The villainess shall be mine

After being injured by the plasma sword, Rudeus stepped back immediately and tried to recover from his injuries, using his power to accelerate his healing, but Adam's power messed up the process so he distanced himself even further away from Adam.

This was the first time Rudeus stepped away from an opponent in a very long time, and for some reason, he felt like he was at a disadvantage.

Adam might have been just reckless or insane, to the point that he took on a critical hit just so that he could counterattack in a very reckless way, almost as if he bet everything on his luck. However, was that really the case?

Because if it wasn't, then Adam had just predicted the outcome of that exchange of blows.

"Such a thing…" Rudeus felt like it was absurd, knowing that Adam looked so desperate earlier. "What had changed?"

Physically, Adam looked the same, and it wasn't like there was a phenomenal surge of power coming from him.

It was just that Adam had become fearless. If it was for someone else, the probability of them creating a miracle by themselves in this state would be low, but for Adam, just being able to create a miracle would be an understatement.

Rudeus wasn't probably aware of it, but if it wasn't due to Adam's inability to use even a considerable fraction of his power, he would have already died in a gruesome way.

"Nope, I won't let you do that…" Adam said, then threw the handle of his sword at Rudeus. Yet another incomprehensible action that left Rudeus bewildered.

"Crack! Crack!" Adam held his chin and tried to readjust his disfigured face. "Ouch. It hurts."

The sword handle spun and headed towards Rudeus, but then, two plasma blades appeared from both of the handle's ends.

Swoosh!

After that, the spinning gained momentum, to the point that it looked like a black disk with a platinum edge that headed to Rudeus at an insane speed.

This was because the plasma sword ignored gravity and any opposing force, and not only did it spin but there was two plasma blade made of antimatter, turning it into an unstoppable killing machine.

It just sounded silly that such a thing was happening, as if Adam was playing around, but Rudeus felt the danger.

"I don't need to use anything much to win. I was already strong enough to beat someone of your level, but it's just that I lacked imagination. Or should I say, I wasn't convinced that I could do it… Well, aren't I a little talkative now? It feels like we exchanged place," Adam said, and a fearless and calm look appeared on his face.

His red crimson eyes were distinct, even though his head was covered with thick red blood, making him look more and more intimidating as time passed.

After that, Rudeus just avoided the black disk heading at him, but Adam grinned, then reached his hand towards Rudeus, and after that, the black disk changed direction following the movement of his hand.

"What…" Rudeus was surprised that the black disk was following him, and he could also see Adam coming at him from the opposite direction.

He had already begun healing from his injuries, but the injuries were severe, and moving at full speed didn't help. Moreover, his mind became clouded again as he was far from Adam, so he was feeling an urge to finish Adam as fast as possible.

"Tch! Such a trick!" Rudeus shouted, but the black disk didn't stop and cut everything that was in front of it as if they were made of foam. Still, Rudeus couldn't accept the fact that this black disk made him flee.

He suddenly became angry and rushed at Adam with the intent to tear his heart out of his chest. From what he could see, the only threat was that black sword, and Adam himself was vulnerable.

Swoosh!

Rudeus used one of the huge pillars to propel himself forward while being in mid-air, and he used so much force that the pillar broke apart.

Boom!

His arm was already close to healing and he was determined to finish Adam with this last attack.

However, Adam also rushed at him with a calm look on his face and confronted him head-on.

That was when Rudeus felt like he just made a very stupid decision.

"I never said that I only had one sword," Adam said, and Rudeus's eyes widened, but it was already too late for Rudeus to avoid the attack.

Slash!

"Kuh!"

Adam passed through Rudeus'a body which was severed into two and filthy bloody red substances showered him.

Sprut!

Then Rudeus's remains and the fragments of his body covered the ground because he moved at a high speed when he was cut into two by Adam. The whole scene was not agreeable to look at.

