The Keeper raised his hands. "All I sll is potential in the air... but why are you so weak? Even he is as weak as those lowly monsters." A tal claw pointed at Kaedros.
"Then why are you fighting us if we’re so weak?" Kaedros challenged. His head was still tender, and his body ached from just one blow. Even in his Dragon form he knew he didn’t hold a candle to the moving steel.
"This is not a fight," the Keeper growled. "You would have died for every breath you take if I wanted to fight you. All I’m doing... is playing with you."
Kaedros grimaced. He had no response to that. The Keeper was undeniably strong, what baffled him was how impossible it was to gauge that strength. He just knew the being was powerful.
Maybe he could put it at rank three or four but that’s it. It might even be more than that, way more.
"So," the Keeper advanced on Rauk, "what are you going to show ? Not one of your chains again, are you?"
Rauk stepped back. His path was technically a warrior’s, but he might as well have been a mage for all the good it had done him for physical strength.
He didn’t even know how to properly use advanced Spatial techniques
From what he understood, his ability required him to invent its applications on his own since it’s not a common one. And he had been denied a mana cultivation thod all his life.
He raised his hand... then brought it down. A clean cut appeared across the Keeper’s chest.
"I would’ve been torn apart if that technique were refined. Lucky for , it only scratched my body," the Keeper said, continuing to advance with his hand curled into a tight fist.
"I don’t have... a lot of technique," Rauk muttered. He had always relied on Vexa for defense. He’d never needed to learn how to fight, until the day he’d sworn to save his father. Since then, he had sought strength.
With the help of old books he found and read in secret,he’d created sothing unique. He called it, Spatial arrow!
As the Keeper drew closer, Rauk activated core again. Energy flooded through him, his eyes turned grey with it. He bent the surrounding space to his will.
A form took shape, a grey chain, snaking outward, with twin arrowheads forming at its ends. The chain spun and coiled like a serpent.
"I don’t have much... but I have slashing, and this." Rauk panted hard. Creating this technique took a lot from him, and as a stage one, rank one, he had little mana to spare.
"Oh? What’s this now?" The Keeper observed the construct with curiosity. Spatial energy pulsed around the arrowheads. "Arrowheads... on a chain?"
"Co closer and find out," Rauk said with a faint smile.
"A threat? I like it."
Then, the Keeper vanished. A gust of dust exploded in his place.
"You’re just too slow!" he bellowed from behind Rauk, his punch already flying toward his back, but the arrowhead chain snapped forward with the speed of a striking cobra, and struck the Keeper in the eye.
The tal giant recoiled, clutching his face. The fire in his eye dimd. He stood still for a long mont before he laughed.
"Seems my arrogance made break the first rule of combat. Never underestimate your enemy!"
Kael frowned. The Keeper had been fast, but Rauk’s technique had been faster. Even so, nothing seed to have truly damaged the eye.
As Rauk watched, the fla within it blazed even brighter. His technique was broken. The arrowhead had burned away on impact, trailing remnants of grey energy through the air.
"I will now take you seriously!" the Keeper roared. His next punch shattered what was left of Rauk’s construct and slamd straight into his ribs.
Rauk was hurled away, screaming.
"Are you killing us now?" Kaedros asked. His awareness confird Rauk was alive, just badly injured.
"No. Death is only given after I’ve tested you... and found you unworthy. You are the last one, a human who is not human." The Keeper snapped his tal fangs, creating a tallic clatter. "I’ll see you fall too."
"It won’t be easy," Kaedros warned.
"Oh! Oh! I don’t want it to be!" the Keeper howled, launching himself forward with explosive speed.
But Kaedros was ready.
He didn’t turn, he ran, weaving mana as he moved. It was his pride, fast spellcasting. One of the few things he was better at than anyone else in the Draconic City.
With blinding speed, he conjured four compressed light spears and hurled them back.
The Keeper leapt over the first, still closing the distance. He caught the second one mid-air, and it exploded but barely slowing him.
The last two spears collided in front of him, detonating in a blazing blast that lit the darkness.
From the smoke erged the Keeper, his body glowing from the heat, and darker than before.
"You’re good with spells, I’ll give you that. But they lack substance. It’s like you’re casting a copy of your magic." Sohow, Kaedros knew the Keeper was frowning. "How is that possible?"
"Ti to end this," the Keeper growled. He kicked off the ground, vanishing and appearing right in front of Kaedros, a tal fist flying toward his skull.
Kaedros released a fire spell at his feet, launching himself into the air just in ti. The blow passed beneath him, carving into the earth.
Now was the ti.
He released the spell he had been forming all this while. One of his high-tier spell.
"Dragon’s Claw!" Kaedros roared, his eyes flaring red and gold with hint of darkness.
The air shimred with oppressive heat.
A kind of rift opened, a small portal, and from it erged a massive golden hand of scales made of the light and heat of the sun, with hooking claws of white hot heat.
The claw struck downward with terrifying speed. The Keeper couldn’t evade. The impact tore into his torso, ripping through layers of reinforced tal.
Then the portal vanished.
Kaedros lowered himself to the ground with a tendril of shadow, every drop of mana in his body spent.
The Keeper knelt. His chest was torn open, molten edges hissing with heat. His shoulder trembled.
Then he laughed.
"I’ve never seen candidates like this... never before!"
He stood, and Kaedros’ heart sank because new tal was already forming across the damaged parts of his body.
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