A humongous hall of marble and gold quivering, flashes of gold and silver lights rampaged its insides.

A duel between Monarch Lu and Alexander, one an entire major realm above the other. Yet, none could obtain the advantage.

Dodging a spear-like hand, Alexander's bent neck was soon followed by his entire torso, then lower body. Now upside down, Alexander struck with his left leg, kicking at Monarch Lu's forehead.

"Not so fast!" Space warping, the kick entered one portal after another, teleporting again and again.

Retracting his leg, Alexander returned to his original position with crossed forearms, taking advantage of an abrupt punch of golden light to gain backward momentum.

This same momentum extremely powerful, Alexander did not fight it, using it to regain some distance, the friction of his feet onto the floor forming trails of flames.

"You can't run away from this Lu!" Kicking the ground, Monarch Lu chased after the still sliding Alexander.

Now with a few moments of breather, Alexander opened his left hand, Origin Energy swirling around it.

"Oh?" Amused, Monarch Lu did not interfere with Alexander's hand, forming an orange poleaxe with long chains.

"This Alexander underestimated you..."

"But even then... this Alexander is not someone so easy to deal with!" Kicking the ground as well, Alexander however, did not use it to stop his backward momentum, but accentuate it instead.

"Not bad." Smirking, Monarch Lu turned around mid-air, ignoring the now behind him Alexander doing the same, to focus on the space shaking right in front of him.

An orange poleaxe howling with sharpness, it lunged at Monarch Lu's throat with unstoppable velocity.

In the meantime, Alexander, with a portal in front of him, turned back around, facing his opponent's defenseless back.

An explosion ringing in his ears, Alexander's feet burst with energy, sending him flying at Monarch Lu's blind spot.

"This Lu also has a Celestial Sense... are you out of your mind?" Realizing a miss-alignment, Monarch Lu sighed, catching the translucent poleaxe with a wide arc, grabbing onto its accelerating haft. And during this maneuver, he did not hesitate to bend forward, sending a left kick behind him like a spear.

Deflecting the foot with his right arm, positioning himself for a follow up left punch, Alexander noticed Monarch Lu's rapid rotation.

"..!" Aware of his lacking options, mainly due to his commitment on this attack, Alexander could not evade his own poleaxe being thrown at him.

Impossible to dodge due to his own momentum and clashing domains, Alexander was forced to catch the glowing weapon's blade and sharp spike a hair's breadth away from his face with his now bleeding left hand.

Crushing the golden aura tainting his own weapon, Alexander not only understood his mistake, but also gained a substantial lesson.

Following the gold, Alexander also destroyed his poleaxe's blade, his hand still firmly gripped onto it, using the broken shards of energy to heal himself.

With a silver aura ever growing, Alexander created another one, this time tainted from his own existence.

Brandishing a silver poleaxe, Alexander teleported right in front of Monarch Lu's face, his poleaxe already aimed at his heart.

"No time to play huh?" Wondering whether to use a sword or not, Monarch Lu decided against it.

"This Lu will now demonstrate how strong one should be to rule Limbo with an iron grip!" His robes fluttering, Monarch Lu sent a left palm strike filled to the brim with energies toward Alexander's spike.

'?!' Feeling the golden energy within this palm to be transcending his own, Alexander gritted his teeth, putting everything he had to the spike of his own poleaxe.

A golden palm colliding with a sharp silver spike, a clash of auras ensued, causing the hall to tremble.

Shockwaves of gold and silver escaping the clash, the floor erupted everywhere, the sturdy tiles beneath sent flying into the walls.

'This is madness!!' Alexander, unable to believe this scene, felt his instincts scream at him.

It appeared that this fight...

Was even harder than he could ever imagine.

'!!' Awoken from his ringing warning bells, Alexander saw a right palm of gold approach him from the side.

"Don't believe this Alexander to have no strong suit! Attempting to fight me with a palm strike... I'll gladly show you how it's done!!" Deflecting the current energy duel with Monarch Lu's left palm to the side, Alexander struck the right palm with his own left one.

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Feeling his entire left arm go numb, Alexander held on with a heavy face and heavier heart.

"Hahaha! How great! Alexander, this Lu is impressed! But... it's unfortunate..."

Frowning, Alexander, currently putting his all into his left palm, parted his lips.

"And why is that? We are equally matched."

"Are we now?"

An unexpected retreat from Monarch Lu, Alexander's silver palm struck the void left from his opponent, shockwaves of silver rumbling the world.

A portal forming right in front of him, his powerful palm's strength was dismissed.

Glaring toward the hall's depths, Monarch Lu calmly rooted in place far away, Alexander awaited.

"This Lu... will gladly demonstrate the difference between us..." Monarch Lu's Life Wheel burning with even more fierceness, his aura surged without stop.

And when his lime Life Wheel turned dark yellow, Monarch Lu stopped.

"This hall... will be your grave! This is the price of offending me! The price of challenging my rule!!"

Taking a powerful step back, Alexander avoided a teleporting punch of fire, a volcanic eruption collapsing the floor where he previously stood.

With some time to himself, Alexander, now backed against the closed doors, brought out his cards as well.

Determined, his Life Wheel was also used, now blinding the hall with green.

"Are you forgetting my own Life Wheel?! This Alexander agrees... I will demonstrate the difference between us indeed!!" His veins bulging everywhere, Alexander felt might course through his now glowing green veins.

