As soon as Astrion came to that conclusion, his expression immediately darkened.
He muttered with a cold determination, "Fine, I'll show you your place," his anger shimmering.
The very air surrounding Astrion seemed to respond to his words. In an instant, his form wrapped and distorted and he vanished.
His reappearance was as swift as his disappearance, materializing 20 meters away from Atticus, his voice carrying an icy edge as he invoked, "Gravity Control."
The air within a staggering radius of 100 meters from him began to shift and warp, immediately rendering it dense and oppressive. It was as though the very concept of gravity had suddenly intensified twohundredfold.
Everything, including Atticus, and Vorlock found themselves subject to an unyielding, merciless force.
They plummeted at a breakneck pace, crushed under the burden of a gravity that had turned capricious.
'He can control gravity? Is it the space bloodline?' Atticus calmly pondered the situation as he was falling. He had read about different bloodlines in the human domain, so he was well aware of most of their capabilities.
Not many possessed the ability to control gravity, and seeing as Astrion had teleported when he almost severed his head, Atticus was easily able to identify his bloodline.
'I have to find a way out of this,' he thought, his mind racing. His entire movement was currently restricted to the extent that lifting a single finger required a huge effort. He knew that even moving would be hard in this state, let alone fighting.
Atticus's enhanced intelligence, a result of the power boost he had received, worked rapidly, coming up with various alternative solutions in less than a second.
With a single thought, Atticus stimulated his air bloodline with mana and moved it around his body, the process done in milliseconds. He immediately felt his body becoming lighter and in an instant, weightless.
He immediately felt the effect of the gravity on him reduce to a large margin, but it wasn't completely.
Gravity could still affect objects or entities that don't have weight, as long as they possess mass.
Regardless of how much Atticus's body was mimicking the air, gravity still affected air.
He swiftly manipulated the air around him and managed to halt his descent. Atticus could feel the difficulty in manipulating the air due to the increased gravity.
The added weight made the air harder to control, but he successfully maintained his balance by manipulating the air beneath his feet, creating a foothold in the air.
Astrion's surprise was palpable as he observed Atticus unaffected by the increased gravity. Without wasting a single moment, he vanished and reappeared directly in front of Atticus instantly.
His hand drawn in for a punch, space itself seemed to ripple around his fist. The air surrounding his fist distorted and warped, increasing the speed of the punch. Swiftly, he punched out.
The sheer speed of the punch generated a sonic boom, causing a deafening noise akin to thunder.
Atticus's eyebrows furrowed as his thoughts raced.
That punch… there was no blocking it. The punch contained pure space element; its presence alone was already distorting space. If that punch landed… there was no surviving it.
Reacting swiftly, Atticus ceased stimulating the air element and stopped manipulating the air. Gravity immediately acted on him, pulling him toward the ground.
However, Astrion's expression remained unchanged, and his punch continued its trajectory toward Atticus as he muttered, his voice frigid, "Gravity Control,"
Immediately, Atticus's descent came to an abrupt halt as gravity almost dropped down to zero.
Astrion's lips curled up in a sinister smile as he witnessed this, his punch still heading uninterrupted toward Atticus.
Atticus observed everything happening in slow motion. He didn't even panic when Astrion changed the gravity.
His mind was working so fast that he had thought of plans A to J when he had first planned to stop stimulating his air bloodline.
Swiftly, he initiated plan B by stimulating his fire bloodline with mana. He raised his hands and pointed them at Astrion, releasing a colossal, expanding burst of fire from his palms.
Flames immediately engulfed Astrion's form and propelled Atticus away from the area.
Atticus executed a mid-air spin, locking his eyes on where he had just been. He noticed Astrion completely unharmed, with the space around him distorted and crackling, the fire not seemingly able to get close to his form.
'The distorted space around him is a problem,' Atticus was acutely aware of the issue posed by the space surrounding Astrion.
In their first interaction, when he had nearly severed Astrion's head, as soon as he entered the space, he had observed a significant slowdown in his speed.
Had he not been initially moving at a high speed, he was certain he would have slowed to a snail's pace.
If he wasn't careful and allowed himself to get trapped for just a second, he was sure Astrion wouldn't miss that opportunity and would hit him with one of those space-impeded punches.
But with that one interaction, Atticus had already found a way to bypass this, a weakness. It was simple: OVERWHELMING SPEED.
If he was moving at an insane speed, the space's effects on him would be minimal at best.
Atticus had never liked drawn-out battles; it was simply wasting time. Unless he was training, he liked to go full power from the start and end it as fast as possible.
He immediately released a staggering 9 rapid bursts from his mana core, a stark contrast to his previous limit of 5, focusing three on each of his legs, hands, and blade.
Astrion, who noticed the changed aura around Atticus as if he was preparing to attack, smirked. 'Does this fool think he can get through?' he sneered.
The intensity of the distorted space surrounding him couldn't compare to the last one where he had gotten through.
The last time wasn't even 30% of his best. Currently, the space surrounding him was 80%!
Even expert ranks entering this space would slow to a crawl.
'Once he gets caught in the space, I'll break his limbs and make him unable to move.' His lips seemed to curl up as he came to this conclusion.
He would finally be able to teach this pup a lesson!
Floating suspended in the air, Atticus adopted a stance that defied imagination.
With both hands firmly gripping the katana's hilt and the blade bending against his back, his knees drawn close to his chest, Atticus's figure seemed frozen in the air.
Then, as if time itself had shattered, Atticus moved.
It was an eruption of velocity that defied all attempts to track it. To Astrion and the other onlookers, Atticus appeared as if he hadn't moved at all, his stance unchanged.
Astrion suddenly felt a surreal sensation, as the world around him blurred. He felt as if he was falling from the air.
"What's happening?" he uttered, his voice laden with bewilderment.
But reality hit him like a thunderbolt as he saw Atticus floating close to his headless body, an azure-like slash in place of where his head should've been.
He had been beheaded.
Astrion's shock was palpable, "I lost?"
His question lingered in the air, layered with disbelief, as his severed head descended from the skies.
