That put them at a solid five wins, no losses, and Beth was expecting an easy win from Veren. It would come down to her to sweep, but there wasn't a ton of pressure, as they really didn't desperately need to go undefeated, it would just be nice. No pressure, either, with Beth being the last fight, Tazeen returning to the room with Kris and picking up Veren for the second-to-last match. The White Feathers' representative was looking decidedly less confident, though bringing out one of their Grandmasters had bolstered him a little bit. It looked like he was at least convinced that they could hold the match to a five-to-two outcome, which meant they would be opening up much less of their archives and network to Tazeen than they could.

Sadly for them, Veren was quick to disabuse them of such notions, his actions speaking far louder than any words. The lead up to the fight went just as it always did, though the opposing Grandmaster made some kind of sly comment that had Veren frowning slightly right before they went to their sides of the arena. Whether the people at the White Feathers' intel division just hadn't been able to find the information on Tazeen's picks for the match, or whether the Grandmaster in question didn't believe the dossier, that was another question. What became immediately evident was that what he expected and what he got were two vastly different things.

As soon as the match had started, Veren launched a complex and multilayered attack from where he was still standing, sending overlapping waves of energy slicing out from the edge of his sword. The waves moved and curved as they flew, attacking the opposing Grandmaster from all sides without Veren having to run around them, or even move at all. Beth couldn't stop laughing on seeing the other Grandmaster's face, seeing the shift from cockiness and pride to horrified realization over the course of less than a second. She was definitely saving a copy of the video of this match, if for no other reason than to be able to pull up the reaction of the Grandmaster when they realized how outclassed they were. Things didn't get any better for them, either, as Veren continued his relentless assault, both overwhelming the opponent with uncountable attacks as well as giving a masterclass in skill and precision at the same time. It was quite interesting to watch, as Veren never once moved from his starting space, but at the same, the opponent had to sprint around the dueling field, furiously fending off attack after attack without being able to counter, or even catch their breath, at any point.

The conclusion was rather obvious, even if it did take two full minutes to play out, Veren eventually slicing the opponent to ribbons as they missed several crucial parries in a short span of time. Veren had really shown the difference, and Beth remembered his haughty comments about the two Grandmasters likely being propped up by training and inspirations from others and not really being what he would consider 'true' Grandmasters. It looked like, at least in the first case, he was entirely right, though Beth knew that part of the difference rested in the fact that Veren had definitely progressed beyond, and even well beyond, Grandmaster[0] at this point. She wasn't sure what his skill was currently at, but she could guess, based on a little research and her own understanding, the he was no less than Grandmaster[3], at the least, which was pretty astonishing for someone of his age. The higher one climbed with a weapon skill, the more difficult it was to progress it, at least for most people, and so every rank in Grandmaster or Sage which considered a monumental leap even to most Wayfarers.

Beth was still ruminating on it when Tazeen led Veren back into the room, though she had to laugh a little at that, as well. If there were one person on her team, if Veren were considered to be such, that really didn't have to be worried about being jumped in the hallways, it was Veren. The man could likely put up a good fight against any of the senior members of the White Feathers, and such a scene would attract far too much attention to be covered up. Beth got up as Veren sat in one of the armchairs and followed behind Tazeen, feeling just a bit of butterflies in her stomach, though it wasn't from nerves. She was excited, more than anything, as it had been a long time since she had gotten into a really good, proper knock-down, drag-out fight with anyone, especially one that had big stakes on the line. She knew that the odds were against her in this fight, considering her opponent was around her rebirth and was a Grandmaster. If there was anything that would equal out the difference, it would her Mana Physique, but a Mana Physique was more about raw power, whereas a higher weapon skill was about more precision and skill. The two were hard to compare against each other, but greater power versus greater precision often came out on the side of precision and skill.

She saw the other Grandmaster as they walked out on the floor, a tall woman with some kind of feathered wings that was already holding her spear in hand. The woman didn't look nearly as confident and self-assured as the previous Grandmaster had, though she did seem to regain a bit of confidence when she saw Beth. Not being exactly sure how to take that, Beth just remained calm and went through the motions of getting in her place and acknowledging the refs and the opponent. She was in her full armor, using her powerful gloves and sword that both required at least level three hundred as well as her legendary armor set from the dwarven craft masters. All of the bonuses from the equipment compounded together, giving her stats that were well into the Enlightened range for most Wayfarers. Her stats, combined with her powerful Presence, combined with her very strong Mana Physique, would pit her power against the enemy skill. She was excited to see if she was going to be able to come out on top, especially considering her Platinum skills.

