Purple smoke began to emanate from the guardian's back as he slowly tried to stand up.
At that moment, Orion, who stood not far away from the guardian, saw something that really surprised him.
He noticed that the back armor of the guardian was missing, likely destroyed by his explosion.
However, upon closer inspection, he found the armor empty, with only a circular mark inside. Above the circular mark, a golden star-shaped emblem glowed faintly.
'What's that symbol?'
The armor being empty, he already knew about that, but the symbol etched on the armor was a surprise to Orion.
He had a hunch that the empty armor must be controlled by that symbol; otherwise, he couldn't explain how the armor could move autonomously on its own.
As he observed the guardian, he noticed golden sparks light up all around him, and only a moment later, these golden sparks started condensing together to construct five golden swords that revolved around him.
Seeing that, Orion frowned and thought that even with the guardian this injured, he could still fight.
'Time to finish it.'
He thought and used absolute defense on his body as his body started to glow in a bright red color before a film of red glow covered his whole body.
At that moment, he revealed himself and came out of the other dimension.
Almost immediately, the guardian turned behind and noticed him. Seeing his opponent once again, he didn't waste any time and let his swords do the attack while he took the time to recuperate.
Orion noticed the five swords flying towards him like five golden laser lights, but he didn't rush and walked slowly towards the guardian.
A moment later, one of the swords reached him and was about to strike his head when it suddenly changed direction and went sideways.
At the same time, the other swords also closed the distance between them, but the results remained the same.
All four golden swords headed towards different parts of his body, like his hands, legs, and stomach, but ultimately all of them got repelled by his absolute defense.
At this time, Orion arrived in front of the guardian, who had also stood up.
But he soon noticed that the guardian was having a difficult time standing up as his legs trembled and his body swayed.
However, he also noticed something else. He saw that the guardian slowly held his sword high with both hands. His hands held the sword in such a position that his head appeared between his two hands, which held the sword vertically high.
At that moment, the guardian's sword started to sparkle in golden light before his sword seemed to attract golden light particles from all directions.
These golden light particles appeared in dense amounts from all directions and started to condense around his sword until, finally, his sword became pure golden in color.
'An ultimate move... so cool... I really need something like that if I want to defeat the third guardian.'
He thought while looking at the golden sword held high by the guardian.
At that moment, the guardian heavily swung his sword downward towards Orion, who appeared to be awestruck by his ultimate move.
The attack transformed itself in the form of a golden crescent moon as it hurtled towards Orion at breakneck speed.
Although Orion appeared mesmerized by the ultimate move, that didn't mean he wasn't paying attention to the attack. No, on the contrary, his full attention happened to be on the sword and the attack that was followed by the guardian.
Seeing the attack closing up on him, Orion held his right hand forward as flames began to dance around it. But soon, the density of flames around his hand quickly started to increase until the flames looked like the size of twice his head as an orange glow appeared in his face because of the flames in his hand.
After that, he used attraction on his hand, and all those flames started to condense together and slowly took the shape of a red sphere twice the size of a fist. Flames could be seen dancing around that sphere occasionally.
All that happened in a moment and didn't take much time, but it was enough for the golden crescent moon attack of the guardian to close the distance between them.
Seeing that, Orion did what most would do and threw the flaming sphere in his hand towards the incoming attack.
The red sphere of flames hurtled towards the golden crescent moon of the guardian, and a moment later they collided.
"BOOM!"
A gold-white, blinding light emanated before an explosion sounded from their collision.
A cloud of red flames and golden light appeared between Orion and the guardian, where the collision took place.
The tiles in that area were melted by the extreme heat, transforming into pools of molten liquid that made sizzling and hissing sounds as they solidified. Additional tiles turned to dust in their collision, dispersing into the air like fine powder.
Meanwhile, the momentum caused by their collision of attacks released a gust of wind full of dust outwards towards Orion and the guardian.
However, the momentum did not affect Orion whatsoever, as all of its force was repelled by his absolute defense. But the same couldn't be true for the guardian, who previously couldn't stand up properly and now got his body blasted back like a ragged doll by the momentum.
A while later, the aftereffects of the explosion died down, and only smoke and dust filled the arena.
Using that as a cover, Orion moved, and a moment later, he arrived behind the guardian, who sat on the tiles, supporting himself with his sword that stabbed into the arena.
The guardian didn't notice him and was still looking around the dust-filled arena in search of Orion.
Seeing that, Orion smiled and stabbed his sword, right at the star symbol glowing inside the guardian's armor.
A golden light flashed when his sword stabbed into the symbol. As a result, the guardian felt a shock as he trembled uncontrollably for a moment before he lifelessly fell to the arena and died.
'He died?'
Orion felt surprised as he saw this.
'It seems this symbol was really the only thing that controlled the armor just now.'
He thought as he used his sword to cut out the piece of armor that had the star symbol etched on it.
Looking over the symbol carefully, he didn't see anything special about it. But it could also be said that he had no knowledge about symbols to really know their value. Moreso in a world full of talent and curses.
'Let's keep it for now; it might come in handy later.'
He thought as he reached out and grasped the armor with his right hand. In an instant, his entire hand, along with the armor, vanished. Then, just as suddenly, his hand reappeared, but the armor was no longer in his grasp.
It turned out he could use the dimension he vanished into as an infinite space for himself to store things.
At that moment, Orion sensed something. Turning his head, he saw that the portal appeared not so far from him.
'Time to leave this place.'
He headed towards the portal as he thought about the battle just now. He noticed many things during this fight, and most importantly, he understood what he lacked the most right now.