Void Evolution System
chapter-1832

Once he transformed, fighting the Dragon Lord felt like a game.

He had patterns that were easier to read. Breath attacks, claw attacks, bites, and tail swipes were the majority of his movements. His back spikes and gust abilities didn't work as well if Damien didn't aim to get behind him, so they were made ineffective the moment Damien adapted to his strategies.

This was a fight between a rising genius and an Area Lord, but it looked more like the start of a dragon slayer's journey. The crowd was enamored by each and every moment, and though the Temple Masters knew that this event was fated to end in tragedy, even they couldn't help but be impressed by the show.

Damien was extremely fast. When he adopted a fighting style less like that of a Supreme, embracing his skill rather than his raw power, he was able to create something majestic on the battlefield.

His origin was war and battle. It was such an integral part of his life, so he'd grown into someone who performed best when he was not in control of absolute power.

When using Existence or Nonexistence, battles became more boring. Though there were many intellectually fascinating things happening, the fights were more between people's minds than their bodies.

This was different. Though their minds were still their main weapons, they used their bodies just as much. The Nonexistence they controlled was exhibited through their every movement, through the swings of their swords and claws, and through the fantastic abilities they used.

Damien was employing the Void Sword Art again. It had eight forms that had been developed over the course of his lifetime. Unlike anything else, these techniques were unique to him in every way. Despite having to use them with Nonexistence alone rather than their original laws, he was able to flawlessly display their power.

'Void Sword Art Fourth Step: Spatial Collapse'

Collapsing space in the Land of Nothingness was impossible, but collapsing its reality was not. Damien targeted the very fabric that held the realm together and forced it to twist into a massive spatial distortion that swallowed the Dragon Lord's body.

The sky became the ground and the ground became the sky. The faces of the crowd turned into a mosaic of colors with no distinct features, warping the Dragon Lord's perception of the world.

The gravitational pull that the attack created froze his body, and as the cracks tried to cut through his scales, he roared in power.

His aura encompassed the entire distortion and flattened it to the ground.

BOOOOM!

The entire arena shook. The ground shattered into millions of pieces only to regenerate in the next second.

The Dragon Lord's body moved like a snake as he charged towards Damien. His claw extended, wrapped in the same black flames that he used before.

However, Damien was already counterattacking.

'Sixth Form: Dimensional Severance'

It was timed perfectly. The sword swung down in a straight line just before the dragon approached. As his claw swiped out, he saw that thin black line splitting the middle of his vision. BOOOOOOOOOM!

Two attacks landed at the same time. Damien was thrown backward by the force of the claw, but he landed his feet on the arena wall and pushed back into battle.

The Dragon Lord, on the other hand, was met with a near-perfect sword strike to his snout. It deleted the defensive properties of his scales and shattered his nose and jaw. His head was thrown into the air and his stance was broken, giving the mobilized Damien another opportunity to attack.

'His underbelly looks like a weak spot, but it's nothing like that.'

Just as he covered the weakness of his massive blind spot, he was prepared for people to target his soft underbelly. The moment he was thrown into the air and it was exposed to light, the entire area turned molten.

Damien was charging straight for it, but he could not touch it. Almost like he made a sacrifice to gain greater power, the Dragon Lord found a way to gain an absolute counter ability on this part of his body.

If Damien even so much as touched it, he would face a force greater than anything the Dragon Lord himself could exhibit.

Luckily, he wasn't aiming for the underbelly in the first place.

'If he gained so much power in that area, then there must be an Achilles' heel somewhere.'

It was a rule of law. Equivalent exchange wasn't a concept many people paid attention to in the True Void Universe, but it was definitely a system that could match their own if one found the right use for it.

The Dragon Lord wasn't from the same cosmos. He used different laws that abided by a different set of principles. What was impossible for Damien as a denizen of the True Void Universe was easily achievable for him.

In the same way, however, Damien had clear advantages over the Dragon Lord. The True Void Universe had a very direct scaling that was guided by the system. People were encouraged to go beyond what the system was willing to provide, but its aid couldn't be denied.

Because the system was guiding them to get stronger, allowing them to kill and kill for progress instead of forcing them to focus for ages to reach their goals, people had more room for creativity.

Attacks that abided by the laws but twisted them, laws that morphed and changed based on the achievements of the people who used them, these were the advantages of the True Void Universe.

Damien rapidly teleported just as he reached the dragon's underbelly, propelling himself high into the sky.

'Void Sword Art Sixth Step: Worldbreaker'

The weight of his sword pulled him back down to the earth. The Dragon Lord saw him and prepared his back spikes, but Damien wasn't afraid of them. When Worldbreaker was gaining even more power due to its momentum, back spikes weren't enough to stop it.

Like a meteor crashing into the ground, Damien tore through the air and slammed into the Dragon Lord's neck.

BOOOOOOOOM!

His body was instantly forced to the ground. His neck made a disgusting crunching sound as several bones were broken. The back spikes shattered one by one, and Damien controlled their essence to add to his attack power.

The ground shattered once more, dropping Damien and the Dragon Lord into a pit below the arena. The floor tried to repair itself, but it no longer had that kind of capability.

The Dragon Lord was releasing ample amounts of energy to combat Damien's technique, while Worldbreaker itself was releasing waves that slammed against the arena barrier and struck fear into the onlooking crowd.

'It's time.'

They had been fighting for some time now. Damien could feel the Dragon Lord's energy becoming wilder and wilder.

'At this point, the bomb will go off whether I like it or not.'

Damien glanced up at the Temple Masters. Through a transmission that only they could hear, he sent them five words that made their eyes go wide.

Regardless, he wasn't going to let Chaos have its way. If the bomb was going to go off no matter what he did…

…then he was going to be the one to set it off.

He looked at the Dragon Lord who was struggling below him. To the crowd, it looked like he was still defending against the effects of Worldbreaker, but that had already passed.

At this point, the Dragon Lord was leaking energy at increasing intensities, and Damien's oppressive energy was the only thing keeping it from combusting.

He already won this battle. The internal injuries the Area Lord had sustained were catching up to him, especially now that Damien had released the chains that kept him alive.

The arena was wild with cheers, shaking the entire city.

But the rumbling happening now was only partially their fault.

With one last glance, Damien stabbed his sword into the open flesh he revealed with Worldbreaker.

And the Dragon Lord dutifully fulfilled his fate as a living nuclear bomb.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!