The world above the floating islands wasn’t really a “sky.” It was more like a hollowed-out space with clouds drifting in slow motion, and auroras rippled like curtains. The air above the floating island was thin, the silence was eerie… except for the two monsters currently fighting against each other in midair.

Arthur hung in the open void, lightning dancing across his body, while Roderic hovered opposite him with his wings unfurled, and his metal-tipped claws covered with fire as they appeared red hot.

Their movements were a blur of motion to the onlookers on the island.

BOOM

Roderic vanished with a crack of displaced air, closing the distance in a blink. His fist which was wrapped in swirling fire and a metal gauntlet, rammed into Arthur’s jaw with enough force to fold an Epsilon Class Battleship. Arthur’s head whipped sideways, the punch sending him spinning through the air like a rag doll.

But he wasn’t staying down.

Arthur bent his spine mid-spin as he tried to anchor his body midair using telekinesis, while twisting his body like he was surfing on space itself. His jaw popped back into place with a sickening crack as his regeneration kicked in.

He spat blood into the open space. “That was rude.”

Roderic appeared above him, with only a single beat of his wings, sending a hurricane of razor-sharp wind blades downwards where Arthur was present.

Arthur didn’t dodge but let them hit him.

The wind shredded his shirt, carved up his arms and torso, sent blood flying everywhere. But right behind every slice, he felt the same cool, tingling sensation of flesh stitching itself together.

Pain blurred into static due to his pain tolerance being extremely high. His body rebalanced, as every muscle fibers of his body started strengthening, and his bones densifying. His vision sharpened until he could vaguely calculate Roderic’s movements, and predict his direction to a certain extent.

Roderic was… ridiculously strong, a walking natural disaster. Exactly the kind of enemy Arthur wanted, in fact he was extremely pleased as the stronger his opponents were, the better it was for him, as he could quickly climb to that strength with his Reactive Evolution.

At the starting of their battle he had used ‘Analyze’ on roderic and this was what appeared.

//——————–//

[STATUS]

Name: Roderic

Age: 29

Height: 6’6″

Strength: 9.67 Million Tons

Speed: Mach 189.84 

Durability: 4521.3 GPa

//——————–//

Rideric was more than five times stronger than him, and multiple times faster than him.

Arthur snapped forward, forcing a breach in Roderic’s tempo. He blasted upward at multiple times the speed of sound, with lightning tearing a sizzling trail behind him. His fist wrapped in Chi slammed directly towards Roderic’s ribs.

The shockwave rippled across the floating islands nearby.

Roderic’s body bent backwards under the hit, but he barely budged. Instead, he grinned as he caught Arthur’s punch without much effort.

“You’ve got a bite in your attacks,” the dragon prince said darkly, grabbing Arthur’s wrist. “Allow me to show you what real power is.”

He tightened his grip around Arthur’s wrist. His other arm blurred fire blazing, wind swirling, metal hardening to a blade. He slashed at Arthur’s chest point-blank.

Arthur brought up one of his forearms to block, but he was too slow.

The attack carved a deep gash straight through his chest, as blood sprayed everywhere. His ribs were cleanly severed, even his heart was punctured.

But then the next second his body started to heal instantly.

Roderic’s eyes widened a bit seeing the unnatural healing power of Arthur. “What…?”

Arthur grinned, as his eyes started glowing faintly golden with the influx of Chi. “Told you, it won’t be me who would do the running.”

He twisted, breaking out of Roderic’s hold as he was distracted a bit, and used the momentum to launch himself backward, then shot forward again at insane speed.

Their fists collided.

CRAAACK. BOOOOOOOOOM

Sonic booms echoed in every direction. Nearby, small floating boulders split apart, and trees on the nearest island bent and snapped from the pressure.

Arthur felt his knuckles shatter from the impact. Felt them rebuild, denser and harder. He drove his other fist forward, layering Chi over lightning and mana, and created a mini explosion as he struck Roderic’s right shoulder.

Roderic winced barely then retaliated with the speed which was at least three times that of Arthur.

He threw a punch and Arthur tried to block it.

The punch went through his guard anyway, smashing into his sternum and bending his spine backward. Arthur’s body careened into a floating boulder, obliterating it on impact. Dust and rock fragments flew everywhere.

Arthur’s body healed even before he stopped his momentum.

He floated back up, rolling his shoulders with a meaningless shrug, even as his spine finished regenerating.

“You good?” he smirked.

“Don’t get overconfident, your regeneration won’t save you all the time,” Roderic snarled.

Then he spread his arms wide and cast a spell, the air around them suddenly disappeared.

Everything stilled for a moment, the emptiness swallowed Arthur in an instant, suction ripping away every last bit of oxygen from his immediate vicinity.

Arthur instinctively tried to breathe but there was no air to do so, and he started to choke. Normally he could hold his breath comfortably for hours, his insanely strong physique allowed it, but combat burned oxygen at a rate that would suffocate anyone, be it even someone as strong as Arthur. Still even with the intensity of their fight he was able to hold his breath but he didn’t do so. 

Pain crushed his lungs, and a sharp pressure started to build up in his chest. He exhaled allowing total oxygen depletion, and let his body adapt to the absence of air.

His heart slowed its beat, then restructured its rhythm. His cells shifted metabolic pathways, his muscles rewired for anaerobic function, and his brain reduced oxygen demand to the absolute zero.

