The gargantuan body of the sea-dragon stopped its movements and coiled arounds itself, lying on the water's surface with such stability that it almost seemed to become an island. Perhaps even Farmer would have been fooled were it not for the coiling serpents of lightning constantly dancing over the sea-dragon's scales.
"Foolish human." It bellowed in disdain. "To dare ignore me! Me! The ruler of these waters! Kneel down, prostrate yeself in worship, and I shall grant ye a quick death."
"How magnanimous." Mocked Farmer, drawing his staff and readying himself to fight.
"The scorn in your voice betrays ye, mortal." Chortled the draconic being. "Allow me to show ye how far the stars soar; how wide is the distance between a human and a true sovereign!"
Finishing its sentence, the dragon opened its maw and rushed towards Farmer with blinding speed. Right before its jaw devoured Farmer, he jumped up and narrowly evaded the dragon's poisonous fangs. Soaring past the sea-dragon's surprised eyes, Farmer sent an ocean's worth of energy into his staff, raising its weight to the limit. Using all of his strength, he moved the staff in an arch and struck at the dragon's head.
Farmer had aimed the strike at his opponent's eye, but the sea-dragon carried with it a collective experience of hundreds of years of fighting, thus able to turn its forehead towards the oncoming attack. This was where its defensive abilities was strongest; but even so, the staff struck with the intensity of a meteor.
The dragon roared and, despite its size, was sent flying a good distance away, crashing loudly and causing an explosion of waves. It was stunned. Never would it have expected the little ant before it to be capable of causing it pain. Had the staff strike been just a little bit stronger, there was a chance it would have been injured! Perhaps to the point of dying!
Angered beyond measure, it lashed out with its tail, certain that this strike would crush Farmer to dust. However, Farmer had been expecting a counterattack and willed his staff to grow in length. Piercing the water bellow, the staff instantly grew to the point its end was resting on the seabed. Using his weapon as a platform, Farmer pirouetted over the incoming tail and easily dodged it.
The dragon stared in disbelief. No once, but twice had he failed to strike this measly human down! This was an utter humiliation for it! Were word of this to spread, it would never again be able to roam the world with its head raised high.
Farmer was unaware of what the sea-dragon was thinking. Instead, he was marvelling at how much his strength had increased with his recent breakthrough. Had it been a few days earlier, he would never have been confident in his victory. As matters stood now, he was certain that he could defeat the beast before him.
Landing on the end of his staff, Farmer balanced himself on one leg and stared mockingly at the dragon. There was no need for him to say anything, the colour of his eyes revealed his thoughts.
"Mortal, I underestimated ye." Commented the dragon, carefully concealing its shock behind a façade of nonchalance. "Rejoice, for I shall now fight ye with the full extent of my power! Observe the might of a true sovereign!"
Concentrating its reserves of arcane energy, every single scale on the sea-dragon's body evoked baleful light whilst glistening with the azure colour of deadly lightning. In the sky, densely packed dark clouds began converging over the battling man and beast, covering the moon and plummeting the duo into a pitch blackness only broken by the flashing lightning. Roaring thunder started to resound all over, sending vibrations of such intensity that Farmer's bones vibrated.
This was a spectacle that would cause the heart of the bravest of men to stop beating on the spot. The Heavens themselves seemed to seethe in fury at Farmer. The message was clear: how dare you defy one we have deemed to be a sovereign? However, the pirate lord laughed loudly.
"Ruler this, ruler that. Why should I care if you're a king or an emperor, beast?" Calmly spoke Farmer. "Let me tell you something; I'm a pirate. A free man of the sea, with only the horizon to dictate where I can go. What's a sovereign to a pirate, beast? Let me tell you: an eyesore."
"Insolent!" The dragon's anger rose to a level it had never felt before.
Desiring nothing more than to turn this brazen human into a stain on its scales, it struck out with its tail again. However, it wasn't completely blinded by rage, and produced several lightning bolts as thick as arms to seal the space around its attack. It didn't want to allow Farmer to dodge its strike for a third time.
Farmer smiled casually. How could he not know what the beast was planning? A plan formed in his head and he readied himself to perform the best defensive technique in his repertoire; one that he had never pulled off when facing a stronger opponent. Taking in a deep breath, he placed his arms at strange angles around his body, feeling the vastness of the void surrounding him. In his mind, a warning echoed. A warning that if he failed, he would be in a terrifyingly dangerous position. He might even die. But there was a calm, confident, gleam in his gaze that arrogantly questioned the edicts of the Heavens. The instant the tail end was about to reach him, he struck out.
