Demion POV
I first entered the dome and morris followed me. I could sense his killing intent focused on my back but I didn't turn until reaching the center of the dome which was 2 kilometer wide.
"Is this place you have chosen as your grave?" He asked.
"Let's see whether you have the ability to send me to my grave." I replied retrieving my cherished draconic sword [Punisher] and took the fighting stance.
The sword was the same with which I had fought Theris back on 1st floor but at that time I didn't activated its abilities just like how Lord Alex fought Lucius without activating abilities of [Aurora]. The sword had two active and one passive ability to use but I don't want to activate the second active ability if I can help it.
The first ability of the sword was [overload]. Depending on my mana reserve the power of my attacks would increase for a short time without any limit and the moment I use this ability it could be a decisive turn in the fight. After use of [Overload] the sword needs a huge amount of mana to recharge again and it also put lots of constrain on user body. At my peak condition I could use [Overload] for 5 times before my body paralyzes.
The passive ability which sword contained was that it would continuously absorb the portion of mana every time I used the sword to attack or defend against my opponent. It was certainly not the best sword I had in my arsenal but nevertheless I wanted to use it because it was made of the Dragon heart of my father.
"You know the last time when I fought against your father I realized that there were some other dragons, other than Alex and Azmath of whom I have to be aware of if I want to retain my position as a 1st leader, and if I want to do that I have to change myself." Saying this he also retrieved a long sword from his space rune which was giving an otherworldly aura.
It was definitely a draconic weapon but there was something different about this weapon because on the hilt of this sword a silver gem was embedded which was same as what I saw in the ring of 4th leader Lucius, some type of time reversing artifact. He must have activated the gem because the blade was immediately covered with various runes about which I didn't have any knowledge.
After he was almost defeated by my father I knew he had started to train and get stronger because I had seen him fight against other challengers many time but not a single time he had fought anyone with a sword and also after the battle with my father he had not spent much time in public probably training in seculation but never in my wildest dream I would have imagined him to have trained with sword of all the weapon.
'It will be easier than I thought.' I thought because I had trained in sword to the extent that I had become one with the sword itself unless morris has surpassed me in his sword skill I could beat him with my eyes closed.
'Don't let your guard down; the runes engraved on his sword are different from one which Lucius used.' The voice of Lord Alex reached my ears and I replied with node because it will be too armature of Morris to use the same trick which Lucius has used.
In order to assess the ability of morris, I used 1st movement of my sword and took the stance. Lowering my back I accumulated dense fire aura around the blade of my sword and morris did the same thing, the blade of his sword become black from silver leaving behind the trail of black gas he charged toward me.
He was charging at me with the speed difficult for most of the dragons to track, but I was able to track his moments. Responding in kind I pushed the ground beneath my feet and vanished from where I was standing, I was faster than him and my blade was about to reach his neck from behind him but morris stopped in his tracks and without turning his head his blade clashed with mine.
His blade was about to counter attack me but I distanced myself from him. I too had sensed from the trajectory of his blade that it was going to counter my attack and I had redirected my attack but his blade did the same thing following the moments of my blade without him turning his head as if for that moment he became faster than me.
Is his skills has progressed this much he was certainly a powerful and skilled dragon and I had never underestimated him. I need to fight him more in order to come to a conclusion.
"What do you think demion, can you win?" he asked me but I ignored his words and took a deep breath.
In hope of assessing his sword skills, we clashed hundreds of times in span of few minutes and I used 7 out of 12 sword techniques but every time we clashed the result was same. More than half the time he was not ready to counterattack me but suddenly his speed increased to an unexpected level.
His sword skills were not to be underestimated, I can see he was getting accustomed to my attacks and that is when I thought of checking whether my hypothesis was correct or wrong.
Using the 1st active ability of the sword [Overload] the physical and mental limiters of my body were lifted and in the blink of an eye I was in front of morris to perform the 11th sword technique and for the first time the eyes of morris widened.
It was a sword technique which I can only perform when the first active ability of my sword [Overload] was active. It was an instinct based multiple sword attacks which would continuously land on my opponent until the active ability of the sword ends.
He was still avoiding my attacks counter attacking them with abnormal speed, power and angle but slowly the stress was building up on him, his attacks were still precise but lacking strength and few cuts started to be seen on his body slowly getting bigger and bigger, the time of [Overload] was about to end and I performed one last attack with the intention to pierce Morris's heart but he redirected my attack away aimed at his heart leaving a deep long cut on his chest.
I distanced myself from him and finally understood what he was doing till now.
"Previously I thought that with the ability of that artifact you could see the future but you were unable to defend against my unexpected attack, which can only means that the time for you is flowing faster, and that is how you are countering my attacks which no matter how fast I perform seems slow to you." I said looking at the long scar on his chest which was healing rapidly.
"Even after that you were able to hurt me; your skills have surpassed your father." He said praising me.
I have started to recover from my exhaustion after the use of [Overload] and even after using half of the ability in my arsenal I was only able to hurt him this much.
"Now that you have proven yourself, I think I should let you know how big of a wall I am, which you wants to overcome." Saying this he extended his another hand and the temperature surrounding us started to increase soon the dome started to get bigger and bigger and black flames started to rose from the ground burning everything even melting the rocks and sand, turning ground below into lava.