Initially, the Celestia puppet was oblivious to the frozen flames that began to fill the ground, slowly spreading through the combat arena that was covered in red sand. But the more time passed, the easier it was for the puppet to defend against the storm of icicles that shot towards it.
Once that was the case, it could perceive its surroundings much better, allowing it to understand that Jason was planning something grand to take it out directly.
Unfortunately, Jason used the precious seconds which the Celestia puppet's spent in confusion before it realized that it was being distracted.
Jason used this chance to initiate the attack at that exact moment.
Making use of the surprise factor as his advantage, he controlled the Frozen flames that flared up according to his demands.
At the same time, Jason advanced towards the Celestia puppet, catapulting himself in its direction.
Through this, the Frozen flames began to burn in an even fierce light owing to the Arctic aura that enveloped them, freezing everything in its wake.
Followed by that, the activated Stigma were doing their job, and it was at this moment that the Celestia puppet realized that it had been trapped by Jason.
Yet, the puppet didn't panic because it was, after all, a puppet.
Thus emotions like fear were unknown to it, but that was something Jason was fully aware of.
He had already fought against the five puppets a few hundred times, after all.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtWith that in mind, the puppet didn't let the flames distract itself from his target, that was, Jason.
It utilized all kinds of affinities to protect itself from the freezing flames that lunged at it before attacking Jason once again.
To its misfortune, Jason was already overwhelming the surrounding area to the extent at which even the Celestia aura of the puppet was struggling to fight Jason's Arctic aura.
Through this, the freezing properties were slowly approaching the Celestia puppet that clearly understood how much room it had to evade Jason's attack, the Arctic aura, and the frozen flames on the ground that lunged at it.
Unfortunately, it also noted that Jason kept a steady stream of flames pouring on the ground while attacking it.
That was because every single frozen flame he used to attack the puppet was either directly destroyed, which ended the attack, or the Celestia puppet evaded the flames, allowing them to fall to the ground where they were glued to.
And that was the case with hundreds of flames Jason manifested at the same time.
In the end, he was not someone who liked to manifest one overpowered attack. On the contrary, he was confident that many small attacks were, in most cases, much better to wear his opponents down.
In fact, there were many more opponents that were able to evade a single powerful attack, allowing them to retaliate with the deadliest attack they could manifest.
While at least one out of the thousands of small attacks would hit his opponent.
With that in mind, Jason had often thought about how he could make the most use of the small attacks that his opponents evaded.
And it hadn't been long since he tried to use the tactic of covering the ground with small flames, which allowed Jason to make proper use of everything.
The only downside was the high mana consumption that he could perceive as of now.
To his misfortune, this downside was pretty big, and not something Jason could ignore.
He would have to make many more experiments to overcome it.
However, for now, it was more than enough before he just noticed that the first frozen flame brushed past the Celestia puppet, touching its mana membrane.
Under normal circumstances, the puppet was confident that nothing would happen to owe to this faint touch, and at most, there would be a tiny hole in the membrane at the spot it was touched.
Contrary to its expectations, the moment the frozen flame touched it, everything changed.
Jason merely released a minuscule flame to stick to the mana membrane, and in no time the flame increased in size. It slowly began to spread, burning through the entire mana membrane.
The moment the Celestia puppet noticed that the flames were devouring its membrane, it expelled the entire mana membrane and created a new one.
Yet, it was at this moment that a new volley of Frozen fireballs reached it, one of it cleanly hitting the Celestia puppet, initiating a cycle of expelling the mana membrane and creating a new one again.
However, it was at this moment that Jason appeared in front of the Celestia puppet, owing to the minuscule distraction that had prevented it from using as many elemental attacks as before.
Thus, Jason reached the puppet, allowing him to manifest dozens of Frozen flames right in front of it. The flames reached the Celestia puppet before it burned through its mana membrane, reaching the puppet's body.
After that, the fight could already be considered to have ended because the Frozen flames were burning through its entire body.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmNot able to figure out what it could do to extinguish the flames, its configurations made it attack Jason with even more fervor than before.
Yet, this did little to help the Celestia puppet gain an upper hand. Jason simply ascended high into the air, awaiting the Celestia puppet's death.
This happened only ten minutes later, and Jason began to smile brightly, glad that he had been able to defeat the Celestia puppet without the use of his entire divine energy.
In the end, this could be considered a great achievement, and he was even proud of himself.
But, rather than being overjoyed, Jason was intrigued about the weird ability the Celestia puppet had used to manipulate his mind earlier.
It was something he had never sensed before, and from the looks of it, the Celestia puppet that had the same cultivation base as him was unable to use it to a great extent.
That should indicate the difficulty of the specific affinity as it was possibly restricted owing to the cultivation base, or the comprehension that was required in order to wield the affinity properly.
Yet, at the same time, he was intrigued about the unique affinity or ability to manipulate his mind. Thus, he began to wonder what exactly the neutral mana he had could do.
Considering that he had the Celestia race's bloodline, he should owe the ability to transmute his mana and use affinities he had never been able to use before.
Unfortunately, he had no idea whether this was something his bloodline could innately do or if it was some sort of unique technique.
As such, he could only remind himself to take it slow and not jump to conclusions. He decided to think about it later, knowing that there was no way for him to find out an answer right off the bat.
Rather than bothering about something he couldn't find an answer to, Jason turned towards the last puppet; the Three paths puppet.
Initially, he had wanted to defeat it first even if it would take him hours. But somehow Jason believed that he would be able to defeat it the quickest. This was mostly owing to the fact that he received the same benefits as someone who cultivated in three paths, while only possessing the Maest cultivation vein!
With that in mind, he confidently approached the last puppet he had to fight as he said,
"I challenge you!"