"Hey, hey, hey, are you sure about this? Don't forget you only have two wings now, do you know how strong he is?"
I completely disagreed with Cysper's reckless actions. This red-haired demon's strength definitely exceeded the sixth rank. As soon as he flew up to the rooftop, he swung his weapon at me in attack. Caught off guard, I didn't even have time to draw my own weapon and could only hurriedly evade into the sky.
"Hahaha, refreshing! It's been a while since I fought angels. Your six-winged strength is not bad!"
The opponent truly lived up to Alfreed's crazy description, relentlessly chasing and fiercely attacking me with tremendous force. He refused to engage in any further conversation or negotiation. His weapon was also quite formidable. Even when I blocked it with my long sword, the trailing flames only had to lightly graze my hand to inflict searing pain that almost made me drop my sword.
This was the powerful damaging effect of highly concentrated dark elements on an angel's body.
"Of course I know how strong he is, it looks like he's high sixth rank or maybe even peak sixth rank?"
Seeing me exchange a few blows in the air with the demon and get overwhelmed, Cysper the scoundrel didn't seem concerned at all, casually waving his arm on the rooftop to assess, "But it's okay, he probably hasn't reached the seventh rank yet, so he can pass as a decent opponent..."
"What do you mean okay?! You good-for-nothing!"
After unleashing my ultimate "Lost Paradise Shockwave" to force the enemy back, I had used up even my last resort, only managing to catch a brief respite. Seeing the red-haired demon quickly evade the descending light pillars and charge at me again, Cysper finally floated over leisurely and said nonchalantly, "Switch out, you can go rest for now. The way you use elements is too wasteful, it's a pity! Watch and learn, the Pope rarely gives a lesson in person!"
"Huh? Wasn't it that six-winged angel who wanted to fight me?"
Finally pausing midair, the red-haired demon across from us looked at the two of us with an odd expression before asking in disbelief, "But aren't you a bit too weak? A two-winged angel should still be clinging to Elara's teat in Edenmere. I won't go easy on you!"
Damn it! So he thought I was the one who challenged him to fight earlier and just started attacking without clarifying?
"Why don't we team up? It'll be safer that way!"
Having no choice against such an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, although Cysper seemed confident, I didn't dare let my guard down. I had already made my stance clear - even if we teamed up, I didn't think we could definitely beat him. After all, in my eyes Cyra's combat ability didn't differ much from having none at all.
The main reason I agreed for Cysper to come with me to investigate in Parristol was because of his fighting spirit and formidable skills, plus it solved the flying issue, making him more reliable than bringing Cyra herself. But no matter how strong he was, there was a limit! Their combined strength couldn't possibly surpass Cysper's own sixth rank level, right?
The only chance was if my blue-winged transformation could pull off a one-hit finisher. Though the Water Abyss Sword had no effect on the God of Light, it would definitely work on a physical demon like the red-haired one. I just feared him discovering my weapon's trick - he seemed faster and stronger than me, so if I couldn't land a clean hit, it would spell big trouble.
"No need, you'll just get in the way and affect my performance!"
Who knew this guy would be so stubborn! He shoved me aside and recklessly charged at the red-haired demon by himself.
"Hey, don't get Cyra's body killed!"
I scolded irritably, utterly exasperated by him. Unable to stop him, I could only standby to observe and be ready to provide backup at any time. I really didn't know what would happen to Cyra if Cysper actually died - would she directly die, or would they switch back?
"Excellent, you've got spirit. Put that baby-feeding energy to use!"
Seeing Cysper charge at him barehanded without even a weapon, the red-haired demon revealed a cruel smile and swung his sword directly at the fist.
"Huh? This is..."
Upon fist and blade colliding, a blinding flash of light burst forth unexpectedly. Although their figures were obscured by the radiance, making it hard for me to see clearly, I could sense from the elemental aura that it was surprisingly the dark element that got blasted away while the light element only retreated slightly.
"How is that possible?!"
Once the light dissipated, I could indeed see that Cysper remained largely in place while the red-haired demon had been forced far back, the black flame longsword in his hand now mysteriously shattered into two pieces. If I hadn't witnessed it myself, I would never have believed it! Even taking over Cyra's body, could Cysper really have increased his strength to this extent?
