Chapter 1547 Duke Horacio [5]
Now that they'd been fighting for a while, Damien had a relative understanding of the Duke's strengths and weaknesses.
The man had an incredible physical body. For him to take so many strikes from Damien and not have a single visible wound was an extremely impressive feat.
His laws were also highly developed. Including the concept of inclusion, the Duke had an understanding of his laws that others simply didn't possess, especially not Foreign Races who focused more on their individual powers than the laws they were derived from.
In terms of power, Duke Horacio was the strongest person Damien had fought since Malevalon Straea.
But the two could be differentiated by a single key difference.
'The Duke's mental defenses aren't up to par.'
During their fight in the spacetime layers and even in the time before and after that, the Duke had shown signs of mental confusion wearing him down.
His power was burdensome to handle. Damien knew that from experience. While he was able to compensate for that burden with several different creative methods, the Duke hadn't done the same.
'He's tanking the mental hits, but they're wearing him down.'
That could be observed from the amount of time it took for Duke Horacio to escape the cage Damien made.
Plus, his eyes were unfocused as he attacked in the current moment.
'If it's mental attacks… '
Damien's mind worked at light speed. The gears turned and turned, and suddenly, an idea appeared.
Rather, it was a question.
A method to defeat the Duke arose from within it, but Damien's main focus had shifted to the question itself.
'Existence…it can do anything, right?'
His eyes sharpened.
Seeing the Duke charging at him, he realized that this was the perfect opportunity.
He threw his body forward and propelled himself to the maximum speed he could reach in the distance between them.
He primed his hand, infusing it with Existence mana that held a concept that Damien didn't know yet.
No, it was the concept Damien was currently comprehending.
Chaos.
To enforce absolute chaos onto his enemy's body. That was Damien's goal.
And with the Duke disoriented, he miscalculated Damien's position, completely missing his prepared attack as the man arrived next to him.
In that second, Damien and Duke Horacio made eye contact.
Their faces were less than a foot away from each other, but only for a millisecond before they sped past each other.
But that millisecond was enough time.
Because, unlike the Duke, Damien didn't miscalculate his trajectory.
Damien's palm crashed into the Duke's face.
"Strike one."
VOOOOOOOOOM!
A jaw-dropping pulse of mana split into Duke Horacio's skull. His brain rattled around, and his consciousness was pulled in between reality and the land of dreams.
Vertigo was an understatement for what the Duke experienced. His entire soul was put in a state of disharmony and disconnection from his body.
His spiritual world was heavily protected, but those protections were torn down one by one by the terrifying force that threatened to incinerate his mind.
Damien shot past the Duke and turned around.
The man was wobbling in the air like a drunk. He didn't know what the difference between up and down was right now.
It had to be remembered that Duke Horacio's physical body wasn't in the best state. His cells had died in many isolated locations, and while he'd also corrected his displaced organelles, he had to suffer consequences for using his power at such a minute level.
The Duke was properly incapacitated because of the combined effect of his physical and mental injuries.
It was the perfect opportunity.
BOOOOOOOM!
The atmosphere cracked as Damien redirected his momentum and shot back in the direction he came from without any deceleration.
Like a speeding rocket, Damien turned into a jet-propelled monstrosity that locked onto the Duke and refused to let go.
Damien's hand shot out again. His aim was the same as the previous shot.
However, the Duke wasn't planning to go down so easily.
His brain was a mess and he could hardly think, but his instincts were roaring at him to dodge.
Using the bare minimum amount of malakh he could, he teleported. Just enough to completely avoid Damien's charge.
BOOOOOOOM!
The sheer force Damien carried with him exploded past Duke Horacio. As it grazed his cheek and gave him a sense of death, it brought his consciousness back to reality.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Duke Horacio had understood something in that moment.
If Damien wanted him dead, he could absolutely kill him.
He no longer had the chance to act as he pleased. He needed to recover this situation as best as he could using any means at his disposal.
Rather than heavy-hitting, powerful attacks as he'd been producing thus far, the Duke switched to faster attacks with less power, painting a 360-degree radius around him in spatial chaos of his own creation.
It was a temporary measure to keep Damien wary and away. Until he regained total control over his–
"Strike two."
The Duke's eyes widened.
When did Damien get next to him?
And…how?!
VOOOOOOOOOOM!
A palm struck his forehead with immense force.
The same scenario repeated itself. The Duke's internals were filled with terrifying mana that broke down his mind and severed the connection between his soul and body.
Everything was spinning. Everything was spinning, including his body.
The Duke couldn't tell if reality was real anymore. He felt like he was back in the spacetime layers as an ordinary mortal.
Memories of the past and present melded as his mental protections were destroyed. His sense of self was thrown into chaos, making him confuse the abilities he had with ones he remembered from others.
Duke Horacio could hardly control his malakh anymore. It wildly sprayed out of his body as his systems entered a confused state.
He was both exerting power and losing control over it at the same time.
Like a machine that was malfunctioning, Duke Horacio twitched as he desperately clutched at straws to keep himself stable.
Unfortunately, Damien didn't give him the chance.
"That's game."
He appeared in front of the Duke as if he wasn't supposed to be far behind the man right now.
He reached out, slammed his hand into the Duke's face, and grabbed his head in a tight hold.
VOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The final expulsion of mana was completely different from the first two.
The Duke's eyes rolled up into his head and leaked blood. He foamed at the mouth, losing all signs of humanity.
His mind was absolutely crushed. His soul was still within his body, but it was swirling like a galaxy and no longer held its original humanoid shape, evidence of the level of dissociation it had experienced.
Chaos.
That was what Damien wanted to come from his attacks. That was what Damien wanted to enforce on Duke Horacio's existence.
And the effects produced by that attempt…
Needless to say, chaos worked exactly as it was advertised.
Duke Horacio was alive, but only by the technical definition of the word.
'That's the right state.'
This was exactly what Damien had intended.
'Now, if I just…'
He unleashed the power of devouring that he held, however, he did not aim for Horacio's entire existence.
Instead, he focused his power on the man's spiritual world, exclusively aiming to devour his memories.
Naturally, it was a success. Damien was no longer a youth who didn't know how to control the essence of the Void.
Duke Horacio's memories flowed into Damien's mind, and at the same rate, they flowed out.
It was time for the primary portion of this experiment.
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