It wasn't that Hun Fang's attacks were too powerful. In the first place, those attacks were never meant to harm Damien.
It was more like a warning. A warning that spatial movement would be useless regardless of how it was done.
'The problem is, I have no idea how he's tracking me. At first, I thought he was just seeing through the spatial layers, but now I know that isn't the case.'
The only thing Damien knew was that Hun Fang had some insane method of tracking that could see him even if his presence was totally erased. Perhaps the only method to avoid this tracking was to enter a completely separated Plane like the Sanctuary.
'But that doesn't matter. Although not being able to teleport will hinder me, I've long since stopped relying on teleportation for movement in battle.'
His thoughts didn't last long. After he reached this point, he covered his fists in Void Flames and stomped the ground, propelling himself forward.
He reached Hun Fang in an instant, his fists throwing a barrage of punches in every direction.
Hun Fang moved just as swiftly. A palm-sized black flag appeared in his hand. Every time he waved it, gusts of grey mana swept through the air and mitigated the damage of Damien's punches.
But in that instant, Hun Fang's figure vanished into a veil of fog and reappeared many meters away.
"I don't have time for this. Enough probing, let's finish this quickly."
Hun Fang waved the flag in his hand. The grey mana that swirled around it began to morph into a fog filled with countless faces.
Some were screaming, some were crying, while others still had expressions of shock on their faces that never vanished. The one thing that they shared was the fact that all of them expressed some form of horror.
Damien narrowed his eyes. "Those…souls? Or spirits?"
Hun Fang grinned wickedly. "Did you think the Spirit King title was for show? Although I hate the way they classify me, I have to admit that the ones who made that deplorable record have a solid information network."
OOOOOH!
The cluster of ghastly spirits soon expanded into a swirling tornado of screams that surrounded Hun Fang. Within a second, that tornado had already charged towards Damien.
Damien furrowed his brows. Soul and spirit attacks were what he hated the most, since he had no real counter to them. But he still had to fight it somehow.
Mirage manifested in his hand. He quickly took his stance and thrust his blade forward.
'Void Sword Art Third Form: Horizon Break'
Bang!
A hole was blasted in the tornado of souls, but it soon closed up. But Damien wasn't disheartened by the sight. Within the tornado, he could see the flickering wisp of Void Flame that he had added into his strike.
Damien kicked to the side and avoided the tornado's trajectory before readjusting his foot and kicking off the floor, closing the distance between him and Hun Fang.
'Void Sword Art First Form: Bladeless'
A gash appeared in space, rapidly expanding towards Hun Fang and threatening to swallow him into the void. Hun Fang's body turned into smoke once more, but Damien had already predicted it.
Damien's sword slashed through the air, creating tens of gashes with Bladeless that blocked off Hun Fang's retreat.
But Hun Fang wasn't just standing still while Damien dealt with the tornado. The grey souls that exited his flag had already permeated through the area and formed a ghastly domain.
They clustered together in front of him as the spatial rend reached his position. Like a horde of zombies, those souls bit into the spatial rend as if it was a physical object, shattering it like glass.
"What a nasty technique," Damien muttered. He jumped into the air, wings jutting out of his back. With a flap, he appeared above Hun Fang and swung his sword down.
Clang!
The flag in Hun Fang's hand grew into a staff that collided with Mirage. As the two clashed against each other, Damien utilized vector control to increase the weight of his strike.
Boom!
The floor caved in below them, but Hun Fang didn't lose his balance. His staff grazed against the edge of Damien's sword and parried it before swinging through and shooting towards Damien's chest.
Bang!
As the staff hit Damien's chest, his foot stomped on the ground to offset the impact. At the same time, his hand that wasn't holding Mirage curled into a fist and shot forward, sending a hook towards Hun Fang's jaw.
'Void Sword Art Second Form: Dance of the Void'
Damien's figure flickered out of existence, turning into multiple phantoms that circled Hun Fang's position.
Even if spatial movement wouldn't work on his opponent, Dance of the Void was different. When he first created it, the move was simply a sword dance combined with bladeless, but over time, it had been refined into something different.
Even if Hun Fang could track his position, it wouldn't change anything.
Mirage moved like a ghost, leaving tens of cuts on Hun Fang's skin.
Hun Fang frowned as he looked at the dozens of Damiens that were surrounding him. He completely ignored the damage he was taking.
"So be it."
His hands clapped together and formed an ancient seal. His mana raged as he did so. Even as blood began to pour from his body, he didn't stop.
"Heed my call and appear before me, Velzagard."
The grey mana around him formed a whirlpool, making it so Damien's strikes could no longer reach him. Seeing this, Damien teleported out of range.
'He's definitely preparing something big. Although I would love to stop the process halfway, it doesn't seem like I can do that.'
In all honesty, Damien was vexed. His combat style that leaned towards frontal confrontation and short-distance attacks seemed to be perfectly countered by Hun Fang's attributes, whatever they were.
'If I want to have an effective battle against him, it has to be one like mages. Long-ranged combat seems like it'd be more effective. The problem is, spatial abilities don't seem to work well against him.'
He had grown a lot in the secret realm, but he had also lost a great deal. For instance, his lightning had slowly become useless as he acquired more special abilities.
Not only that, Sunflames were no longer available to him either since they had fused into the Void Flame, and since the Void Flame was still in its growth phase, it wasn't as effective as he hoped it'd be.
These two had been a pivotal part of his combat force prior to entering the secret realm, but now, he was almost wholly relying on his spatial element.
But the abilities he most frequently used had been countered already by his opponent.
'A match like this is new. An opponent that isn't insanely stronger than me or just weaker than me…it's annoying.'
But he wasn't hopeless. The spark of Void Flame that had been left within the soul tornado previously had already consumed all the mana within it, and was proceeding to devour the mana of the pseudo-domain Hun Fang had set up.
'It's almost strong enough for me to use in combat. But until then, I need to manage with other abilities.'
It had been a long time since he used his spatial abilities for long-range combat, but wasn't that an easy thing? Him using space in short-range combat so often should've been the more odd outcome.
'I guess I'll just have to innovate…I guess it's true when they say competition is the best driving force for improvement.'
As Damien planned for the rest of the battle, Hun Fang's preparation also came to an end.
They had been fighting for some time already, but neither was able to get the upper hand. And neither of them had used their most destructive abilities in fear of harming the fruit they had come this far to acquire.
But that kind of cautiousness, it seemed that it would no longer be present. Their true battle would only be starting now.
