Confident about his current capabilities, Jason knew that the next fights wouldn't be so exhausting.
The fact that the other puppets were weaker than him owing to the additional traits he had boosted his confidence to another level.
Thus, Jason barely waited until the faint traces of divine energy he had used before, were replenished.
Afterward, he challenged the mysterious puppet with which he had yet to fight once again.
He still wanted to take revenge on it for defeating him harshly when they had fought six months earlier.
Jason could swear that it had cheated on that day, doing something it was not supposed to be capable of, but crying over spilled milk was useless.
With that in mind, he was eager to defeat the mysterious puppet fair and square, while staying fully focused on the possible emergence of the tortoise with the snakehead tail.
Somehow, he wanted to see the beast once again because the black mass portal had been intriguing. But at the same time, it was quite dangerous for him to face this existence, even more so because he had no idea what exactly it was.
Owing to that, it seemed to become more dangerous than the mysterious puppet itself, even if it looked like the puppet had complete control over the beast.
In the end, this was something Jason doubted and it was more like the mysterious puppet had conjured the beast out of thin air, putting it in a specific state in which the beast had to obey its commands.
However, that was not something Jason could be sure of.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})As such, he decided that it was better not to create any kind of theory or solution to a possibility that could turn into baseless assumptions.
With this thought flashing through his mind, he focused on reaching his highest combat prowess the moment the fight started.
Anticipating the arrival of the true dragon image that would roar out in order to render him incapable to continue fighting, he kept his eyes and ears open.
In fact, all puppets' first attack would always be the same, which was probably something they were ordered to do.
If one was able to overcome the first attack, those who had successfully deflected the attack had supposedly crossed a certain threshold.
This would then allow the puppets to release more of their strength.
It may sound ridiculous, but Jason knew that the puppets were no living beings.
Instead, they were just tools that had been programmed by some kind of existence that were strong enough to turn them into replicas of the Celestia race and four other races.
As such, Jason could not even be sure if the five races were truly as strong as the puppets were, or if their strength varied a lot.
That was something Jason had wondered since the beginning of the fifth trial because it had been confusing.
Yet, even after he thought about it thoroughly, it wouldn't really make any difference if the puppets were stronger, weaker, or equally strong in comparison to the races that had been taken as a role model to create them.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})He would have to fight and defeat them if possible, either way, and Jason thought that if they were stronger than true Celestias, it might as well be an advantage.
However, deep inside him, Jason was fully aware of the fact that they were either the weakest possible Celestia image or just a watered-down version of the true beings.
In the end, acknowledging this would allow him to fight with much more ease in the current battles, but it was because he wanted to force himself to fight and defeat everyone, becoming the strongest in his cultivation stage and rank that many difficulties were created.
Doing something forcibly would decrease one's strength because the mind wouldn't be clear enough to fight. It would be tormented or even corroded by the thought of having to defeat a specific opponent.
Unfortunately, this was exactly what was happening, making it impossible for Jason to reveal his true potential. Currently, his mind was corroded by the thought that he had to defeat the remaining three puppets.
Despite that mindset, which decreased his combat prowess by a small margin, he had always fought against powerful opponents, and he always wanted to win against them.
As such, his mind was already programmed to think that he had to defeat everyone else.
Because of that, the issues a distracted mind normally caused didn't affect Jason to the extent that it would normally be.
That being said, he reached the highest possible combat prowess by fusing with Petri, summoning his body parts, and unleashing the two Stigmas.
Additionally, his Celestia aura was slowly transforming, while circulating moonlight transmuted mana with traces of divine energy through his body.
Following that the potency of the Floating Sky movement technique which he exerted only a moment later, increased by a large margin.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})This allowed Jason to cross half the distance between him and the mysterious puppet as the true dragon soul manifested.
Yet, instead of doing the same as before, and trying to affect the mysterious puppet with his curses and abyssal effect, Jason averted his attention to the true dragon that was just about to roar out.
However, instead of being able to do this, the true dragon's soul began to shake violently as its head turned towards Jason.
His Celestia aura was intertwined with the rest of his divine energy, ordering it to look at him.
In the end, the Celestia aura was something Jason had yet to fully understand, but even then, he was fully aware of one particular ability it had.
All kinds of living beings felt a special connection to him, even if they didn't notice this earlier, and Jason assumed that this originated from the Celestia aura.
As such, he used his divine energy to shoot out the Celestia aura that enveloped the entire true dragon.
His attack forced it to turn towards Jason, who released his abyssal effect, in combination with his two curses.
This caused a drastic reaction in which the true dragon's soul began to shake, and it almost looked like it would disintegrate.
Thus, reacting quickly the mysterious puppet had to actively retract the soul of the true dragon, which distracted it for a quarter of a second.
Using that time to his benefit, Jason made use of the highest speed he was able to reach so far in order to appear in front of the mysterious puppet that began to manifest a tiny black mass in its hand.
Because of that, Jason's entire body began to sense distinct danger once again.
Yet, instead of backing away, he stood his ground and the thought of the black tortoise with its snakehead tail appearing in the combat arena didn't deter him.
Thus, he slashed at the arm that manifested the black mass that required a tremendous amount of the mysterious energy, severing it with the use of Solaris' flame.
However, it was exactly at this moment that Jason felt the mysterious puppet's other hand pushing out towards him. It hit him on his right side, knocking him out of breath.
A shockwave reverberated through his body, yet he didn't allow himself to slow down, let alone be flung away!
With that in mind, his tail instinctively coiled around the mysterious puppet's leg, dragging the puppet with him as he was flung through the air.
Through this, either both of them would lose and the fight would end in a tie or the being that first touched the ground would be defeated.
Unfortunately, Jason was unable to assess which one was the most likely scenario, and it was because of this that his instincts allowed him to do whatever he pleased.
His tail moved towards the ground, bashing the mysterious puppet into the ground outside the combat arena. Following that, his body crashed into the ground, and the puppet's body followed suit as he rolled over the ground.
With that, the fight against the third puppet ended.
He was only injured by a seemingly simple punch that caused a shockwave which had affected his insides.
In the end, he had managed to defeat the puppet using his instincts…or had it been Petri's instincts?
