You can't harm me, and I am unable to harm you, this battle can only be a tie, but you are weaker than me, so I give the victory to you."
The man was resolute about that decision; it was better giving up by saying those words than continuing to be beaten for hours. Although he was confident in that he wouldn't lose, hitting that girl was too difficult, and even if he managed to win after hours of battle it would still damage his reputation, so giving up was the less harming option at that moment.
The girl looked to her opponent with repugnance in her eyes because she was only seeing a coward who fled after seeing that he couldn't win. Although the man recognized that she wasn't a newbie in the sword like he had told her before, she wasn't happy with the outcome; she wanted to finish the battle.
She wasn't the only one thinking in that way, the whole audience and especially those who betted for him were shouting the word coward non-stop towards the man who had just given up.
"Shut up! If someone really thinks that I am a coward, you can come here and battle with me; we will battle to the death! I will show you a slow way to die with my sword!"
The audience stopped their cries after hearing the challenge, they were daring to speak, but no one of the people who was shouting dared to battle against him. The Apprentice Rank man didn't fear anyone who was at the Apprentice Rank or lower, and as for stronger people, even if they beat him, there wouldn't be any shame to him due to the rank difference.
Killing the opponent was forbidden in the Sword Arena because it was a place to train and not to murder, but it was also forbidden issue a challenge after having lost, so that man had already broken the rules. In fact, he never cared about the rules; he thought that everything about that Larken clan was just bullshit and that the others in the Sword Five wouldn't move to punish him either.
On the other hand, he was sure that is someone at the Practitioner Rank, or Expert Rank dared to try to kill him, the others in the Sword Five would punish such a person.
When that man was smiling because no one accepted the challenge, his face changed because he saw that one youth appeared in front of him and took out a sword.
That youth was Yale who was still in his enlightenment state; he unconsciously went to the stage after hearing the challenge. Yale had reached the eight level of the expert stage before the battle stopped, which was a huge progress, but he continued in the enlightenment state after that. Thus, after being unable to see the continuation of the battle, he unconsciously wanted to battle.
"A fool who didn't know that there were people who can't be surpassed, today you will only leave this Sword Arena as a corpse."
Some people of the audience recognized Yale as the guy who had bet fifty Sword Points for the victory of the little girl, and they didn't understand why he needed to seek death after having won so much Sword Points.
It was obvious to them that Yale was only a 2-star Apprentice while his opponent was a 9-star Apprentice, their difference was still too huge. Moreover, those who had seen Yale fight in the arena in other days knew that Yale wasn't at the master stage and that he was just at the top fifty of the Apprentice Rank, too far from the first who he was battling.
The member of the Sword Five attacked Yale immediately without any type of warning, but Yale just moved his sword in a way that seemed random.
Everyone was ready to see Yale's corpse, after the first exchange. Thus, no one was surprised when they heard a body falling to the ground, and they were ready to start speaking about how useless that reckless guy was.
However, they shut their mouths because after they looked well, the corpse wasn't from Yale, but from the member of the Sword Five, who had lost his head due to Yale's sword attack.
That man stats were still higher than Yale although he wasn't at his max, so usually killing him in one hit should be impossible for Yale, but he was in an enlightenment state and was using the Space-time Judgment Sword, so the body of that man wasn't hard enough to survive.
Yale hadn't used any Sword Qi as he was just at the expert stage, while his opponent had used it and had even attacked without warning, but in the end, Yale had still killed his opponent with one hit; for the audience, that was even scarier than the little girl who had battled before.