Thaor didn’t know what happened after the Qi Swords cut his arms and thighs. However, he could feel that something was wrong.
Yet, instead of trying to figure out what exactly happened, Thaor stared at the human in front of him with uncontrollable anger in his eyes. The human smiled cockily at him, and moved around nimbly, avoiding his attacks, and restraining his advances.
Dozens of Glacicles were manifested in batches repetitively. They weren’t powerful, or endurable enough to pierce through the Berserker’s crimson aura without bursting apart. But that was exactly what Michael wanted. The freezing mist in the combat ring grew denser as the battle between the human and the Berserker continued.
Michael didn’t rush anything. He focused on distracting Thaor with Glacicles, and occasional Qi Swords to restrain the Berserker’s attacks. Thaor was physically a lot stronger than Michael, but he didn’t have an easy time approaching Michael. The freezing mist affected his crimson aura, forcing Thaor to use more origin energy to keep his aura stable.
He tried to retract his crimson aura to slow down his energy consumption, but the freezing mist permeating the air all over the combat ring affected him at once. Thaor’s body was searing hot, enhancing his physical strength in every aspect. Yet, the freezing mist dampened the effect, cooling his body the moment the crimson aura receded.
Forced to maintain the crimson aura spreading across his entire body, Thaor’s origin energy was naturally consumed. But what Thaor didn’t even seem to realize was that four golden threads of energy were slowly extracting some of the origin energy circulating through his body as well.
The origin energy was slowly extracted and transferred to Michael, who annexed it instantaneously. Michael then used the annexed origin energy to create more Glacicles which he crushed intentionally to fill the entire combat ring with freezing mist.
Michael controlled his energy consumption precisely. He used only as much energy as he annexed from Thaor to ensure that he had enough energy reserves for the worst-case scenario. Michael would love to go all-out and attack Thaor head-on, but the vast difference in their physical strength was the first thing he realized when the battle started.
The gap in their physical strength was not something Michael could cover just because he wanted to. He wasn’t a Berserker whose physical strength was innately superior to humans, neither was he in possession of a Soultrait that enhanced his physical strength passively and actively like Thaor’s Soultrait did.
Not even the external enhancement provided by the Spirit Armor Set was enough to bridge the vast gap. If anything, the Spirit Armor Set barely allowed him to move away from Thaor whenever the Berserker attacked, thereby allowing him to escape being defeated.
In the next five minutes, Michael focused on draining Thaor’s origin energy, and filling the air with freezing mist. The mist was not thick, but it made it much harder for them to see each other. Michael was fortunate that Thaor was four meter tall, and that his red skin continued to smoke. That allowed Michael to retrieve Zark and condense energy arrows which he released mercilessly.
Michael moved rapidly through the mist to avoid Thaor whenever he attacked. Everytime Michael released an energy arrow he moved to a completely different spot, preventing Thaor from pinpointing his exact location.
Over the course of the battle, Thaor was growing restless. He could tell that he was getting played, and that Michael tried to stall time. It was not difficult to perceive that Michael’s energy storage was either huge or that his Soultraits didn’t require a lot of origin energy to be activated. On the contrary, Thaor’s crimson aura consumed a considerable amount of energy as it engulfed his entire body constantly, and his Soultrait drained his stamina, slowly wearing him out.
His origin energy was drained much faster than he expected, but Thaor presumed that this was related to the potent effect of the freezing mist. It affected his crimson aura.
Only after more than five minutes into the battle did Thaor finally realize what happened to him. His senses picked up the four golden threads that had infiltrated his body, and that the threads drained his origin energy.
Once Thaor understood that Michael drained his origin energy, the cogs in Thaor’s mind began to move rapidly. Thaor’s biggest weakness had always been that he didn’t use his head in battle. His combat awareness, physical strength, and natural awakening of a Unique Constitution allowed him to grow stronger than most peers, but he was not capable of applying his wits mid-battle. It didn’t feel right to him to use his rational thinking in the battle. On the contrary, it was most natural to allow his instincts to take over.
And that was exactly what Thaor started doing when he realized that Michael was not a puny human; a fletchling who could bark but not bite. Instead, Michael was a powerful opponent against whom the Berserker could go all-out without any worries.
