The moment the countdown hit 0, Thor unleashed a tier6 divine attack
[ Colossal Thunderstorm ]
Lightning streaked out of his body and scattered everywhere before converging towards Rudra's direction from all sides.
About 500,000 lightning bolts, with each single bolt having the capability of turning a thick tree to ashes converged towards Rudra from a 360° angle, as it looked like Rudra was doomed from the very beginning.
From the start till the end, Rudra only had 0.2 seconds till the attack landed on him, but still in that split second he had prepared a fitting counter
[ Enhanced Full Counter ]
All 500,000 lightning bolts collided against Rudra's two swords and changed directions towards Thor as the lord of thunder's attack was returned towards him with three times the intensity of each strike.
*KABOOM*
-1,450,000
By the time the thunder sound reached the audience's ears a second later the attack had already landed on Thor's body, giving nothing more than minor scratches to the god of thunder who looked amused by the counter.
*Thunderous Cheers*
A round of thunderous cheers erupted from the crowd after the first exchange as Thor was pleasantly surprised by Rudra's readiness.
Being the god of thunder, Thor had near-perfect thunder immunity which meant that for Rudra to move his HP bar even by a very slight amount from a thunder attack was proof of his superior fighting calibre.
Since his opponent had drawn the first blood in the long-range strike , Thor decided that he had to try the physical attack now as he leaped and brought his hammer over his head, as he tightened his muscles in anticipation of the coming strike.
A sly smile covered Rudra's face, a physical confrontation was exactly what Rudra was hoping for early into the fight as he knew Thor would not be expecting Rudra to surpass him in strength hence making judgement errors in his fighting style leading him to lose EXP.
Rudra had orchestrated the fight to take this exact turn as by displaying a superior counter skill, he threw Thor into a self doubt that made him choose close range fighting over long range attacks after the failure of his first strike, not understanding that Rudra's enhanced counter ability was now under cooldown.
The start of the fight was the most crucial phase as it set the tempo of the fight, and by dominating the upcoming physical confrontation Rudra was sure he could control the tempo of the fight, as from then on he would slowly make Thor bleed.
[ Gravity Manipulation ]
Right before Thor was about to hit Rudra, Rudra used gravity manipulation skill on the floating Thor and turned his surroundings to a 0 gravity zone making him float an extra few metres and missing his mark as he crashed his hammer on the floor behind Rudra.
" Damn it ".
Thor turned and swung his free left hand, hoping to catch Rudra's jaw with a punch, but Rudra used gravity manipulation on himself this time, as he fell on his back to avoid the attack without actually falling on the ground as the 0 gravity made him float above the surface.
As Thor's swing missed, Rudra immediately jabbed his sword towards Thor's torso at an angle which was impossible if gravity was playing its role as Thor had to twist like a ballet dancer to avoid the thrust, but it still managed to scrape the side of his armour.
-1,120,000
Thor used his right hand and brought mjolnir down towards Rudra's floating body as the force of the attack threatened to crush Rudra's ribs should it land, but luckily Rudra used [ Blink ] at the last moment, making him teleporting above Thor's head as he attacked Thor's neck from an angle difficult to defend against causing Thor to take slight real cuts before he was able to move away.
[ Death Style Sword Art - Death Cut ]
-100,700,000 CRITICAL HIT!
Thor retreated a few steps as Rudra landed on his feet with an arrogant smile on his face.
There was pin-drop silence in the arena at the moment as while the battle had only lasted for 12 seconds until this moment it had been the most breathtaking 12 seconds fight sequence any god had seen in their lives.
The only sound that came was of gushing blood dripping from Thor's wounded neck, as the god of thunder burnt his wound with thunder to make the bleeding stop.
Nobody expected Rudra to come out with such dominance straight out of the gate but he did.
As Thor was horrified to see a full 10% of his 1 billion points HP bar chopped off.
—----------
( Meanwhile Max )
Max had an epiphany after breaking his 69th stick.
Max realised that the strength of the stick was never going to be enough to stop the boulder as no matter what angle he placed it against it was going to break regardless.
What he needed to do instead was to reinforce the stick in such a way that he could concentrate all the force of his body onto the stick and use it to block the boulder.
Once Max understood this, it only took him 30 more tries before he stopped the boulder as he realised that doing it with a stick was even easier than doing it with his hands.
The stick could help him concentrate all the force of his body into a small 2 cm surface which delivered much more force onto the incoming object than his hands ever could!
[ System Notification - Congratulations player ' Ravan', you have naturally mastered the 'block' skill ]
When Kremeth saw Max get it right in a matter of a few hours, the old turtle was left speechless.
He remembered doing this training daily for 1 year before he was able to master this skill, yet the kid in front of him learnt it in a few days.
It was at this very moment, that Kremeth realised that he had something very special in the form of Max as a student and that his latent potential was very high.
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/// A/N - New year bonus chapter 9/10 enjoy! ///