BANG!
A lightning bolt hit Kyle, who just kept charging forward as if nothing had happened.
A bit of his armor cracked, but it was regrown almost instantly.
Sebastian shot backward at his full speed, but Kyle was faster than him and reached him almost instantly.
Kyle lifted his hammer, ready to strike.
"Boop," Kyle said as he just flicked Sebastian's forehead instead.
Sebastian was breathing heavily as he saw the black titan in front of him.
"Jesus, Kyle!" he said. "How are you this heavy and this fast?!"
"Crazy, isn't it?" Kyle said with a smirk as his helmet vanished. "I told you not to take me lightly."
"Alright, alright," Sebastian said. "This time, I'm going to actually treat this seriously, okay?"
Kyle retreated to a distance of about two kilometers.
"Then, round two," Kyle transmitted.
Sebastian took a deep breath.
At this moment, they were fighting above ground, in the Twilight Duchy.
Since Kyle had already agreed to become the new Overseer, the Duchess of Twilight didn't have any issues with allowing Sebastian to stay here as well.
As long as they kept to the east and fought near the wall, where almost no citizens were, she didn't mind.
"Start!" Sebastian transmitted.
BANG!
Kyle shot forward at full speed.
This time, red lightning came out of Sebastian instead of the usual white lightning.
The lightning pulled Sebastian back, reaching almost the same speed as Kyle.
But only almost.
The next moment, Sebastian pointed at Kyle, and several bolts of lightning hit him.
Surprisingly, Kyle didn't feel any damage to his armor or Ether.
It seemed like the lightning bolts were doing nothing.
Kyle reached Sebastian quickly and readied himself to end the fight.
But then, Sebastian suddenly stopped and shoved his hand forward.
Sebastian's hand reached Kyle's abdomen as his eyes turned white and red.
BOOOOM!
An apocalyptic stream of lightning came out of Sebastian's hand.
The armor of Kyle's abdomen crumbled into pieces instantly, and the lightning bolt shot through his body.
CRACK!
Kyle's legs and torso flew in different directions as his eyes widened in shock.
'What the fuck?!'
"Boop," Sebastian said as his finger touched the bottom of Kyle's open abdomen.
If he wanted, he could unleash a burst of lightning directly into Kyle's body, which would kill him in an instant.
Kyle just hovered there as his legs slowly regrew, shocked.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked. Sebastian just chuckled. "You were the one taking it easy this time," he said.
"Bro, I didn't think that you would win this quickly!" Kyle said in shock. "How the fuck did you get through my armor?!"
Sebastian just smirked. "Anti-Lightning works very differently from normal lightning. Instead of transferring energy from A to B, it transforms energy from B to A."
"Wait, what?!" Kyle asked in shock. "You are literally sapping my energy?!"
"The energy, or Ether, from your armor, more precisely," Sebastian said. "I absorbed a lot of the Ether of your armor, weakening its integrity. Then, I used the extra Ether to create a powerful burst of lightning to which I added my own Ether."
"In essence, I took 50% of your defense and added it to my offense."
Kyle took a deep breath, "That's broken."
"Well, there are ways to counter it, but I'm not going to tell you," Sebastian said.
"How much have you already learned about Anti-Lightning?" Kyle asked.
"I could already condense the Law, but, as you put it, it would be a Half Law," Sebastian said. "Judging by what the Duchess of Twilight has said, I know all the Auxiliary Fragments of Anti-Lightning and am just missing the Base Fragment."
Kyle had to take another deep breath. "How fucking fast are you?! Anti-Lightning or Yin-Lightning is a Level Two Law! You're telling me you're already halfway there?!"
"Fast comprehension," Sebastian said with a smirk, pointing at his head. "Don't forget that I also have a gift. How often has your gift helped you? You think mine isn't helping me? You think you can keep up with me in comprehension speed?"
Kyle sighed. "Yeah, you're right. I'm just not used to people being able to keep up with me. Usually, everyone I know is getting left behind pretty quickly."
"How do you think I feel?" Sebastian asked. "I'm surprised that you still feel so dangerous. If we both took this fight seriously, we wouldn't know who would win."
Kyle nodded. "It's difficult to tell."
Sebastian just smiled, but deep inside, he was thinking differently.
Yes, their power was about on the same level, which would mean there was an equal chance that either of them would win.
Yet, Sebastian remembered how crazily Kyle had fought against the Second Advisor.
He had been just a torso with a head, and he had still charged forward.
The amount of abuse Kyle could take while still remaining focused was unreal.
A fight between the two of them would become extremely ugly, and Sebastian feared that he wouldn't remain as calm and focused as Kyle when the end of the fight approached.
And then, there was also their Momentum.
Sebastian's Momentum was insanely powerful, but Kyle's Momentum was just a bit stronger.
The fight would be brutal, definitely.
However, Sebastian believed that Kyle might win.
"By the way," Sebastian said as he remembered something. "You know how an Aristocrat's Body is basically just a Transcendent's body?"
"Wait, what?" Kyle asked.
Sebastian blinked a couple of times. "Wait, you didn't know that?"
"No," Kyle said.
"Wait, you thought we would retain the advantage our Aristocrat's Body gives us when we become Transcendents?" Sebastian asked.
"Yeah, why not?" Kyle asked.
"Kyle, not every Transcendent advanced with an Aristocrat's Body, and yet, they are all similarly powerful. It all depends on the Laws. Also, how do you even think we created the Aristocrat's Body? It's by looking at how Transcendent's bodies work."
Kyle remembered how Theodor had said that the Champion of Skysand had advanced without an Aristocrat's Body and that he would be much stronger if he had one.
"So, there's no difference in the Transcendent Realm? It doesn't matter if you have an Aristocrat's Body or not?" he asked.
"Nope," Sebastian answered.
Kyle frowned.
'That's what I get for listening to that fucking idiot. Guy was talking about stuff he had no idea about.'
"Anyway, what I actually wanted to say," Sebastian said. "So, you know how our Aristocrat's Body doesn't grant us any additional strength in the Transcendent Realm?"
"I do now," Kyle said.
"I was thinking," Sebastian said. "Our gifts come from some kind of company, right? And that company only has limited power, right? I mean, if they could do anything, they wouldn't need us for this job, right?"
Kyle knew where this was going.
"You think that our gifts will eventually also become useless?" he asked.
Sebastian nodded.
"Just like our Aristocrat's Bodies," Sebastian said. "Maybe the fifth, sixth, or seventh Realms have our gifts as their strength."
"Maybe one of the Realms increases your Affinity for an Element dramatically, while another Realm strengthens your body, instinct, and allows you to convert any form of Ether to usable Ether."
Sebastian smirked. "Who knows? At some point, we will probably both have the same base level, without any inherent advantages."
Kyle looked at the ground.
"That makes way too much sense, " he said.
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