As soon as the barrier disintegrated, he rushed forward with his usual procedure, but unlike the boy before, the girl held her ground and held her arms in a crossed way in front of her chest. She used an armguard as a weapon.
Unfazed by the stance, Clarence approached the girl and started out with a feint on her neck, followed by a stab at her thighs. The girl used her armguard to deflect the feint and simply moved away to dodge the stab.
She followed up with a punch at his chin with her right hand, possibly to disrupt his momentum, to which he slightly dodged and threw out the dagger from his right hand at her right shoulder.
She had to duck the incoming dagger to dodge it as there was no other way than retracting her arm then dodging, for which she simply didn't have the time to do so.
But unfortunately for her, as soon as she ducked, she felt a sharp object pointed at her neck and heard,
"Surrender"
She looked to the side to see a dagger pointed at her neck, then looked upwards at the smiling demon.
But before she could say anything, she saw the dome shattering and heard the voice from above,
"Participant 234 lost, Participant 9 won."
Her eyes had started glistening when she heard that. But she still faintly nodded, and without saying a word or even looking at him, she got up and left the disc.
High up in the air,
"He has observed his opponents well. Every one of his moves is calculated to trap his opponent and force them to surrender.
But he relies too much on speed and deception. I want to see what he will do when matched with an unfavorable opponent"
Marvin commented while looking down at Clarence.
A beautiful lady with red hair materialized next to him and said,
"Of course. Whose son do you think he is? As for unfavorable opponents? There is no such thing as an unsuitable match. You just don't know the opponent."
Her tone held an undisguised pride for her son. The lady was, of course, Sienna Verity.
Upon listening to her reply, Marvin smirked but didn't reply to her. He just continued gazing down at the various domes of battle, which kept growing in size as the tournament proceeded.
He was looking down at the various fights going on while updating the leaderboards at the same time. The calculating power and memory of a person increases as their rank increases, enabling them to fight battles more efficiently.
He was currently watching the whole thing at the same time through the use of divine sense, a more accurate sensory ability which unlocks at rank six.
Down below, Clarence was a little thankful that everything went according to his plan. He used to get some break in which he watched his opponents battle, but in the previous break he spent it trying to learn more about that boy.
So he basically had no intel on the girl. He fought her without any preparation. But winning without any preparation, making plans on the spot and leading the enemy to dance in his palms gave him a very different kind of thrill.
It was more than what he felt when powering up. He felt like trying more of such things, but he wouldn't stop using the simulation to make plans.
Not using the advantage given to you was plain stupid, according to him. The world was already unfair as it is, trying to play on an equal ground was as stupid as you could get.
Once all the battles were done, there were thirty-two people left. The leaderboard had some changes as the second position was taken by Everett Winslow and a few other notable changes such as the boy from the dragon race he saw in the very first round had persisted till this round and even climbed till third position.
The thing which caught everyone's attention nevertheless wasn't the changing ranks but the unchanged top rank, Clarence Verity. From the very first battle, that name has been dominating the first rank, pressing down on everyone like an enormous mountain.
Another thing which caught their eye, although lesser than Clarence, was Maxillan Draxty, the boy of dragon race in third place. He was an underdog of sorts as he had basically climbed up the ranks, surprising people by defeating opponents when everyone thought it would be impossible.
"That's all for today. As I see, a lot of you are badly injured and it might take time to heal. I have decided to resume the tournament tomorrow."
*****
"He defeated Clara."
"Yea, and by how his rank climbed a big margin when he defeated her, it is estimated that he did so quickly."
"We don't even know who we'll be matched against to make preparations. We only know about it around five to ten minutes before the match."
Bernard, Clarence and Everett were gathered around a bonfire, talking amongst themselves about the battles today and about the underdog Maxillan.
"Battles are fun to watch. I hope our tournament finishes early so that I can come watch your fights."
Valentina added in from the side while chewing the chicken in her mouth. There were fish, chicken and various other meats being roasted on top of the bonfire. They had made this themselves. Nearly everyone had grouped themselves and started a similar bonfire on the grounds allocated to them.
Clarence nodded to her and said,
"I wanted to watch the tournament on your side too. I've been dabbling in that stuff myself and wanted to see how good people are similar to my age."
The rest weren't surprised as a lot of people studied it as a hobby and later picked it as a side job too. Everett himself had been learning about it as a hobby too and Valentina was anyway fully focused on it, although she hadn't decided on a profession yet.
Bernard had already decided to fully focus on fighting and hone his battle prowess single mindedly. He won't be devoting any of his time to any other thing.
The four of them chatted for a few more things, then took out their tents from their spatial equipment. They bid each other good night and went into their tents to prepare for the big stage tomorrow and to have a good rest.
The silver moonlight shone through the trees onto the four tents and a bonfire burning wildly in the middle, creating a peaceful scenery complementing the surrounding calmness of the night.