The sky was filled in a black and gold hue that blotted out even the artificial sun that lit the Trial World. Underneath such a sky, a fierce battle was still raging.
Damien’s fists were coated in a mixture of golden flames and black lightning, constantly barraging Polius, whose dark material was forming the shape of a plethora of weapons to counter.
A massive greatsword sprung forth from the earth, threatening to impale Damien, but it was a step too slow. He had already teleported a meter to the left and evaded it.
Damien’s flame-lightning fists struck again, taking the moment between when the dark material could form a different weapon to collide with Polius’s face with extreme power.
The ground below the two cracked into pieces as they shot into the distance. Polius had been thrown by the force of the punch, while Damien was chasing him like a homing missile.
Crackle!
The black-gold sky was trembling with hidden power, following the duo’s movements and casting a formless pressure onto Polius’s shoulders.
The two had already been fighting for a good amount of time, so the Demon Commander was well aware of the frightening power that was brewing above him.
It was because he was aware that he made sure to constantly move, never staying in one place long enough for that frightening mass to lock onto him.
Bang!
A pillar of flames rose from the ground below Polius’s feet just as he managed to stabilize himself. Although the dark material had protected him, his balance was still disrupted.
As if waiting for the opportunity, a crackle of black lightning laced with shimmering golden flames struck down from the heavens, blasting Polius to the ground.
“Keuk…!”
To say he was frustrated was an understatement. Ever since Damien had begun his counterattack, he’d been at a disadvantage. Regardless of how skilled he was, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t given the opportunity to showcase his skill.
His dark material was granting him a powerful defense that had yet to be penetrated, but that was it. Its attacking capabilities were dwindling by the second as it was forced to bear the full brunt of Damien’s assault.
It was the first time he realized the flaw in his own power. No, it wasn’t his own power, and that’s where the flaw came from.
He had refined his technique to its limit and become an extremely skilled fighter, but the mana he had in his body was granted to him by an external force. Due to this, he was never able to unleash the full potential of his martial arts.
But over the course of this battle, he could feel the dark material slowly giving him a bit of control over it. He wasn’t like Kroa who had gone mad at the slightest of provocation, he was a calm man who could analyze the situation rationally.
So he bid his time and took the beating. The second the flame-lightning strike fell from the heavens, he knew it was his opportunity.
Polius gathered his dark material around his body and circulated his mana in a strange pattern. The dark material began to swirl, its consciousness realizing the intentions of its host.
The dark material soon began to follow the same path as the mana Polius was circulating. It split into two halves and rotated, forming something akin to a yin-yang symbol in front of Polius’s chest.
When the symbol fully formed, it further split and moved to its user’s arms and fists. The whole process happened in an instant, before the flame-lightning even struck the ground.
Boom!
The bolt finally struck true, ripping the earth asunder and forming a crater the size of a large lake. Damien warily watched the crater for any signs of life, when suddenly, his danger sense started ringing crazily.
“Yin-Yang Coiling Dragons.”
A soft mutter rang out from behind him. Damien’s body immediately twisted to avoid the trajectory of the unknown attack:
When his eyes glanced back, he saw twin dragons, one white and one black, coiling around each other and shooting towards him. Even though he had twisted his body to avoid their paths, it didn’t seem like they would miss.
Rather, it seemed like no matter how Damien dodged, they’d strike true on their target. Realizing this, Damien could only choose to block.
His vector field immediately formed in the space around him, taking control over the surroundings and trying to dilute the attacks, but Damien soon realized that even this was impossible.
‘What the hell?’
An attack that wouldn’t be altered by vectors didn’t seem possible to him. Anything that traveled through space would be affected by it, so how was it possible for them to ignore it?
Damien’s question went unanswered, though, as the twin dragons soon crashed into his body after ignoring his defense.
“ARGH!”
A pained cry was released from his mouth. Even he was surprised by the fact.
The black dragon struck his stomach, tearing through his flesh and leaving a gaping hole in his body. However, that amount of pain wasn’t something Damien couldn’t bear.
The white dragon had completely ignored his physical body, entering inside of him while the black dragon ravaged his body. At first, Damien didn’t pay it much attention. Anything that entered his body was bound to be devoured by his Void Essence.
But surprisingly enough, the white dragon vanished when it entered his body. When Damien felt its presence again, he could only feel the immense sense of danger it brought with it.
The white dragon was somewhere within him. That much he was sure of. But the area it had intruded upon was something he had never touched before.
The white dragon exploded. That explosion was what caused Damien to undergo a pain he had never felt before.
It was like his soul was being torn to shreds. No, that might’ve actually been the case.
His Void Physique was, after all, a physique. It didn’t handle soul protection. Rather, the concept of a soul wasn’t something Damien had encountered at all in his travels so far.
While he never doubted its existence, he also didn’t think it was as important as people usually made it out to be since nobody he met had attacks related to the soul.
But as he felt the unbearable pain of his soul being damaged, he realized how naive he had been. It wasn’t because it didn’t exist, it was just that the worlds he had been to so far were too low level to have anything of the sort.
He hadn’t had many conflicts in the Cloud Plane since he arrived. If he had stumbled upon someone who could use soul attacks before, he might’ve suffered an even worse fate.
Luckily, his opponent was a pseudo-cultivator using borrowed power. Damien’s vision was hazy and his mind was in shambles, but he could somewhat make out his surroundings still.
Polius didn’t seem to be any better than he was. His face was pale and blood was constantly leaking from his seven orifices. It was clear that Polius had made a hefty sacrifice to injure Damien’s soul.
‘Fuck this.’ Damien cursed inwardly. He was surprised that he could even think straight while enduring the pain, but that didn’t matter much right now. If he could think straight, then he could attack as well.
And the moment when Polius had his guard down after a massive attack was the perfect timing.
Damien urged his feet to move. He stumbled forward like a staggering drunk, walking slowly towards Polius.
And Polius could only watch it happen. But he wasn’t worried. Suffering from a soul injury was far worse than any physical injury could be. Even if Damien could recover, it wasn’t something he could do any time soon.
As Damien stumbled forward, his fist began to glow. A soft light akin to moonlight gently enveloped it and grew ever brighter.
By the time Damien reached Polius, it had grown so bright that it easily hid the light of the seven orbs that encircled it.
Damien raised his arm and pulled it back as if he was drawing a bow. His opponent couldn’t move, but the dark material was still incredibly strong. He had to go all out if he wanted to puncture its defense.
The vectors around his arm responded to his mana, doubling the momentum and acceleration of the fist. Space warped as well, helping the fist reach its target faster.
The fist that originally moved slow enough that even a child could track it sped up to the point where it didn’t even look like it was moving anymore.
And that was when Damien’s voice let out a mutter.
“Seven Stars Encircling The Moon.”