Rudra was very excited to train with Micheal, so when Micheal asked him to draw his sword and prepare for a spar , Rudra instantly sprung into action and took a proper fighting stance.
Unlike sariel who used a twig when he first battled Rudra, Micheal started with a proper sword right off the bat.
When Micheal rushed towards Rudra , unlike his previous self who could not even look at the movement of the god's , Rudra could actually see him moving towards him in incredibly fast motion as sariel's training kicked in and he instantly leaped backwards.
It happened in a split second , however Micheal soon caught upto the backward moving Rudra due to his superior speed and slashed his sword with power .
Rudra put up both his swords to block Michaels attack however he was instantly swatted away like a fly by the angels raw power as he was sent flying for over 1500 meters before he crashed and took fall and drag damage.
However instinctively Rudra blocked the second strike from Micheal as the angel was already upon him when he swung down his sword on Rudra and pummeled the poor human down into the ground as a massive crator formed around Rudra's body.
Every inch of Rudra's body was still vibrating from blocking that attack and Rudra was sure that if he had not reinforced his body by taking all those Elixirs this attack would break atleast a 100 bones in his body.
Rudra's hands felt numb as although he was sure that nothing was broken he felt like his hands weighed a tonne and were impossible to move around.
Micheal proceeded to calmly place a sword to his neck as he said " You die ".
He proceeded to smile and give a hand to Rudra to stand-up as he said " Actually, i expected this barrage to break all the bones in your body , so i already brought a healing potion with me ,but shockingly you seen fine. Ha , i like it ".
Rudra furrowed his eyebrows when he heard this , however his mind went into contemplation mode as to why did he get beaten so badly in the battle before and what could he have done differently.
Micheal continued " As you must be able to notice , you were not able to use sariel's counter on me . Which was the primary reason why you lost this battle so easily. "
Rudra nodded , while fighting sariel he had learnt to run backwards to get himself in position to use counter , however Micheal hit him so hard that counter never triggered and he lost the fight without it.
Micheal said " that's right , and it's because I'm wayy too powerful for you to handle. If i fought sariel with the same strategy and moves we would currently be standing with me wasting a lot of stamina and not dealing a single point In damage to him ".
Rudra went into Deep thought , and after a while nodded to Micheal.
Micheal said " My point is , if i can do it then chances are Lucifer can do it too because atleast the way i remember it we were pretty evenly matched even many aeons ago and he should still be this powerful if hes rulling over the underworld i suppose. Which means you will be dead before you know it if you fight him like this ".
Rudra finally felt the grim reality sink in , after his power -up he had started to feel like maybe it was enough of an edge to fight Lucifer , however maybe it was not.
Micheal continued " Don't get me wrong , looking at how you're still in one piece and pretty much at full HP id say you have a slight chance of being a genuine threat to Lucifer , however it will depend completely on how much you can comprehend as to what I'm about to teach you ".
Rudra beamed visibly when he heard this , coming from the only being to have ever defeated the devil it gave him a lot of confidence boost.
Micheal said " Sariel's fighting style is the best for you , with you being the underdog. However what we need to dramatically increase is your firepower.
Blocking is not enough if you want to withstand blows much stronger than your level where counter is rendered useless. Which is why for those scenarios you need to fight fire with fire and actively look for a clash against the incoming attack.
If you flew 1500 meters back this time , you will probably fly 50 meters back if you go at it with full strength, but in the end that will be the only way to last for the next blow.
The trick to beating the devil at your level is to go with him toe to toe until by some miracle you get an opening big enough to deal significant damage , because that's all you can do ".
Rudra analysed Michaels words carefully and understood the hidden implications behind them.
What Micheal wanted to do at this moment was to keep sariel's fighting style as a basic frame and teach Rudra more advanced techniques upon it in hopes of getting him ready to finally face Lucifer.
Although it was going to be challenging , Rudra felt confident that if Micheal himself guided him and had a good 14 days of sparring with him he could eventually level up his fighting game to a point where he might be able to stun Lucifer.
He needed to evolve his purely defensive and counter style of fighting into a more robust combination of attacks and counters and defense to be prepared for all the possible situations that he would face when fighting someone of the calibre of Lucifer.
However just as he allowed his heart to have some slimmer of hope , Micheal continued " Let's get done with this quickly because physical attacks are not all that Lucifer will use to beat you.
He will use dark attacks too ... A hell lot of them ".
/// Bonus chapter for the super gift by Cervantez, please thank him in the comments for this one ///