Boom!
Damien's figure became a blur as he shot through the air and arrived in front of Polius. His fist carried the speed of a bullet and the force of a cannon as it drove towards the latter.
Polius shifted his body, causing the punch to brush past his face as his palm shot forward to impact Damien's left hand, which had already begun his follow-up.
Swoosh!
A fierce kick sliced through the air towards Damien's ribs, forcing him to twist his body to dodge. Instead of trying to attack again from his awkward position, Damien used the twist to build momentum, doing a full 360 and launching his own kick forward.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sounds of impacts layered over each other as both Damien and Polius dodged and counterattacked each other's blows. Within a single second, tens, if not hundreds, of exchanges had already taken place:
"Not bad. Unrefined, but still not bad."
Polius casually commented while offsetting the force of another mana-infused punch. But Damien wasn't bothered by his demeanor.
After all, the two of them hadn't really started fighting yet. He knew very well that they were just probing strength at the moment.
And Damien had already realized by now how wrong he had been in his previous assumptions. With the level of the Demon Generals, even the brief probing exchange that had already taken place would have been enough to injure them.
But Polius was just as casual as Damien. In fact, he might've been even more casual considering how he hadn't even tried to take the initiative yet.
"Alright. I've tasted enough of your punches. Try some of mine now."
Polius's aura became aggressive in that moment. His eyes turned sharp as they hadn't been before.
Boom!
He kicked forward, his foot impacting the arms Damien had raised to block. But he didn't pull away. He put more force into his foot, infusing it with mana and blowing Damien back.
Damien's body shot back like a comet. Even though he hadn't taken damage, he still had to mitigate the momentum of the kick. Damiens mana immediately spread into the atmosphere, harnessing the surrounding vectors to abruptly stop his body without taking much damage.
And he was just in time to see a fist in front of his face.
Boom!
Damien wasn't able to block the punch, but since he was already controlling the surrounding vectors, he was able to slow its movement slightly. With that gained time, he slightly turned his head so the punch hit his cheek instead of his nose.
His neck snapped to the side. Alarm bells rang in his head. In that instant, he decided to stop playing around.
His figure flashed, appearing a meter away right as a heavy axe kick loaded with inky black mana passed through his previous position.
It looked like Polius also wasn't messing around anymore.
Their first round was close combat without the use of skills or equipment, and Damien had come out with a loss.
He could blame it on the fact that he had spent most of his time on sword training instead of hand-to-hand combat, but he had no interest in excuses.
Since he had decided to abandon the sword, it was his fault and his fault alone that his skills weren't enough to match up to Polius.
Damien's arm flickered out of existence, becoming ethereal for a second as he used a move he had neglected for a while.
'Void Sword Art First Form: Bladeless'
For the first time, Polius felt a slight alarm bell in his head. He poured mana into his legs and hurriedly kicked to the side, narrowly avoiding a massive spatial fissure that appeared out of nowhere.
When he looked at Damien, he realized that the young man had a sword in his hand that wasn't there prior. His legs were bent and his arm was pulled back as if he was holding a bow.
'Void Sword Art Second Form: Horizon Break'
Boom'
A hole was punctured in the space that Polius occupied, trying to force its way past the boundaries of distance and pierce his heart.
Not even waiting to see whether his attack had bore results, Damien's figure flashed and became ethereal. Dozens of phantom clones of himself appeared in the air and shimmered as if they were made of dewdrops.
'Void Sword Art Third Form: Dance of the Void'
The myriad phantoms of Damien's figure surrounded Polius and let out a string of attacks, fluidly switching between Bladeless, Horizon Break, and normal sword intent infused slashes that colored the atmosphere.
The air was filled with space cracks and punctures as if it was a sheet of paper that had been bullied by a small child. And within that space was Polius.
He moved swiftly, his mana acting like a living entity and pulling him out of the way of every attack Damien threw.
His eyes darted around looking for an opening to counter, but Damien had no intention of giving him one. Since this opponent was someone he couldn't defeat by simply abusing the power difference, he was going to abuse his mana capacity and speed instead.
Boom! Boom!
Two Phantom Damien's slashed their swords at the same time, causing two massive fissures from bladeless to cut off Polius's escape routes to his sides.
At the same time, two more phantoms appeared in front and behind him, stabbing their swords like rapiers and unleashing Horizon Break to puncture their opponent's heart.
In that instant, the true Damien took the opportunity he had been looking for. He infused a greater portion of mana into his sword than he did previously and used the vectors in the atmosphere to increase the gravity surrounding him.
With all the built-up momentum, he heavily smashed his sword down, causing a massive boom to ring out in the surroundings.
'Void Sword Art Fourth Form: Spatial Collapse'
Crack!
The encirclement of spatial fissures and punctures suddenly burst as the space they encompassed cracked like glass.
The scenes of shards of space itself falling to the ground like flower petals caused an odd sense of incongruity that served to confuse people who couldn't fathom the phenomenon, but it wasn't even worthy of being an appetizer for what was to come.
As space continued to crack, heaven and earth twisted madly as if they were being toyed with by a god. The sky and ground became one entity with no separation, and all creation within began to fuse and rupture simultaneously.
The dichotomy of phenomena in the atmosphere around him put immense pressure on Polius's body, threatening to rupture and fuse him into its being.
'Void Sword Art Fifth Form'
It was at that moment when Polius began to madly push his mana to resist the pressuring of the atmosphere that Damien decided to use something he hadn't even tested practically before.
The sword in his hand started to vibrate at extreme speeds, causing the air around it to screech. Even though the weapon had devoured an Ancient Sword from Apeiron and reached the peak of SSS rank, cracks began to emerge on its surface.
Crackle!
Ferocious black lightning shot out of Damien's arm and infused into the blade, putting further strain on the weapon. Without any care for its state, bright golden sunflames also shot out and wreathed the blade's surface.
Space began to distort around the weapon and compress, causing the wildly dancing flames and lightning to be compacted into the blade as if they were mere coatings of paint.
Damien's will extended into the environment and forcefully took control of the surrounding vectors. This time, he was using their abilities for amplification. Coupled with the innate amplification effect of the sword itself, a truly frightening aura of death began to emit from it.
And as if to put the cherry on top, Damien poured a sliver of low-level Void Essence into the mixture.
That was it. The sword could no longer bear the weight of everything Damien stacked on top of it.
As the foundation of the weapon began to crumble, Damien swung it for the final time.
It was a clean arc, beautiful to the point where everything froze as of the universe was holding its breath as it watched Damien's movements.
It must've been the most beautiful sword move he had ever performed to date. The skillful execution that allowed the blade to stay intact even as it had already started to crumble. This single slash was the epitome of what Damien had achieved during those years that he unceasingly trained his sword.
And as that vertical slash finished its path, as the sword in Damien's had scattered into ash, a thin black line cut the entire world in half.
The surrounding light was sucked into the slash, making it seem like everything else was unimportant under its luster.
And before even an instant could pass, it reached its destination.
'Dimensional Severance'
