Path to Transcendence

Chapter 517: Smashing His Way In

Julius currently had the advantage. He had applied so much pressure that Riven was slowly being pushed back. No matter how many spells or skills the mage could use at once, it didn’t matter if Julius didn’t allow him to.

He continuously sent barrage after barrage at him. Sometimes he didn’t even bother to use his Ruinflame Crown. The thing would only slow him down and limit the number of attacks he could send out. Quantity was more useful at the moment than quality.

He had quickly realized that despite all of Riven’s skill and talent, there were two major weaknesses he could take advantage of.

One of them was the fact that Riven was only able to use so much mana at one time. It was something that Julius had problems with, but slightly different in that Riven wasn’t able to use a lot of mana because his body wasn’t strong enough to withstand that much mana at once. In Julius’s case, it was because he wasn’t used to using such large amounts.

He had gotten around this slightly through diligent practice and by incorporating other abilities. One of those abilities was [Spirit Fortification], which helped lessen the requirement of using a lot of mana while still enhancing the overall power of his constructs. Adding kinetic energy accomplished something similar as well.

The other weakness Riven had was a lack of decisiveness in battle. Don’t get him wrong, Riven was very experienced and skilled in combat. But there was a lack of killer instinct that Julius often associated with warriors or frontliners.

That was why Riven took longer than usual to formulate an attack or to counter if he was caught off guard and wasn’t able to go with his usual strategies. Julius suspected that the next time he fought Riven, it would be different, and that Riven would have a dozen strategies in place to counter Juliusʼs skills.

However, since this was the first real fight between them, Riven wasn’t prepared for the plethora of abilities at Julius’s disposal. To be fair, it was hard to be prepared, even if you knew in advance, given the number of options available to Julius.

In the meantime, he kept up the relentless pressure. Because of this, Julius was able to slam his aura into the mage periodically. He had already gotten used to it at this point and had quite the impressive willpower of his own, so the effects were limited, but it was still effective in disrupting any attempts to counterattack.

He said that, but suddenly he felt a humongous surge of mana being channeled into Riven’s body. Julius was convinced that this attack wasn’t something he should just let happen, so he upped the intensity of his attacks and frowned when Riven used his teleportation skill to escape.

Julius had already gotten a good idea of how the skill worked, so he was able to track him, already sending over two dozen spikes at Riven’s predicted position. However, the distance was so far away that it took some time for these attacks to reach him. It would appear he had miscalculated how far Riven could teleport.

This enabled Riven to gain some much-needed breathing room, and that was all the space he needed. Before Julius could do anything else, he felt that surge of mana gradually transform into a solid structure of interwoven mana.

With how much force was being exuded from the technique, Julius was reminded of the runic circle that he had been trapped in. The threat of that circle was the main reason why he had been putting so much pressure. He didn’t want Riven to have a chance to create something like it again.

Or maybe he did. If he was being honest, he was very curious how the runic circle worked and wouldn’t mind having another chance to experience it. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time, and so he set aside his own interests for the greater good, holding back his tears while he did so.

However, his sorrows were quickly replaced by excitement when he sensed the techniqueʼs power continuing to grow. It had already surpassed the runic circle he had experienced before, and it felt much more dangerous.

A massive blue sphere of mana and Concepts all formed together in a destructive mass. Then, before he could inspect it for long, he saw it grow larger and larger. Riven was clearly having a difficult time controlling it, but somehow managed to keep it together despite using so many various types of magic.

Julius nodded slowly to himself. If there was anything he felt confident in, it was that when you saw a massive fucking sphere of mana so dangerous that it was on the verge of collapsing, it only meant one thing.

Smash his face against it.

So that was precisely what he decided to do, and without a second of hesitation, he ran full steam at this coalescing bubble of water, wind, and earth magic. There might have been more things added to it, but from what he could tell, it was basically just a humongous orb of mana-filled water, razor-sharp winds, and sharpened stones flying through the air at ridiculous speeds.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

He covered his body with as many protections as he could think of. Several layers of mana molded around his body, and he also created a layer of his aura to help rip apart attacks before they could hit him.