"Where did you get so much power? You only have two wings!"
"Do you know why, when fighting by harnessing light elements, angels with wings can gain physical attributes dozens or even hundreds of times greater than human mages?"
Floating in the air, Cysper seemed slightly surprised by the power of his own punch as he casually asked me.
"Isn't it just the light element?"
I couldn't help feeling perplexed. It was common knowledge that spreading one's wings allowed rapidly absorbing immense amounts of light elemental mana from the environment, but I didn't see how that related to the reason he mentioned.
"By infusing large quantities of light elemental mana into the muscles of various body parts and limbs, you can enhance the outputted physical strength, correspondingly increasing physical attributes. But sadly, since this is an angel instinct, you all never noticed..."
Seeing the stunned red-haired demon across from us staring blankly at the broken sword, unable to attack again, Cysper continued his self-answering explanation.
"So the more light elements fused, the greater the increase in strength?"
I felt like my mind had been blown wide open, instantly understanding the implication behind his words. Just as Reed said, the essence of elements is energy, and the essence of physical strength is the release of muscular energy. When elements fuse into the muscles and bones, they are released alongside the energy expelled during muscle contraction. They can also substitute the physical body in withstanding external physical or pure energy impacts (physical impacts are also a form of energy release), indirectly enhancing physical strength and defense.
Not only angels, humans are similarly affected. Whether physical warriors or mages, they all directly or indirectly utilize elements. Warriors passively absorb environmental elements during training, but the absorption rate is quite low so they can only slowly grow stronger over time.
Mages actively absorb elements, but the absorbed elements are almost entirely condensed into mana stored within the body as reserves for spell casting. So the elements don't fuse into their muscles and bones, leaving their physical attributes largely unchanged.
As for angels, because of their wings they can innately absorb and fuse more light elements, giving them higher base physical attributes than regular humans. What Cysper did was a rather extreme "unorthodox technique" - forcibly infusing his body with excess light elemental mana to greatly increase his strength in a short period.
However, this came with a downside -
"Doesn't that put a huge strain on your body though?"
Thinking it over, I raised my doubt. With excessive elemental bombardment, the burden on muscles and other bodily tissues would increase, easily causing self-harm.
"My approach differs from what you imagine. My original body didn't have such immense light elemental reserves to fuse with, so after years of experimenting, I came up with a compromise..."
Seeing the red-haired demon not giving up, discarding the remaining sword fragment to also attack barehanded, Cysper shook his head and raised his fists unhesitatingly to meet the charge.
"I only concentrate a portion of the light elements into the specific body parts that need to be used. This conserves elemental consumption while reducing self-inflicted damage. I pondered long and hard before devising this technique - called the..."
Another blinding flash erupted, but this time I saw it clearly in advance. The intensely concentrated light elements had almost fully gathered into his fists and arm muscles. When he threw that punch, he could also unleash a massive radial burst of light elements, simultaneously inflicting elemental and physical double damage on his opponent.
"This is the Super Kaioken Fist!"
"Cough...couldn't you give it a different name? That one sounds so cringeworthy!"
The familiar technique name was really immersion-breaking. I lightly coughed, forcibly holding back laughter. After tanking one of Cysper's punches, the red-haired demon didn't just have a shattered fist - his entire arm had been disintegrated by the massive light elemental force, causing him to let out an agonizing scream.
"Uh, yeah I guess? Actually, I don't really know why I ended up calling it that. The name just randomly popped into my head back then, so I went with it!"
Hearing this, Cysper paused briefly before nodding at me to solicit my opinion. "So what do you think it should be called?"
"How about the Radiant Dawn Strike? What do you think?"
What a nice sounding name, so poetic! I almost wanted to give myself a pat on the back.
Unfortunately, this technique is probably unusable for ordinary humans, only angels and popes. Whether swordsmen or light mages, it would be impossible for them! After all, the human body cannot withstand the side effects of light elements. This concentration of light elements would only bring catastrophic consequences no matter which part of the body it focused on.