The ground still trembled from the impact as I straightened, steam hissing from my skin. My staff dug into the crater, Essence still humming along its length, vibrating with power.
When the dust cleared, I finally saw the phantom.
Its armor, black and seamless until now, was cracked. A deep dent marred its midsection where my strike had landed, jagged lines spreading outward like shattered glass. Deathmist leaked from the wounds in its body, not smooth or controlled anymore, but spilling wildly like blood.
The phantom staggered as it pushed itself up, its grip on the sword trembling for the first time since the fight began.
The phantom looked down at its own chest, then back at me.
"You..." it rasped, voice carrying a faint distortion, as though even speaking took effort. "You... managed to wound me?"
My grip tightened on the staff, Essence still roaring inside me, straining against the frame of my enlarged body.
More cracks spread across its armor as its deathmist surged violently, thick tendrils lashing the air in every direction. Its domain pulsed, corruption and devouring laws twisting into a storm, almost as if the injury itself had driven it into madness.
I activated [Right to Insight]. My perception sharpened in an instant, my Psynapse fractures flaring as the runes etched into me lit up, anchoring my senses across every inch of the battlefield. I wasn’t going to let it pull that space trick on me again.
BOOM!
The ground shattered beneath my feet as I launched forward, Essence coiling around my muscles. My knee shot up, aimed square at the phantom’s head with bone-crushing force.
It roared—a guttural, unnatural sound that vibrated through the deathmist itself. Just as my knee was about to connect, I felt it. That same ripple in the fabric of space. My instincts screamed, but before I could react, the world twisted—
And I phased straight through its face.
In the blink of an eye, I reappeared behind it. My momentum faltered for half a heartbeat, and in that sliver of time, the phantom was already turning. Its sword carved through the air toward my neck with perfect precision, devouring laws writhing along the edge.
I snapped my will into action. "[Sovereign Reversal]!"
Violet vortexes burst open along the sword’s path, spiraling maws that absorbed and redirected energy.
BOOM!
The collision detonated with a shockwave that sent cracks tearing across the land. The vortexes greedily sucked in the slash’s power, funneling the energy into the generator core within me.
The phantom’s blade tore through the last vortex, but by then my body had already shifted—my neck no longer in its path.
This talent of it was maddening, and if I didn’t deal with it soon, I knew it could tip the fight. But first, I had another target.
I landed hard, my feet cracking the ground, and spun with my staff in hand. My gaze locked on the massive eye looming in the sky. I could feel the drain in my core, my Essence reserves had been gutted by the ability I activated. There wasn’t enough left to truly hurt the phantom.
But the eye? I had enough for that.
I planted my feet forward and activated my weapon skill.
"[Singularity Beam]."
Essence burst through my body like a flood, rushing from my core and channels into the staff. My muscles tensed. My fingers locked around the metal shaft as it drank in more and more power.
One violet ring formed at the tip, spinning slowly.
Then a second, smaller, moving in the opposite direction.
Then the third. Tiny, silent, glowing faintly at the center.
The rings collapsed inward.
No sound. No flash.
Just a pinprick of violet light sitting quietly at the end of my staff.
Then it fired.
A thin, silent beam no wider than a hair shot straight into the sky and pierced through the center of the eye.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH."
The phantom screamed.
There was no explosion. No grand blast of light.
Only pull.
The air twisted as the beam expanded slightly.
Then it began, Essence devouring deathmist.
The beam created a singularity in the sky. And from that point, everything nearby started collapsing into it.
Even the corrupted particles in the air started unraveling, sucked in and purified as raw energy.
Chunks of the deathmist began to fold inward, shrinking as they fought against the pull. The huge amount of deathmist roaring inside the phantom’s domain did not vanish but its thickness reduced.
But most of all, the eye began to collapse. The black rings fractured inward, the concentric circles twisting on themselves as the sky trembled under the strain.
The phantom roared, its voice like grinding metal, and rushed toward me. The deathmist churned violently around its body, writhing like a living storm.
I spun my staff, channeling what little Essence I had left, and brought it down with every ounce of force in my towering frame.
BOOM!
The collision was deafening.
The shockwave tore across the battlefield, and the phantom was hurled backward once again, its body crashing through the deathmist as if I had swatted away an insect. My Essence reserves were dwindling, but my raw physical strength was enough to keep me toe-to-toe with this abomination.
And now, the eye was gone. Its cursed perception no longer tracked my movements. That gave me the edge.
I exploded forward, faster than before. The air shattered in my wake as I blurred across the distance, appearing right above its tumbling body. I slammed my knee into its chest, driving it into the ground with an earth-splitting crash.
The land caved in beneath us.
I clenched my fist, drew back, and with a roar, smashed it into the phantom’s face.
BOOM!
Its head snapped to the side, cracks spreading across its black armor.
I pulled back again.
BOOM!
Another strike split the ground beneath us, the shockwave rippling outward.
I struck once more, my roar mixing with the phantom’s distorted scream.
BOOM!
But the deathmist wasn’t idle. It surged in from all directions, the battlefield erupting with writhing tendrils. They coiled together, twisting into hundreds of sharpened spikes, all aimed directly at my enlarged frame.
I inhaled sharply, steadying my will.
"Node Three...activate."
A violent tremor ran through my body as the third rune lit up, glowing hot against my bones. Steam hissed off my skin, and raw power surged through me as all my stats spiked by another twenty percent.
Strength like I had never felt before coursed through every muscle.
I grinned and drove my fist forward again.
BOOM!
This time, I felt it, a satisfying crack as part of the phantom’s armor caved under the sheer force.
The spikes slammed into me a heartbeat later. Dozens, then hundreds, piercing down against my body. But my constitution was too high, my body too reinforced, they barely sank an inch before stopping. The mist quivered against my skin, unable to pierce deeper.
My grin widened. I pulled back both fists this time.
And like a gatling gun, I unleashed a relentless storm of blows.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each strike thundered across the battlefield, my fists raining down like meteors, the ground splitting apart as I buried the phantom under my barrage.