Chapter 158: Shadow Dancer

'Shit! This lass had a self-healing skill?' Ian thought as he quickly used [Blink Strike Lv.3] to reappear behind Ava in an attempt to stop her from healing the stab wound he inflicted.

Unfortunately, he was a little too late.

Upon reappearing behind Ava, the wound was already closed. In addition to this, the experienced Amarantha representative seemed to have predicted that he would do this.

Thus, his sneaky but slightly predictable strike ended up being cleanly blocked by Ava.

'Tch, so it wouldn't be that easy huh? Come then, show me what you got.' Ian thought as he jumped back from Ava, a confident smile plastered on his face.

The crowd was going crazy due to the insane high-speed exchanges between the two representatives.

One moment, the young woman was pressing the Colzen representative but then, the next moment, she ended up getting stabbed after getting tricked by an afterimage from the skilled young man.

Such quick high-level battle sequences were the main essence of a scout vs. scout battle, so such a match-up had always been a banger match.

'Haaah...Look at Ian, hogging all the glory...I bet he would get around twenty to thirty thousand points just from this battle if he had the system...'

Shye sighed in regret as he watched Ian and Ava's intense battle like a jealous side character.

He consoled himself by saying that he would get to fight soon.

Meanwhile, inside the luxurious office, Blas chuckled as he watched the ongoing battle in Large Arena 4.

He then turned his head to look at Alex and said:

"What do you think about Colzen?"

"Yes, Sir Blas is correct about Colzen. It seems that they are indeed a top 8 contender. However, if this is all they have, I don't think that they would be able to defeat the three kings so I shall rank them at around fourth or fifth strongest."

"Hohoh...Well then, let's continue watching them, shall we? It seems that the battle is coming to an end."

...

Sure enough, Ava didn't even let him land on the ground as she quickly capitalized on the fact that he was still flying through the air.

She quickly reappeared beside Ian and viciously stabbed her sword downwards. If nothing goes wrong for her, then her dagger would stab straight into his heart.

Unfortunately for her, Ian was simply too skilled.

After deciding to stop holding back, Ian fully showcased his dueling skills.

The crowd's mouths were agape as he cleanly dodged Ava's dagger in mid-air by using the initial force of Ava's kick to smoothly transition into a somersault before landing gracefully on the ground.

Ava was mesmerized by Ian's graceful maneuvers but she knew that she had no time to admire him since she was currently fighting on a timer.

If she couldn't defeat Ian before her skill's effects ran out, then she was done for.

Hence, Ava gritted her teeth and immediately continued hunting Ian like a wild beast.

She viciously slashed and stabbed her dagger toward Ian but no matter what she did, Ian managed to avoid getting hit by either leaning to the sides, jumping back, parrying, or blocking

He was simply as slippery as an eel.

As the clock continued ticking, Ava became more and more desperate, her gorgeous face changed into a pitiful expression as it seemed like she would cry any moment now.

Nevertheless, she continued relentlessly hounding him with ferocious attacks.

Finally, after a few more minutes of attacking with reckless abandon, Ava's body stopped emitting black vapor and the red irises of her eyes returned to normal.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as her unconscious body slowly fell forward.

"Oops..."

Ian swore to not do anything nice for the Amarantha representatives after all of the infuriating things they did but for some reason, he couldn't stop himself from doing so when it came to Ava.

Not only was she polite unlike her other teammates, but she seemed to be also very passionate about victory which was proven by the tears on her face upon realizing that she lost.

Thus, he quickly jumped in and caught her falling body, preventing her head from hitting the cold and hard arena floor.