Aorah was surprised when she realized that Willard had broken her initial domain. “Incredible. This must be the power of that devine energy.” Aorah chugged it up to that mystifying energy she sorted. Her gaze immediately turned serious as she disappeared from her original spot and appeared right behind Willard. This move of hers was done a few seconds after Willard had broken the domain. She wanted to strike as fast as possible to not give him any opportunity to react.
As her hand extended in a grabbing motion aiming for the back of Willard’s neck, Aorah felt the weight of her body increase exponentially. Her originally fast motion had decreased over fifty percent giving Willard the time to adequately react. Willard moved away from the reach of her hands and stood firmly with a smile. ‘Impossible. How can his domain be at such a level?’ Aorah silently thought to herself. Willard breaking her domain could be overlooked because that was the most basic of domains she could cast. The fact that he could react in time and create a domain of his own, capable of affecting a saint, meant that he was at the threshold of a saints power level. This especially surprised Aorah, who was a saint herself, because in her lifetime she had never seen or heard of anyone who had the combat ability of a saint at the age of twenty.
“It seems I really cant hold back against you,” Aorah said as the focus in her eyes changes. Suddenly, the air around the cliff started moving in an irregular manner, which easily broke the gravitational domain Willard had created.
“Teacher!” Nana called in a panicked voice as she noticed what was about to happen.
“Nana go back to the cave.”
Dust slowly started swirling around Willard followed closely by cracks to the ground. Willard had already activated the earth energy to strengthen his body. The entire floating mountain was vibrating as all this was happening. Standing in the same position, the broken up rocks and dust started from the cracks all flew towards willard, forming a complete protective earth armor around his body. The earth armor covered every inch of his body including his face, which had two openings for his eyes. Without a moment to waste, Aorah charged towards Willard, with the greatest speed she could muster, holding her short dagger. Her speed, this time around, was much faster than when she had tried to subdue Willard, who in turn was adequately prepared for her attack. Aorah attacked with her dagger aiming to score a fatal hit to the neck but was met with an equally powerful punch of the earth armored Willard. Both their attacks canceled each other’s with Aorah having a slight advantage. Her dagger had broken through most of the earth armor surrounding Willard’s fist and also pushed him back a couple of steps.
Willard had been pushed closer to the end of the cliff from that attack. Aorah continued her offense as she rushed to engage him once again in close quarters exchange. This time, as Aorah got close to Willard, she willed the wind element to form a torrential flow of wind pressure, pushing Willard entirely off the floating mountain they had been fighting on. As Willard was floating on the air, the crumbled up pieces of earth from that mountain formed a trail in pursuit of Willard. Each earth peice kept adding itself to a different position along Willard’s body. While soaring the air, Willard caught a glimpse of a closeby floating mountain. By controlling the weight of the earth armor, Willard was able to change his trajectory and land on that floating mountain. Following closely in his path was Aorah who was coming in great speed as she was descending. Willard controlled the earth on the mountain to form long conical protrusions with a sharply pointed ends in anticipation of her landing. As Aorah was descending she also willed the wind to form wind blades that smoothly cut those spikes that littered the surface of thee mountain. Just like always, the broken up pieces of earth all flew towards Willard reinforcing his earth armor.
Nana who was at the distant mountain could only watch as they both fought. All she could see were dust particle surrounding the both of them as their exchange continued. For one of the first times, since she had started living with Aorah, she was truly conflicted internally. Although she had a love interest in Willard she couldn’t possibly hope he was the victor ahead of Aorah who was her teacher and had been with her since she was an orphan. She was truly grief stricken as she watched them fight. “Please stop.” She yelled as tears began pouring from her eyes. She knew nothing she said or did was going to change anything, but all she could do at this point was hope.
“To think you would be this strong. I truly must admit, you are a peerless genius. Unfortunately for you, I have had years to prepare for this battle.” Aorah said to Willard as she swallowed a green pill in the form of an orb. Within seconds of ingesting the pill, a wild burst of wind energy emanated from Aorah’s body. “Get ready Willard. Things will get very difficult from now on.”
Aorah charged towards Willard again. Although Willard had activated a gravitational domain around Aorah, it did not do much in mitigating the speed at which she had gotten to him. Aorah stabbed aiming for Willard’s heart. Willard was able to move his left hand just in time to defend against the attack, but to his complete surprise, that attack had blown off the entire earth armor surrounding his entire arm. Droplets of blood splattered across the floor as the dust settled. “Interesting,” Willard said as his entire being seemed to enter a trance. Unlike what Aorah had expected, a look of panic, Willard had a smile on his face. Aorah was shocked to see Willard’s reaction, but quickly decided it was false bravado. Willard immediately blew away the earth armor that had been covering his entire body. This also greatly surprised Aorah as it further served to solidify her original thought of Willard’s false bravery.
Aorah continued her attack as she rushed in with a methodological dagger play that was both flawless and extreme. The entire scenario was like a play from Willard’s past. Willard was like an animal as his instincts for battle took over. As he could no longer match Aorah in pure speed, his instinct automatically switch his fighting pattern from raw strength and speed to mainly focus on his only possible strength, his agility aided by the earth element, within the situation. Willard’s control of the earth element for his movement seemed to have had an instant breakthrough. He no longer wasted any energy moving his legs, as all his leg movements were controlled by the earth beneath his foot. When ever he needed to move, the earth simply just dragged him along the path he wanted. It was as if the earth had just taken control over Willard’s movement. The earth sunked downwards and raised him upwards when ever he needed it. This simple breakthrough had a significant impact on the fight. Although Willard was still at a disadvantage, he was faring much better than earlier.
Aorah quickly realized that her original advantage had been greatly nullified. She was astonished at what she was currently experiencing. ‘How can he keep improving this fast. This child is a true monster.’ Aorah thought to herself as she furiously attacked Willard. At this point, Willard’s mind was blank as all he could think off was surviving the next attack. Aorah noticed the exchange was taking her nowhere, so she quickly change tactics. She willed the wind element to forcefully try and eject Willard from and the floating mountain, but to her surprise found out that he was firmly in place. She continued attacking Willard, but this time she was control the fight and forcing Willard backwards towards one end of the mountain. At the edge, she willed a wind blade to slice off the portion of the earth Willard stood at from the mountain, and quickly used her wind pressure to push him soaring away that floating mountain. Aorah immediately took to the air in pursuit of Willard. On the air, she had greatly reduced Willards mobility. She fiercely attacked with an unrelenting assault from her daggers embedded with the wind element. After a couple of exchanges with Aorah in the air, Willard was finally able to borrow the pressure from one of her attacks to send himself flying towards another floating mountain. As he landed, Aorah followed suite. Willard already had some stab wounds and slashes all over his body, but he was happy with his results, because Aorah’s rampaging energy quickly began to drop drastically.
“I can’t believe this child is forcing me to this extent.” Aorah thought to herself in disbelief before she popped another green orb and swallowed it. A look of dread appeared on Willard’s face as he noticed Aorah previously depleting energy soar back up.
- N/a
