The Martial Unity

The charge of the Master-level beast into close-range combat marked a shift in the battle. The first phase of the battle had ended within thirty seconds of commencement. It ended the moment a significant realization dawned on it.

The realization that it could not kill its target with low effort.

That its opponent was not weak.

That he wouldn't simply perish with little exertion.

That was all that this had been.

Little exertion.

The creature rushed against Rui with blinding speed and astronomical momentum, charging at him with full power as the jaws of the dragon and phoenix rushed to gobble him up in a single rush.

In just the briefest of moments, it had arrived before Rui could even react.

WHOOSH

Rui barely avoided the attack within an inch of his life as the creature crashed into an empty feint.

BOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!

A collision larger than anything he had ever beheld in his entire life erupted as the devastating momentum of the creature ravaged the Mellow Manifold even further. Even the mere aftereffects of the horrifying power of the Master-level Beast possessed the ability to wipe out all life in the Mellow Dungeon.

Yet, the eyes of the chimera never shifted away from Rui.

Not once.

Its bloodlusted, tranced gaze bore into Rui even as its mighty tail flung itself at him with an astronomical velocity, threatening to erase him with a single blow.

WHOOSH

Shivers crawled across his skin as he barely managed to get out of the way a mere microsecond before it struck him, surviving by the skin of his teeth.

Yet, the chimera was just getting started.

The dragon and phoenix heads unleashed a tsunami of an inferno as white-hot flames expanded at speeds that beggared the mind.

"Niflheim." Rui bore the pain of being burned without so much twitching.

Not only did Niflheim dull the worst of the fire attack, but the heat conditioning that he sustained during the training made him even more resistant to it. He was grateful he made sure to gain passive mastery of the two domains.

He'd have died very quickly had he not.

Weaving Blood surged to rapidly heal his burned flesh as he leaped away from the inferno, rushing away at top speed.

Yet, the chimera was vastly faster.

Rui's eyes widened as a blindingly fast tail whip surged toward him at extraordinary speeds, its size leaving him with no room for escape.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

Rui gritted his teeth, barely having pre-emptively prepared a Flux Earther to disperse the blow.

It was insufficient.

CRACK!

He felt a sharp pain in his broken forearm as he failed to disperse the power properly. The mistake cost him a cleanly broken arm.

Yet, it was not in vain.

WHOOOSH!

Suddenly, the environment cooled as the thermoacoustic cooling, powered by the chimera itself, began taking effect. The enormous amount of power that the chimera essentially poured into Rui's Niflheim caused the temperature to plummet far faster than Rui could ever do so with his own power.

The chimera shuddered as the flames of its phoenix feather dimmed. Hot environments were the most optimal environment for phoenixes and most dragons. These creatures had evolved to have extremely high internal temperatures for healthy survival. Hot environments allowed them to maintain their high internal heat easily.

And that was precisely why Rui had opted to go for Niflheim. It had turned out to be the most antithetical environment against this particular chimera. It was the most confounding creature he had laid his eyes on.

The enlightenment of the Tree of Life was unable to easily discern what environment was most antithetical to the chimera because it was a hybrid fusion of multiple entirely different species.

However, it showed him the most antithetical domains for each of the three individual species integrated into the chimera. Two of them had evolved for hot environments, and only one of them had evolved for cold environments. It was a shthat there was no one temperature antithetical to all of its being, but alas, he could only choose the lesser of two evils.

That lesser evil was Niflheim, greatly antithetical to the dragon and phoenix sections of the chimera's body.

The effects were almost instantly visible due to just how antithetical they were. The dragon's scales, meant for heat resistance rather than cold resistance, grew more brittle as they lowered in temperature while the phoenix's flames grew even dimmer.

The monster was clearly displeased.

Yet, its displeasure didn't bode well for Rui.

It was a Master

It possessed the power to rewrite heaven and earth as a Master-level creature.

And that was exactly what it sought to do as its body shook with power, preparing the most powerful fireball that it could muster up.

RUMBLE

The dragon and phoenix opened their mouths to unleash the most powerful inferno of the batt—

"Breathing Crucifix."

What was shaping up to be a horrifying roar of a fire attack partially morphed into a cough as Rui timed the psychological shackle on breathing at precisely the right moment.

Unfortunately, he was dealing with a Master-level beast.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!

He gritted his teeth gravely as a horrifying wave of heating destruction erupted from the creature. The fire expanded, spreading across the entire manifold at a speed that beggared the mind. In an instant, all the water had evaporated. A vast amount of fauna and flora had been vaporized. In an instant, it birthed an enormous crater larger than any other Rui had ever seen.

Such was the horrifying power of a Master-level beast.

Yet, despite the titanic show of power, its eyes flared with rage and fury.

He was still standing.

The combination of his Muspelheim conditioning, Niflheim, Adamant Reforging, and Nemean Blossom were the sole reasons he hadn't been vaporized. Yet, he would have been reduced to ash, nonetheless, had he faced the full power of the heat focused on him rather than diluted over an enormous area.

Yet, even a fraction of a Master-level beast's power left him ravaged

SSSSSS…

His flesh was burned, bruised, and wounded while his bones were broken.

Yet, he was still standing.

A single minute had passed since the inception of the battle.