A violent rush of pressure spread out from all sides. Starlight's robes, or what remained of them, fluttered wildly, his aura only increasing with every passing moment. And then, everything seemed to become eerily quiet.
Whether it was the thunderous storm above, or the crackling of Ryu's lightning flame, it all fell into the very same silence.
Starlight's gaze, which had just been marred by fury, seemed to have become entirely placid, even his five summoned constellations, which had been exuding mighty presence themselves, became the picture of calmness, not fluctuating even in the slightest.
Ironically, subtlety and subtleness suddenly took center stage, boldly proclaiming its presence. It became difficult even for those watching the battle to remember that there were actually two people on the battlefield and not just one. For some reason, every time they looked away from Starlight, he would vanish from their psyches until they looked again.
He seemed to not exist at all, to have no weight and presence, to be... void.
Suddenly, a Small Realm of complete darkness descended and everything was swallowed into this void. Qi vanished on touch, senses seemed to be sealed within a vacuum, and Ryu's piercing gaze seemed to have become useless.
Ryu's gaze narrowed. 'Second Immortal Grade..
It was a step below Ryu's own down, but it was highly impressive, although it was mitigated somewhat by the fact that Starlight was a half step away from the Path Extinction Realm already. Even so, the fact that he had a Dao a step above his current cultivation Realm when most would be lucky to have one astep below spoke volumes, almost more than the fact that it was an Ancient Dao.
If it had been at the First Immortal Grade, Ryu wouldn't feel a need to take it seriously at all. But, because it was just a step below his own and Ryu couldn't fuse his Daos, it was enough for them to be somewhat on par, which effectively canceled out much of the advantages that Ryu had just clawed back.
"Die."
The word was likely something that Ryu shouldn't have been able to hear. But even more important than that, the attack was supposed to be something that he could see. And yet, just at the final moment, Ryu barely managed to dodge.
A sword swung by Ryu's body, just barely missing his shoulder.
A strong pull of causality tried to pull Ryu back into a preferred timeline.
With the distance between himself and Starlight suddenly becoming less than a meter, the pull was far more violent than it had ever been before, and with Starlight's Do seemingly perfectly infusing into his Small Realm, it even faintly began to suppress the layers of Ryu's own at the same time.
Ryu's Spiritual Sea pulsed and a wave of Spiritual Qi shattered the pull of causality by pouring more strength into the Unbalance Mantra. However, before he could relax, the devastating push and pull effects of Starlight's blackhole and star constellations descended, threatening to shred him to pieces.
Ryu's gaze flashed with a cold light and his palms suddenly slammed together, stronger and stronger waves of Spiritual Qi forming in the region around him.
In that moment, a formation took shape, if it could be called a formation at all.
It formed half of a shield on one half, and on the other there was half of a clock which had odd runes written into it as opposed to numbers.
Ryu's gaze flashed and the hand of the clock rotated once before striking at one of its runes and unleashing a hollow DONG! Sound.
A strong pulse formed a ring of pressure around Ryu that dispersed the pressure and sent Starlight back, forcing the latter to take three heavy steps backward.
This was the first time Ryu had unleashed one of the formations of the formation jade, but the result was a pleasant surprise, at least it was for a moment before the formation suddenly collapsed.Ryu's pupils constric d. He didn't immediately understand what had happened because Starlight's blade had already descended again like the silent strike of a deadly assassin.
Ryu was finding it harder and harder to pinpoint Starlight's location, almost as though the latter was becoming better and better at countering his senses as time went on. This time, he didn't manage to get out of the way of the sword entirely before a faint line of red appeared on his torso, and then another.
Ryu's gaze was entirely cold.
He slammed his palms together once again, forcing the half shield, half clock formation into existence once again. But this time, it crumbled even faster.
'It's the Small Realm. The formations need a state of unbalance to workproperly, but I can't fully suppress Starlight's Small Realm which follows an entirely orthodox path. If I wanted to sustain the formation. I would have to entirely orthodox path. If I wanted to sustain the formation, I would have to continuously feed it Spiritual Qi. It would be the equivalent of spending the energy needed to form it again and again, and sometimes even multiple times a second:
Even Ryu couldn't stand such an expenditure and he realized that the Unbalance Mantra and its connecting techniques weren't infallible... At least not when he could fuse them. Such an obvious weakness likely wouldn't exist if he had the full inheritance.
Ryu's gaze turned colder at this prospect and he realized why he very much disliked the person who left behind that Rune.
Ryu dodged backward again and another blade mark appeared on his body.
He knew that things couldn't continue like this. He was reacting rather than being proactive. His Da was fully focused on sensing his surroundings now and that was just barely enough to see through Starlight's strikes in the final moments and avoid fatal damage. But if he was so passive, it was only a matter of time before he suffered.
Ryu's jaw set and he took deep breaths.
He could tell that Starlight still hadn't gone all out. Even still, behind that cold gaze of his, Ryu could see the disdain and derision. At this point, it seemed that he wasn't going all out just to prove a point, the very same point he had been trying to prove from the very beginning.
Ryu dodged backward again and another blade mark appeared on his body.
He knew that things couldn't continue like this. He was reacting rather than being proactive. His Dao was fully focused on sensing his surroundings now and that was just barely enough to see through Starlight's strikes in the final moments and avoid fatal damage. But if he was so passive, it was only a matter of time before he suffered.
This is not working... So be it. If the world rejects me, I shall be the enemy of the world.
Ryu's slit pupils became malevolent.
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