The two plasma blades retracted and Adam caught the sword handle in his hand and then landed on the ground.

Then the fight ended just like that so easily that it was so anticlimactic.

Nevertheless, Adam demonstrated something that he couldn't achieve while being his normal self. He learned from his mistake and dealt with all of his weaknesses, making him hundreds of times more powerful than he was before.

He finally surpassed one of his limits, a limit that held him back the most. Now that he didn't limit himself to the norm of his past life, to the norm of a simple human, to the logic imposed by nature, he became a completely different person.

He made use of his imagination no matter how ridiculous they were because he was sure that he could make them a reality. Without fear, his imagination knew no limits, and no one could say if that was a bad or good thing, only the result was important.

"Kuh… How…?" Rudeus was not dead yet, despite his body being severed into two.

"Long-distance attacks, close-up attacks, sneak attacks, mental attacks, I can deal with all of that now. How? That's not the question. What I was wondering about was, why wouldn't I be able to do it with my power?" Adam said, looking at Rudeus with eyes full of confidence as if he was saying that he could bring the dead back to life if he wanted to.

Blood dripped from Adam's hand.

Tip! Tip!

The only thing that Adam could control with his thoughts was his spiritual form, but this form only existed within the world inside of him before so there was no guarantee that it would work outside, and most of all, his body could only withstand one second worth of power from beyond the gate of soul.

However, that was already better than nothing. So, he severed two of his fingers and put them into the handle of the plasma sword, and then created the ability to be able to control his body parts even if they were detached from his body.

Such reckless thinking. There must have been thousands of ways to handle the situation, but Adam believed that this ability almost eliminated all of his weaknesses.

With it, he managed to control his fingers to generate a tiny amount of antimatter, and with the help of nanoparticles, he created two sword handle capable of detecting the presence of antimatter. These nanoparticles were contained inside of a plasma blade, and they moved according to the antimatters movement which was controlled by Adam.

With this, Adam could control the sword with his thoughts, giving him the ability to launch remote attacks, moreover, these swords would always come back at him when he need them, eliminating every risk of him being stripped of his weapon, and most of all, he created two after imagining what would happen if he only had one.

Adam was by no means a genius, so even though he was smarter than an average human and had a wild imagination, this was the solution that he came up with, the ability to manifest his spiritual form outside of his body.

Previously, Pride managed to create two abilities, which were gravitational manipulation and mental manipulation, but that was in exchange for his self-awareness, and were just temporary, considering that Adam's body was not made to hold multiple power at the same time.

Still, now Adam had almost no weakness, apart from the fact that his body was still not strong enough to hold multiple power at the same time. For now, he barely managed to control his spiritual form and at the same time his power nullification, while focusing on his two fingers to create a time fraction of antimatter. It was mentally taxing, but Adam didn't have doubts about his actions, which made it even more concerning and intimidating.

At that moment, Adam had physical abilities similar to Rudeus's, his nullification power, two swords that could cut anything, and the ability to manifest his spiritual form.

Nevertheless, his body was still mortal, and his body's natural defense, which was his subconscious, strongly opposed to letting him open the gate of his soul. This was not something natural, even though the body tended to have mechanisms that protected it against harm, Adam was being exploited throughout and that was a fact. Someone used his past trauma and his as a gate to lock away his power deep inside of his soul. In normal circumstances, Adam would never be able to access his full power even if he gathered enough tree fragments to advance to the next level of existence without discarding his fear and awakening his true self.

Without taking into account that if his body could manage to assimilate onesecond'sd worth of power from beyond the gate of his soul, it would take him millions of years to fully control that world, and make that power his, while letting his flesh evolve. Besides, every time he did that, he needed to cast away some of his emotions. That was why when Rudeus looked at Adam, he said: "Have you… seen your face? You look just like me…"

Adam still activated his nullification power, without letting Rudeus the chance to recover, but this actually cleared Rudeus's mind a bit in his final moments.