Noah stored his daggers before exhaling, he might have just killed someone. But her insult had been annoying. There hadn't been any reason to start throwing any and he had been polite throughout their meeting, but she had to begin hurling insults at him.
He couldn't or wouldn't take it, especially when she was weak compared to him.
Noah began his search for the black-haired lady at that point, but she found him instead, and her eyes blazed with fury.
Unfortunately, the event with her partner had put him in a bad mood, and he wasn't in the mood for any action.
He prepared to take her out since her aura flared with ferocity and she revealed a similar whip. But Noah wasn't having it.
His figure shot forward with his sword at hand while she began to rapidly crack her whip at random spots around her, and before Noah could reach her, he felt his skin suffer injuries, even if her whip had not touched him.
The event left him surprised, but he wasn't afraid of pain, so he pushed forward to try and reach her after changing his course.
A powerful force, however, smashed into his face merely inches from her figure and he was sent barreling backward crashing into a building and bringing it down.
'What the actual fuck,' Noah cursed inwardly as pain gushed into his awareness, deep one. But his healing had kicked in.
He slowly lifted the walls that had collapsed on him, and grit his teeth in annoyance when he saw that he would need more than that to escape the building debris.
After a series of tries the light from the sky managed to reach his eyes, but so did a black line, which sent him and the crumbled building flying backward.
Several cuts opened on Noah's face at that point and another curse escaped his mouth when he saw that his attire was barely standing.
His figure was exposed to the lady's sight and she quickly moved forward to crack her whip towards his back, landing a powerful blow that caused Noah to yelp.
The spikes or blades on the whip tore through his skin with such ease he began to reevaluate the power of that weapon.
'Surely halfway into the higher stage,' Noah thought as blood flowed from his mouth even if his healing had kicked in and the injuries began to see their repair.
Noah quickly stood at that point and his eyes caught sight of her quick whip and he moved to grab it, which he did. Even if he wounded his hand in the process.
A surprised expression reached the expert's face at that event, but it didn't stop her from pulling her whip while it was still in his grip ripping a few fingers from his palm.
Noah was livid.
He had simply been running around with almost none of his technique in play, but she had forced his hand.
With his sword nowhere to be found since he had been caught off guard, he bent his knees a bit before raising his arms to execute the first form.
Although she stood a bit distant from him, her figure was still blown away by the sheer power contained in that execution.
The ground around Noah experienced big cracks or found a portion of their structure directly shaved off.
Noah stopped a couple of seconds later to dash forward, but the lady was nowhere to be found.
Nevertheless, he didn't stop and proceeded to smash into a building, before executing the first form. Ultimately bringing the whole structure down.
"You're good!" The lady's voice reached his ears at that moment and he caught sight of her escaping the building's top, to another one.
A frown appeared on his face at that point, and he quickly understood that he would be unable to touch her unless he found a way to close the gap.
He had to admit that her display had been shocking, to say the least. She had been capable of leaving him unable to touch her even with his skill.
But that outcome came from the fact that she specialized in long-ranged combat and her weapon wasn't even in her level of power.
A whip was surprisingly effective on his style, but her martial arts was even more interesting. Her seemingly random attacks; after many replays In his mind now revealed to Noah that she had set up that barrier of sorts with it.
But rather than a magical barrier, her martial arts seemed capable of storing the force of her whips in space, and when they came in contact with bodies, their power would be unleashed.
Honestly, Noah felt at a loss of what to do since the style seemed even more overpowered than his. However, he believed there had to be a weakness in her martial art. His time with Elder Sarah had made him realize that.
If it was so easy why hadn't the other lady done the same?
Even with all those questions and speculations, Noah still couldn't conclude and could only hope the loophole in the style would become evident to him.
'I can only do that through testing,' he sighed seeing as his speed wouldn't help him much unless he found a way to bypass her defenses.
Noah considered all this in the time it took the building to begin to fall apart and he quickly escaped it too, to appear in the open.
His figure looked tattered and his attire featured heavy blood stains from wounds that had already healed.
"I have to admit your style has left me with no real options," Noah started, focusing his gaze on the top of a certain building.
He couldn't see anyone, but he could sense the expert there.
An arrow wheezed through the air towards him, but he caught it and snapped it in half. An unknowingly bad move since immediately he did that, the arrow went up in flames, unfolding into a powerful explosion that spread in the area.
The blast from the explosion sent Noah flying through the buildings of that area to the next, while the explosion itself wreaked havoc around him.
In a matter of seconds, that area wreaked of destruction and a big black smoke rose to the cloudy sky of the town and almost everyone left in the town could see it.