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The sound of weapons clashing echoed in the arena. Which once stood majestically, was filled with raging flames, burning light, and overbearing energy undulations.
Within the middle of the arena stood a young man fighting against a group of 10 men, yet he did not seem to be pushed back. With eyes glowing golden, he dodged and parried every other attack thrown at him before responding in kind.
His body vanished in a wave of fire before appearing behind one of the 10 men, and with a slash of his long glaive, the body felt limp before vanishing into thin air.
Light erupted from his fingers and twisted as it turned towards the remaining 9 men, who either blocked it or dodged, yet not all were lucky as two more men fell dead with holes in their head and heart respectively.
Of course, this man was Rhys, who was currently partaking on the second trial of the Divine Eternal Moon Goddess inheritance.
His growth was steady, his efficiency with his techniques also was record-breaking. Overall, Rhys was only winning, he was not losing at all. Only benefits rained down on him the longer he fought.
In a few minutes, the remaining men fell, of course, Rhys took some injuries, but flames erupted from them and quickly healed such injuries as if they were nothing. Rhys's breathing was hard, his chest expanded and contracted as his lungs took the air in and out.
[Congratulations, you have passed the 5th wave of the second trial. You have a week of rest before the 6th wave begins.] The same voice spoke before a timer appeared in the middle of the arena and started to tick down.
"A week? I can recover my energy in hours! What am I supposed to do!?" Rhys complained like a child at the long waiting time.
But Rhys did not know that the amount of energy his body absorbed was many times more than normal. It'd take a cultivator of his level a few days to recover their energy, if they used energy gathering formations it could be decreased to a day or two. But even then it took days.
Yet here Rhys is, taking hours. But he never knew, mostly because Ina saw no purpose in telling him, she was slightly afraid he would get arrogant, and he already was getting arrogant because of the dragon blood in his veins, making his pride and arrogance soar through the heavens.
She just convinced herself that it was better this way.
"Stop complaining! Focus on digesting all you learned the last few hours of fighting!" Ina berated Rhys in his mind, making him sigh and understand.
Rhys closed his eyes as he focus on remembering and processing everything that happened in the last four waves.
He used different moves, different techniques, and his bloodline prowess to fight. In different situations, he would use different moves and abilities.
His efficiency in every move he used increased greatly. He felt his body was growing used to his new strength and his comprehension of fire slowly increased as he used it in different ways. Light was a universal law, he would need a supreme saint cultivation base to meet the requirements to start his comprehension of light, for space it was the same. Although Rhys did not use aether much, the Eternal Paragon Void body was also not used much since Rhys tried to save it as a trump card.
Besides that, Rhys did not use nature much since there was no nature around him, only earth all around him.
Rhys calmed down as he soon entered a state of blankness, during that time his body absorbed energy in the atmosphere to replenish his spent energy from the previous fights.
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Slowly, the timer ticked down as Rhys spent his time fully focusing on digesting his experience. Combined with the inherited memories of Swarshlen and the original Rhys who trained killing beasts, Rhys was overall experiencing steady growth.
As he was deep into thought he was woken up by Ina, "It is time, wake up, Rhys."
Those words brought Rhys out of his head and into the real world, at least so he thought. He knew this was a separate space within the world he lived in. He also knew that his enemies were nothing but illusions, made by formations powered by the insight of illusion laws which the creator comprehended. Illusion was the mix of light and mist. While mist is the combination of water and fire.
That's right, specific laws could be mixed to make new laws, which in turn would make new elements. But that doesn't mean it is easy, to make a whole new law, a new element, one would have to spend millennia experimenting with the right combination of two different laws. The intricacies in making new laws are something many struggle with, only celestials and paragons can do this with relative ease, that is as long as they put the time and materials into it.
Laws can also be considered special due to one being able to comprehend any law, it mattered not if they have an affinity with the element or not. As long as the talent and time were present, one could comprehend it all. Since the body would change to accommodate laws.
But that is beside the point, right now Rhys stood tall, his robes were tattered and bloody from the injuries on his body. Yet he did not care as he simply changed robes.
[Wave 6 is now commencing.]
Another flash of light blinded Rhys momentarily before one enemy appeared. He was a peak-level Earthly Saint.
'At this pace the most powerful enemy I will fight will be a high to peak-level Sky Saint, hmm.' Rhys thoughts as he looked at his new opponent, it was a woman this time, much more expressive than the last wave opponents.
'It always amazes me how illusions can be this realistic! At this point it isn't a lie to say illusions become reality, I can high and clash with them after all...' Rhys made a slight smile as he thought he could comprehend illusion later on in the future. But for now, he had to focus on beating the opponent before him.
Rhys had long since decided to use fire as his main element. Space would be his trump card, nature would be to support, and light would be secondary.
So with that in mind, Rhys made sure his flames engulfed the blade of his glaive, as fire engulfed him and made him appear a few meters ahead. Fwsh, his flaming glaive clashed with the apparent Ice of the woman in front of him.
She used a halberd, which was coated in icy energy. While Rhys's fiery glaive tried to melt her icy halberd, he realized he was able to succeed.
'As I thought, I am able to cross stages in battles... I guess the dragon blood within me is a big cheat...'