The match started with a bang, quite literally, as Beth activated everything she had all at once, not wanting to hold back at all. If she went at ninety percent right from the start instead of a hundred, there was a strong chance that that could cost her the match. This wasn't an opponent that she had any opportunity to play around with, and the format of one match deciding the winner didn't give her any leeway to test the waters with a slow opening. She activated Beastly Tyrant, her Presence, her Spatial Domain, her Dominion of True Fire, and every other skill and ability she had, including the good old Swift, all in the span of less than half a second before exploding across the arena. To the outside observer, it truly appeared as if she exploded towards the opponent, as the air around her shattered and even combusted from the force of her launching herself at the opponent. Anybody that didn't have significant stats and/or skills wouldn't even be able to see what had happened, as she moved so fast they would only have seen her disappear. If a person with that low stats were to be watching, it would take them longer than Beth's first five attacks to even realize that she was on the other end of the dueling field.

Beth didn't hold back in those attacks at all, either, as she brought everything she had to bear. If her opening had been displaying a frankly terrific level of power with all her boost skills channeled through her Mana Physique and amplified by her powerful Presence, then her attacks showcased just how much raw power she could output. She was definitely weaker when it came to swordplay and weapons than her opponent, who wielded her spear like it was a true extension of her body, but Beth was still putting on a very good showing. The woman with wings was pushed back, despite her skill being higher and activating her own skills, the difference in their stats and skills showing quite clearly. The only reason Beth didn't totally crush her into paste in the first ten seconds was the woman's Grandmaster ranking with the spear, the level at which one began to transcend the mortals limits of using a weapon and started to reach the supernatural level.

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Starting to reach that level wasn't actually being at it, however, and the woman was still an early Grandmaster, likely still sitting at Grandmaster[0], as Tazeen's information had indicated. Beth wasn't able to easily break through the woman's guard or hit her with any attacks, but the woman couldn't directly block or return a head-on attack, either, as Beth was far too powerful. Her sword had immense reach, almost as much as the woman's spear, and she was wielding it with a high degree of skill combined with cutting or shattering space with every movement. She also made liberal use of Celestial Annihilation, throwing the attack out at every opportunity, including by adding in kicks and knees, which the opposing woman had some difficulty in adapting to. Beth had also continuously generated fire the whole time, turning the inside of the dueling field into a roiling oven that only grew hotter and more awful as the seconds ticked by. With her Mana Physique and skills combined, Beth was essentially immune to heat and fire, especially those she had originated, but the clock was definitely ticking on her opponent, who didn't have near the levels of resistance that Beth possessed.

They exchanged blows so rapidly that even a standard high-speed camera would have struggled to catch the slashed and thrusts as they moved back and forth, their weapons generating sparks while the sounds of metal-on-metal shrieked out as a torturous cacophony throughout the arena. Beth pushed as hard as she ever had in any fight, even those early fights where her life was on the line, reveling in the unmitigated thrill of having an opponent durable and skilled enough she could unleash everything on them. Normally, she either fought with people, including most members of her team, who couldn't really keep up with her power and skill, or she was fighting living monsters like Baelvyr or Tazeen or even her own pocket Ascended, many of whom were Sages or Grandmasters with Diamond skills and thousands of levels on her. Here, now, in this moment, and this place, she was fighting an opponent that was certainly stronger than she was, but the gap was narrow, a thin line separating the two of them, and the harder she pushed, the narrower that line became.

Seeing that Beth was going to start taking the upper hand eventually, the other woman went on the offensive herself, moving from occasionally exchanging blows to actively putting everything she had into aggressive actions. The woman had some kind of skill that accelerated her weapon once it was already moving, and she paired that with a skill that was similar to Sera's that let her perform multiple thrusting attacks practically in the same microsecond. The combination was devastating and would have absolutely taken Beth out of the fight with a kill if she were still at Expert with her weapons. Even as it was, the move was a nightmare, showing just how powerful two overall simple skills could be when combined perfectly, especially when the perfect combination was coming from the hands of a Grandmaster. Beth had started to lose the initiative in the battle with the woman's increased aggressiveness, which gave the Grandmaster some relief, especially with the fire continuing to build and no way for her to fully extinguish it.

