Rudra and Thor both observed the fight of the kids closely from the stands.
It was one of the rare occasions when Thor was not shouting like a Viking, but rather calmly observing the fight like a true spectator.
In Rudra's point of view, Sebastian had cleaner attacks, a faster speed and superior strength, however, for some reason the kid was holding back his power.
While his " Sword Dash" attack was too fast for most of the audience to see, Rudra and Thor could see such slow attacks as clear as day and they noticed straight away that at the critical moment, Sebastian diverted his attack to Nick the side of Max's stomach, instead of piercing straight through.
Whether it was his friendship that got in his way, or whether it was just his soft nature, Rudra did not know, but what he did know was that unlike Sebastian who went easy on Max, Max fought like a hungry beast.
Max did not fool around with his strikes at all, he went for the critical hits whenever possible and did not give his opponent an inch wherever possible.
' That's the way Max, when you are the weaker fighter you can't afford a single mistake ' Rudra thought, as he gripped the railing tightly crushing the steel barrier into fine powder.
As much as Rudra wanted to have a healthy parent type mentality that win-lose did not matter, the most important thing was participation. In the end his inbuilt nature defied this.
He wanted Max to win, he wanted him to win really badly, hence when he saw Max suffer due to sunlight his heart ached a little as after 30 seconds he slyly began to manipulate the atmosphere above to create clouds over the oval arena that blocked out the sunlight.
Rudra knew very well that this asteroid had no moisture to create clouds naturally, hence this move of his was going to look extremely suspicious, however, he did not care, the least he could do for Max was to level out the playing field so that he did not suffer from some useless allergy of sunlight mid fight and besides, with the muscle headed Viking god of thunder present in the stands, not many would suspect him for the cloud formation.
*********
( Max's POV )
Max saw Sebastian move towards him, as his fighting stance changed naturally.
Instead of standing upright with his muscles tightened, Max hunched a little and widened his leg distance to take a slightly wide stance.
Dodge!
Sebastian swung his sword towards Max's torso, but Max unnaturally bent his body to dodge the attack as he fell flat on his back onto both his arms in a reverse arch position and then in the most bizzare of attacks used his arm strength to propel himself forward as he hit Sebastian in the chest with his legs.
-15
Sebastian took 2 steps back as he looked absolutely winded out as he gasped for air to return to his lungs.
Max on the other hand swerved like a damn snake, with his upper body moving in a rhythmic fashion as he attacked Sebastian from weird angles.
" The fuck "
Sebastian cursed out loud as he found himself pushed hard to defend and dodge Max's attacks as he could make no sense of the bizarre attack pattern.
As the minutes passed on, Sebastian broke into visible sweat as somehow the tables of him taking on Max had turned completely with Max turning into a completely different fighter with every passing second.
' Why can't I see through his attack pattern? What is this crazy speed?
No, he is not any faster than before, he has just optimised his attack pattern by premeditation of my next position.
His attacks just look faster because he has a better read of my muscle movements ' Asmodeus thought, as he analysed Max.
While Asmodeus got a rough idea of Max's shifting attack dynamic, Drax actually understood the full picture.
When Max entered his primordial vampire mode and stopped using his active brain too much, he became a much more instinct driven fighter who was driven by the DNA coded into his ancestry.
Max could see a twitch inside Sebastian's muscles and understand how it would affect his movement, and look into his pupil to understand his next attack.
These were skills that the real Max did not possess and it was the reason why Drax wanted Max to keep his Satiety low because despite the primordial vampire form of Max being a double edged sword in terms of practicality, in terms of battle skill the primordial vampire Max far surpassed the normal Max.
As Max's satiety fell below 59% he had finally settled into his primordial vampire form completely, as he finally started to get closer and closer to landing a strike on Sebastian's body.
" Hahahaha ". Max began laughing maniacally as the speed of his attacks increased, he was enjoying this fight thoroughly, it was the thrill of the hunt that made his blood boil with excitement and he could smell success close by.
" Stop Laughing, Ugly Vampire " Asmodeus roared, clearly annoyed at the situation, as he used his tier 2 skill for the first time ever.
" Thunder Slash ".
A thunderous roar sounded throughout the oval arena as Sebastian's sword transformed into a thunderbolt as he slashed it towards Max.
Max looked at the attack coming towards him, but instead of dodging he extended his hand towards it as he caught the attack straight into his palm.
*SPLAT*
*Sizzle*
-2300
The attack hacked through Max's palm, halfway into his forearm as one could literally see Max's left hand being split in half, nearly uptil his elbow.
Max's hair stood up straight and his HP dropped to a dangerous red level, however, his laughter never diminished
" HAHAHAHAHA"
Max twisted his own broken bone and flesh to turn and force the sword out of Sebastian's hand as he thrusted Bloodsucker straight into Sebastian's gut.
-3400
The entire arena was dead silent and focused on the match-up between Sebastian and Max, as the only sound that echoed throughout was the sound of Max's laughter.
A chill went down the spine of every spectator when they noticed the profusely bleeding arm of Max.
Spit and drool went down his lips, visibly dripping on the floor under his mask as the whiteness surrounding his blood red irises slowly began turning red.
Even a demon like Asmodeus felt his heart palpitate when he saw Max at this instance as in this exact moment even an ancient demon like Asmodeus realised whatever creature that Max was…. was way worse than any demon in existence.
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