'Mars!'
Esen's scream in his mind was the only thing he could comprehend with clarity.
'I will… be ok…'
'Tsc… stubborn as always… You are a moron, an idiot that only makes me worry!'
If she had a physical body, tears would be threatening to form in Esen's eyes right now. All Mares could muster was to give her a weak apologetic smile.
'I know.'
He heard her clicking her tongue, holding back everything she wanted to say, probably about how reckless and stupid he could be.
'Your Astral Energy will be enough to heal the injury, but if you take another one or two hits like that, you will get too low to use more.'
In the end, she took a deep breath and focused on supporting him in what she could.
'Noted, little bunny.'
Just as the conversation ended, his instincts kicked in. Using repulsion Mares pushes himself away from where he had fallen just in time to avoid King, who threw a powerful punch there.
The result of avoiding the attack was that the ground below was destroyed, creating a huge crater. Had Mares been there, while the result might not have been so bad, he would still have suffered.
"You fucker… has been a while since someone injured me… and that hurt like shit… I want to make it even!"
King still carried a smile on his face, one that was now painted with pain and rage.
He had used his injured arm on the punch, proving that, as much as it had hurt him, Mares' plan worked in the long run.
The silver-eyed even had a brief hope that this would have been enough to stop King from using his martial arts, but taking how he only seemed infuriated and not worried he was either very good at bluffing or he could still do what he was doing before. Knowing his luck, Mares betted on the latter.
He looked for his weapon just to see it behind King. The man also knew that and the look on his face showed how getting it back wouldn't be an option.
'If I try to go for it, he will probably see an opening to attack… besides, is not like having a weapon now or not would make much of a difference…'
Unless Mares figured out a way to deal with King's martial arts, it would make no difference how he fought.
'This is a chance… I need to try something different, evolve into something else!'
King wasn't moving, he didn't want to give an opening for Mares to recover his multi-weapon, and Mares also didn't move, thinking.
He went over everything he had, power and technique-wise.
Regarding his techniques, he had his reinforcement, air rings, repulsion, energy beams, crystals, eyes, and the ability to trespass on physical matters that weren't living organisms. Regarding his powers, he mostly had his strength, regeneration, adaptability, and absorption.
Mares looked at all of that, trying to figure out how any of it could be used in this situation.
As Mares went over those things, King attacked while staying still. His feet stayed still but his upper body started moving at high speed and with his uninjured arm, he punched the air with enough strength to create pressure that could hit Mares.
The silver-eyed jumped with repulsion and had to keep moving as King attacked again and again, not giving him a break and pulling him further away from his weapon.
Using his eyes he could see that even without an arm, King could still accumulate power through his body and release it like usual. Whenever he would make a hit, some of the remaining energy would go back and be reused, moving like a circle inside of him.
Mares' eyes widened thinking of something.
'Hey, Es. Most of the time I get stronger, is through getting something from someone else.'
The white-haired could see her beloved thought of something, and this time she had a good feeling about it.
'Indeed.'
Only she could see the smile that formed on his face.
'So, why not just do as usual?'
Once thinking that he no longer tried to escape.
'Before I already managed to change the air rings and the energy beams, so why not create more changes?'
King frowned seeing that Mares had stopped running, not understanding why the silver-eyed had suddenly stopped. He knew something was up but had no clue what could have changed in those brief instances.
Meanwhile, Mares wasn't giving the least bit of attention to his reactions, only thinking.
'King's style makes use of the opposite characteristics of soft and hard, combining two opposites and resulting in his martial arts. I can absorb energy in its purest form, but before it never even crossed my mind to try to absorb something different. At the same time, repulsion could be used to throw it back, like he does. Absorb to attract and consume, and repulse to regurgitate and attack.'
As he thought all of that, Mares was copying King's pose to the best he could.
The theory was the easy part, practicing it would be the real challenge and probably very tricky.
King's attacks came without mercy and Mares did not avoid any of them, attempting to do similar to King and absorb the blows.
Noticing that the silver-eyed was copying his moves King was incredulous.
'Is Silver really trying to do that? Or is it a plot for me to get my guard down?'
He hesitated for a second, not knowing what to think of that, before resuming his attacks. The only way to see what was Mares planned to keep going.
Using his eyes and enhanced sense, Mares had an easy time tracking to intercept the pressure sent to him. Using his fists to receive it made him realize just how hard of a task the silver-eyed imposed on himself.
It wasn't a simple matter of receiving the attack, he had to take it while succeeding in synchronizing his own absorption capabilities, which was already hard enough on itself, letting alone the fact that this was the first time Mares tried something like it, he still had to figure out how to absorb the strike.
The first few hits just resulted in his hands getting injured while his natural regeneration could only keep up enough to stop his hands from getting worse. It wasn't for nothing though.
'You usually absorb Astral Energy but now you are trying to take on the kinetic energy. It's a leap, but one manageable. Think back to when you absorbed the Void Beast's cores, how did you do it, what's the feeling? Think of all those things and apply them here.'
Esen helped him rationalize and organize his thoughts.
Taking a deep breath, Mares focused on those aspects Esen reminded him of. He opened his palms, receiving the pressure from the strikes that were hurting him, but he ignored all of that and just focused on the sensation.
The silver-eyed stopped seeing those strikes as they were, replacing them in his mind with pure agglomerations of Astral Energy. He focused on the exact feelings and sensations of absorbing the cores and applied them here. It was second nature at this point.
It took a few tries until it eventually happened. He felt not the power and pressure of the hit, but the energy on it. There was Astral Energy on it, but also kinetic and even a bit of King's mental energy.
And just like he did various times before, the energy was absorbed, the only difference with previous times being that he wouldn't take it to his reserves. However, Mares soon enough faced a problem, he had no way to move this power around his body, resulting in it injuring himself from the inside.
'The power can't stay still, should have figured that out from King…'
He was forced to one knee. The bigger the extent of the injuries Mares held and the more of them he had, the weaker his regeneration became without the addition of Astral Energy.
King noticed something was wrong, however seeing that all the silver-eyed seemed to accomplish was, somehow, hurt himself, he wasn't too worried and just kept attacking.
Knowing what went wrong didn't mean Mares knew how to fix it, so he once more looked at King trying to see if there was something he could replicate from him.
The remaining energy on King's fist that wasn't sent as an attack would circle back inside him, before going out, enhancing his next punch. All of his moves worked like that.
Mares' eyes went wide when he realized it.
'You have an idea… and this time I think it won't be too crazy.'
'Right on the spot little bunny.'