Divine Beast Ascension

559 Oli vs Gennor, Sky Wyvern

“WHAT A POWERFUL BLOODLINE!!” Yeter yelled at the top of his lungs, making sure even the kitchen staff could hear him. That statement caused an eruption of laughter to fill the balcony.

Zelsh also joined in the laughing fest, raising his hands and engulfing them in earth essence to give Oli two massive thumbs up.

“Oh my…” Ingall was almost speechless. “Why did you choose him to fight, exactly?”

Rhyner chuckled lightly, “Because he dared to antagonize the Rot Team since before the regional qualifier had begun, even after my warning to not do so. This way, he shouldn’t forget the embarrassing lesson Lady Kelna taught him at the qualifier, and, hopefully, Hiztor will humble up. But I’m not getting my hopes up. Considering how dense he’s been and how he leans on his family name and teachings for all his status and accomplishments, I don’t want to set any real expectations.”

“Get it? He just knew Oliver would teach the brat a lesson!” Zelsh roared, not caring who heard him. “The kid is a one-trick pony that can only fight solo battles in a controlled environment, just like how he was raised, no doubt. So getting someone wild to prove his strategy can get countered was perfect and hilarious!”

Among the many tables, only one was truly silent.

Kako’s jaw had all but hit the tabletop after seeing Oli dispatch Hiztor in seconds. It was absurd for Kako to imagine yet it had played out right in front of him. Though Kako was confident that he could beat Hiztor, he never assumed that Hiztor was such an easy foe.

Netra was eyeing Oli, or better said, she was eyeing his essence. She could recognize Oli’s dark essence and that was how she planned to definitively prove to herself that Oliver was truly Oli.

But while the conversation with Oliver had let her believe that was the case, Netra never suspected that his essence would be the disproving factor.

.....

The nature of the dark essence didn’t seem to be very dissimilar. Yet there were obvious differences in the essence itself. It felt more reminiscent of Kraz’s death essence. However, it was clearly not the same either, according to Netra’s powerful senses. Only after some serious thought would Netra reach a different conclusion. That the dark essence was halfway through becoming death essence, which Kraz and King Zelsh had suggested was possible in the past.

So it didn’t overrule the chance of Oliver being Oli. But it did nothing to confirm it either.

Watching from above, Gennor didn’t hide his praising smile. “You were right. At best, what you did was remove a nuisance from our battlefield. I recognize you as the strongest human I’ve met. So, please, don’t do my expectations a disservice.”

Chuckling, Oli ripped the diagonal, stone wall from the ground and threw it like a frisbee at his stone box. The makeshift structure crumbled away leaving only boulders and debris.

“Now that the pest is gone, we can both take this seriously,” Oli replied. “You’re probably the fastest mortal I’ve ever fought, so I’m looking forward to this.”

“You’re not slow. But you’re not fast, either. So, shall I come to you?” Gennor teasingly said.

Oli shrugged and laughed, “Sure. I can wait here if you need.”

“... Or, I could find out how you overcome your weakness.”

Gennor flapped his wings and two enormous, three-krin wind blades fell from the sky with whistling speed and pinpoint accuracy.

Crunch…

Oli put up a wall to defend himself. But it was cleanly sliced through without any resistance.

However, Oli had moved and didn’t bother standing behind the wall. He knew from a glance alone that a wall wasn’t going to be enough. But it did offer Oli some insight into how strong the wind blades were.

“By weakness, you’re referring to my lack of wings?” Oli gave a late reply.

“Yes,” Gennor answered.

Since Gennor was seemingly waiting for Oli’s response, Oli paused and said, “Well… considering how powerful your wind arts are from that distance, my lack of wings is definitely a weakness. One I have no choice but to overcome. Got any suggestions for me?”

“Don’t surrender too quickly,” laughed Gennor, hurling four more wind blades.

Oli didn’t bother throwing up any more stone walls. Instead, Oli dissipated all of his earth essence and surrounded himself with only dark-death essence.

