The moment Jennifer initiated the fight, Jason circulated a large amount of mana through his body, while exerting the Floating sky movement technique at the highest mastery he had comprehended until now.
This more than doubled his speed right off the bat, allowing him to cross the distance between him and his opponents in no time.
Both Eran and Lilya had an extremely strong physique as they cultivated in the path of Pryr and another one, however, Jason's speed was still much faster than theirs.
Emerging in front of Eran, who had just swung back his spear to start running, Jason smiled cruelly, as Byakur manifested in his hand.
Ready to slash out, he didn't even hesitate to insert a huge amount of mana into it. Leaning forward, his face almost touched the ground as Artemis' wings spurted out of his back.
Only a fraction of a second was required for the wings with a wingspan of more than 10 meters to unfold as Jason pushed himself up from the ground with every ounce of strength inside his body.
Catapulting himself into the air he saw many things happening at the same moment.
Jason exerted both the petrification and race specific weakening curse with a large amount of mana that interfered with Eran's capabilities to retaliate as he was stuck in his place for a quarter of a second.
This quarter of a second was enough to envelop Byakur with a layer of black flames that erupted from within the weapon. Jason slashed out from the ground vertically, using his own force and the momentum of being pulled high in the air.
The move he had just initiated had been complex, but seeing blood splattering on the ground from Eran's body, Jason nodded his head proudly.
However, his pride lasted only for a second when he realised that there were suddenly two Erans, instead of one. The second one was standing right behind the Eran he had just seriously injured.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})It was only then that his Emperor Eyes perceived a subtle difference between the two bodies which caused him to blurt out uncontrollably.
"Decoy?!"
Eran was shell-shocked by Jason's merciless attack, but his instincts had allowed him to react early enough, using almost all of his spiritual force to create his doppelganger, protecting him from being heavily injured.
Jason realised that Eran didn't have any spiritual force left in his spirit sea, but had more than enough primordial energy within his body, while Lilya was still completely fine.
She had already predicted Jason's move, so she quickly circulated both primordial energy and mana through her cultivation veins.
This increased her speed and strength exceptionally.
With this, Lilya grew confident that she was stronger and faster than Jason, which caused her to flap her wings as she pushed herself from the ground, pursuing the young man, who had already reached an altitude of more than 10 meters.
Even if he was unable to defeat Eran right off the bat, he was not severely restricted and did not have much difference from a normal cultivator with a single cultivation vein.
Thus, his combat strength shouldn't be much different to someone at the peak of the Lique stage, and, at most, it was strengthened through his physique, the result of his cultivation, and possible martial art techniques.
Nevertheless, this didn't make up a difference of strength one received from more than 5000 drops of liquefied mana.
With Artemis occupying his mana core, Jason's strength was already close to reaching 18,000 drops of liquefied mana even without utilising an affinity, one of his abilities, or his Celestia aura and Stigma.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})By using only one or two extra abilities, he was already close to reaching the Prismar stage, which was evident as he had just defeated Zar, the Devir, who was in fact, at the Prismar stage.
Thus, Lilya's seemingly confident approach towards him was nothing but a charade Jason had purposefully instigated after he had noticed that Eran had protected himself.
If he were to be honest, Zar had felt like a stronger opponent than Eran because the Devir hadn't given Jason an opportunity to attack him right off the bat.
On the other hand, Eran had made this big mistake in giving Jason the opportunity to attack, which resulted in Eran having to create a doppelganger which was something he was only learning to do right now.
Because of that, the spiritual force he had to consume to achieve this feat was much higher than usual, but that was not something Jason could be bothered about.
He had slowed down his pace after propelling himself into the air, luring Lilya to follow him into the sky, where Eran couldn't reach them easily.
Lilya should've known better than to leave behind her partner, but she did so nevertheless thinking that Jason was not much of a threat.
Despite seeing what he had done to Zar and just a second ago, to Eran, she felt that she could take him down.
Thus, she made the big mistake of pursuing him into the sky, only to see him suddenly turn around.
Through this sudden change in movement, Lilya didn't even think of halting in her tracks as she wanted to use her momentum to injure Jason heavily.
As such, she was fully prepared to pierce her thin longsword right into him, the moment they would clash.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Unfortunately, Lilya was still underestimating Jason, only to realise how wrong she was as he erupted with his Stigma and Celestia aura that had been idle for some time.
Increasing the pace at which he could circulate mana through his body, the speed at which he could exert the Floating sky movement technique increased consequently, while the potency of every particle of mana was enhanced.
Thus, with his Stigma and Celestia aura activated, Jason once again exerted the petrification and race specific weakening curse, only with a much higher amount of mana that caused Lilya to stiffen mid-air, taking away the upper hand she had gained over him.
At the same time, Jason had already begun to dive towards Lilya, who could only watch in horror as he slashed at her with the same mercilessness as he had done with Eran.
Taken off-guard, she could barely lift her thin longsword, only to finally realise that even Jason's raw strength was much higher than what she had assumed.
Her eyes widened in shock and she was about to explain something, but the words died on her tongue as she coincidentally stared into Jason's golden-silverish eyes that radiated nothing but the pure desire to win against her.
This moment allowed Lilya to understand that there were huge differences between Jason, and the opponents he was sparring against.
While she, Eran, and even Zar weren't fighting with their life on the line, considering him as an insignificant being, Jason was fighting seriously, trying to win by all means.
He might have been experimenting a lot, but even that was done genuinely without a single trace of indifference while heading towards his opponents.
Somehow, this shocked Lilya more than she could have ever thought as even Jason's high combat prowess was less impressive in comparison.
'Just what kind of monster did Instructor Jennifer pick up?!' Lilya wondered as she tried to retaliate against Jason's force, only to stare in astonishment at how Artemis' wings were retracted as black flames manifested behind him.
"Fuck!" Lilya swore under her breath as she noticed what was about to happen, barely perceiving the sly smile on Jason's face.
