With all of them managing to pa.s.s, s.h.i.+ro smiled in satisfaction before looking towards the two people that she was most cautious about.

First the slayer, the second was a partic.i.p.ant that showed quite an impressive amount of strength in the round.

While she managed to steal the kill on one of the stage 5 beasts, he was able to kill the other one before she could even shoot an arrow. With a single swing of his sword, he cut the beast in half and walked away as if it was nothing.

Not only that, but she could also sense an element similar to Yin's shadow in a way that ate away at the beast, thus leaving corrosion wounds on the cut.

Browsing through her memories, she couldn't find anyone that fit the bill except for a guy she met back in New York. However, even with that, she had never seen him fight so he was off the list.

As for the other slayer, well, he took the third beast and she immediately recognised the fighting style. Only question was why that pervert was even here with that kind of outfit that made him seem like the edge lord of Cairosa.

'Well I don't exactly know what happened after the little parting gift we left in Cairosa but it seems like he's found his way here. I just hope that he won't stay for long or else I'll have to deal with him again.' s.h.i.+ro thought with a s.h.i.+ver since he didn't want to deal with the pervert.

With a pervert in the vicinity and a potential one nearby, s.h.i.+ro couldn't help but sigh.

"This event really has drawn out all kinds of crazies." She muttered.

"What do you mean mum?" Lisandra raised her eyebrows.

"Oh nothing dear, just some old people that I know about. Anyways, let's see what the next round is about." s.h.i.+ro shook her head.

[Stage 5: Duel. Simple, it's a one versus one and the winner moves onto the next round. Names will be drawn at random.]

"Huh… I thought that they would have saved this for the last round. To think they'll use it now." s.h.i.+ro muttered.

"What do you think the last round will be then?" Lisandra asked curiously.

"No idea but it might be a team vs team to determine the people who get the items." s.h.i.+ro shrugged.

Looking at the name draws, she found out that she was against Aarim of all people.

'Well ain't that just a shame… Do I want to proceed onto the next round and eliminate Aarim or do I want to let her pa.s.s?' s.h.i.+ro mused to herself.

{Why are you even thinking about this? We both know that you're going to eliminate her regardless.} Nimue chuckled.

'Very true.' s.h.i.+ro nodded.

As for Lisandra, she was against one of the other contestants so s.h.i.+ro wasn't too worried about her being eliminated unless the opponent pulls something.

*RUMBLE!!!!

Suddenly, the tower shook as the walls started to slide down.

Revealing ten platforms that extended out and above the city of Vericia, s.h.i.+ro was surprised at how high up they were.

With the sudden opening of the walls, they resisted a huge suction that threatened to throw them out while the air started to get thin.

'Hmm… seems like this fight is going to be one that challenges how much one can control their body. With the air being so thin, unless you're good at using your stamina efficiently, you're going to have some trouble.

'I suppose it's also what separates the good from the best.' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself.

Seeing a teleport circle opened up under her, s.h.i.+ro found herself transported to one of the stages. Seeing Aarim in front of her, she then saw a countdown timer appear in front of them.

"Oh? How sad. Despite your help in the last round, it seems like we'll have to fight against one another." Aarim smiled.

"I suppose so. Ah just because I helped, feel free to go all out ok?" s.h.i.+ro replied with a chuckle.

"Of course, that's what I plan to do." Aarim nodded before checking out s.h.i.+ro's true nature.

Seeing her nature, Aarim widened her eyes before being confused.

Looking at 'Kazumi', she narrowed her eyes.

"You're s.h.i.+ro aren't you?" She asked with a frown.

". . . Well I suppose this is you looking at my true nature then." s.h.i.+ro smiled as she narrowed her eyes.

"Yes, though I wonder why you didn't just show up before us." Aarim shrugged.

"I kind of wanted to see how much you lot have grown. Though despite you knowing who I am, feel free to go all out. Don't worry, I've got a skill that can save my life if needs be." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

"Of course, I have to say though, I'm a bit surprised that you've become an archer in the time that you were gone."

