As Tom gazed at the king's red bloodshot eyes, he could see an immense madness in them; it seemed that the pain from losing his arm had actually turned him mad.
'Now what?' Wondered Tom as he continued to look at the huffing king.
From the look he was giving him, it was obvious that the king wanted to tear him apart, but could he do it? Seeing his pitiful state, Tom doubted it.
But what do you know? A moment later, he was proven wrong as the king's height started to reduce at an alarming rate.
One would think that the king losing his height and weight was a good thing, and had he had any other astralum beside one that allowed him to compress his size, it would really be a good thing, but alas...
Tom understood that what the king was doing right now was compressing all the muscles in his body, and Tom was sure that whatever came out of this endeavor would be something he didn't want to find out about which was why he planned to stop the king from doing that.
Unfortunately, before Tom even had time to move a foot, it seemed that the process had already finished.
When he glanced at the king, Tom felt his heart skip a beat.
The first unmistakable feature of the king that had changed was his height; from 190 cm he had fallen to barely 150cm.
The second change was that his body muscles were now much leaner than before, yet they also appeared sculpted due to their enhanced definition.
Finally, the last change was his wound; the blood leaking out of his arm had stopped completely. If there was not a missing arm, one would never think that he was injured.
The king was now short and slender, but the aura of danger he exuded was far beyond his previous one.
'I need to-'
Before he could even finish his train of thought, Tom was sent flying in the air.
Tom's vision flashed in and out like a damaged lightbulb, but despite the great amount of pain, he still maintained consciousness. So, he tried to lower the speed at which he was flying by shifting over.
However, before he had time to do so, the king appeared above him and delivered a kick to his stomach, sending him toward the ground with astounding speed and force.
Boom
Followed by a loud impact, Tom hit the ground, causing it to crack and form webs all around.
However, the king wasn't done with him. He descended forcefully toward Tom, who was still lying on the ground, intending to crush him like a bug.
Fortunately, just at that moment, Midas exited from the shadows, took hold of Tom, who was still in a stunned state, and hurled him at the side before dissolving in the shadows again.
He could have done all of that with his shadow manipulation, but it took him more Etherium to do so, and since things were taking an unexpected turn, he needed to preserve as much Etherium as he could.
Boom
The king landing on the ground caused an explosion, and a plume of smoke rose with a loud sound.
The king glanced under his foot, and upon realizing that Tom had escaped, he looked around, trying to find him.
It didn't take him long to spot Tom, but as he attempted to move, shadowy tentacles emerged, attempting to bind him.
The king easily tore the tentacles, but an instant later, the shadowy tentacles emerged again.
He tore the tentacles again, but the same thing repeated over and over.
The reason Midas kept doing something like this, even though he knew it was useless, was to buy time for Tom to regain his bearings.
As Midas tried his best to keep the king in place, Tom could be seen dozens of meters from the king's location, attempting to get up.
When he pushed himself up, his legs buckled, causing him to stagger and fall.
He tried another time, and he staggered again, but he kept himself from falling.
His face was covered in blood, his vision was blurry, all his body ached, and his etherium reserves were low.
'Damn' thought Tom as he observed his current state.
The direction in which the fight was going was...not good, that's the least one could say, and as if the situation wasn't already difficult, Tom heard someone shouting something, and when he looked in the direction, the voice came, and through his blurred vision, he saw the commandant of the royal guards rushing in their direction.
"C-Crap"
The worst-case scenario they had envisioned was actually happening: the commandant of the royal guards was returning, and they hadn't managed to kill the king, worst, they were at the losing end.
They had considered a solution if such a thing were to happen, but in truth, one couldn't call what they had thought about a solution.
This solution was that Midas would abandon the fight against the king and focus on stopping the commandant, so Tom would be left alone to confront the king.
'F*ucking great! As if the situation wasn't already despairing' cursed Tom in his mind.
'Sigh, I need to calm down; being agitated won't help me' thought Tom as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It was doubtful if a normal person could calm down if he or she was in the same situation as Tom; after all, he was wounded all over, and quite frankly, he didn't see how he would manage to slay the king while fighting alone!
But from the moment he came to this world, the thing he did the most was meditate, so despite everything that was happening, he managed to force himself to calm down.
'I won't let myself be killed, not like this and not here's thought Tom as his mind gradually cooled down.
With his eyes still closed, Tom created a sword, the sharpest sword he could materialize, and then he activated temporal stasis.
An invisible dome of ten meters in circumference filled with temporal force appeared around Tom.
Feeling that it wasn't enough, he pushed this dome to expand. At first, the dome didn't budge, but Tom continued to push and continued to exert his will over the temporal force.
After a few seconds, the dome started to expand and came to a stop once it was fifteen meters in circumference.
Tom exhaled a breath and stopped pushing, feeling that fifteen meters was his current limit.
As he was doing all of that, Midas had stopped trying to buy time and had already left the king to stop the commandant from approaching.
Once freed from the shadows, the king didn't waste a second and charged at Tom with a crazed look.
Tom took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes.
As he looked at the rapidly approaching king, his face didn't have any fear or worry; in fact, his face didn't carry any emotion, but it was not the same for his eyes.
His eyes appeared darker than usual, and an intense killing intent wafted from them.
He grasped his sword tightly and took a stance.
There was only one thing on his mind right now: to kill.
So, the instant the king took a step into his domain, Tom cut!