The seconds before the collision are the most intense.

The entire flight over has been slightly nerve-wracking, but now that I am about to collide with a bronze earth dragon that is 5,000 levels above me, with a True Core of similar strength to my own, the reality of my predicament sinks in.

The air becomes thick as our silky white-yellow auras intertwine from over 20 kilometers away, exerting pressure on each other even before we physically meet.

I can feel dense gravity waves emanating from this beast.

They are far more concentrated, refined, and powerful than the malformed yellow core I fought this morning two continents away.

The scope of the power I'm facing nears that of what I felt when meeting the green divine serpent in the sky.

This is a monstrous force. It is a being at its prime and has refined its power to create a glistening core so mighty its beauty is awe-inspiring.

The difference between my interaction with the green serpent and the bronze dragon before me now is that the power that violently cycles within my own chest, waiting to be released, feels as though it can match the incredible force approaching me.

There may be a god-like entity attacking me now, but as I lift my blades above my head, I feel as though we are equals.

My entire greater form grows in size and becomes far brighter as I allow my purple limiter to let every drop of mana control and divine threads through.

All of my stat-boosting buffs activate, and I channel the maximum amount of Soul Energy into my blades.

Both myself and the dragon collide at hundreds of kilometers per hour, not holding anything back.

I swing both blades across my body, aiming straight for the creature's neck while preparing to make an immediate counter or dodge, not counting anything out. I know nothing about my opponent, so I'm leaving nothing up to chance.

As I swing my blades downward, the world around me blurs into darkness, and all I see is the bronze dragon glowing with its yellow light.

Its eyes stare into mine, and its expression doesn't change at all from the confident yet bored look it showed when I caught it on my sonar thousands of kilometers away.

It opens its mouth to show its sharp teeth and readies its talons, coating itself in mana shielding enhanced by its silky yellow divine energy.

I'm ready to react to whatever attack it throws at me, but the only thing that happens is a single small hexagon of yellow light forms in the path of my blades.

I don't sense any Mana or Qi interwoven in the thick yellow manifestation that looks like a massive floating dragon scale.

If it weren't for my natural senses and looking at the hexagon with my own two eyes, I wouldn't even believe it was there.

Nonetheless, my blades make contact with it, just meters away from the monster's neck, and the loudest, most intense noise I've ever heard echoes through the mountains and endless dunes of rolling sand.

It's as if two entire worlds collide in the sky.

Both of my swords halt in mid-air as they sink into the pure manifestation of Divine Energy.

Out from its sides, a portion of the force put forward from both of us colliding at full speed erupts outward. The gravity waves are so intense, that the mountains over 20 kilometers below us are shattered to dust and gravel just from being in our presence.

More and more waves of energy ripple off the collision point while we are both stopped in mid-air, pushing forward with all of our strength.

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A deep vibrating sound echoes out from the waves of gravity and gets more and more intense as a ball of yellow and white light forms between us at the collision point.

It becomes more and more saturated as all of my power flows through my blades and the hexagon of pure divine threads summoned by the dragon gets denser and denser.

No matter how much I press into this field of gravity, it feels as though it's constantly pushing back with exactly the same amount of force.

There is no actual mass or base energy powering it. The sight of pure divine threads being manipulated on their own is fascinating, but I can't quite comprehend what is giving me so much trouble.

It's like a reversed magnet; the harder I push down on it, the harder it repels me with equal force.

However, I'm pushing so hard that I get the feeling that I'm near its breaking point.

Our Divine Cores are extremely similar in strength. The only edge this dragon really has on me is its natural levels, size, and strength.

With just a little more power, I feel like the weight of my blades could push through, but giving it my all right now, it feels more like they're sinking into a pad of rubber, and the moment I stop giving this attack everything I have, I'm going to be propelled backward.

However, I can't hold on at this maximum intensity much longer.

The pressure, heat, violent sounds, and light from our clash becomes absurd; like a second sun in the sky waiting to burst. The bronze dragon takes advantage of this moment to make its second move.

From within the depths of its open mouth, another pressure starts to form. There's dense Soul Energy that begins to form a bronze light, tethering with more and more divine threads from its core, growing very quickly.

With my swords both locked right in front of its face, the attack it's about to release will be aimed right at me.

I can't push any harder, as I'm using every drop of strength I have to push against this barrier. It feels as if the moment I let go, all of my force will be released back at me, but if I stay here continuing my attempt to break through, I'll be hit dead-on by its secondary attack.

The only thing I can do is attempt to get out of the way, so that's what I do.

I lock eyes with the dragon one more time, then instead of continuing my follow-through with my swings, I take a deep breath and pull back my blades, crossing them in front of my chest in a single movement, and feel exactly what I imagined would come.

All of the force that I pressed down on two fine single points is released back on me, creating a blinding blast of light so bright and powerful, I'm instantly sent flying backward even faster than the speed I came soaring in.

Placing my swords in front of me, and activating my barrier creation mixed with divine energy-enhanced Soul Energy Shielding, is enough to block the incoming energy, and only be pushed back by its pure mass and momentum.

Instead of being released in a single point, the energy is dispersed outward more evenly making the portion of threads that will collide with me weaker than the focused point of my strike. The massive release comes out in the shape of a half-sphere, erupting forward out from the hexagon.

Its direct path is aimed toward me, but large portions of the released energy expand quickly and aim down toward the already crumbled mountain range below us.

I'm using all of my strength in my new fly skill and air magic to change my flight path because out from the impossibly large explosion of divine energy, a beam of bronze-colored Soul Energy comes blasting out from the dragon's mouth headed my way.

As it rockets toward me, yellow threads continue to tether through it and strengthen it.

After flying backward tens of kilometers in a matter of seconds, I change my trajectory to begin curving out of the way.

The bronze blast turned yellow-white misses me by just a few hundred meters as I finally stop my backward momentum and stay floating.

With the reality-bending aura that leaks off this beam of energy, this few hundred meters of distance still feels like a near miss.

My breath is heavy, my adrenaline is pumping, and the dragon that deflected my most powerful strike with ease is now flapping its wings and speeding up again, coming my way while another one of its bronze beams charges up in its mouth.

I take a few fractions of a second to ready my weapons and take in the aftermath of this initial exchange.

The entire mountain range below me is gone...

A crater in the desert so deep and so wide was just created by our clash, that all I see below me is darkness.

Just from the shockwaves and energy released from a single strike, hundreds of kilometers of open desert have been compressed, evaporated, and completely destroyed.

[Level Transfer To Main Body: Complete]

[Level Up] x49

My small moment of dead silence while taking in the view is interrupted by another level-up transferred from my body double, showing that it is still climbing the labyrinth's floors.

This jolting moment of clarity after the notification gives me an idea... but it will only work if I can draw this battle out a little longer while conserving my stamina.

I grip my swords tighter, and channel the same amount of soul energy, enhanced by my True Core's bright yellow light, and look at the dragon that approaches me with its same unbothered eyes.

This monster's biggest mistake was showing me its abilities and letting me live past the first strike.

I grin, reactivate all of my buffs, and fly forward to take this dragon on a second time.