The relief was rather short-lived, however, as Beth switched up her own tactics in response to the woman's attacks. Normally, people with a skill like her Spatial Step wouldn't chain it together continuously since they didn't have the sort of aptitude to do it. Beth, unlike those people, was both incredibly talented with the skill as well as having her own natural aptitude for spatial skills in general, and she could do things that others either wouldn't dare or just couldn't pull off. She launched a concentrated offensive, ramping up the amount of mana she was pushing through Beastly Tyrant until her bones creaked, her muscles screamed, and even her teeth ached. She started to teleport, even movement she made followed by a teleport, attacking the spear Grandmaster from every conceivable angle, even from the air and from low down in the crouch in rising strikes. At the same time, she pulled heavily on her gauntlets, activating their ability to freeze space, which she combined with her own Spatial Domain, turning space itself into a weapon that locked the Grandmaster down and constrained her.

The Grandmaster did everything she possibly could to fight back, burning every skill she had as strongly as she could, but the difference between the two was now showing quite clearly. Every overall rank of weapon skill, from Journeyman to Expert, from Expert to Master, from Master to Grandmaster, and far beyond, was a vast jump in the person using the weapon's capabilities. Despite how terrifying high-end weapon skills really were, an old, old saying once again proved true here; 'In the face of absolute strength, all tricks are useless.' Beth's strength was at a terrifying level, to the point where space was starting to twist and crack in the arena from the amount of power she was exerting, the combination of her gauntlets, domain, Spatial Obliteration, and raw physical power so overwhelming that, as she was giving every iota of her being over to the battle, the space around the two of them was slowly starting to destabilize. Beth didn't even notice any of this, not consciously, as she was fully and totally immersed in the thrill of battle, a manic grin plastered to her face as she teleported twenty, thirty, forty times a second, her black hair a dark, billowing wave behind her as her muscles snapped and cracked with every punch and kick.

The Grandmaster was now just desperately holding on, in her mind hoping that Beth was going to run out of mana quite soon and drop over half-dead, but her hope was a flickering candle that guttered lower and lower as she desperately tried not to get torn to shreds by the unstable spatial realm. It really felt like Beth's opponent was hoping that she would run out of mana before she could overwhelm her, though Beth couldn't believe that the Grandmaster didn't know she had a Mana Physique, meaning her running out of mana was a pipe dream. Beth continuously tore into her opponent, a mad beast that was wholly immersed in the thrill of the fight, the clash of her body against her opponent's weapon, the visceral feeling of every blow she struck, even time a fist or foot found an opening to smash her opponent apart a little more. The space around her had started twisting into a fiery maelstrom of broken spatial shards and twisted fractures, whirling and cutting and destroying as she moved.

The Grandmaster couldn't hold on any longer, the pressure just far too much, fighting Beth more like fight an insane beast of overwhelming power. She could feel every single hit rocking through her bones now, even when she parried with her spear, redirecting most of Beth's force, she still had to take a step back and wince at the damage. Her concentration had started to slip, having never experienced a fight that was anywhere this intense, and not for this length of time, and that slipping of focus doomed her. Beth accepted a cutting thrust that tore the armor of her right shoulder to deliver a horrific punch, shattering the woman's left arm, a large portion of the limb blowing off, pieces of her mithril-infused mana steel armor exploding across half the dueling field like an artillery shell had just detonated in her bones. The Grandmaster screamed in agony, trying to use a combination thrust on Beth just to get her to back off, but Beth teleported three times so quickly it looked like she was in four places at once, suddenly crouching by the woman's left side and twisting her body as much as she could, transferring every single scrap of power from the soles of her feet to the tips of her knuckles.

The punch exploded through the woman, the force shattering every piece of armor she wore, even her boots, and sending her hurtling across the dueling field at hundreds of miles per hour, her body tumbling into the protective screen. Even before she hit, the screen flashed light orange, a warning that the amount of force sent against it was at a certain concerning threshold, so powerful had Beth's last attack been. Both the judges and the arena called the fight even as the woman's body was impacting the screen, two of the judges, Tazeen, and the White Feathers rep all moving to get between Beth and the woman. Not that they feared Beth was crazy or anything, but fights at their level happened so fast, and were decided so fast, that an opponent might not even realized they had won or lost. That was another reason why even Diamond Emblems would do duty as refs at the CRA; people with sufficient power were often needed to safely stop a round if the participants didn't register the ending right away. That wasn't really necessary here, as Beth hadn't pursued after her punch, but it was good safe practice and not a lack of trust that motivated their actions.

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