"Oh don't worry about it, it's just a disguise. If anything, I'm a fake archer." s.h.i.+ro chuckled.

"Hm, fair enough." Aarim smiled.

As the timer hit 0, she stomped down as three tier 4 magic circles appeared around s.h.i.+ro.

Snapping her fingers, the gravity around s.h.i.+ro was instantly increased as she slammed her knees against the ground.

"Gravity huh? When did you learn this type of magic?" s.h.i.+ro asked a little forcefully since she was resisting against the magic.

"Let's just say I delved deeper into spatial magic." Aarim replied.

"I see, that probably explains the teleportation in round 1."

Punching the ground, a pulse of mana exploded out as it was enhanced with s.h.i.+ro's Celestial path.

*PING!!!

Shattering the surrounding magic circles into tiny shards, s.h.i.+ro made some distance between the two of them.

However, her body slammed into an invisible wall.

"Lockdown." Aarim commanded.

Flipping her hand, the invisible box that carried s.h.i.+ro was flung upwards.

While s.h.i.+ro was being flung, Aarim clasped her two hands together and started to merge several different tier 4 spells. This was based on the concept that she had found in the Miriel royal library and had tried out in the war but failed.

With the two months that s.h.i.+ro had been away, she spent the time refining the theory as well as studying s.p.a.ce magic.

Gritting her teeth, a spell circle with multiple different spells could be seen enhancing the main one.

While it's similar to what normal mages do at higher levels, this was in fact one that was made up of several conflicting spells which should have made it impossible.

But by removing the conflicting parts and only having the compatible parts merge, she was able to craft a spell out of all of them.

Sometimes, the result wouldn't be as effective as using the base spells but this was one of the times where the outcome was much better than the spells used.

"Tier 4 Fusion Spell - Zerst!" Aarim commanded.

Ripples in s.p.a.ce appeared around s.h.i.+ro as high density orbs of energy started to form. Absorbing the ambient mana rapidly, she found it a little hard to cast a spell since it would just be cancelled by the lack of mana.

'Interesting…' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself while a.n.a.lysing the core component of the spell with her a.n.a.lysis skill. Realising what she had done to them, she couldn't help but nod in satisfaction.

"Since you've presented a rather impressive skill, let me show you one of mine as a gift. h.e.l.l, if you don't mind, I'll put some of your theories to use." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

"Of course. By all means, be my guest. The fruits of my research are ones that I hope can be in use for the party. If you can make use of it, I would be more than happy regardless of the outcome." Aarim smiled.

Receiving Aarim permission, s.h.i.+ro closed one of her eyes and started to create the new spell with Aarim's fusion technique as a base.

Fusing her Star, Void Star and Cosmic ice together with the additional help of her Chimera Arts, s.h.i.+ro then activated her Throne World Skill.

Slamming her hand down, her surrounding spells were shattered as she pulled Aarim into her own personal domain.

s.h.i.+elding her eyes from the light, Aarim looked around in shock.

The ground beneath her was created from ice as the galaxy reflected off its surface. Far into the distance were tall glacial mountains that had a singular large star in the centre which were reminiscent of eyes.

Above her, a valley of stars and colours were present, each one glistening softly.

"Welcome to my throne world. Using a few skills together with your technique allowed me to create this world which houses three of my attunements. Each one is of the star type so my bow is enhanced in this domain. I'm sure you've seen what my bow could do in Tokyo so you can imagine what I can do in here." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

"To think that even as an archer you're still the ridiculous adventurer I've seen ever. Honestly, I didn't even humour the fact that the huge spell in Tokyo could have been your doing but with you confirming the truth, it seems like I have no choice to believe it." Aarim chuckled.

"I forfeit. I already know that my barriers can't hold up to your bombardments since I'm offence based." She raised her hands up in defeat.

Teleporting out of the arena, s.h.i.+ro disabled her throne world.