The black-veined monster turns to him, wastes no time, and rushes the swordsman again. Leaving behind yet another crack on the ice from the force and impact at which it jumped away.
This time, Sebastian is completely prepared for it. The monster is still incredibly fast, but he was able to react accordingly, blocking the monsters claws with his void-covered blades, clashing.
He has no clue what happened or what the monster did, but it suddenly is able to match his speed. Not only that, but it seemingly received a boost in strength as well as it is able to overpower him slightly.
It summons even more strength and breaks the clash by sending him away, flying.
SHHOOM
He interrupts the forceful throw by warping back on solid ground, a short distance behind the monster.
This last move confirmed his assumption. The monster DID get an enormous boost in its physical attributes. It not only became faster, but stronger as well. Strong enough that it was able to overpower him.
He wasn't the strongest out of all the agents, but he wasn't average as well. In terms of sheer, physical prowess, Joe sits at the top of the list. Followed by Sean, Marko, and him.
The monster wasn't capable of overpowering him in terms of raw strength during their previous encounter. It wasn't even able to do so at the start of their current fight. When their fight started, it was probably just as strong as him. Even if it was stronger, it wasn't by much.
If it was able to throw him away during their clash, it would mean that the monster is now as strong as Sean's peak or Joe at 50% strength.
On top of that, it is just as fast as him. Sean's strength and his speed are not good combinations on an opponent. Not good odds, but far from being not winnable.
He notices the black veins on its body again and its face hole emanating black mist like a chimney.
"Could it be that it's using the void energy as some sort of fuel?" he thought.
The monster has stopped using void energy in its attacks. It no longer has its void blades. It wasn't shooting out its beams. His theory is that the monster sacrificed its usage of void energy and is converting it to increase its physical prowess. It would be the only plausible explanation as this power boost only became evident when it dispersed its void blades.
He thought that if that was the case, then it must have relinquished its automatic void barrier as well.
"So, you sacrificed all your gimmicks for one, final gimmick, huh."
SHHOOM
He warps at its flank, attempting a slash from its blind spot. As soon as he appeared, the monster immediately turns and swipes at him.
Instead of teleporting away, he intentionally blocks it with his sword to get a better grasp of just how strong it got.
CLANG
Another clash which ends with him being sent away again.
SHHOOM
"Hey," he hears Benedict's voice.
"Are you alright?"
"Do I look like I'm not?" he asks back.
"It's ragdolling you and that's highly unusual."
"That's because I'm letting it."
"Well, stop letting and—"
Sebastian takes his earpiece and throws it away, devoured by ice and snow.
"Um, sir, did he just—" asks one of the monitoring personnel at mission control.
"Yes, he did," Benedict answers.
"What are you doing," he whispers to himself.
Although he wasn't losing, Benedict, like the other Circle personnel weren't used to seeing Sebastian in a stalemate. Seeing him get thrown around not only once, but twice was worrying for them.
But like Sebastian said, it only happened because he was letting it. It wasn't just a silly, throwaway excuse. He was testing the waters.
He wasn't worried at all. In fact, he felt a bit of joy. For the first time, in a long time, he is up against something that is able to stand on the same ground as him. But he is about to kick off that ground.
He rushes the monster, now his turn to go on the offensive.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
Slash after slash, deflected. The monster's claws are much sturdier than before, being able to withstand fierce slashes from Sebastian's void blades.
A huge, cross slash.
CLANG
Deflected.
With their blades still clashing, Sebastian overloads his, flames growing bigger, feinting an explosion.
The monster falls for the fakeout and breaks the clash but as soon as it moved its hands, Sebastian disappears.
SHHOOM
Black mist materializes behind him. The monster reacts accordingly again to the vintage back attack but it only sees a cloud of mist when it turned around.
Sebastian gets the monster to fall for another fakeout. As soon as he teleported, he quickly teleported again to its blind side.
SHHOOM
This time, black mist appears beneath the monster. It reacts to it again only to find black mist in the shape of the man who has already disappeared again.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
A series of quick in-and-outs leaving only an afterimage of black mist, dispersing in the wind. The monster doesn't know where to look. It can react quickly to his teleportation, but not fast enough to actually catch a glimpse of him.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
The monster is helplessly surrounded by afterimages of mist.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
An incredibly quick slash hits its chest, leaving a narrow cut. The monster has no clue where the attack came from, all it's seeing are black mist followed by the sound of its emergence.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
Another cut, this time on its arm.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
Another cut on the back.
The monster attempts countering by slashing on instinct but it was a split second late, the attacker is already gone and eyeing an attack from another angle.
SHHOOM
Fed up with the attacks it couldn't see, the monster jumps away.
SHHOOM
It jumps away again, no longer falling for the fakeouts and simply getting away.
SHHOOM
Instead of standing around and figuring out where the petty slashes are coming from, the monster decides to run straight for the facility instead.
The Ice Sheet and even Circle personnel start to panic seeing the monster shrug off the fight and make a beeline for the facility at a deeply concerning speed.
Sebastian scoffs and grins. "Fucker's smart," he thought.
Knowing that it would ultimately just waste time standing in the middle of the storm of afterimages and that despite its speed, it wouldn't be able to catch up with a teleporting target, the monster just opted to go straight for the facility and ditch the afterimages altogether.
