Have you ever tried to swat a fly with your hand only to fail at every attempt? It was a rather annoying experience.
Though it didn't show on his face, Jarek was greatly annoyed by this tactic.
Astrid was like a bug, almost impossible to hit.
Every attack Jarek threw, missed as she hid herself underground.
Though he found it troublesome, Jarek continued to launch his attacks, all while thinking of ways to break Astrid's ability.
Unexpectedly, Astrid, the person who continued to employ this troublesome ability, wasn't in the best mood.
If it weren't absolutely necessary, she wouldn't want to use this tactic.
But in this battle, she wasn't dealing with a normal opponent whom she could fight to her heart's content.
Her adversary had the strength of an Empyrean, and she was just a Grandmaster.
No matter how you look at it, this was straight-up bullying on Jarek's part.
Even if Jarek had lowered his strength, this battle was far from being a fair one.
While their strength might be relative to one another, Jarek's energy reserves were more plentiful than hers.
If she could fire ninety-nine strikes, each strike containing the power of a Grandmaster, Jarek could do at least four times that number.
What she didn't know was that Jarek could fire five hundred and ninety-four strikes with force comparable to that of a Grandmaster.
Each person, no matter what level they were at, could fire at most ninety-nine attacks with their full strength.
But if a cultivator chooses to suppress their attack power by one level, they could unleash twice the number of attacks.
In other words, the lower one suppresses their strength, the more the number of attacks they can unleash.
And Jarek, who is suppressing his power by six levels, can naturally produce six times the number of attacks Astrid can.
And so even as she did this, she was the one destined to run out of energy first.
Once that happened, it would be her loss.
Jarek descended from the sky, the wind lifting him into the air, vanishing slowly until it completely disappeared when his feet touched the ground.
While it was a good movement ability, it consumed a bit of his energy compared to his other abilities.
'Let's save a bit of my energy.'
Of course, Jarek had a lot of energy, and he hadn't even used a third of his energy, but he couldn't act like he had a lot of energy to spare.
This was, after all, a battle between Grandmasters.
So he has to use his energy sparingly, and |Spiral Tempest| consumes more energy than his other abilities since he has to maintain it constantly.
It was then that he realized something.
'Could it be...? So that's how it is. Her ability is similar to mine.'
Indeed, he was right on the mark.
Astrid's ability, while formidable, consumes a lot of energy.
That is because in order to move underground, she has to constantly manipulate the earth in front of her in order to move downward, forward, and upward.
In fact, her ability consumes a lot more energy than Jarek's.
He hadn't realized this fact because he didn't have a good understanding of her ability.
It was only when he subconsciously compared the two skills in his mind did he realized how similar they were and their drawbacks.
Astrid surfaced once again, this time to see Jarek's figure standing on the ground.
Jarek didn't waste any time and fired a lightning strike at Astrid, who responded by creating her own earthly defenses.
Just like he had expected, Astrid didn't use that ability and instead chose to defend using other means.
Jarek then made a dash towards Astrid, who unleashed a devastating attack of her own.
|Fire Art: Dragonfire Torrent|
|Wind Art: Spiral Tempest|
Jarek once again temporarily rose high into the air and rained down a lightning attack at Astrid's position.
Astrid fled underground just as he had expected.
After all, her defenses can't shield her from attacks falling from the sky.
He then descended once again, intent on not wasting more of his energy.
When Astrid surfaced again, Jarek repeated the same actions, and Astrid responded in the same manner.
After repeating this a couple of times, Astrid's expression turned serious.
'My energy.' Her energy was almost exhausted.
She couldn't afford to use that ability anymore.
She was now in a dangerous position.
Now she could only rely on her earth spears as a means of attack, which was just an attempt to stall the inevitable.
Yes, she had realized that winning was impossible.
And there was no shame in admitting that.
But she could at least fight to the bitter end, can't she?
As she fired one earth spear after another, Jarek accurately destroyed them with one slash, taking out one earth spear each.
The gap between them continued to narrow slowly by slowly until Jarek was close enough to unleash another ability.
His shadow extended at a fast speed, and it quickly attached itself onto the retreating Astrid's shadow, halting her movements for a brief period.
When she broke free from the restraints after three seconds, Jarek was about two metres away from her, his sword slashing towards her.
She responded rapidly by blocking the incoming attack with her spear, alongside several others, her concentration at its peak.
It was only after fending off Jarek's final attack that she felt that her movements were restricted once again.
She inwardly sighed. 'It's over.'
She could only look on helplessly as Jarek placed his sword on her neck, serving as a declaration of her defeat.
And so Jarek became the final winner of the tournament.