Wrinkles appearing everywhere, Alexander decided to go all out, the wheel of life behind him now bright red.

"Fool! Why use so much? What if you get injured? How naïve..." Vanishing, Monarch Lu faded in near the hall's doors, Alexander's appearing figure just upfront.

Two fists colliding mid-air, the hall dimmed.

Sent flying backward, the two realized the strength of the opposing party.

"Your fist wasn't so bad..." Scoffing at the exchange, Alexander struck the air forward with a silver palm.

A giant silver palm print rushing at him, Monarch Lu dispelled it with one wave of his left arm.

"?!" Raising his right one, Monarch Lu's forearm felt sore and painful, a duality of Yin and Yang infused within him.

"Shit!" Cursing aloud, Monarch Lu's forearm exploded in fire and ice, light and dark, life and death. The sun and moon collapsing his flesh.

"How dare you?!!" Roaring to the world, Monarch Lu noticed a giant ball of dark blue goo falling from above.

"What is-" The ball of goo tearing apart, a blinding white light emerged from its depths, drowning the hall.

A loud explosion piercing the eardrums of all within the castle's surroundings, Monarch Lu was left in tatters.

"Alexander!! This Lu has misjudged your power! But... no more!" His entire body set ablaze in a dark red fire, Monarch Lu waved his right arm with a grand motion, setting the entire hall ablaze with purple.

"You..." In disbelief, Alexander watched on as the ethereal purple fire let the material go before sealing the realm of space itself instead.

"Now... it will be a proper fight!"

Without teleportation and spatial tricks, Alexander did not retreat nor feel threatened. Rather, he felt joy.

"Fine by me!"

Two aged men roaring, a golden light covered in dark red flames sprung above, clashing with a silver light clad in a green aura of life.

Sparkly blood spraying everywhere, Alexander's right fist arrived near Monarch Lu's face, soon deflected by his opponent's left wrist.

The ceiling erupting for all outside to see, a crude battle between two powerhouses of the Inner Territory took place.

A bent neck dodging a right punch, Alexander answered with one of his own. Caught by his opponent, he could only leave it be, striking Monarch Lu's left wrist with his right leg.

Raising his left arm, Monarch Lu managed to drag Alexander's caught fist with him, evading the sweeping leg as well. About to connect with Alexander's throat using his right hand as if a knife, Monarch Lu's attempt was diffused by Alexander right leg, changing course out of nowhere.

"It's taking too long, why not go for some risks instead?!" Laughing maniacally, Alexander's caught right fist suddenly began to glow a powerful green shade.

"You madman! Don't even try!" Clutching the fist harder, Monarch Lu exploded Alexander's right hand into a broken mess of bone shrapnel.

"Fuck you!" Still keeping the now wild energies going, Alexander's missing right hand burst out into a violent blast of green energies.

A loud glimmer followed by silence, each party glared at the other.

His right hand regenerating at a visible rate, similar to his Overlord regeneration, Alexander felt his own life take a hit from it.

'I still can't use time well enough to heal myself...' While the theory was not difficult to understand, using the Dao of Time, depending on one's influence and location, could become both easy and difficult.

Altering time as an Overlord was not hard, as a lower cultivation and looser time laws granted a much clearer path. But doing the same at the Chaos Archetype Realm, and in Limbo on top of that... it suddenly became much more arduous.

A stronger being held a stronger influence of time. Yet, this influence could also become a swamp. A naturally harder law to influence upon strong beings, it did not spare these same beings either.

In short, the stronger the being, the harder it would be to alter the law of time. Any law for that matter. But all laws had a limit. To reuse his Dao of time... Alexander must also surpass its shackles.

And now, to heal a small missing hand... Alexander had to pay a hefty price.

His life wheel turning even darker, Alexander could not play for much longer with it.

The moment his body suffered too much, his life wheel would lose its life essence beyond dangerous levels.

The moment his life wheel turned too dark, black almost... he would die.

Unfortunately, while Monarch Lu appeared no different... it was still an equal matchup. It was a matter of bluff.

Who would retreat first? None could afford to do so, yet they also could not afford to do it either!

Both seemed stuck between a giant maw and a world of thorns.

In both cases, death would await their first mistake.

Sweating profusely, Alexander felt his pupils tremble.

'I can't lose!' His feet ethereal, his body faded away.

"!!" Raising his left forearm, Monarch Lu successfully blocked a powerful silver light.

"So we're going all out now? No more tricks? No more sparring? This Lu concurs!"

His body also vanishing, Monarch Lu's flaming vessel turned to nothingness.

Sparks of silver, gold, green and dark red echoing across the entire hall, this same hall turned into hell.

Dark flames of purgatory surged upon its tiled floor. A clashing sky of green hoped to heal its misery.

And in between the two, shadows of gold and silver embraced each other in both madness and glory. Powerful eruptions of lights colliding, causing the entire domain around the hall to be subjected under their might.

Two beings with their lives on the line...

Two Monarchs of differing existence clashing for supremacy.

The Martial Dao in glee while the mortals bowed. A proof of superiority, and a proof of an unescapable contract.

"Die!"

"Perish!"

Two shouts reverberating, echoes of their desire, shockwaves of their existence... ringed for all to hear.

To walk upon the Martial Dao... one should be doing so with their life put forward.