This technique was baffling to the observer because it was mired with arcane mystery. His arms moved with both great speed, and supreme sluggishness. He used his right arm to hit the oncoming tail with his back hand shifting the tail upwards, while with his left he dug his fingers into the dragon's scales. Twisting his upper body with impossible fluidity, Farmer tossed the dragon over him like a ragdoll.
Despite the beast's leviathan grandeur, it was no more than a small serpent in Farmer's grip as it suddenly found itself cruising the air with great speed. Farmer struck down and the dragon crashed into the sea with a loud bang, causing massive towers of water to rise and drench Farmer completely.
Still, it was as if he hadn't noticed this because he was smiling from ear to ear. This was the supreme technique of his master that he'd imparted to Farmer before he died. A genuine sacred-level arcane art that successfully merged the thesis and antithesis of energy; the positive and the negative of life; the true balance of nature tethered to the extreme. Using an obscure flow of power within one's energy channels, set out to counteract and nullify the opponent's arts, one would be able to use any oncoming energy to their advantage and overpower their opponent without expending a single iota of strength.
However, explaining the theory behind it was one thing, actually pulling the technique off was another matter entirely. Farmer successfully performing it meant that he had achieved the highest realm of energy manipulation. Something far beyond the capabilities of any normal human. He was elated.
His happiness was short-lived, however, because he suddenly found himself without a foothold. The dragon had not resurfaced; instead submerging itself and, taking advantage of the aquatic terrain, lashed out at Farmer's staff, toppling it over.
Farmer had no means to escape as he plummeted into the dark waters bellow.
Instantly, he felt thousands of lightning bolts clashing against his body. Were his body not as hard as steel, he had no doubt that just this attack alone would suffice to send him to the Thirteen Hells. Notwithstanding his defence, he still found himself spitting a large mouthful of blood and his muscles numbed.
The sea-dragon was taken aback for a second. This human was full of surprises! Never before had any living being survived its lightning, which had been tempered for almost a thousand years in the deadliest thunder storms. Just what exactly was this human made of? What kinds of heaven-defying encounters did he go through to develop such strength whilst being so young?!
It was only for a second that the sea-dragon was stunned, but it was enough time for Farmer to summon his staff back to his hands. As the weapon landed within his grip, he struck out one hundred times in succession with a speed capable of creating illusory dark shadows of moving staffs in the water. Each strike was aimed at a vital spot on the dragon's body and was meant to seal all its escape routes.
The dragon nimbly avoided many of the oncoming attacks. Inside the water, its speed was second to none; but even so, a dozen of the staff shadows landed against its body with such force that a few scales cracked. It was its massive size that played a major role in it being unable to dodge everything. After all, Farmer was skilled enough to hit a speck of dust accurately during a storm, let alone a beast the size of a mountain.
Roaring in pain, the dragon sent a massive lightning bolt that crashed against Farmer's chest, burning his clothes and causing a dark scar to appear on his body. Undeterred, Farmer ignored the lightning and lunged forward. He let go of his staff and concentrated his energy to form a mini vortex on his finger. This was an arcane art he had developed by gaining insights into the energy emitted by the compass when he was refining it. Now was the time to test its effectiveness.
Appearing under the sea-dragon's body, Farmer extended his finger towards its underbelly. Immediately, the dragon instinctively felt a looming sense of utmost danger and dashed out in retreat. It was too slow, however, and its tail was still struck by Farmer's finger.
The vortex of energy exploded out like deadly blades, easily ripping through the dragon's scales and cutting through its flesh. Gore and chunks of flesh inundated Farmer's field of vision and, for a moment, he lost sight of the world around him. He only managed to hear the dragon roaring out in agony.
Pushing with his feet, Farmer rose to the water's surface and summoned his staff to act as a platform for him again. This time he sent out his spiritual sense of kept a careful eye on the sea-dragon's body. He was elated to notice that its tail had almost completely been severed and was dangling awkwardly in the water.
However, the dragon made no movement to attack Farmer. For the first time in almost three millennia, it felt fear towards what it had perceived to be an inferior being. This human had very nearly slain it! If it didn't tread carefully, there was a high chance that this place would become its burial ground.