This way, it would bait him out into an actual, straight-up fight again instead of the blitz he was doing. If he were to continue doing the afterimage slashes, it can just simply tank the hits as although the slashes aren't weak, they aren't completely focused on strength anyway and he was focusing more on speed, hence, only dealing shallow cuts, and proceed with wreaking havoc at the facility and paying no heed to his quick, nearly-invisible slashes.
The running monster is now only 40 meters away from the facility.
SHHOOM
Sebastian is forced to show himself again, getting in the way of the rushing monster who jumps at him again with immense speed and strength upon seeing him.
FWOOM
He recharges his blades again, covering it in large, black flames and unleashes his signature void cross slash, this time, able to send it flying into the distance, compared to before when he was only able to send a small, short-distance shockwave.
BOOM
It explodes upon impact but the monster jumps out of the cloud of smoke caused by the explosion and although the slash didn't split it in half, it has visible wounds on its forearms, meaning it probably attempted to block the projectile.
His projectile's success is at the cost of an entire coating. The flames on his blades are completely depleted after unleashing the projectile. But never mind, he still has about 55% left on his external reserve.
FWOOM
He recharges his blades and rushes the monster, greeting it with his blades.
CLANG
The two clash blades again, but this time, just for a second as both of them immediately slashed at the other.
Neither one is on the defensive. Their respective slashes were deflecting each other. A storm of clashing blades.
If the two had done this wild exchange of blows earlier, Sebastian probably would have gotten overwhelmed by the monster's strength in a few seconds as it had the advantage in that area, but as the fight went on and the more blows they exchanged, he was slowly climbing up to the monster's level, albeit still below but just barely.
Both him and the monster are getting stronger and faster by the second, incredible momentum behind them. But the monster was at a disadvantage as it restricted itself from using void energy, whereas Sebastian was still capable of enhancing his attacks with it.
SHHOOM
Another afterimage storm, but this time, faster and stronger than the previous.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
A slash with both swords cuts off the monster's right arm.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
The monster attempts to run again, but it is stopped by a forceful slash on its chest, etching an X-shaped wound, pushing the monster back.
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
SHHOOM
Three quick, deep cuts on the monster's body. Sebastian is completely in the zone. This is by far, the fastest he's ever gotten, only having a nanosecond interval between warps. It was so fast that the sound of his warps were mixing in with each other. This is the most he's pushed his ability so far.
The monster's left leg is sliced off.
Not being able to keep up anymore, it returns back to using void energy. This time, focusing it all on creating a massive, spherical, black barrier completely surrounding it.
It puts all its effort into making sure that the barrier holds off and protects it from the barrage of slashes.
Sebastian notices that his slashes are barely denting the extremely dense barrier of void energy. Instead, he channels another massive, slash projectile.
He charges his swords with 10% more its limit, risking breaking it just to shatter the monster's turtle defense.
He unleashes the large, cross-shaped projectile at the spherical barrier.
BOOM
The entire 10-meter mark is covered in a cloud of smoke and snow. Sebastian is standing still, patiently waiting for it to dissipate.
"Wow," he whispers.
The sphere is still intact, albeit a large X is etched on it along with the snow it's standing on.
"I have about 50,"
He stands still for about three seconds, contemplating something.
"Tsk."
"Fuck it."
He sheathes both his swords.
SHHOOM
He warps high up in the purple sky, standing in the air.
He starts channeling and cloaking his entire body in void energy. First, his hands, engulfed in faint, black mist. The mist crawls up, eventually forming on the rest of his body as well.
Crowe, watching from an ice mountain in the distance, starts getting excited. Something is coming. Strong, dangerous, and he knew it.
Sebastian starts molding what looked like a small sphere with both of his hands, arms stretched sideways, right in the middle and near his chest.
He looks at the nearby facility, about 40 meters away.
"Shit."
The facility is too close for comfort. If what he's planning ends up being more dangerous than he expects, the facility and the personnel might get caught in the radius. But it's a risk he's willing to take. The threat takes precedence.
He starts forming an extremely condensed, spherical small just about the size of a baseball. He molds it further, gradually getting bigger.
The space around the sphere is also gradually getting distorted. The larger the sphere gets, the more the space around them gets distorted around them itself. Wind is slowly pulled towards the sphere.
"Is he…"
"He's standing in the sky…"
The personnel on the facility murmur, completely baffled.
"S-sir," the personnel monitoring the situation at the mission control room notice something.
"We're detecting a massive concentration of void energy from,"
"Agent Isaac…?"
Benedict looks into it to confirm.
"What are you doing?" he whispers under his breath.
"It's consistently getting stronger, sir!"
"And it's messing with our detection system!!"
Every radar surveilling the Ice Sheet is getting distorted viewing.
The sphere is now as big as his palm, but he's continuing to mold it. The distortion in space gets bigger and bigger.
"Yes! YES!!" Crowe exclaims in excitement. This is exactly what he expects from the agent.
Everyone on the site starts feeling an impending sense of doom. Something dangerous was coming. They could feel the unease in the wind.
The monster was no exception to this. It takes down the void barrier and looks up at the man in the sky. A large cavity opens up on its abdomen, channeling an attack as well, gathering up void energy and distorting space around it as well.
"Sir!! There's another distortion showing up!!"
Benedict is visibly on edge. There are two void monsters about to blast each other to oblivion.
"These two are going to wipe the entire continent away."