(Sky-God Arena, Finals match 4)
Mikhail Serrin was the next fighter to step up from Geneva, and he was expected to defeat Leo by his team.
Afterall, Mikhail specialized in neutralizing close-range, high-speed fighters, with his unique combination of short sword and pointed shield combat—designed not just to defend, but to control spacing, intercept movement, and dismantle momentum.
"This is it kid…. You’re going down—" Mikhail said, giving Leo the thumbs down sign as he took his starting spot, as the Geneva supporters roared in approval.
"Bozo…." Leo muttered under his breath, not letting the opponent’s pointless theatrics get under his skin, as he maintained his state of calm and focus.
"Both fighters ready?" The referee asked at this moment, as both Leo and Mikhail nodded.
"Alright, then begin—"
—---------
As soon as the fight began, Leo disappeared from Mikhail’s view in an unusual battle strategy that he hadn’t used in the circuits so far.
Mikhail scrunched his eyebrows, and followed the faint trail of footsteps on the sand, which kept him informed about Leo’s real location, as although Leo was moving soundlessly, on the sand-trap arena, the soft layer of sand always betrayed his true position.
*Clang*
An invisible dagger came flying towards Mikhail, which he deflected with ease, as it seemed like not only was he tracking Leo’s movements with his eyes, but he was also sensing movement in his surroundings via some perception skill, as he could easily make out the projectile coming his way, despite it being invisible.
"I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve by being invisible, Skyshard…. But these kindergarten tricks won’t work on me.
I wasn’t born yesterday, and basics of perception is a class that I took in my first year too—" Mikhail said, as he tried to discourage Leo from continuing with his invisibility route, however, despite his warning, Leo never flicked into plain view, keeping the crowd on the edge of their seats on what exactly was going on?
Then…. As if he were purposefully messing with Mikhail, Leo activated [Mirror World] creating a dozen clones of himself, who moved haphazardly in the sand around him, creating a dozen new footstep trails that crossed over and covered his real steps.
"What? What is this pointless nonsense? You know I can see you moving there right?" Mikhail said, as he traced the real invisible Leo with his short sword, pointing towards him constantly as he moved, until he did not.
As suddenly, Leo used [Blade Switch] and teleported right above Mikhail, before coming crashing down on him with an overhead strike.
*Block*
Mikhail blocked the move with his shield, the impact putting pressure on his knees as he sank slightly deeper into the sand, however, he took no damage.
*Push*
Pushing Leo back, he followed up with a stab towards his gut, as Leo, still invisible, dodged by turning to the left, as his dozen clones ganged up on Mikhail and tried to stab him all at once.
*Slash*
*Slash*
*Dodge*
*Slash*
Forced to handle the small fries, Mikhail lost a precious couple of seconds trying to dispatch all clones, where-by he completely lost track of the real Leo, or what he was up-to.
Then, as he tried to find him again using his perception skill, Mikhail panicked when he could sense him nowhere, as it appeared like Leo had completely disappeared from the battlefield entirely.
"What? Where is he? Reff… is he still within the arena bounds?" Mikhail inquired, with the crowd growing restless, as the response came in the form of a stunning slash across his cheek, which drew a thick line of blood.
*SLASH—*
A dagger whistled past his head, with him only surviving being impaled, due to the instinctive jerk of his neck at the last possible second.
However, this close encounter made him widen his eyes in surprise, as he could no longer figure out what was going on?
"What? Why can’t I sense you? Where are you motherfucker?" Mikhail complained, as he turned around frantically, trying to look for any traces of Leo’s footwork amongst the sand, however, he could find nothing with how messy the battlefield looked with dozens of footsteps going in all directions.
*STAB*
Another invisible dagger impaled him at this moment, this time in the thigh, as "AGHHH—" Mikhail screamed, his eyes wide with panic.
He couldn’t sense this one coming his way at all either and that made him break his composure.
In his head, he couldn’t make sense of how Leo Skyshard was evading his senses so thoroughly! However, for the transcendent and monarch level fighters sitting in the crowd, they could perceive Leo’s trick as plain as day.
Mikhail’s perception ability was called [Sectoral Search] and how it functioned was that it searched for any signs of danger in a 100 meter radius, sector by sector.
For the first 0.2 seconds, it searched the battlefield at 0-72 degrees from the host.
For the next 0.2 seconds it searched 72-144 degrees.
And so on until it completed a full 360° search in 1 full second.
However, this made the technique prone to leaving momentary blind spots, as at any given moment in time, while it searched 1 sector, it left 4 others blind open.
And Leo, having researched this weakness of the ability before the finals began, had already formulated a strategy on how to exploit it.
First, he created a footstep storm around Mikhail using [Mirror World] so that his real movement would not be given away by his steps.
And then, once he was overwhelmed by the clones, Leo tactically slipped into his blind spot and began running at his top speed clockwise, as although he was running in just a 3 meter narrow radius around Mikhail, and that too at his top speed—
At that radius, his speed let him stay ahead of each scan—slipping through the gaps in Mikhail’s detection before it could ever lock on, making him completely invisible to his opponent.
*Stab*
*Stab*
*Stab*
Three more daggers hit Mikhail, this time along his hip, spine, and shoulder in rapid succession, as the impact sent him buckling to one knee, before he regained his footing and began limping wildly as his composure shattered.
At this moment, Mikhail ran simply for the sake of running, as he felt like a sitting duck by fighting from the same spot where he was being repeatedly hit, however, this proved to be his final and costliest mistake.
"Got you—" Leo whispered coldly, as he reappeared into public view from Mikhail’s blind side and rushed in for the kill, as he stabbed Mikhail on his back, before pulling his dagger down along the full length of his spine, to leave a long diagonal blow, that while wasn’t lethal, made Mikhail feel like he was being torn in half.
"AGHHHH—" Mikhail screamed, before falling face first into the sand, as Leo stood over him, waiting to deliver the finishing blow.
"AGH! AGH! AGHHHH—" Mikhail screamed writhing on the ground, as the amount of pain he felt in this moment numbed his mind and killed any desire he had left in him to continue this fight.
"I YIELD…. I YIELD—-" He yelled like a bitch, as the referee called the match in Rodova’s favor.
"Winner, Leo Skyshard from Rodova!" The referee declared, raising Leo’s hand, as the Rodova crowd roared in approval.
No-one saw this dominant win coming.
Infact, no-one watched most of what happened in this match up-till the final moment, however, it still pumped their blood.
This was arguably Leo’s most impressive performance yet, as he dismantled a Grandmaster opponent not through battle-dominance, but rather strategic brilliance.