Inside the smoke like field, Lagron was channelling his energy into a massive red wave of destruction that was being fired at his rival. Lakshman was on the receiving end of such a wave, and he was holding it back with his bare hands while being continuously zapped by lightning that did not show any signs of stopping.

“Gah!” He groaned from the pain that was being inflicted on him by the violent lightning attack while holding off the incoming wave with his bare hands.

At that moment, Lagron shouted, “I can feel you struggling! I can keep this up all day if you like!”

Lakshman groaned and shouted back, “No… thanks!” Then he focused his mind on the two attacks that he was being hit with and shouted, “Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, his magic spell activated and seemed to momentarily work by stopping the lightning from hitting him. However, the red wave of destruction seemingly deflected his spell much to Lakshman’s surprise.

“My attack isn’t some lousy wave that can be cancelled by your weak spell!” Lagron shouted as he understood that his rival had used a magic cancelling spell on his lightning and attempted to destroy the wave as well. He grinned and shouted, “That includes the lightning as well!”

Just as he finished saying, a rumble occurred around them before a violent burst of lightning exploded out of the smoke field and struck Lakshman in the back. Once again, the Phoenix Titan Yelled out in pain from the shocking attack that had quite the stinging effect unlike any lightning attack he had received throughout his life.

“This is becoming a nuisance,” commented Asura calmly. “Hurry up and send it back.”

“You try taking this much of lightning and this stupidly strong wave!” Lakshman retorted against his past-self.

“Stop complaining and do it!” Asura told him sternly.

“I… am… doing it!” Lakshman roared at him in his mind. Outwardly, he focused on the attack in front of him and shouted, “If I can’t use magic, then I’ll do it with force!”

“Huh?” Lagron reacted in confusion.

The Phoenix Titan immediately began to exert his strength and moved his hands in an angle with a plan in motion. His plan came into fruition when he exerted his energy in the palm of his hands to split up the incoming wave; split and send it flying back from two different directions in an arc towards its owner.

“What?!” Lagron exclaimed in shock as he witnessed his wave getting split and sent flying back at him in an arc from either side. “Oh no!”

That was the only thing he said before he reacted by letting go of his firing position and moved his arms out to either side to block the speeding attacks. The force behind the waves did not decrease, only the size of the wave had been reduced by half due to the split.

It was at that moment that he sensed a tremendous energy gathering in front of him. So, he faced the front and saw his rival aiming both of his hands at him while charging an energy attack that was pulsating with lightning. By then, Lakshman had charged enough energy for his attack and launched it by shouting the technique name out loud.

“Electron Drive Cannon!”

In an instant, a massive blue wave of destruction erupted from his hands and soared straight towards the Dragon Titan at high speed. Lagron was momentarily shocked by the incoming massive wave before he shouted, “Dragon Armor Energise,” to make his dragon armour materialise in front of him just in time to block the incoming wave. However, the wave was not the only element contained within the attack as lightning suddenly seeped around the armour and struck Lagron.

“Gah! W-What is this?!” He yelled in pain as a ballistic lightning suddenly struck him and continued to zap him relentlessly while he was fending off his own attack on either side with his arms.

“Have a taste of your own attack!” He heard Lakshman shout at him, and that was when he realised what this was.

“My own… lightning?!” Lagron exclaimed in disbelief. “H-How…?!”

He could not believe that his own lightning attack was being used on him as well as being forced to block against his own attacks. However, he had no time to prepare a counter attack because his opponent’s wave suddenly intensified and broke through his armour to smash into him with heavy force.

Widening his eyes in shock, he was propelled back by the wave while lightning continued to zap him as it was being channelled through the wave. He was pushed back several meters by the wave and soon, they burst out of the smoke field and continued to fly for a few more meters before smashing heavily against the wall before a massive explosion occurred. A wild blowing wind and many shockwaves were sent in all directions, buffeting the spectators in the process.

“Oh! Lagron’s come out!” Tetra said with surprise.

“Blasted out is more like it,” corrected Silvera with a snort.

“But… where’s Lucky?” Venezuela asked worriedly.

“He’ll be out soon, I’m sure,” said Sonia confidently.

All of them turned to look back at the smoke field that continued to hang around the arena. Inside it, Lakshman was no longer being attacked by the lightning as its caster was blasted out of it. However, he knew this field would pose him a problem if it remained over the arena like that.

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So, he raised an arm and had only his forefinger open before beginning to spin it around and around and increased its speed before gathering immense energy in it. As the energy reached a peak stage, he exerted his strength and spun his arm with his forefinger open once to unleash a powerful gust of wind into his surroundings.

In an instant, a powerful gust of wind was unleashed from his forefinger and began expanding around him. Its strong blowing wind caused the surrounding smoke field to begin lessening its solid state and get blown away by the wind. Soon, none of the smoke field remained as the gust of wind slowly pushed its way up into the air and eventually disappeared, leaving only him standing there.

“He’s out!” Venezuela and Erza exclaimed happily.

“And he looks so cool!” Cantia and Sonia said excitedly.

“That’s our husband for you,” said Emilia with a smile.

“And our annayya too!” Priya added, to which everyone laughed.

“He rightfully is,” agreed Ondine, to which everyone all agreed by nodding their heads and smiling.

