BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

At the same time, though, this meant that her power consumed much more power than Darragh's. In the end, the fight's result depended on who could take better advantage of their own power.

Since Darragh couldn't use it as often as Natasha, their fighting style was very different. The young man essentially fought with martial arts.

He used his power only to gain advantages or to hit his opponent where and when they least expected. In the future, things would be different, but since Darragh was still at the RHO level, there wasn't much he could do.

On the contrary, Natasha's fighting style heavily relied on her mana weapon. She was, of course, a very proficient melee fighter. Still, she decided that the best thing to do during her training time was to learn how to properly use her whip instead of solely focusing on martial arts.

Natasha snapped her whip several times at her opponent, but with agile moves, the young man avoided them all and quickly covered the distance between him and her in a matter of moments.

However, the young woman wasn't stupid and didn't stay idle. She retreated for several meters, using her whip to at least slow Darragh down.

Once the young man was too close, she moved her whip horizontally, creating a sort of tornado around her.

The weapon she was wielding released a toxic fume which quickly surrounded her and prevented Darragh from getting in striking range.

The young man knew the woman's power well and was aware that if he let her poison spread inside his body, the match would end quickly.

To try and stop the woman's defensive move, Darragh unleashed one of the two projectiles they shot from the ground surrounding the ring and quickly traveled toward her. To stop the projectile, Natasha had to use her whip. With a flick of her wrist, the weapon lashed at the earth projectile with a sinuous movement. It did look like a snake had just attacked its prey.

The impact between the whip and the projectile broke the second into tiny pieces. Natasha showed incredible proficiency with the weapon since hitting a flying object with it was akin to impossible for sixteen years old at low levels.

However, the move left Darragh free to strike again, so he launched another rock at the young woman while running again toward her.

The projectile was hurled at the young woman with impressive speed and accuracy. He threw it straight ahead, hoping to catch Natasha off guard while she tried to recover from her previous defense.

This time, however, it missed entirely because the young woman dodged to the side. As a result, the stone struck the ground right next to her foot, causing small rocks to rain upon her, but that didn't damage her.

Darragh tried to launch yet another projectile, but Natasha was ready. Using her whip, she stopped the missile before it even got near her.

Her skill with the whip was such that it seemed like she'd been practicing it forever. A few seconds later, though, Darragh was in front of the young woman, and a bout between the two fighters began.

"Natasha is in serious trouble now," Gwen said. Amber, Floyd, Erik, and many of the people around her turned to look at her.

It was a well-established fact that the young woman was an expert. Not that the ones looking at the fight weren't. After all, they had been part of the militaries at one point in their lives. However, the young woman showed keen insight and was rarely wrong in her assessments.

"She should have known that she couldn't rely on her whip alone against someone as good as Darragh."

Floyd nodded. Even if Natasha was skilled enough to block every single projectile thrown by Darragh, it would have been hard for her to fight on equal terms against the boy since he was better than her at fighting melee.

If she wanted to win, then she would need to find a way to get distance from the boy, and even that wouldn't be a simple fight since the young man had powerful distance attacks.

However, everything would be different if she managed to land a hit on her opponent with the whip since the potent poison would profoundly affect him.

Gwen's analysis was spot on. From that point onward, Natasha's fight became incomparably hard; she had trouble gaining distance from the man and had difficulty reacting to his attacks.

That actually forced the young woman to shorten her whip, and as she did that, the fight started balancing out.

"I did not expect that," Floyd said.

"Indeed, that has been a good choice," Amber commented, referring to Natasha's choice to shorten the whip. "She was able to bring balance between them again."

At that moment, Natasha landed her first hit on Darragh. This basically spelled the young man's defeat. Since the poison started acting out, the young man became more fatigued; not only that, but he also felt a lot of pain from the wound.

That meant two things. The first was that Darragh couldn't move as before and had to start avoiding melee combat, losing the advantage he had for most of the fight. The second was that due to the pain, even his aim worsened.

"That's it, she did it, " Floyd said, obviously referring to the successful hit the young woman could land. Erik immediately understood what his friend meant.

After their friends explained to him how Natasha's poison worked, he could see its effect on Darragh. He was slow, in visible pain, and extremely fatigued. He was going to lose the fight.

In the end, it didn't take much time for the young woman to win against the child of the Montgomery family. She was quickly declared the winner since Darragh decided to surrender since he didn't have the strength anymore to fight.

"THE WINNER IS NATASHA POPE!" the referee said.

There was no shame in this loss. The young man knew that Natasha was a strong fighter, and despite this, the fight had been pretty balanced most of the time. The young man did a pretty good job and got out of the ring with a proud look.

"Your time has come, Gwen," Erik said.

"Yeah..." The woman replied.

"Are you worried?" Amber asked. It was clear she was worried about her best friend. Her opponent was going to be Jacob Humphrey, with his cloning ability.

It was true that Gwen could create an armor out of mana, but it was still possible for her to be subdued thanks to grappling moves.

Besides, not knowing who her real opponent was among his clones was in itself a problem. She could waste a lot of time on the wrong opponent only to find the real one still in top shape.

The fight was not going to be simple; if the young woman wanted to win, she had to play it smart.

"Not really... I think I found out how to discern who the original is..." she answered.

The group looked at each other. They knew exactly that; if Gwen wasn't worried, they had nothing to fear. Of course, there was always a chance he might surprise her, meaning that she still had to be careful.