"What did you say?"

While I knew that there was a chance that some kind of monster will take the challenge, the odds of it happening should be low! To be honest, I didn't really care about the money that I wagered on the fight, but letting my fiancee lose such hyped match? I'm sure that would come back to bite me right in the middle of my ass later!

"This man is called Neterian, and he is one of the strongest expanding senses cultivators not only in the Natural's sect but also in the entire city! While we have experts that are far stronger in the higher realms, there is no one in our ranks that could match this man ability in his respective cultivation level!"

Noticing the anguish in my eyes, Venna explained the reality to me,

"I guess this is the price for fixing this trouble… Don't take it to your heart, I'm sure that you will be able to earn this money back with the auction!"

Mistaking the reasons behind my anxiety, Venna tried to comfort me. I guess sect elders and representatives valued the money far greater than small things like glory or honour. While I could understand it - they had to provide for a great number of disciples, servants and obviously, for themselves - I could only hope that I would never turn out to be the same.

"Start the fight!"

Just as we reached the lodge and sat on the comfortable chairs, the show has started.

In a flash, both contenders jumped at their throats, carrying similarly shaped weapons. I guess this was the stage where fancy but unusable weapons were already obsolete, forcing the fighters to use a meaningful blade.

As soon as they approached the double distance, both Eve and Neterian swung their swords against each other. I had to thank the system for improving my eyes to the point where I was actually able to follow the movements of their weapons and notice that what others could mistake for a single clash, was actually a triple exchange of insanely quick hits!

Using the force carried by the last one, both of them jumped half step away, appearing right outside the hitting distance of the opponent. Just this clash was enough for both of them to realise and acknowledge the speed of the opponent. At the same time, the crowd finally realised why I was soo eager to hype this fight soo much. Compared to what they could see earlier, this duel was on an entirely different level!

After a few moments, if circling, they finally got back to fighting. I could see the minute changes in their positions where they probed each other for how much would the other allow them to do. When the sound of the sword hitting sword reappeared, it took only five hits for the Natural's disciple to start gaining an advantage.

Be it his superior strength or simply greater amount of fighting experience, he somehow managed to push Eve back for a single step, two steps, only to make it apparent for everyone who has the upper hand in this fight!

CLANG!

As a powerful downflowing hit struck Eve's swift counter, something I expected but the others couldn't believe happened.

Neterian's sword actually broke!

It would be closer to the truth to tell that Eve actually managed to simply cut through her opponent blade, with only the sudden change of balance tilting the power of the man's strike allowing her shield to withstand the continuation of now unhindered swing!

Instantly jumping back, both of them simply stood on the spot, with Neterian staring at his broken sword with an incredible look of disbelief on his face, while Eve could only put a wry smile and stand awkwardly.

While the man still couldn't come to the terms with the loss of his weapon, Eve shrugged her shoulders as if coming to terms with something, before she took out an identical sword to the one she was wielding. Even without watching closely I was sure that this was my utopy!

Without the voice amplification in place, I couldn't discern what they talked about, but in the end, my fiancee still passed the sword to her opponent with a calm look on her face. Initially dumbfounded, Neterian quickly gathered his composure before bowing slightly and accepting the sword.

While this was my plan at the very beginning, it still stung me a bit. Not only did my beloved offered my own sword to a diffrent man with her natural, charming smile, I just risked a whole lot of money by prompting her for this move!

I know that I can get this money back with ease, but being a poor bloke back on earth, throwing away the equivalent of few years of normal job wages still hurt a bit. But when I thought about it for a moment, this actually worked pretty well for encouraging others to reveal their cards in stupid attempts to sow discord between me and Eve. After all, she just risked a lot of her fiance money only to uphold some stupid sense of fighters honour! I could bet that all our potential enemies would think that this showed how low did she value me in her heart!

As the duel resumed, Eve was swiftly put back on the defensive by the decisive moves of the Neterian. Noticing that she wouldn't be able to best him in terms of swordsmanship, she finally started using her cultivation techniques.

Starting from shrouding the small circle around her to execute attacks from unpredictable angles, even to the point of enveloping her opponent with her energy and hindering his actions with it!

The longer the fight continued, Eve shifted further and further into relying on her energy, to the point where I could finally notice her mana pool slowly drying up. Forced to use my own mana to suppress the automatic reaction of our spirituality that urged me to help her, I allowed parts of the energy to slip through into my cultivation, instantly transferring it to Eve's input of on the techniques. This way, even if someone had the ability to peer into her inner state, they wouldn't be able to notice any anomaly, as her mana simply stayed exactly the same!

Even if I could resupply Eve's energy at will, there was no way for me to alleviate her exhaustion, both physical and mental one. As the fight went on, both of the competitors visibly slowed down and down, only to gather all their energy in the last-ditch attempt…

When the dust kicked by their movements finally fell down, I could see the edge of Utopy rested against Eve's inner shield, created by the city hall experts to prevent injuries. Just as I was about to accept the sad reality, I realised that neither of them was moving at all!

After a closer look, I noticed the reason.

In her last attack, she actually managed to slip a single thread of her energy through her opponent defences, only to create a weak but lethal spike of fire right at the height of the Neterian's heart!

"It's a draw!"