Hence, it decided to remain concealed, zigg-zagging in random directions. In its mind, the human couldn't follow its rapid movements within the water. It would wait for the human to believe that it had left and would then strike out when he least expected it. Had the sea-dragon known that Farmer was able to use his spiritual sense to observe it easily, it is hard to say what the dragon's reaction would be.
Still, time passed and neither of the two made a move. Farmer was patiently waiting for the dragon to act and, in turn, the dragon was beginning to grow flustered. Wasn't this human going to leave? Did he plan to stay there for the rest of his life?
Were these normal circumstances, the dragon would have no problem competing with this human in terms of patience. After all, it had lived for over five thousand years. To sit and wait for a month or two was as easy for it as breathing. However, quite a number of its scales were cracked, and its tail was almost completely mutilated. The dragon had to expend a large amount of its energy reserves just to keep its tail together. Thus, it couldn't afford to drag this battle on.
Swearing in its heart that it would return to hunt this human down, the dragon turned and prepared to leave. For now, it was imperative to return to its secluded cave and consume a few resources to heal. Silent and like a shadow, it began retreating.
Farmer frowned. He hadn't expected the dragon to be so shameless so as to run away. Wasn't this too unfair? Cursing it in his heart, he pounced towards it with his greatest speed.
The dragon felt Farmer's sudden move and it instantly froze, realising that Farmer was heading in its direction. What a fool! It thought. This was its best opportunity to exact revenge on this damned human.
Acting as if it didn't notice Farmer, the sea dragon began groaning in pain and turning on itself. It was trying to lull Farmer into a false sense of confidence before striking out with all its remaining strength. Farmer chuckled to himself. This sea dragon was a great fool if it thought such a simple stratagem would work against him. Fearlessly, he increased his speed and rushed towards the dragon from an angle it would be impossible for it to retaliate in time.
Cursing this human's deviousness, the dragon was forced to use its trump card. In the blink of an eye it disappeared completely and reappeared right behind Farmer!
Farmer cursed to himself. The sea-dragon was proficient in the arcane arts of space! Although the energy expenditure was astronomical, particularly so with a creature as big as this, if used wisely, space arts could easily shift the tide of any battle. And this dragon had been perfect with its timing.
Roaring in mad glee, the sea-dragon sunk its fangs into Farmer. The magical properties of a dragon's tooth allowed it to easily penetrate through any defence like a warm knife slicing through butter. Farmer was no exception, and he quickly found himself pierced through; right below his heart. Had he not jerked out of instinct, the dragon would have completely destroyed his heart, killing him in the process.
At the same time, paralysing and deadly venom was coursing through his veins. Sea-dragon venom was notorious because there was no known cure for it. It would slowly but steadily immobilise any creature's body; eventually stopping the heart, lungs, and brain. No one could survive this.
"HAHAHAHAHA." Guffawed madly the dragon. "Ye have lost! But rejoice, for I will now devour all your energy. Ye will die, but a part of ye shall live on within me!"
Instantly, the dragon began suctioning Farmer's energy out of his centre. During the course of this fight, it had been surprised time and again by this human's power. If it could cultivate Farmer's reserves, there was a good chance it would rise to another level of strength. That was how it had obtained the arcane art of space which was now its final trump card, by devouring a supreme expert a few decades earlier.
Thus, it excitedly closed its eyes and prepared to savour Farmer's delicious energy. However, it quickly opened its eyes wide and its pupils narrowed in horror. Farmer's energy was unlike anything it had felt before, and it threatened to destroy its entire being as soon as a single drop entered its energy streams.
"This cannot be!" It bellowed. "This is the energy of the primordial chaos! Ye… Ye are the vessel of chaos!" Pushing Farmer out of its maw with its tongue, the dragon retreated far away and observed Farmer with trepidation. "This cannot be. I thought ye had been slain two hundred years ago. The Heavens rejoiced when ye disappeared! Why are ye still alive?!"
"Good to see the Heavens love me so much." Sarcastically said Farmer with difficulty. Due to his unique energy, the poison in his body was quickly being absorbed and channelled into his channels. However, the injury he'd received was a serious one and he needed to concentrate carefully to not bleed to death.
"This cannot be!" Roared the sea-dragon loudly once again as it fell into despair.