In the arena, Lakshman breathed a sigh and muttered, “This reminds me of the first magic exam I took with Sumara as she tested my magic.

He looked up to see his friends smiling and seemingly relieved to see him and waved at them with a smile. He guessed that they must have been worried for him because of the smoke like field that blocked their view and could only hear the battle cries, which did not help them in any way of knowing what was happening.

Just then, he sensed a sudden build-up of energy and turned just as there was an explosion of energy from the place Lagron had crashed at. He burst out from the rubble and rocketed towards Lakshman with a furious look on his face as he had his fist pulled back. Upon reaching him, he unleashed it, but his rival dodged it at the last second.

In that second, both of them made eye contact with one another, with Lagron looking serious while Lakshman looked calm and composed. Then Lagron opened the palm of the fist he threw and fired an energy blast directly into his rival’s face, scoring a direct hit.

“Damn!” Lakshman snapped, startled by the unexpected attack, and he took a hasty step back.

As soon as Lagron landed, he kicked off once more and flew straight towards Lakshman and landed a powerful uppercut that sent his ancient rival flying high into the air. Then he followed Lakshman into the air and began punching him from the bottom side where Lakshman was facing down and towards him.

After several punches, he attempted to land a powerful punch to Lakshman’s face, but the Phoenix Titan caught it and pulled him towards him before he pulled his head back and slammed it onto his rival’s head. The headbutt stung both of them, but it did more damage to Lagron because he plummeted from the force and smashed heavily into the ground.

Lakshman aimed his hands down at the crash site and began to rain energy blasts down. The blasts soared straight down and smashed at the place Lagron crashed at. The hail of energy blasts kept coming down relentlessly when Lagron suddenly erupted from the ground and shot up towards Lakshman with immense speed.

He dodged around the energy blasts and aimed a massive energy wave at his rival, but the Phoenix Titan saw him coming and prepared. At the moment of him launching the attack at point blank range, Lakshman surrounded himself with Elemental Coated Armor and deflected the wave away from himself harmlessly. But he was not prepared for the following kick that Lagron landed by spinning his body in an upward angle to reach him.

Lakshman was propelled away, and he was chased after by Lagron, who landed yet another punch to his face, but he was countered when Lakshman spun his body around and landed it across the side of his opponent’s face. The two were propelled away, but they quickly recovered and flew back at one another to begin their intensive second round of brawling in mid-air close combat.

Each impact they made against one another unleashed a strong wind and shock wave that was sent in all directions. The speed of their fists flew unbelievably fast, making it difficult for even an expert warrior like Dominic to follow.

“Wow!” Dominic exclaimed, not daring to blink as he felt he might miss their movement. “I can’t… keep up with them!”

“All I see is a blur of their movement!” Valerian said, as he squinted to try and grasp their movements as best as he could.

“It’s difficult to track those two unless we stop time probably,” remarked Amaranda telepathically with a small smile.

Everyone chuckled at her joke and continued to watch the battle rage before them. Lakshman and Lagron were hurling fist after fist at each other and oftentimes even spun their bodies around to land a powerful kick on their opponent. During this raging battle, they would get knocked away from a successful and strong punch from their opponent and then get chased by their opponent only to be countered and fight there before they managed to send their opponent flying and repeat the cycle by chasing after them.

“I just realised this but… I was expecting more magic usage from these two,” expressed Priya with a hint of letdown in her voice.

“No way. Magic would be useless against Lucky,” said Sumara with a smile. “Lucky would just nullify all magic attacks against him with Maga Distrab, so magic attacks are mostly useless against him unless they are shielded with anti-counter spells, which are really hard to cast.”

“Do you know why annayya only relies on the Energy Force most of the time, vadina? You were his first magic teacher, right?” Priya asked curiously.

Sumara looked a little troubled as he said, “I was but… well… I will be totally honest here. He was a good and diligent student that didn’t miss a single class of mine nor struggled with what I taught him. In fact, I sensed he had great aptitude for magic… that is… if he didn’t have problems.”

“Problems?” Priya asked curiously.

Sumara nodded and explained, “Yes. You see, I did my best to teach Lucky magic from the beginning, but he kept making some silly mistakes, basic mistakes but they got compounded overtime. At other times, he would simply forget some of what I taught him. It was as if the magic he forgot was unnecessary for him and it was decided by something.”

“Something?”

“Yes. Something… or someone,” said Sumara thoughtfully while they all looked at her. “I always had this impression of him that… there was something slightly off about the way he learnt magic from me. The way he kept forgetting specific kinds of magic I taught him… it’s almost like something or someone was preventing him from fully mastering his magic and was deciding for him what magic he should retain and discard. That’s the impression I got anyway and till now, I’ve had no concrete proof of my hypothesis about your brother.”

“Oh. That’s… troubling,” said Priya, looking troubled.

Sumara nodded, but she smiled and said, “Yes, but he turned out way better than what I had expected. He chose to rely on Energy Force for most combat while using Magic Force for strategic means only or for the sake of the people, environment, or the world. As such, I think he has more room to battle his opponents than simply go full frontal like Lagron over there.”

“Yeah. Lagron keeps getting countered more often, but his brute strength and stamina is something to admire at least,” admitted Priya, turning back to watch the battle rage on.