By the time Hercules had reached zero, the Intent to battle between the duo had reached its peak. It was only just before the princess moved that a thought crept into her head. A thought that caused her no small amount of discomfort.

'Inspired by Daoism?'

She had not seen anything of the sort from Will. Application of the Dao was in everything, but the phrase Daoism was very specific. She could not trace anything inspired by anything of the sort. Will had seemed almost completely Norse in everything he did.

The moment Hercules shouted begin, Mercedes acted. Her body changed, becoming a ray of blue lift but burst straight at Will. This was her favoured movement skill; Blue Shift.

It was a short-range movement skill that bordered upon teleportation in terms of speed. It transformed one into light and moved them in a straight line. But it had limitations. One could not attack mid-movement and one could only move to nearby areas. One could also not take any curved trajectories. But few opponents were fast enough to predict her movements to actually affect her.

She arrived in front of Will who stood completely still. Even when she was only a meter away from him, swinging her divine energy-coated staff, he did not flinch.

'Could he be attempting Loki's Substitution?'

She expected her staff to crash into an ice statue or a water clone, but instead, her staff sank into a dark mass of shadows. What used to be Will became a mass of black so dense it generated a powerful gravitational pull.

"Hela is Loki's daughter."

Will's cool figure appeared behind the black mass. Using his staff he pieced forward. The tip of the staff was a blunt spearhead. But mid-motion, the blood spearhead became sharp and glistened with a threatening metallic glow.

The spear pierced through the mask of darkness and went straight for the exposed abdomen of the Princess. The princess smirked in response. Aphrodite's Longing was no ordinary staff. The spear hit a translucent barrier of LIght inscribed In greek letters. This was the defensive measure that Aphrodite's Longing carried with it. It protected her from most attacks. Normally, one had to be of a much higher level to even physically harm her. That was why few had actually succeeded n that endeavour.

"Argh!"

To the surprise of the audience, the princess' body flew back many meters and crashed into the wall. The impact was far from violent. Barely causing any noise at all. But the expression on Mercedes' was contorted from pain. Her staff was staff to the mass of darkness that was once Will's body.

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Adelda looked on in approval as she smirked. Mercedes had touched her bottom line by insulting her Master and benefactor. She couldn't take action personally, but she did not mind giving Will extra motivation.

'Hela and Loki's daughter, and Loki s Odin's Son. They are a trio of master sorcerers, and the apples did not fall far from the World Tree. Hela, Loki and Odin have their own substitutions, they are just far less well known.'

Each substitution had its own feature. Loki's Substitution was meant to be a target. Hela's Substitution was meant to seal, while Odin's is meant as a movement skill. He superbly fused traits. Hela's Substitution replaced one with a mass of darkness that generated a powerful gravitational pull on any object that contacted it.

Mercedes groggily stood up, much to the shock of the crowd. In a high-speed battle like this, such behaviour was odd. She was a light mage was Will was a mage capable of using teleportation and a movement skill like Valhalla Path. This was destined to be a battle of speed. Meanwhile, above the duo, the dragon was clashing with Aphrodite's phantom.

It was not a physical battle, but a spiritual one. Aphrodite's Longing summoned a phantom of the deity that boosted one's three vessels greatly. It especially granted a great boost to the mind.

She wanted to use this boost to charm Will. Part of her blessings ability was to charm any negative emotion into a positive one. Even If one hated her, so long as their mind was weak and they held some attraction to her, she could turn that negative emotion Into admiration or lust.

This was why she wanted to solicit a reaction from Will. So long as he sent a surge of emotion to her, she was confident in turning it into an appreciation of her through the phantom. But the dragon's might emanating from the beast above completely nullified the divine energy of the phantom, making it useless to Mercedes. All she could receive was a boost to her vessels, but the spiritual boost was minimal at best.

Will's own dense killing intent made it impossible to penetrate his defences. And he had used that trait to attack her.

'That bastard hid a needle of concentrated killing intent in the tip of the spear.'

Mercedes' perfectly symmetrical face contorted into hate as she looked on at her opponent. The shield of light was strong against physical and energy attacks, but it could do nothing to a thin, dense and concentrated mass of corrosive killing intent.

'His affinity for the metal element is just as good as his water element. What more are you hiding?'

Killing intent from the metal element was the most corrosive and invasive out of the 8 elemental attributes. When fused with an attack born from concentrated dark element divine energy, it became a perfect counter for the Shield of Light.

Her mind was still in shambles, and her phantom was stuck motionless in the sky with the dragon. Both large beings stared at each and engaged in a spiritual battle occurring in another plain of existence. The world energy in the environment was disturbed by the clash, making casting spells difficult.

'His intent is also disturbing my thought process.'

Mercedes struggle to put together a stream of steady thoughts. To a mage, their processing power was everything. But now she only had a portion of her battle prowess left.

…

'She underestimated him.' The hooded figure and other sharp-eyed observers had seen it clearly. Will's flood of intent disappeared at the point of impact and reappeared after the clash.

'He probably concentrated all his intent on one point and attacked her mind. Her shield broke down and she was blasted back. The flood of Intent made her believe he didn't have much control, but it's quite the opposite. Her mind is in shambles and the large beings above have disturbed the World Energy. Now is a real test of one's skills. Peerless Dao Master, he has more to him than meets the eye.'

The hooded figure started to worry for Mercedes because she had not battled many opponents at her own level. Before he could worry further, Will had made his second move.

With a Valhalla Path, he had appeared beside Mercedes and made a horizontal swipe with his staff. She generated a shield of light due to reflexive action. It was the only defensive spell that she could cast in her current state of mind.

'I need to readjust and regroup.'

This time, she concentrated all the mental energy she could into the shield and got ready for his attack. A fraction of a second later, she felt a sharp pain hit her back.

'How?'

As she was blown forward, she spun back and saw a figure in all-black armour just after a forward thrust.

'The figure that attacked me was a substitute?'