Jax had been present during most of the fight but chose not to act immediately, letting Isaiah and Terry probe Masked Duke's abilities first.

A few days ago, Isaiah suddenly showed up in his office, "If there was one person I wasn't expecting, it was you, Mr. Isaiah," his gaze behind his helm questioning, but he still gestured for Isaiah to take a seat.

Isaiah laughed, but he didn't get seated. Instead, he put the formation card on his desk, "Here, a gift from me to the Empire."

Jax took the formation card and examined it, activating it without fear, "Hmm, while it's impressive you manage to fit a formation inside this card, I can't figure out how this will help the Empire."

Isaiah chuckled, "Just make sure to keep it powered on and rush to the casino if it ever activates, the fish will soon bite the bait," with that, he turned around and left. He knew that Jax was more knowledgeable about the Second Emperor District than Terry, so he could figure out the true meaning behind his words.

Jax looked at the formation card in his hand, his expression couldn't be made out due to his helm, "So the fish has finally taken the bait."

...

Jax stood on top of a building, dense lightning trickled around him. He was the one that redirected the lightning headed for Isaiah. His hand was raised up high as the clouds gathered even further, huge amounts of lightning converged forming a behemoth of a lightning serpentine. SHAK! It was released upon Masked Duke, drawing destruction upon him.

Seeing the serpentine lightning heading his way, Masked Duke raised his hands up high. Their control over the destructive lightning reached a stalemate, it remained hanging in the air, illuminating the entire block in blinding purple light, sizzling and crackling non-stop.

It very clearly wanted to crack upon Masked Duke but couldn't. Jax pointed his other hand to face Masked Duke, a huge ball of crackling lightning converged into his palm. ZOOM! In an instant, it arrived near Masked Duke.

At the last moment before hitting him, Masked Duke managed to influence the lightning ball as well due to Jax's wavering influence over it, due to the increased range. The further a spell traveled, the less control the caster would have over it.

Both sides have once again reached a stalemate. Seeing their power to be similar, Isaiah raised his wounded arm, his charred palm raised to face Masked Duke. In his palm, he held the entire vial of creature blood.

The vial cracked, releasing sizzling black blood. Isaiah trapped it in a mana sphere using his mana, formations appeared within his palm. He was using the Canon Formation! The Canon Formation, in principle, compressed mana until it became unstable, then let out an opening to release the unstable compressed mana as a beam of fury.

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Which meant this same principle could be used for things other than light, just like right now. The blood and mana got compressed against each other until they became unstable, smoke took the surroundings as Isaiah released the Boiling Blood Cannon!

Masked Duke's eyes widened behind his mask as he sensed the approaching danger, but there was little he could do against it as it beamed towards his face, managing to get past the dense lightning that coiled around him, hitting directly to his face!

Even though the damage it caused was minimal, it caused the tilt of the balance between his control and Jax's control over the lightning. STRIKE! CRACK!

Both the huge ball of lighting and the serpentine lightning dangling from the sky hit him, causing smoke to take surrounding, mixing with the smoke released from the Boiling Blood Cannon, to make it nearly impossible to see anything.

SHOO! Lightning trickled as a half-burnt Masked Duke rose up above from the smokes. His mask was still intact, only slightly melted on one side, clearly not cheap metal.

He only took a slight gaze at Isaiah before more lightning cracked under his feet, making him launch at high speeds. Terry launched right after him, his feet burning in flames as he jetted behind Masked Duke, trying to catch him.

Jax was the first one to act. The moment he saw Masked Duke hover at the sky, he had rushed to him.

He could see him slowly increase the distance as he chased after him, while Jax's sheer power was more destructive, it seemed like Masked Duke pulled away when it came to movement technique.

Which made sense, as each step Jax took was as light as a feather, even though he leaped dozens of meters with each jump, not a single brick he stepped on even cracked a little, compared to Masked Duke whole raked destruction in his path due to the sheer power behind his movement technique.

Jax's technique was a special requirement for the Royal Guards as they were trained to be fast while not destroying public property if possible, this was the reason behind Jax's near-silent steps.

Masked Duke suddenly did a 180 in a movement that would normally break a normal individual's spine, from his clawed hand was released five giant strikes that rushed towards Jax at lightning speeds.

It rushed so fast that Jax didn't have to fight for control over it, and all he could do was put his hands up to brace for impact. In front of his guarded hands, lightning crackled, making a makeshift shield.

CRACK! Three of the five claws hit him right in the chest, sending him back five steps. By the time he managed to recover from the impact, Masked Duke was nowhere to be seen.

SMASH! Terry landed next to him, looking around, then asked, "Did he escape?" Jax, his gaze still on the last place he saw Masked Duke at, nodded.

...

Isaiah, back at the battleground, slowly walked outside the smoke, stumbling his way to his casino's entrance, "A shame," while he said that, there was still a smile on his face, "At least, I managed to send the necessary message."

While he didn't join the chase, he could still guess the outcome from the fight prior, he had seen Masked Duke's movement technique and could make an educated guess.

While it might seem like failure, he was satisfied with the results, not only did he manage to successfully defend against a Rank 2, but he proved the worth of the formation cards he had made. His plan was to use this fight as advertisement to sell it to any important person. He was gonna also change the beeping to be able to receive and send morse code.

The trash properties he had bought and renovated to be tall pyramids were used as cell towers to relay the information using mana to another towers, the principal behind it was currently quite simple as the activation of a formation sent an activated another formation within the range, hence having sent a signal.

His plan was to sell this service to the empire worldwide, especially for business owners and nobles; it would revolutionize their work.

He could already smell the money, and more importantly, influence coming his way.