At the same time, Oli evaded the first two attacks without any trouble. The third wind blade came close to hitting Oli but he remained confident. Because rather than fully committing to a retreat, Oli perfectly lined himself up with the fourth wind blade.

All of Oli’s dark-death essence was suddenly pulled into Oli’s mace, creating a sickly, misty coating of black energy. Now ready, Oli swung the mace in defense at the incoming three-krin blade of wind.

Fwoozzz!

The collision was strange to watch but it still hooked everyone’s attention. Even Hiztor was watching in shock while the medics were treating him.

The wind essence clashed with the mass of dark-death essence. Though Oli’s attack wasn’t strong enough to completely destroy the strike, the dark-death essence managed to corrode and chip away at the center of the wind blade. It was left split in two and flew right past Oli without leaving a scratch.

Amazed, Gennor shouted, “Well done! I was right, you are the strongest human I’ve ever fought. But even if you can block one attack from me, how will you keep up your struggle?”

“Struggle? Who said that was a struggle?” Oli laughed, mace fully charged with dark-death essence.

Letting his attack decide the truth, Gennor launched another six wind blades from high in the air.

But Oli reacted differently this time. Four diagonal stone walls rushed out of the ground to form a pyramid around Oli. They slammed into each other to seal the space inside, just in time to defend against the huge wind blades.

C-Crunch! Crunch…

The walls all fell but not as cleanly as before. Gennor was a little shocked to see that there wasn’t a single perfectly clean cut anywhere on the broken pyramid. However, it was more shocking that Oli was nowhere to be found.

Crackle, crackle…

A hole opened up a few krin away from the rubble and Oli leaped out. “It may not be fancy or reseal itself, but I can dig when I need to. Though I am surprised that was so effective against you and your wind.”

“Very well. Then let’s get serious!” Gennor roared.

Six long wind blades were unleashed, followed by another six seconds later. Gennor’s simple strategy was to wait there and attack, attack, attack! Since Oli hadn’t been able to truly retaliate, the Sky Wyvern didn’t see a need to do anything more.

Oli raced around the arena to avoid as many wind blades as possible. He occasionally smashed through one to clear a path but Oli was clearly focused on evasion and defense. It was getting more and more one-sided by the minute.

*He’s almost twenty-krin high right now. That’s too far for the Shadow Puppet art. And his wind will crumble away any boulders I throw. So I guess that leaves me with only a few options…* Oli’s mind was racing faster than his legs. Yet he kept calm and just kept focusing on the next step toward victory instead of just the end goal.

As waves of wind blades rained down from above, Oli tried a new approach.

When he swung his mace, all the essence gathered at the end was flung into a wind blade. It proved to have the same effect as before, putting a smile on Oli’s face.

Next, Oli tried the same thing but on a larger scale. He gathered even more essence than before and flung three smaller masses of dark-death essence, successfully corroding and redirecting three wind blades that time.

That allowed Oli to be under far less stress and bought him some more time to devise a strategy.

After a few more waves of blades, Oli hurled three orbs of dark-death essence at Gennor. But it failed miserably. Not only was Oli’s attack slower than the wind blades but Gennor was even faster than Oli. The wyvern hardly had to flap to effortlessly evade Oli’s long-range attack as the orbs of essence breezed past him.

Back on the ground, Oli angrily scoffed and kept running to avoid the next batch of wind blades.

Yet he didn’t dare gather more dark-death essence around his mace. Instead, Oli gathered earth essence. He couldn’t make multiple orbs of earth essence or throw his essence at even mid-range. But it turned out to be enough against a single wind blade when concentrated enough.

The pressure on Oli was turning one-sided again, and at a faster pace than ever. But Oli’s disappointed expression suddenly shifted without a word.

Gennor noticed the change but didn’t understand why it had occurred. By the time Gennor figured it out, it was already too late. Because it was a sudden, sickly pain that gave it all away.