Date- 5 April 2321


    Time- 11:39


    Location- Southern Region, Blossom district, Sky Blossom City, Guild Association Mall, Warehouse No.234


    As Corey took the fighting stance ignoring the pain of her wounds she muttered, "Rare-Grade Imperial Blood Demon Body Arts."


    Soon a mist of blood began to ooze out of Corey and the deep wounds on her body began to heal faster than they were previously. Within a blink of an eye, the deep wounds were healed and the scars started to slowly fade away. Erasing every trace of the nasty wounds on Corey''s body. If not for the blood and the tattered clothes on her Body nobody would think that she was wounded in the first ce.


    Seeing this Joe and his goons panicked, they felt that they had celebrated too fast. To the goons, Corey reminds them of the martial arts card apprentice back in the central capital who only equipped martial arts cards and trained their body to master these martial arts. They too would defeat their opponents without having to make use of their grimoire or cards. But there was something different about Corey whenpared to the central capital''s martial arts card apprentice. Her body did not seem to be well trained whenpared to the central capital''s martial arts card apprentices even though her level of martial arts mastery was very high.


    Even if it were martial art card apprentices, they would summon their grimoire to equip themselves with armor and weapons because no matter how much one trains their body it could neverpare to the item cards and the Physique and Traits one is born with or acquires. This was why there weren''t many martial art card apprentices. However, it was Joe''s unfortunate fate that he met one who was an exceptional Martial Artist, down here, in a remote third-rate city of the southern region.


    "I see, you are finally taking me seriously," said Sword Spirit seeing Corey use her sage-level mastery in Rare-grade Imperial Blood Demon Body Arts against it. As a Sword Spirit, it knew that until now Corey was arrogantly using basic body arts against it, even though she had trained the basic body arts to sage-level mastery that was not enough against it, a sword spirit born to walk the path of the swords.


    "No, I am not taking you seriously but I finally know why I need to take this seriously," Corey said with a firm voice. She was not answering to the Sword Spirit but to her evil boss who for some reason sounded a lot like the Sword Spirit, she was fighting earlier.


    "..." the Sword Spirit respected Corey''s honesty and nodded as it raised its dual swords and took its battle form.


    Taking their respectivebat stances Corey and the Swords Spirit nced at their opponents gauging their strengths and weakness. And predicting how their opponent will react to their attacks based on their battle so far. Neither of them dared to underestimate their opponent. Silence prevailed in the arena as the opponents engaged in a stare-down and slowly got closer to each other.


    The atmosphere was tense, the previous battle had shown that both thebatants were equally capable maybe one was less smart than the other but strength-wise it was hard to tell which one of them would fall short when they shed.


    "Rare-grade Movement Arts Strom Steps," Corey yelled as sheunched herself at the Sword Spirit. As Corey moved it looked like a small storm was moving cutting through the still air of the arena blowing cold wind in every direction. Her advance seemed to be focused on destruction than speed, just like a storm that annihted everything in its path.


    Seeing Corey make the first move, the Sword Spirit waved its dual swords at an unfathomable speed yelling, "Death by Thousand Cuts."


    With that, the Sword spirit had unleashed a total of thousand Sword intent shes at the advancing Corey. Seeing the thousands of sword-intent shes heading towards her Corey did not stop her advance instead she charged forward, however, her speed seemed to have grown slower but the speed of the wind circling her grew strong and turned into a storm with Corey at the storm''s eye.


    Soon the thousand sword-intent shes shed with the small storm by deadly that covered Corey. It appeared that the sword-intent shes were able to break through the surface of the storm but very soon it could be seen that they were being swallowed by the storm. Having swallowed a thousand sword-intents shes, the storm soon spitted them out aiming at the Sword Spirit at twice the speed they attacked the storm.


    Laura showed a satisfied smile seeing the progress of the duel. Especially witnessing that Corey''s rare-grade movement arts at sage-level mastery could turn mere steps into a storm disaster. This was the extreme a card apprentice could achieve in their martial arts. She should know as a single sh from her basic sword art could cut a small mountain in half. There was little dissatisfaction in Laura''s heart as she could see that Corey was holding back.


    Laura was right Corey was indeed holding back, not out of pity for her rival but rather because her mortal body could not withstand the burden of unleashing the extreme of her sage-level mastery in her rare-grade movement arts Storm Steps. But this was also part of her training, as unleashing only a certain extent of power behind her storm steps required a lot of control, which meant Corey concentrating her mind, which was difficult for Corey under the influence of her titled demon core.


    Seeing its attack reflected at it at a great speed the Sword Spirit raised its brow and then swung its dual sword rapidly aiming at the iing sword-intent shes yelling, "Death by ten thousand cuts."


    The Sword Spirit unleashed ten thousand sword-intent shes this time, ten times more than thest attack, out of which a thousand sword-intent got nullified by the iing thousand sword-intent shes, and the remainder headed toward the Corey who advanced toward him with her storm steps.