Sylvius moved to continue his attack immediately, not giving Damien any chance to regain himself. As soon as he saw Damien's body paralyze from the rampant lightning energy within, he raised his arm and commanded the Lightning Asura to attack once more.
'Lightning Asura: Sky Cleaver!'
Just as the name implied, a massive saber cut through the air, cleaving the skies in two. But in that moment, Damien didn't move to retreat or even block the attack. He stood in front of the massive saber with no fear.
'This suppressive effect…how do I utilize it properly?'
He only just learned of its existence, so naturally, he didn't have any proficiency in wielding it. Of course, he could always project his mana to the outside world and use it in the crudest way possible, but he didn't want to do this.
He wanted to understand the best use of his powers.
For that, he would have to temper it in the most dangerous situations.
Damien's mana flared, a pitch-black aura emerging from his body. Even feeling this aura was enough to cause one's scalp to tingle.
The lightning saber reached Damien's body in an instant, bringing along a deafening crackle of thunder that almost bust his eardrums. In response, he resided Mirage.
Clang!
The difference in these two swords' sizes was around 1000 times, but Mirage still held true under the weighty suppression. It wasn't just a normal sword, it was a sword with budding intelligence and its own ability to utilize spatial laws. Against a lifeless law saber like this one, it was actually superior.
It was only a matter of brute strength. As Damien held onto Mirage's hilt and pushed it to parry the lighting saber, he could hear the sound of the blade creaking. While it wouldn't be damaged, he was sure that it wasn't going to be able to handle the pressure alone for much longer.
'Now!' His eyes flashed brilliantly. The flaring mana around his body condensed into his sword and concentrated at the point of impact. Coming into contact with this strange mana, the lighting saber's aura visibly dimmed, just enough to become manageable.
Damien's muscles bulged as he used every ounce of his strength to slide the lightning saber against Mirage's blade, finally reaching the point where he completely skewed its direction. With the lighting saber out of the way, he pounced!
In this fight, long-range combat wouldn't do him any good. Taking advantage of his physical strength and more esoteric abilities to kill his enemy by surprise was the best method to victory.
His body arrived in front of Sylvius rapidly. Hel vanished from his left hand as it curled into a fist, rapidly propelling forward with the help of Damien's mana!
BOOM!
The fist was like a meteor. When it crashed into Sylvius' body, he was sent flying back at untold speeds. On his face, his confusion was clearly represented.
His opponent was only a newly ascended 4th class, wasn't he? What kind of power was this?! But he wasn't even given the chance to ponder on it. Damien's figure flashed through space, exiting to Sylvius' side and throwing another fierce hook at his ribs!
Bang! Crack!
Sylvius rapidly moved his arms to parry, but his physical strength was nowhere near Damien's. Although his mortal body was strengthened during his Baptism, he never focused on it, only ever improving his lightning.
Against Damien's heavily evolved bodily strength, how could he stand a chance?
His body was sent flying once again, but this time, he'd truly taken damage. His right forearm was cracked, making his entire arm unusable until he took some medicines to fix it.
In a fight where time was measured in seconds or even less, such an injury was truly dire.
But there was more to it that he didn't yet realize. Every time Damien's fist impacted his body, he let a strand of Void Mana enter his enemy's body. This strand was tiny and untraceable, but if Damien was correct about his mana's qualities, it would be a deadly virus that soon showed its fangs.
Until then, he only needed to continue wearing Sylvius down, chipping away at his defenses until he was nothing more than a pig on the chopping block.
And that's exactly what he did. When Damien's attitude switched from testing his abilities to letting them fly wantonly, the momentum of the battle completely changed.
Space fractured everywhere, turning into deadly blades that rushed at Sylvius from all directions. At the same time, Damien galvanized his mana and began utilizing the Void Sword Art, blocking off any methods for his enemy's retreat.
Under this barrage, Sylvius gritted his teeth and revolved his mana to dodge and block. Lightning flashed endlessly with his bodily movements, heightening his speed to a level that even Damien would be hard-pressed to contend with!
He waded through the onslaught of space blades, his body dexterously avoiding the fissures created by Bladeless. Unexpectedly, he was actually able to escape the encirclement!
But as he did so, he realized another problem. It wasn't just spatial fissures entrapping him in the current location. When his body neared an area some few hundred meters away, he found an invisible wall blocking his path.
Damien grinned. Naturally, he would set up a Dimensional Cage to limit his enemy's movements. Now that he had the ability, why would he waste it?
'Accelerate'
His body became illusory, time around him slowing to a crawl. But in reality, Damien's personal time was being accelerated by the field around him.
His body flashed into the spatial layers and waded through them. With space and time coming together to aid him, his movement speed surpassed even teleportation.
When he arrived beside Sylvius, the latter hadn't even realized his presence. From that point-blank range, Mirage moved in a downward slash.
'Void Sword Art Fifth Form: Dimensional Severance'
The thin black line signifying the ability was drawn perfectly. It almost blended in with the surrounding space due to how pristine it was. Everywhere it went, light and space bent to its will, disallowing its path to be blocked by any force.
Because the current Dimensional Severance wasn't the same empty shell that Damien had used back when he first created it in the Trial World. With his current understanding of Dimensional Magic, he truly could sever the dimension in two.
Dimensional Severance was ethereal. While it moved as if it was existing in the Real Plane, the truth was completely different.
It essentially formed a small self-contained dimension of its own, isolating it from the outside world while still allowing it to affect it.
Therefore, even when Sylvius became aware of the attack, even when he pushed everything he had to block it or dodge it due to the terrifyingly cold aura he felt from it, he wasn't able to stop its path.
To truly withstand Dimensional Severance, one needed the power to sunder the dimension itself.
The black line passed through Sylvius' body so calmly that it almost looked like the two didn't intersect. Afterwards, it continued its path of destruction, even taking a chunk out of Damien's Dimensional Cage.
Only then was one able to understand the true power of this attack.
As for Sylvius, who was run through by it?
His body split into two equal halves, the light fading from his eyes. He died just like that.