He didn’t just adapt, his body started evolving and transforming in a way which was extremely unnatural as most multicellular organisms needed oxygen to survive. 

All this happened while he was parrying Roderic’s attacks, mostly which resulted in wounds and bruises. His body was durable enough to not rip apart with Roderic’s attacks but wounds still started appearing on his body, but they immediately healed due to his Superior Regeneration ability. 

And as the fight dragged on for minutes his body finally adapted to the absence of air and from now on he was not required to breathe to survive.

Roderic blinked in confusion as he felt Arthur was no longer bothered by the absence of air and asked telepathically. ‘How are you still conscious?’

Arthur smirked as he too replied through telepathy, since there was no air to speak into. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Roderic snarled. His wings beat outward, swirling wind around him. Metal shards formed in the air, fire and wind condensed into a red hot whirlpool, and his aura surged as his elemental domain expanded fully. A triple-affinity domain wrapped the sky in red, green, and silver.

Roderic pointed at Arthur. “Kneel.”

Wind pressure condensed as Arthur’s body was nearly crushed as the gale slammed into him like a titan’s fist.

Still Arthur barely held his ground. The force tore at his skin, shredding his muscle again and again, each wound healing and pushing him closer to a level where Roderic’s attacks became less overwhelming.

Arthur pushed his own domain outward. It wasn’t a flashy triple-element control, but density manipulation was a wicked power in the right hands.

Space thickened around him. The elemental storm’s advances slowed where he focused his domain. Fire streams curled off course, and metal shards slowed as though moving through a viscous liquid. Even the air currents were forced to compress as they neared Arthur’s body

Roderic frowned. “Impressive, but still useless against me.”

Arthur shrugged, the telepathic projection of his voice carried a lazy tone. ‘Never said it’d stop you. Just messing with your control.’

Roderic’s eyes narrowed with irritation.

Arthur condensed his Chi into a blade-like extension of his right arm, as lightning roared along its length. He struck, aiming at Roderic’s throat; but metallic scales appeared over his neck blocking it.

Roderic riposted, his fist catching Arthur’s cheek, breaking his jaw. Arthur double-kicked Roderic in the chest, then took a brutal counter-blow to the stomach that folded him in half.

Both moved like predators, savage and methodical.

Roderic swung his arm and summoned a vortex of metallic and wind blades. The compressed blades sliced Arthur from shoulder to hip. Arthur’s torso peeled open causing his spine to reveal itself, before healing with frightening speed.

Arthur launched a Judgment spear at point-blank range towards Roderic’s face. The lightning and Chi-infused mana projectile hit Roderic’s chest and exploded, sending the prince spinning backward. His scales cracked, steam rising from where the attack had struck. 

The attack was able to wound Roderic because this was Arthur’s most destructive attack, which he created while fighting with his reflections in the trial of the Oracle.

Roderic wiped blood from his lip. “You’re starting to irritate me,” Roderic growled.

“Good,” Arthur replied, cracking his neck. “Keep up the pressure.”

Roderic’s aura became more oppressive, as he fused all three of his elements he controlled. Metallic lances appeared with wind and fire twisted around them making them appear as if they were made out of magma. The entire domain was covered with them, and as Roderic directed them towards Arthur, the attack crushed everything within its radius except Arthur.

KABOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Because each hit, each impact, and each injury he sustained made his body more durable then the previous second and nearing the same durability that Roderic possessed.

His strength and speed too started climbing with every attack that landed on him.

His muscles bulged slightly with an increase of his physical strength which started to become leaner but denser to accommodate the increase in his speed while keeping his strength.

His punches started to hit harder, his speed increased, and his durability improved even further. Which was noticed by Roderic. “Your power… it keeps increasing.”

Arthur grinned. “Thanks to you.”

Roderic roared in frustration, he didn’t know how Arthur was doing it but he felt an ominous premonition that he needed to finish this fight immediately.

He launched towards Arthur and it appeared as if he teleported, or at least moved so fast it might as well have been teleportation, appearing behind Arthur and slamming both hands into Arthur’s spine with enough force to break a mountain.

Arthur’s spine shattered, but his body twisted around, lightning and Chi exploding from his body. As he slammed his forehead into Roderic’s nose.

CRACK.

Roderic reeled. Arthur finally took out his sword, covered it with Chi and jammed it into the dragon prince’s abdomen. The sharp sword easily passed through his metallic scales, making him dash backwards and tear himself out of the sword with a roar, as fire cauterised his wound.

Roderic widened his eyes as he looked at the sword, greed immediately appearing in his eyes. “Where did you get that sword?”

But Arthur didn’t reply and put his sword back as using the sword in this fight would make it easier, which he didn’t want to happen. And seeing Arthur putting the sword back in its sheath, Roderic growled, “Are you looking down on me!?” and pounced at Arthur.

Arthur swung a haymaker, lightning bursting across his knuckles. Roderic leaned aside, then drop-kicked Arthur across the space above the floating islands. Arthur crashed through a floating rock the size of a house, shattering it into powder.

Before the dust even settled, Arthur burst forward again without any hesitation in his movements.

Roderic finally looked unsettled. “You… you monster.”

Arthur’s grin looked feral. “Yeah. It’s fun, right?”

Roderic flared his domain with full intensity, and the sky shook.

Sharp metal spikes formed everywhere, with firestorms surrounding him, and tornadoes of sharp wind erupted all around them. As Roderic himself became the eye of a catastrophic triple-element vortex.

***

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