A storm.
This was the best way to describe the scene Damien saw when he turned around. A raging storm of crimson magic power that looked like a sea of blood.
Without a second thought, Damien immediately teleported hundreds of meters away and release his own amethyst magic power. However, in front of that blood sea, his magic power was like a tiny boat swaying with the wind.
Still, he didn't panic. Although the middle-aged man in front of him was extremely powerful, he didn't sense any hostile intent coming from him. Damien didn't let his guard down though. This was someone who could kill him with a single smack.
"Who are you?" Damien questioned as he glared at the man vigilantly.
The man smiled. "Ohoho, you are indeed a feisty young man. Don't worry about who I am for now, just come at me with your full strength. If not, you might end up dead."
Without another word, he disappeared from his spot. Before Damien could even register what happened, he was flying backward with such force that the trees behind him were crushed on contact with his body.
'I've felt this once before.' The last time Damien felt this sensation of his brain being unable to keep up with the movement of his body was when he was thrown into the dungeon all those years ago.
The cause? Naturally, it was a massive difference in strength. Damien no longer had the time to care about motive or identity. He couldn't even flee from someone whose strength was so far above his. He could only retaliate or as the man said, he'd die.
It was only after he had flown for a kilometer or so like a broken kite that he managed to stabilize himself. His back was covered in a cold sweat. The only reason he was still uninjured was simply that the man in front of him didn't seem to have any intention to hurt him with that strike.
Damien promptly drew his sword and coated it with black lightning, warping directly in front of the man and slashing down. The man smiled lightly as he raised his hand to block the incoming sword. However, Damien didn't pay it any mind.
'Obviously, this old man is testing me or something. Who knew I'd get into a classic cultivation scenario in a fantasy world'
Damien figured that this old man was some powerhouse who had witnessed his training and decided to have some entertainment. If that was the case, it was Damien's job to impress. Maybe he could gain some benefits that way.
Damien smirked. If there was one thing he was confident in, it was his fighting ability. Without wasting time, he began performing his Dance of the Void while circling the man. For the first time, the small spatial tears and distortions created by the technique weren't able to banish anything to the void.
The man kept leisurely watching Damien move while easily blocking all of his moves with a single hand. Damien was getting fed up. As he danced around the man attempting to inflict any wound he could, he used his other hand to lightly flick the air. Each time he flicked, molecules were forced to vibrate and plasma began generating.
Then, those beams of plasma shot towards the man from every direction. He also decided to stop conserving mana and wantonly attacked with various techniques. Still, nothing worked on the man.
Huge rifts created by 'bladeless' were unceremoniously shattered, and as space collapsed and twisted, the man simply stood there unharmed. Beams of plasma kept firing, and at some point were amplified by volatile lightning, but all to no avail.
It had been around an hour since Damien had started his attempt to harm this old man, but he hadn't been able to make the man budge even a single step. Damien's mana reserves quickly depleted. He was fighting much more recklessly than he usually did, but that wasn't for no reason.
At some point, he stopped seeing this as a bid to impress the man in front of him, rather he had found a target who could withstand everything he threw at it. A perfect training dummy, if you will.
Damien simply continued practicing combination attacks with his sword art and vector control as he circled the man continuously, every once in a while making distance and sending sword waves and thick lightning bolts. And 3 hours later, Damien ran out of steam.
He smiled to himself as he thought of the improvements he'd made in the past 4 hours.
Although the man didn't budge from his spot, the pressure of knowing his target could kill him at any time had pushed him forward. Frankly, Damien missed this feeling of death looming over his head.
Suddenly, a voice rang out. "Alright, now that that's over, how about we see if you can survive this one attack of mine"
Damien, in his excitement, had forgotten that the man was a living being and not a training dummy.
When he looked up, the man was still standing calmly, however, the winds in the area had begun whipping violently.
At first, he thought the man was a wind affinity user, but looking at the sky, he realized his mistake.
Similar to the scene he had seen at Thunder Mountain, volatile black clouds rumbled in the air. The lightning within those clouds, however, was much worse than those of Thunder Mountain, in addition, it was also crimson in color.
The lightning danced wildly before gathering at the spot above Damien's head, and then, they sped down to smite him.
Damien could feel that if he was struck by that lightning, he'd be severely injured if not dead. Everything seemed to stop as the only things left in the world were Damien and the red lightning that attempted to reap his life.
Closing his eyes, Damien breathed in until his lungs couldn't contain any more air.
The man stood watching this spectacle with interest. The boy in front of him truly was amusing.
He had charged forward without hesitation even knowing he couldn't beat his opponent, he had used someone exponentially stronger than him as a training dummy, and now in the face of death, he had closed his eyes.
The man knew this wasn't the resignation that most people would feel at this moment, rather it was preparation for something. He was honestly impressed most by Damien's guts and his will.
The thought of battling this boy when he reached the same level managed to make the man's blood boil, something he hadn't felt in many years.
He smiled and continued observing, preparing to intervene if anything went wrong, but as the milliseconds ticked by, his brows became increasingly furrowed. Even now, the boy was still inhaling as if to fill his lungs with as much air as he could.
From his observation, this boy had space and lightning affinities, so what use would breathing be? However, he didn't have to wait long for his answer.
As the lightning reached halfway to Damien, his eyes snapped open, and without missing a beat, he opened his mouth.
A huge roar that surpassed any mere beast erupted from the mouth of a human.
Even the sound waves produced by this roar were enough to obliterate the environment around Damien. The ground shattered and caved, the trees flew in all directions, and the lush grass that covered the ground was reduced to ashes.
Out of Damien's mouth came a beam of black light that had the thickness of a small tree trunk. Different from his usual breath that was more like a spatial storm, this one was a beam of destruction.
There was no distinction between lightning and space, as they melded and fused into something greater. However, Damien was unaware of this. In his last-ditch attempt to survive, he had used up every last bit of mana he had in his system and ended up passing out on his feet.
Two beams met in the sky, and the world was painted black and red. From the sky to the clouds was a massive lightning storm that could rip even a peak 3rd class being to shreds in an instant.
And from the ground up? Pure destruction.
The blackness was thick enough to block all of one's senses, and space had completely shattered into pieces.
The broken trees and ground in the surroundings had already been banished to the void as black lightning wantonly shot through the air and sundered everything that still existed, creating countless massive craters.
If one saw this scene, one would truly believe the world was ending.
The man had long since grabbed Damien and escaped from the area of the collision. Although he could survive, he wasn't sure he could say the same for Damien.
A few kilometers away, on top of a mountain peak, he stood and admired the chaos they had caused. Shifting his gaze to Damien, he couldn't help but admire the kid.
He knew that the attack he had released was subconsciously put together, but whatever that power was, it was extremely dangerous.
Even if he had lowered the intensity of the lightning to the peak of 3rd class, it wasn't something a 2nd class should ever completely block. He had at most expected Damien to offset some of the damage before he had to step in and save him.
He smiled to himself once more. "Interesting! Interesting indeed. The kid's destructive power is great, but he has plenty to improve on. Haha, I'm excited to see the looks on those elders' faces when I'm finished with him."
Deciding to keep up his identity as a mysterious senior, the man chose to leave while Damien was still unconscious.
But before he did, he left a circular golden-black token on Damien's chest along with a small note made with his mana.
"Kid, if you ever want to use that spatial training ground at the academy, take this token to the disciplinary building and hand it to the elder there. Next time we meet, we'll have some more fun."