Soon, people began to obsess over the Sapphirine guild’s points and their place on the Guild points table so much that a rumor began to spread in regards to the Sapphirine guild’s capabilities.

The rumor was helped even more, in terms of credence, by the fact that those who joined the guild were established powerhouses that had, before then, been content with going solo.

But no rumor, nay, myth was as wide-spreading and awe-inspiring as the one about the leader of the guild.

It was said that, of all the guild leaders in the Royal Academy, the golden-eyed beauty was undoubtedly the strongest.

No guild leader believed this, especially since Melinda had never challenged or accepted a challenge from any one of them since she became a guild leader.

She had no feats.

The whole myth about her capabilities was believed to have been started by members of the Sapphirine guild in a bid to intimidate their opposition as the guild war drew near.

What is ironic is that the reason the guild leaders could not believe it was true was also the reason many did not dismiss it as a total lie either.

Melinda had never fought a guild leader and as such, she had never lost so who was to say how capable she was?

It was all just speculation.

Anyway, Valerie who was one of the most actively dueling members of the Sapphirine guild was the one who the spotlight was on at the moment.

*Clang*

When Leila, Nicole, and Adeline arrived at the location of the duel, it was already underway and Valerie had just deflected a sword strike with her Broadsword Cosmic Armament but the force behind the strike still caused her to slide a few steps back.

Nicole looked around and quickly spotted Melinda and Suri. The two were in Valerie’s corner and had escorted her here with Suri having coached her on tactics to use against her opponent.

While Melinda had her head cocked in Suri’s direction and attentively listened to what she was telling her, her eyes were actually staring at the leader of Valerie’s opponent’s guild.

She knew this duel was an attempt to get her out in the open in a way she had not been so far.

They had banked on the fact that Melinda was close with Valerie who was a member of the founding trio of the guild.

Melinda could have decided not to be present but was not going to let their stupid plans stop her from seeing Valerie succeed and put down a member of an opposing guild.

Besides, it was almost time for the guild war and she might as well start making more public appearances against the guild leaders.

This duel was between Valerie and a member of the Golden Crow guild by the name of Clovis.

Clovis was wielding a Sword Artifact with one hand while he had a red shield in the other hand.

The shield was his Cosmic Armament.

While it was not common for cultivators to have shields as their Cosmic Armament, Clovis came from a family whose weapon of choice was the shield and had their own training with it which made them formidable even in the absence of a complementary attacking weapon.

However, Clovis was a genius of his family. 

He was more than worth spending blue gems on to get him the powerful Aurora grade sword Artifact he was now wielding.

Clovis was releasing the pressure of a cultivator at the mid-stage of the Cosmic Aurora realm and so was Valerie.

However, Clovis, as well as many of those watching felt that he had the advantage with the combination of his shield and sword.

Normally, they would probably weigh him down and at least slow him down a little but he had trained hard enough to reduce this deficit to the point where it was not as detrimental as it probably would have been.

Valerie smiled to herself when she saw Clovis’ taunting smile before she summoned her War hammer Cosmic Armament with the intentions of dual-wielding.

Han Doe, who you might remember from during the Entrance exams, and is now a member of the Golden crow guild that was basically created for geniuses of the Golden crow sect, looked from the dueling pair to Melinda and mumbled,

“Monster”

The events of the Entrance exams were still very much in his mind and he highly doubted he could purge his established image of Melinda and Hal from his mind.

*Bang!*

The loud sound of the collision of blunt weapons shook Han Doe out of his staring of Melinda to see Valerie standing proudly after having forced Clovis to his knees after an especially hard hit on his shield.

Clovis groaned and instinctively, his family’s teachings on the proper offensive use of a shield kicked in and he made the first move that got him away from Valerie and gave him the space he needed to counter.

At least that was how it seemed…

He got away from Valerie fine but his attempts at countering were met with a fluid usage of Broadsword and War hammer by Valerie that soon had her hitting his shield once again.

This time with enough force to slam it against Clovis’ chest and fracture his sternum.

And then she followed up with the release of a charged Cosmic Aurora that, being in the same realm, Clovis was more than capable of defending against.

But even as he did, it never felt like he was giving himself a chance at victory.

Instead, it felt like he was prolonging his suffering.

And he was.

Valerie quickly established a rhythm that she forced Clovis to follow and he found difficult to break out of.

*Clang*

*Clang*

*Clang*

She forced him into defense completely and it was proving frustrating for the young man.

Especially when she disarmed him of his Sword Artifact.

However, Clovis still saw a possible win.

He coated the front of his shield with a cosmic Aurora, an act which showed his impressive level of control in regards to Cosmic energy before he pushed at Valerie who could tell what he had planned with his aurora spread over his shield.

She could tell that once there was aggressive contact with that shield, it would cause a detonation that could give Clovis the win.

She made to evade but there was no way she could move out of the way fast enough considering how close they were.

Especially now that a shield was all Clovis was wielding and his movement was bound to be even faster compared to when he wielded his sword as well.

Seeing no escape, Valerie did something crazy…

She went on to slam her war hammer against the shield and detonated it (the hammer) with a charged Cosmic Aurora of her own.

As she did, she had the flat of her broadsword in front of her to use as a shield…

*BOOM!*

The duel ended in a contest of explosions.

The explosion of Valerie’s Cosmic Armament that was a cosmic construct and was helped along by her Cosmic Aurora proved the stronger explosion that not only worked to slam Clovis explosively out of the battle stage…

… But also served, to an extent, as protection for Valerie.

She remained on the stage, even though at the very edge of it, and had sustained more than a few injuries but was undoubtedly the winner…

…. while Clovis lay on the ground groaning at the pain of his own, considerably more severe, injuries.