Chapter 232: Battle Amongst Stars (1)

Adrian had purposefully replied in the Garog tongue. And he knew Kharn had understood what he said. Word for word. For the High Priest, who had dedicated his entire existence to the worship of his creator, it was the ultimate blasphemy.He was overwhelmed with rage. A rage so pure and absolute that it threatened to make him explode. A rage that could be felt as a wave thousands of meters away.

{BLASPHEMER! SOUL-EATER! I WILL GRIND YOUR BONES TO DUST AND OFFER THEM AS PENANCE TO THE VOID!}

His four crimson eyes blazed with the light of dying stars. There were no more words. No more strategy. There was only vengeance.

With a roar that was felt like an attack on its own, he charged. He was a living meteor, a being of stone and rage, crossing the kilometers between them in an instant.

His four fists, each one now glowing with a destructive energy, became a whirlwind of devastating blows, each strike carrying the force to shatter an asteroid.

Adrian’s mind went into a state of cold, perfect focus. As a 7-Star Transcendent, he knew he was weaker than this being, who must be at the very peak of the stage.

He was slower. He was less durable. But he was smarter. The battle began, and Adrian’s first and only objective was to survive, to learn, and to protect his creation.

He could not let the Oracle be destroyed in this fight. Luckily, the vast emptiness of space had more than enough room to contain the two of them.

With [Omnisense] active, Adrian read Kharn’s furious assault down to the last microsecond, calculating the minor deviations in his trajectory and the one, single, optimal path to evade.

All of it happened in a fraction of a thought, and with a clear direction in mind, he executed Phantom Steps. He navigated the three-dimensional battlefield of open space with an impossible agility.

Kharn’s colossal fists smashed into empty void where he had been a microsecond before, the sheer force of the missed blows leaving visible distortions in space, like heat haze, and slightly damaging the Oracle. But it remained intact.

It was not a fight; it was a dance, a desperate, high-speed ballet with Adrian always one step ahead of annihilation.

While he dodged, his [Omnisense] was working at its peak. He wasn’t just watching a monster. He was analyzing a system.

He mapped Kharn’s attack patterns, the slight delay between his upper and lower arm strikes, the way he favored his right side where his previous wound was less severe.

He analyzed the energy expenditure of every punch, the fluctuations in his aura, the minute stress fractures that spiderwebbed across his stony hide with every violent exertion. He was learning.

{STAND AND FIGHT, COWARD!} Kharn bellowed, growing frustrated with his inability to land a clean blow on the slippery insect.

Adrian knew he couldn’t dodge forever. He was burning his mana at an alarming rate to keep up with the fight. He would run out of power sooner rather than later. He needed to change the battlefield.

With a carefully timed burst from his thrusters, he allowed one of Kharn’s glancing blows to connect with his shoulder. The impact was still immense, sending him hurtling uncontrollably through space. It looked like a mistake.

He spun out of control, tumbling towards the massive, chaotic debris field left behind by the destroyed Garog warship.

The enraged Kharn saw his chance and gave chase like a predator closing in for the kill.

This was the new arena. A chaotic, three-dimensional maze of spinning, jagged ship fragments and shattered asteroids.

Kharn’s wide, powerful swings were now a liability, his immense strength useless as he was forced to navigate the treacherous environment. This was Adrian’s world.

He weaved through the debris with the grace of a ghost, using the spinning asteroids as cover, his thrusters pushing off twisted metal to change his trajectory in an instant.

He began his counter-attack. It was not a grand assault, but a death by a thousand cuts. He would use his Mana Gun to fire a mana blast at a piece of debris, ricocheting the shot to strike Kharn from an unexpected angle, forcing the Garog to waste precious energy deflecting the annoying, unpredictable attacks.

He used the asteroids as leverage, launching himself from their surfaces to attack Kharn’s blind spots.

He would appear behind him, land a quick, precise Resonant Fist on the back of a knee joint, and vanish before Kharn could even turn around.

The blows weren’t powerful enough to cause serious damage, but the vibrational pulses were accumulating, sending jarring, numbing shocks through the High Priest’s body, slowing his movements and fueling his impotent rage.

{INSECT!} Kharn roared, finally losing all patience. He stopped chasing and slammed his two upper fists against his two lower fists. A massive, omnidirectional shockwave of pure force erupted from his body, shattering every piece of debris in a five-hundred-meter radius.

The battlefield was clear again. The maze was gone, pulverized into a fine, glittering dust. Kharn floated in the center of the now-empty space, panting from the massive energy expenditure. He had spent a significant portion of his limited reserves to destroy the environment that was being used against him.

Adrian hovered a short distance away with steady breathing. He had conserved his energy, letting his opponent do all the work. He had successfully goaded the stronger foe into wasting his stamina. He saw his opening. The advantage was his.

He was about to press his attack, to initiate his own offensive and end this grueling fight, when Kharn looked at him, a slow, cruel, and utterly confident smile spreading across his stony face.

{You think you have tired me out. You think you have won. You understand nothing.}

Adrian froze, a sudden sense of immense danger washing over him as his instincts flared to life.

{You have only faced the strength of my fists,} Kharn continued, raising his four hands. {Now, you will face the weight of my faith!}

He was no longer drawing on his own energy. He became a nexus, a focal point. From the ship, hundreds of the Garog warriors yet to launch felt the call of their High Priest. They knelt as one, and their collective grief and faith were drawn from them, a visible stream of green energy that left the ship.

The energy converged on Kharn, weaving around him and coalescing. A massive, spectral avatar began to form around his body, and his size kept growing until he became twenty meters tall.

He raised his four arms and his four eyes burned with the collective vengeance of a hundred souls.

{YOU CAN’T HIDE ANYMORE, INSECT!} ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ ????????????????????·????????????????·????????????