His red flames overpowered her blue ice, as the ice evaporated and turned into mist. But Rhys did not relax nor get cocky. He had done that in wave 2 and almost lost an arm. He was an imbecile, he had learned his lesson.
Rhys made sure to use his overbearing physique to push her back and gain some distance. His opponent's slim body was sent flying back before she regained balance mid-air and touched the ground gracefully.
Both of their energies erupted and tried to suppress each other, which Rhys's opponent slightly succeeded, but that was only because Rhys's energy quality was not at her level. He was inferior in that way.
Rhys felt a slight restriction weakening him but chose to ignore it as his blood boiled and the dragon part of him started to lash out against the suppression. Rhys felt the scales all over his body starting to become more visible.
Rhys was once again engulfed in flames and teleported closer towards the woman, his opponent. He tried to pierce her with his glaive as if he was using a spear, but the woman's halberd quickly directed the attack to hit the ground. Making Rhys balance and fall a bit forward.
The face of the woman turned into an arrogant smirk before Rhys decided to try harder, he did not go fully out due to his body being unable to support so many different bloodline abilities at the same time.
After all, Flame Regeneration from his Phoenix bloodline was active and making sure to heal all wounds that might appear. Soul Flame and Dragon Scales were also always active. But he was forced to use the Draconic Eyes, which put a strain on his eyes due to the low grade of the bloodline power.
His eyes started to glow more golden and his pupils turned into vertical slits. Draconic Eyes were revealed. The woman felt a sense of danger, but she did not stop her attack.
Even as an illusion she seemed to have some intelligence, more so than the previous opponents Rhys had faced.
Rhys focused his eyes on the woman, and just as the last time he used it on the 4th wave, he saw everything deemed useless by his eyes vanish.
What remained was nothing but her muscles, dantian, meridian, energy flow, and skeleton. Her skin, hair, eyes, and everything else were removed from his vision. But that was not all, Rhys could not see the energy around him, before he could only sense it. But now seeing it was possible.
Rhys clenched his teeth as the white of his eyes turned red, he could not use this ability too much because the energy consumption and drawback were too much.
So without any more waiting, Rhys saw her muscle movement through his eyes and predicted her next attack, combined with the energy flow he saw he was able to tell which attack she'd use.
Of course, Rhys was not omnipotent, he could only predict, but he had little to no experience at predicting what each muscle movement did, so he only managed to move his body until her halberd pierced his stomach. At least it was better than losing his heart.
Rhys immediately covered his body and flames to push her back with his heat, and it worked. The woman retreated as Rhys spit a mouthful of blood, hit stomach dropped blood to the ground as Rhys was on all fours.
'Tch.' Rhys could not help but feel annoyed, but even then he did nothing. His flames focused in his stomach and tried to close the wound. Thankfully with his 35% bloodline purity, the prowess of Flame Regeneration had increased, as long as he did not 'lose' something, it would be healed. It was just the amount of energy this consumed that made Rhys feel like the ability was more like a double-edge sword.
Flame Regeneration slowly closed the wound, Rhys's pale appearance turned a bit rosy, but that was it. The woman did not wait while Rhys regenerated either, she threw different ice shards towards him.
Naturally, Rhys did not remain defenseless either, Flame Embodiment did its best to keep the ice shards from reaching him by melting them as quickly as possible. But her Peak-Level Earthly Saint entry was so refined and powerful Rhys kept on losing out to it.
Rhys felt the situation turn for the worst, his body was only used to fighting beasts, the few humans he fought were weaker than him. The opponents on the trial were for the most part senseless, they did not think and only acted on instincts, making it easy for Rhys to dodge and see a pattern in their body movements.
'I swear I will not forsake training anymore...' Rhys felt like going back in time and slapping the previous him to death for thinking with his lower head, sure he enjoyed his time with Aurora, Crystal, and Stella, but he felt that spending all of his time with them instead of taking some time for training was his mistake.
Rhys sighed as his outer wound closed, that is his stomach, the organs that were pierced were still in the progress of healing. Rhys used this chance to move back, making distance. Yet his opponent did not give Rhys the chance.
'Fuck!'
Rhys used Spirit Eyes to make her freeze for five seconds, it took him 40 percent of his energy to do this. But during those five seconds, Rhys launched a move towards her.
Golden Dragon Fiery Thurst!
Flames condensed into the tip of his glaive's blade before in a single thrust, Rhys made a hole appear in her chest. That alone consumed 5 percent of his energy. He only had 35 percent of his energy left.
The move he did came from the memories that he achieved from his bloodline. It was something that his ancestors left behind in every being who held their blood, but those ancestors were genuine Dragons. Rhys was recovering some bloodline inherit memories as the purity of his blood increased.
The attack was meant to be used only by true dragons, something Rhys was only a bit over one-third of. The move was meant to pierce the opponent it was used on before they could notice.
Rhys made a bloody smile, his teeth and mouth were bloodied from all the blood he had spat out.
The moment the body of the woman stopped being frozen, her body fell to the ground, yet she was still alive. Her body slightly shook as her icy energy tried to seal the injury to prevent any blood leakage, alas, it was too late. The move of condensed fire evaporated a large chunk of her blood, making her feel weak.
Like every other of Rhys's previous enemies, her body fell lifeless to the ground before it vanished, like the illusion it was.
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