"You son of a..."
I cursed as I saw Liang Jianwei's wind spear swiftly hurtling towards me just as I emerged from the ground lock.
Gathering Arkium into my hands, the LED lights integrated into my gauntlet shone brighter. I did this reflexively and quickly because I was experienced in controlling Arkium.
As the wind spear neared my chest, I countered it with an Arkium Blast while assuming a martial arts stance. The clash between my Arkium Blast and the wind spear caused Liang Jianwei's attack to shatter into pieces and scatter.
The aftermath was a powerful gust of wind. I channeled Arkium throughout my body to withstand the wind's force. Simultaneously, Liang Jianwei used it to accelerate towards me.
Seeing me unyielding, he prepared to thrust his spear at me while running, perhaps thinking I was struggling to withstand his wind blast.
However, as Liang Jianwei approached with his spear, I dodged to the right and moved my left hand to catch his spear.
Once I gripped Liang Jianwei's spear handle, I swiftly advanced towards him, maintaining my grip and adjusting it. I intended to strike him with an Arkium Shock to crush his internal organs.
Unfortunately, he anticipated my move. He stepped back slightly and lightly kicked my leg. I lost balance but managed to stabilize myself. Realizing I lost momentum, he kicked my left hand, causing me to release my grip.
I intended to retreat immediately, but Liang Jianwei swiftly gathered wind in his left hand and struck my abdomen. His blow pushed me back with the friction of my feet on the ground.
Seeing this as an opportunity with me within optimal spear range, Liang Jianwei agilely shifted his right hand's grip and included his left hand to hold his spear handle.
As he attacked, he slightly advanced towards me and thrust his spear. However, I managed to evade. I intended to retaliate, but Liang Jianwei was in the optimal moment and position to continue his assault with his spear. I couldn't recklessly approach him while he was in attack mode.
He kept attacking relentlessly, thrusting and slashing while continuously advancing to corner me. When he noticed me retreating, he moved forward and attacked. I kept evading and parrying. Sometimes his spear grazed my skin, causing cuts.
'Damn it! He won't let me retreat.'
His attacks forced me to regenerate my titanium suit and reinforce it for minimal defense. This action consumed a lot of Arkium because the quality of my current Arkium wasn't sufficient to replicate its metal atom and form a strong defensive titanium suit.
Liang Jianwei continued attacking with a calm demeanor. The longer I evaded, the sharper his attacks became.
'What else can I do!'
Since my titanium suit didn't prioritize defense, it was torn everywhere, and I didn't regenerate it as it would consume too much Arkium.
I could approach, but I would have to let fatal wounds hit me. So I gathered Arkium within my body while evading and parrying. I used a small portion of my Arkium to create an inner suit covering my entire body. However, instead of using titanium, I used stainless steel. I modified its properties like my titanium suit to be like fabric. I shaped it into a tight superhero costume. Not only did it provide body defense, but I also circulated Arkium throughout my body.
I approached, and with full force, I blocked the spear handle. Thanks to the tight stainless steel inner suit I formed, there were no wounds on my body. As his spear bounced off from my block, I stomped my foot, and a fierce transparent energy wave, Arkium Shock Wave, surged out.
The wave I emitted was enough to catch Liang Jianwei off guard. With a large amount flowing through my entire body intensely, I dashed towards Liang Jianwei and attempted to strike his head.
As he saw my fist heading towards his face, his left hand, not holding the spear, moved to protect his face.
I grinned at his action. Because once a hand tries to shield the face, you sacrifice other open body parts. Not only that, the field of vision becomes obscured or limited. So Liang Jianwei's defensive action favored me.
Therefore, I immediately deployed my left hand and concentrated a large amount of Arkium into it. My target was his chest. I intended to severely crush his ribs.
Upon hitting his body, a cracking sound could be heard. Liang Jianwei was sent flying and rolling on the ground. His spear was dislodged as he rolled. Seeing his weapon disarmed, I quickly ran towards him. Perhaps realizing my swift approach, he tried to fix his position and managed to crouch with the help of wind magic. His body was still dragged backward with his feet and hands skidding on the ground.
As I was about to approach him, I leaped and positioned my right fist to prepare for a strike. But as I got closer, with both hands on the ground, his magic activated, and a wall of earth appeared. This scene reminded me of an old ninja anime series with a main character being a yellow-haired orphan boy.
Ignoring my thoughts, my body continued its motion along with my fist while inspecting around to see if Liang Jianwei would reach for his weapon. When I confirmed that Liang Jianwei wasn't attempting to escape, I struck with full force at the earth wall in front of me. However, its hardness was higher than I thought. It only caused cracks. I immediately activated Arkium Blast.
With a loud noise, Liang Jianwei's earth wall shattered. I could see Liang Jianwei still standing. I immediately threw a punch with my left hand. But as I struck, my blow was halted by something blue and transparent.
'Magic Shield!'
I intended to use Arkium Blast again before feeling a vibration on the ground.
"Not so fast, you damn wizard!"
I activated Arkium Shock Wave with full force. I focused it on the ground from my feet to prevent that damn mound from appearing and hitting me like last time.
I prevented Arkium Shock Wave from destroying the ground I stood on. Once Arkium Shock Wave was active, the ground vibrated and cracked. Besides nullifying Liang Jianwei's earth magic effect, I also made him lose balance. However, his Magic Shield was still active.
I couldn't lose this momentum. I couldn't just destroy his Magic Shield alone.
'In that case...'
I prepared to take a stance and stomped my foot while widening my stance and facing to the right. The ground vibrated once again. Then, I moved my right hand towards Liang Jianwei with a fist, and my left hand formed a grip in front of my chest while taking a quick breath.
'Gallean Mystic Path, Avalanche Impact!'
I slightly moved my hand forming the fist, slamming my hands in the empty air. Silence descended, and a deafening sound followed.
Avalanche Impact was one of the moves in my original martial art, Gallean Mystic Path, which was extremely powerful and deadly. This move took inspiration from the power and destruction of avalanches in the mountains, bringing forth tremendous force.
In its execution, Avalanche Impact involved gathering a massive amount of energy in the user's hands or feet, then releasing it with full force in an attacking strike. In this case, I used Arkium as the destructive energy. This attack created a powerful shockwave and destructive energy, capable of easily penetrating shields and armor and causing significant damage to the target.
As its name suggested, this attack had the same crushing power as an unstoppable avalanche, destroying everything in its path. It was a highly effective move in battle situations, especially when facing armed or heavily armored opponents.
I had once foolishly used it on the energy shield of a Capital Spaceship belonging to a fellow Mercenary. He was the leader of the Crimson Fang Mercenary Group. His group wasn't ranked, but they were much stronger than ranked Mercenaries.
At that time, he and his crew were vacationing on a rarely visited planet. By chance, he noticed me fishing from the deck of my parked ship by the riverbank. Long story short, we chatted, and it ended with him wanting to see my new martial arts moves. At that time, I had just created my own set of martial arts after years of using modified conventional martial arts. I hadn't even named it yet.
So I tested it on his ship's energy shield, hoping to create a hole or at least some damage where I tested it. And you know what happened, it failed. The backlash hit me back, and he laughed at me very annoyingly.
His ship's energy shield was insane in a different sense. It was thick and hard, designed to repel space debris, asteroids, main cannon shots from enemy Capital Spaceships, hits from enemy Capital Spaceships, reduce damage during accidents in the warp tunnel, and other crazy stuff. So, you could say I was pretty stupid at that time.
And to compare it to that, my current situation was much easier with the Magic Shield of a Champion-class fighter mage. Although its strength wouldn't be as great as in my previous life.