"You understand why I have come, don't you?" Long Chen said as he gazed at Damien. His eyes were as sharp as his sword, indicating that he wouldn't take no for an answer.
"I do. But are you sure you want to do it now?" Damien responded. He was also feeling the desire to fight, but he didn't want to do so now. He still had a few things he wanted to test after exiting his Void Heart form.
But Long Chen didn't seem to care. "Let's fight. I want to truly test my prowess, and you seem to be the only one here that might have the capability to do so."
"Might?" Damien scoffed. "Don't underestimate me too much, or you won't know how you lost. How about this, on the final day of the exam, we meet back at this spot. That will be when we fight."
Long Chen thought for a moment. It was more convenient for him to fight on the final day as well since he still wasn't sure Long Bai was the only one out for his head. This way, the crowd they'd attract wouldn't have time to make any sudden moves.
If anyone wanted to strike them when they were tired, it'd be impossible unless they wanted to fail the exam. Well, Long Chen didn't know about Zara so this was the security he felt.
"Very well, I will see you in 3 days." He said. He had taken so long to find Damien that he got a little too excited and caught in the moment. It was a strange feeling that Long Chen hadn't experienced before.
'Perhaps my search for a rival has gone on for far too long.' It was the only reason he could think of for his recent actions. He didn't think or plan, just acting on will alone.
'Then I will spend the next few days increasing my level and training before our confrontation.'
Damien and Long Chen weren't the only ones present in the vicinity. Many other participants and beasts had been attracted by the clash of their auras and had come to find the source of the commotion. Due to this, news of their upcoming duel spread.
"Did you hear? The young master of the Long Clan is going to duel some random guy on the final day!"
"What? Why would I be interested in that? The other guy will obviously lose to Long Chen."
"But you don't understand! I personally saw them clash in aura, and the other guy didn't lose out in the slightest!"
"What?! That's impossible!"
"It's true, if you want to see it, just come watch the duel!"
"Hmph, I'll judge the truth with my own two eyes."
Many similar conversations took place, everyone having their own goals. Some simply wanted to reach the gathering spot to kill off their competitors, some wanted to kill Long Chen, and some simply wanted to watch the show.
Within a shadowy area of the forest, a black-haired man was talking to a group of what seemed to be his followers.
"Long Chen will be tired out after this match. That idiot Long Bai and his group failed to kill him, so it's up to us. Don't fail me when the time comes."
"Yes, young master!"
As all of this took place, Damien flew around in search of an isolated area within the forest. There was something he wanted to try. It was unrelated to any training or technique he created, but still equally important.
"What does the full power of a 3rd class look like?"
The question was an interesting one, as Damien should be able to feel his exact power level. The problem was that he had never seen large-scale destruction to use as a basis for what he could do.
He had estimated his power back in Apeiron, but never had the chance to test it out.
Reaching a lush area without too much wildlife, Damien began charging his attack.
He wouldn't use any new techniques, but he wasn't simply going to use pure mana. He would use his most destructive attack for this test. The 4th form of his sword art, spatial collapse.
When he previously used this move, he always encapsulated a few kilometers at best, but there was a reason for this. It was the amount of mana he poured into his attack.
He usually did this instinctually, never thinking about the mechanics behind it. He didn't know whether it was a natural talent or a benefit of evolving, but he was always able to naturally tell how much mana he needed to put into an attack.
Due to this, he never used his full power or overused mana even when he was going all out. Besides this fact, he also never had a reason to use large-scale destructive force.
But today was different. He still had two and a half days before he needed to fight Long Chen, and that was more than enough time to recuperate his mana. Not to mention, he had Zara who could guard him while he was recovering.
Damien took out his sword and began channeling mana into it. Since he was testing his all-out force, the amplification feature on his sword was a necessity.
The colorless light of spatial mana coated the 1.5-meter-long blade of the sword, causing it to shine iridescently. Damien slowly moved his arm, bringing it above his head. As his sword passed through the air, ripples occurred in space.
It wasn't quite strong enough to cause spatial cracks, especially with the resilient atmosphere on the Cloud Plane, but its strength couldn't be denied. As Damien continued to pour his mana into the sword, the area of the spatial ripples spread, causing a phenomenon to appear in the air.
Clouds became small boats floating on an ocean of space, the sky ebbing and flowing like waves. Just like before, many people witnessed it, but none dared to go forward.
Damien's mana capacity at the moment was nearing 17,000, and although he didn't know the unit used to quantify it, he had more than 10x the mana he had at 2nd class. He couldn't imagine the sheer power he could produce.
It took around 5 minutes even at Damien's fastest speed for all his mana to enter the body of the sword, but once it was done, the sword itself looked like a second sun.
'Void Sword Art 4th Step: Spatial Collapse'
He didn't hesitate any longer, swinging his sword down in the air. His target was space itself. Even though it only hit air, the sword made impact as if it was a solid surface. The sky beneath its blade cracked and became a massive black crevasse in the air.
Within seconds, the crevasse expanded to cover a wide area, but other than that, there was only silence.
Thousands of beings watched the crack in the sky with fear, not knowing its next move, but they weren't forced to wait long.
BOOOOOM!
It was chaos. The sky continued to crack, creating a massive black hole that began to relentlessly pull its surroundings.
The sky twisted into the ground and the ground became walls. Trees were uprooted and fused together as their molecules collided. This fusion phenomenon occurred in the grass, the ground itself, and even a few unlucky beasts as well.
The grassy land cracked and splintered, unable to resist the terrifying gravitational force of the black hole.
As theorized by scientists, even light was pulled into this gravity, creating a massive shining ring around the void that slowly became filled with rocks resembling meteors.
Everything went to hell. The beasts that were remaining in the area were shredded to pieces by the opposing gravitational forces or pulled into the black hole, never to be seen again.
The ground no longer existed, leaving room for a massive abyssal chasm with no bottom. The world tried its best to repair the sky, but as long as the black hole existed, it was impossible.
The scene of devastation carried on for an entire 10 minutes uninhibited. And by the time it was over, nothing existed within the area. The black hole slowly became smaller and smaller, turning into a pin-sized dot before disappearing into the air.
Silence once again descended. Not only in the area Damien was in, but through the entire area of the massive forest that bore witness to the event. 1500 square kilometers worth of land was gone just like that.
That number didn't mean much out of context, but it was a plot of land slightly larger than Los Angeles. His full power was at the level where he could reduce an entire city to dust in a few minutes.
Damien simply stood in the air basking in the sensation he felt. He needed to take time and understand why he had so much power, as none of his previous fights had been so large scale. It almost didn't make sense for him to be this strong if he went all out.
But other than that curiosity, he only felt one thing about this experience. The feeling of having this much power…
It was enlightening.
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