As the king of the wisemonkies stood up, Tom could now perfectly see how immense his opponent was compared to him.
The king was at least 225cm (7 feet and 4.6 inches), he was much taller than Tom and had much broader shoulders.
Fortunately for Tom, how opponent didn't seem to have a toned body, which was understandable since he never trained.
The moment he stood on his feet, the king crouched and charged towards Tom.
'Fast!' Remarked Tom as he observed the king running towards him.
His eyes could barely keep up with the speed of the king, but after countless battles against monsters stronger than him, Tom was experienced and didn't panic. Instead, as the fist neared his face, he swiftly evaded its trajectory, causing the king to miss.
Tom distanced himself from the king and observed as the king turned to face him again.
To Tom's astonishment, the king actually charged towards him the moment he faced him.
'Does he know anything but charge against his opponent ?' Wondered Tom with a baffled expression.
The king, meanwhile, continued to charge toward Tom like some beast, and just when he was about to hit Tom, the latter easily dodged the fist like the first time, in fact, when he got out of the fist trajectory, Tom, he dodged the strike and extended his foot, causing his opponent to stumble. The king continued running, balance lost, before finally falling headfirst.
"...."
Seeing the scene before him, Tom was speechless, he couldn't believe that the king would fall just like that.
'I have been training hard all those weeks to fight against...that ?' Wondered Tom as he looked at the king trying to get up.
Tom wanted to believe that it was just an act of the king, and he wanted to make himself seem weak, but he threw that idea out of his head as he saw that the king was preparing to charge towards him another time.
In Tom's mind, even though he had his current strength solely due to absorbing cores, he should at least have a little bit of control even if he didn't train often, but what was that?, this guy's control of etherium seemed even worse than his own when he was just a level 1!
'This guy is a disgrace to all the level 3, whether it be monsters or humans' thought Tom, shaking his head.
What shocked him the most wasn't the lack of experience of the king, but the lack of intelligence, generally, when you fail an attack the first time, you change your approach the second time. It's common sense that even the beast knew!
However, here was the king of the wisemonkies charging towards him for the third time!
'Was all his speech a moment ago, him feigning to be some wise person ?' Wondered Tom.
Earlier, when the king was talking with Midas, he really seemed all mighty and intelligent, but from what Tom was seeing right now, he was far from that.
'Why did Midas need me to defeat such a-'
Before Tom could even finish his of thought, his eyes constricted into pinholes as the king's speed doubled!
Moments ago, there were some meters separating the two of them and In the next, the king's fist was mere centimeters from his face!
Tom didn't even have time to think about how to dodge when the fist was already upon him, ready to make contact with his face.
At that moment, chains made of shadow emerged and wrapped themselves around the king's arm, trying to stop it, but the latter easily tore through the chains of shadow.
Fortunately, the milliseconds it took the king's arm to tore through the chains was enough for Tom to create a faint shield made of Etherium.
Crack
The king's fist made contact with Tom's shield and shattered it instantly, and making contact with Tom's cheek.
Tom stumbled back a few meters while holding in pain his arm that was holding the shield.
'Sh*t, that sting!'
In just one blow, Tom's arm was now fractured.
He glanced at his fractured arm and started healing it back.
'Normally, healing it back won't take too much time, but...' Tom glanced at the king, that seemed to be preparing himself for another charge.
'... I won't have the leisure to heal my arm in peace, which will make things even more difficult'
Fortunately for Tom, like on cue, chains made of shadows started to emerge from the grounds and target the king, that started to run to avoid the chains.
Even though Midas chains made of shadows were fast, they still couldn't touch the king, but they could at least keep him occupied as Tom healed his arm.
'He may not be experienced, nevertheless, his Astralum is powerful' thought Tom as he observed the king still evading the chains - albeit clumsily.
From what Tom learned from Midas, the king astralum was one that could help him condense his muscles, this astralum could allow him to experience large boosts of strength or speed like he had just done moments ago when he used his astralum to suddenly augment his speed when he was charging toward Tom.
From what Midas said, if the king had trained and didn't waste his time lazing around, he would have been the most powerful, and not just because he absorbed the core of monsters.
As Tom looked at the king dodging the chains, he sighed.
'If only I also had an offensive ability, it would have been much easier' thought Tom envious of the king.
One could say that he was a fool to think that he would prefer another astralum when his own were broken.
However, Tom didn't see it this way, it's true that his tile astralum was very useful, and it actually saved his life many times, but ultimately his time astralum - at least currently - was a supporting astralum.
He could control the time of his enemies, making them unable to move, but would it matter if he couldn't hurt them even if they were in this state?
The answer was no, If he didn't have the strength to knock down the enemy in front of him, there would be a difference, and that was just for his time astralum, as for his deconstruction element.... That Astralum was a mystery even for him.
He only had an inkling of what it could do, and it wasn't something that could be used in a fight.
All of that to say that although his astralums seemed powerful -which was the case-, they weren't offensive abilities, so, having another ability would have been better.
'Alas, we can't have all we want,' thought Tom while flexing his newly healed arm. 'But what I have will be enough for this fight.'
He glanced at the king that was charging at him and grinned.
"Temporal stasis"