Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh

If there is one thing that surprised Uehara the most, it was that the titan overlord was much faster than he initially thought. Contrary to its humungous figure, it could really swing those arms.

Adding to the frightening combat instincts it had, it was almost impossible for Uehara to clinch in a proper blow.

Although Uehara could probably end the fight in less than a minute, he wouldn’t earn the allegiance of overlord. He needed to prove through raw power that he could beat the current overlord. And raw power meant…

CLASH

Pure physical combat.

BOOOM

Uehara just lost a fist exchange with the titan overlord and was sent crashing into one of the hills.

Looking at the titan just a few kilometres from him preparing to run, he got out of the rubble.

“Well…that was cute.”

The dark aura around him increased in intensity as Uehara increased the rate of nature energy absorption. The bone armour underneath his skin creaked at the sudden increase in nature energy running through them.

[I’m no battle maniac, but I truly want to see how far I can push myself.]

Although using his flame sage transformation was an option before, it would actually be useless against the titan overlord. While sage mode improves his overall attributes, the flame sage transformation will mostly focus on enhancing his flame attribute. All his fire abilities would be vastly powerful but the cost would be a decrease in overall physical abilities.

The reason is that in sage mode, the nature energy interacts with nature chakra and intertwines with it to produce sage chakra. All six elements contain certain aspects and concepts that become enhanced when they come in contact with nature energy. An example would be earth. When the earth portion of nature chakra comes into contact with nature energy, Uehara’s strength and defensive capabilities would increase. The same would apply with air for agility and water for recovery capabilities.

But if he were to increase the ratio of only fire, the boosts he would gain from the air, earth and water portions of his chakra would be lower while his speed from the fire portion would increase exponentially.

Just having speed won’t do against the thick skin of his opponent. So his next option was to use a neat little technique his father taught him.

“[Aura-Flowing State: Times Two]”

BOOOOM

Just activating the technique caused everything within a five-hundred-metre radius to be blown away by the shockwave caused from the sudden increase power. Amongst the list of things blown away was the titan overlord that was about to land a punch on Uehara.

With the dust clouds settling, Uehara was finally revealed. His previously dark aura now had a mix of gold mixed within. It was just a hint of how the cohesion between nature chakra and nature energy was at the risk of breaking.

After a few seconds of getting used to the increase in power, Uehara burst forward.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Multiple booms were heard as Uehara broke the sound barrier multiple times over. Arriving before the kneeling titan, he planted a fist right on the left part of its chest where its lung was.

A hole instantly formed where Uehara’s fist had struck. The rapidly condensed air pressure caused by his fist had blown a hole that was a full thirty-centimetres in diameter. The hole could’ve been bigger but Uehara had focused the air pressure so that he wouldn’t leave just a deep wound, but a tunnel.

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ROAAAAR!!!

Quickly dodging swipe from the titan, he was able to use his superior speed to continue punching holes throughout its whole body. But that all came to an end when golden lightning came from the sky and covered the titan.

Retreating a safe distance, he noticed how the lightning seemed to contain nature energy.

“Is this an inherent ability?”

Watching his fist heal after being struck by lightning, he got ready to fight.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Bones started covering his whole arm like one massive tumour the size of the titan’s fist. Pushing himself off the ground, he burst forward to strike the first blow of the second round.

CLASH

With lightning now coursing through its veins, the titan’s reaction speed was now much better than before. This allowed it to launch its own fist forward and block Uehara’s. But this time, the titan was pushed back just slightly, creating deep grooves on the ground.

Not letting up, he kicked off the air again with such force that he exploded forward with such momentum that when he struck the titan on the chest again, it sounded like thunder.

The titan overlord was already worse for wear with all the holes it had on its body. Although it had already managed to heal most of them, the one on its lung was quite difficult to resolve. Although the hole wouldn’t affect it too much in the grand scheme of things, much of its stamina was sapped by that blow. It also wasn’t helping that Uehara constantly targeted that specific injury with his giant bone fist. Any attempts at reconnecting the lung tissue would be disturbed Uehara’s continuous punches.

But as the fight progressed, Uehara wasn’t getting off scot free either. Although his bones were strong, there was a limit to how much punishment they can take. Since the titan overlord’s body was covered in nature energy-infused lightning, he had to constantly replace the layers of bone forming his giant fist more times than he could count.

But still, even though the moon was starting to rise up, he was confident he could last until the following morning.

And although he never wanted to call himself a battle-maniac, he still couldn’t help but admit that somewhere deep inside, he was enjoying this little scuffle.

No fancy tricks. No schemes. No under-handed means. Just a pure straight brawl between two demons. Even though he had complained to himself internally about just ending this battle, part of him couldn’t help but understand why such rules regarding combat between demons was special.

[Strong bodies mean less chance of the leader dying due to underhanded means. If I want to beat this titan, I have to convince him through my might that a dagger to the back won’t be the end of me, that I’m not just a glass-cannon.]

Back-flipping away from a potential forceful merger with the ground, Uehara leaped onto the titan’s still outstretched fist. Forming a tri-bladed bone chain on his left hand, he swung it onto the titan’s shoulder and pulled himself towards it. That action alone allowed him to dodge the titan’s slap with its other hand.

Relying on the momentum of having pulled himself forward, Uehara channeled as much sage chakra as he could onto his right arm that currently had extra layers of bone forming on it.

CRACK…CRACK

The bone fist creaked in rebellion as it was overloaded with dark chakra, causing it to be covered by an ominous black aura. Having neared the overlord’s face with his grapple, Uehara cocked his fist back.

“SORYA!”

BOOM! CRACK

Having swung his fist so fast, an immense shockwave erupted, followed by the sickening crack of the titan’s neck snapping backwards.

Although its neck was now hanging by the bindings of its skin, the titan wasn’t dead yet. Although it was falling down, it managed to retreat a step back and rebalanced itself.

Pressing on, Uehara back-flipped of the titan’s face. Having opened a distance of a few dozen metres, a shadow clone formed in the air next to Uehara. Grabbing the hand of the original, the clone swung Uehara around like a slingshot before throwing him towards the titan with such force that Uehara even felt his left shoulder dislocate.

Never the one to care for such trivial matters, he cocked his fist back, just in time for the overlord to snap its neck back into place and face Uehara.

Unfortunately, a repeat of before happened.

BOOOM

A sickening crack resounded throughout the entire valley and this time, a line of blood formed on the overlord’s neck.

Stumbling back, it managed to stop its fall by balancing on its right hand.

FUUUUSHHHHH

“What?!”

BOOOOM

Having been sent flying by the shockwave from the titan’s roar, Uehara managed to land on the ground before digging his hands into the earth to stop his momentum.

Standing up straight, the distance between him and the titan was now five-hundred-metres.

Coughing out a bit of blood, he began healing the internal bleeding he suffered.

[How did he release his aura so quickly and with such velocity? My heart had shut down for a moment because of it.]

Wiping the blood from his mouth, a smile formed on his face.

“No matter. This just makes me more excited to have him as a summon. And this clash of fists is certainly bringing me enjoyment as well.”

Although the weight difference was vastly different, that didn’t mean much for these two overlords.

Huff

Watching the plume of smoke coming out of the now healed titan’s nose, Uehara could feel it was enjoying this scuffle too.