Thaor unleashed the full power of his Red Giant Soultrait, elevating his physical strength rapidly. After his body reacted to the active utilization of Red Giant, Thaor took a deep breath. His muscles bulged and the crimson aura covering his body seemed to mend into his skin, further enhancing the power of his Soultrait.
The temperature in the combat arena increased drastically, and the crackling of embers resounded through the surrounding area. The Berserker’s body began to glow as he expanded until his height reached 4.5 meters. His presence intensified gradually, and the red in his eyes expanded until it covered his eyes entirely – even the white.
Michael retreated instinctively. He replaced the Zark Bow with the Wyverntooth Spear and manifested several Qi Swords which he blasted toward Thaor. However, before the Qi Swords could impact, Thaor moved quickly. Despite enlarging his size and his muscles inflated, his agility never decreased. On the contrary, his agility increased.
Thaor released six rapid punches with exceptional precision. His knuckles hit the tip of the Qi Swords precisely, destroying each of them with a single hit. In response to the sudden destruction, the black knuckles began to shine brighter. They seemed to grow more resilient as they sucked in the energy released from the dispersing Qi Swords.
Michael could faintly fathom black blades growing from within the black knuckles. He raised his eyebrows in response but didn’t have enough time to think about the unique power of the knuckles when Thaor appeared next to Michael.
The Berserker crossed the distance between them in an instant – much faster than Michael could react. He barely fathomed what was about to happen when the Berserker’s right fist shot out. Michael instinctively manifested a firm Glacicle between him and the Berserker, hoping that it would be enough to slow down the Berserker’s attack. But it was far from enough. Thaor’s right fist smashed into Michael’s side. The next moment Michael flung through the air.
Michael felt his abs tightening and a shockwave of energy spread through the Spirit Armor Set the instant Thaor’s fist impacted. He crashed into the ground several meters ahead, turned around with the intention to jump up, only to see Thaor towering above him.
His fist smashed down once again on Michael.
Feeling severe pain in his sides, Michael wondered if something broke, but he couldn’t pay attention to his injuries right now.𝗇𝑂𝒱𝗲𝓵𝚗𝖊xt.𝗇𝓔t
Instead, he used a considerable amount of energy to manifest six Qi Swords right next to each other. There was no gap between the Qi Swords. The tips of the blades were stacked against each other as Thaor’s fist collided. Michael pushed his body to the side as the Berserker’s fist and his Qi Swords collided. Afterward, he used a layer of Enhancement on the Symbol of Extraction.
He enhanced the energy drain of the four golden threads that had invaded Thaor’s body earlier.
Michael shot up from the ground and released another batch of six Qi Swords toward Thaor. But this time the Qi Swords were enhanced by three layers of Enhancement and spread out. They shot through the air much faster than before and pressured Thaor into blocking the attacks if he didn’t want to sustain more injuries.
Meanwhile, Michael took a deep breath. He circulated origin energy through his body to perceive how severe the injury to his sides was. Fortunately, he quickly figured that it wasn’t too bad. The Spirit Armor Set blocked most damage before distributing the remaining force across his body. The injury would hurt for a while, but it wouldn’t affect his combat prowess in the slightest.
After observing Thaor for the last few minutes, Michael couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous.
Thaor was born with a Unique Constitution, his physique was naturally stronger than most Berserkers, and his Soultrait further enhanced his physical strength – passively and actively. His Crimson Aura was highly compatible with his Soultrait as well, further strengthening his physical strength.
But that was not all.
Michael realized that Thaor was a monstrosity. Being able to rely on his combat instincts to fight against someone with several high-ranked Soultraits was far from easy. Yet, Thaor had overpowered him – quite easily at that.
The only downside was that the Berserker underestimated him at the start of their battle. Thaor didn’t seem to focus on training his mental resilience to a high degree. He used some sort of technique to refine his mind to integrate his combat instincts perfectly into the battle whenever he wanted to, but that was not enough to resist 6-Star Extraction’s light energy drain – forget about 10-layer Extraction’s mega drain.
“You would have won, had you not underestimated me earlier,” Michael mumbled as he unleashed the Power of Enhancement stored inside the Legendary Ring Artifact.
“Seems like I got lucky today.”
In the next moment, the Power of Enhancement was fully unleashed and Extraction began to wreak havoc within the Berserker.