Chapter 53
Blurs of figures moved through the surrounding forest as Lucas and Ezra clashed with their bare hands, moving at speeds reaching eighty meters per second.
Ezra was faster, his speed reaching eighty-four meters per second.
Lucas relied on his mana spells: Reinforcement, ensuring his body operated at full strength and speed, and Enhancement, which greatly increased both.
They battled across the clearing, left to right, appearing as blurs with each clash as the wind and ground suffered from their impacts.
They pushed each other away, creating distance between them, but Lucas reacted too slowly as Ezra moved.
One moment Ezra was fifty meters away.
The next, his fist was an inch from Lucas's jaw.
There was no wind-up, just a fist covered in a reddish aura of the Keno element as kinetic energy roared.
[Keno Spell: Instant Transmission]
Lucas's body reacted before his mind could.
His Neural Overdrive spiked, time dilating.
He saw the fist not as a fist, but as a focal point of hyper-compressed motion.
He couldn't dodge.
He could only receive.
[Mana Spell: Kinetic Shell]
A hemisphere of shimmering, reactive mana snapped over his jaw and neck.
THOOOM.
The sound was a deep, meaty concussion that shook the leaves in the trees.
Lucas's head snapped sideways, but the Kinetic Shell did its work.
It captured the directional force of the punch and spun it, converting the linear impact into rotational energy.
Lucas went with it, his body becoming a spinning top.
He was hurled sideways, landing in a skidding crouch, his jaw singing with pain but intact.
The grass where he had stood was gone, replaced by a shallow, perfectly circular crater.
"Huh. That was good," Ezra said, disappearing.
Ezra closed the distance again, this time at a walking pace that was somehow just as threatening as his dash.
He raised an open palm toward Lucas.
[Keno Spell: Pressure Web]
The dense air in the clearing twisted. Invisible lines of kinetic pressure shot out from Ezra's palm, crisscrossing the space between them like a spider's web made of pure inertia.
Where the lines crossed, the air visibly warped.
Lucas felt his limbs grow heavy, his movements sluggish, as if swimming through hardening concrete.
He's controlling the battlefield's friction, taking away my mobility.
He could try to overpower it with Body Enhancement, but that would turn into a stamina contest he would lose and consume more mana than he wanted.
Instead, he focused his mana inward, into his feet.
[Mana Spell: Density Shift]
He didn't fight the pressure. Instead, he increased his personal density tenfold in his legs and core, rooting himself to the earth.
The Pressure Web could slow movement, but it couldn't uproot a mountain.
[Mana Spell: Searing Lance]
A lance of pure, burning mana shot out at lightning speed, homing in on Ezra's energy signature.
It forced Ezra back, creating distance as he crossed his arms to block the strike, skidding backward under its force.
[Mana Spell: Harmonic Disruption]
Lucas clapped his hands together, sending precise mana vibrations that caused Ezra's technique to fail.
The Pressure Web vanished, and Lucas immediately felt his movement improve.
Ezra, having stopped after destroying the spear, focused his Keno element into his legs and burst forward, reaching Lucas in a mere moment as he cast another spell.
[Keno Spell: Force Thrust]
Lucas couldn't react in time to cast a spell.
The punch slammed into his stomach, making him cough up blood as he was sent flying.
Ezra was relentless, closing in as Lucas cast another spell mid-flight.
[Mana Spell: Mana Clone]
A clone appeared in front of Lucas.
He kicked it toward Ezra while jumping back, landing hard as he was pushed backward.
[Keno Spell: Rippling Blow]
Ezra stacked multiple kinetic impacts into a single hit, sending waves of force through the clone and bypassing all armor.
The clone vanished.
Ezra landed, and Lucas appeared before him as they entered close combat.
Lucas attacked with a fast series of punches.
Ezra stopped the first one with his arm and knocked the second aside, instantly answering with a hard kick aimed at Lucas's stomach.
Lucas quickly brought up his own leg to block, using the clash of force to spin himself around and jump into the air.
He launched a flying kick straight at Ezra's head.
The blow connected, forcing Ezra to stumble backward several steps.
When Lucas landed, his feet hit the ground firmly.
He settled into a ready fighting stance, and a confident smile spread across his face.
"I was told your dream is to become the best physical fighting cultivator this world has ever seen. But it seems you're just this," Lucas teased.
Ezra chuckled, stopping a few meters away and spitting out blood.
"A single kick makes you this prideful? Kid, let me show you true pride, earned through a lifetime of work." He shifted into a stance, his smile even wider than Lucas's.
Their mana exploded outward in all directions as their smiles widened.
They dashed forward, appearing at the center as their fists collided.
BOOOM.
The winds raged.
The ground cracked as spiderweb fractures spread in all directions.
Ezra felt Lucas pushing more force into his fist and used it to his advantage, pulling his hand away at the perfect moment.
Lucas lurched forward slightly as Ezra moved instantly, throwing a full-body punch toward Lucas's face.
Lucas tilted his head into the blow.
A shockwave tore through the air, the ground cracking and then collapsing as the fist landed. Lucas felt wildly dizzy but didn't let it stop him.
He pushed off the ground, spinning, and sent a kick toward Ezra's chin.
Before the spin could finish, Ezra caught Lucas's leg and slammed him back down.
Ezra drove a knee toward Lucas's stomach, but Lucas countered, landing a fist squarely into Ezra's face.
The ground shook as a crater formed, rocks flying in every direction.
Trees shattered as debris tore through them, dust blanketing the battlefield.
Lucas stood, clutching his stomach, having been sent flying a hundred meters from their previous position.
Even after breaking through to the Third Pathway and reaching the peak of the Mid Third Pathway, our strength is still far apart… and he's not even using his full power.
He sighed as a bright red ray flared in the distance, over two hundred meters away.
Ezra stood there smiling, a glowing, rampaging sphere forming in his hand.
[Keno Spell: Pressure Bomb]
Lucas raised his hand, blood dripping from his mouth.
Even so, matching him like this while in the First Gate is impressive.
A rotating ball of mana formed in his palm, raging at extreme speed.
[Mana Spell: Mana Vortex]
In a second and a half, they crossed the distance between them, over two hundred meters, Lucas moving at eighty meters per second and Ezra at eighty-four.
They clashed again, devastation spreading over a hundred meters as everything was consumed by blinding light.
The wind screamed, the ground was obliterated, and trees vanished, the pressure alone enough to erase them.
Then came the explosion.
BBBOOOOMMMMM!!!