There was an intense pressure from whatever Concepts were fused into this technique, but Julius shrugged it off, using his own Emblem to take the brunt of the force. He dashed forward, using all the kinetic energy at his disposal.

In his excitement, he had even chosen to manifest a pair of bright azure blue wings on his back. He didn’t care about hiding his flight abilities at this time; he really needed to get closer before Riven could finish the technique.

The wings offered him some additional stability and speed, allowing him to cross the distance in no time at all, shooting spikes along the way. He collided with the sphere head-on and felt an overwhelming force slam into him.

It was a powerful attack that exceeded many of the attacks he had seen from Tier 4s. But he held on, even as the weight of the water threatened to crush his body into a pulp. He also found out the hard way that the water wasn’t just simple water. It was infused with something that tried to worm its way inside his body. It was very insidious, and he was forced to use generous waves of his aura to wipe out the effects.

However, he didn’t just have the water to worry about. The razor-sharp winds were also something he had to deal with. Despite his protections, the wind magic slowly cut into him. They weren’t deep cuts, but they hurt like hell and worked stupidly well with the water. The cuts opened up more avenues for the water to seep into his body.

He had to add even more aura to his body to counteract this. The addition of earth magic was just freaking annoying. Even while dealing with all of this already, he was forced to dodge boulders the size of a cow that had been reinforced with a shit ton of mana.

He wasn’t able to dodge all of them either. Since the earth magic was working in tandem with the wind and water magic, it was like he was in the center of a blender, and someone decided to throw half a mountain as well. It didnʼt help with the added gravity magic.

The results? He was hammered from every side imaginable.

There was a silver lining to this.

He was able to feel the technique in the most personal way. It just sucked that it caused a lot of pain during the process.

He didn’t require any healing quite yet. He was able to mitigate a lot of the damage by using more mana. He also drew on his previous fights and deployed a sphere of his own. Only his sphere was almost entirely made of kinetic energy.

It helped absorb a lot of the force from the hurricane. He also gained a lot of kinetic energy from this sphere. He would almost say he was actively gaining more kinetic energy than he was losing, which was insane.

However, it was for this reason that he was able to maintain his defenses for as long as he did. He didn’t just sit inside the sphere either; he continued to push deeper into it. He sensed Riven standing in the center of the storm.

Julius was making good progress, forcing his way through. But suddenly, he felt a drastic increase in force collapse on top of him. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that Riven must have constricted the barrier with Julius inside of it.

This was troubling for a few reasons; the big one was that he took even more damage. He was forced to heal several larger injuries due to this onslaught of mana. His bubble of kinetic energy did a pretty good job at handling the rest.

His Force Concept helped quite a lot, especially when he layered his bubble several times. It was also fortunate that he was able to hide his healing abilities because of how much mana was being thrown around. He also doubted that Riven would be able to see his wounds heal.

The other, and probably more annoying, issue was that he found himself unable to progress further into this field of water, wind, and earth magic. His kinetic bubble did a great job of absorbing the force from these attacks, but he was unable to run with it.

He really only had one option at this point. One that he wasn’t planning on showing, but didn’t really mind that much.

He casually shrugged off the massive boulder that slammed into him. The water magic was the most annoying, but he used a generous pulse of healing to act as a buffer. It was only then that he locked onto Riven’s location.

The space around him folded as he took control of his spatial skill. The chaotic nature of the skill was like a sharpened spear that pierced the spatial barrier that encapsulated the sphere. It might have been able to stop normal teleportation skills, but the fantastic thing about [Void Step] was that it didn’t work like other teleportation skills.

It might have been more dangerous to the user, but for someone like Julius, it was the perfect skill to catch his enemies off guard. And that was precisely what he did.

He tore through space and appeared right beside Riven. The collapsing void he emerged from caused a small explosion, for some reason. That was the only reason why Riven glanced backward.

However, it was half a second too late; Julius’s fist was already inches from his chest. He could feel some kind of barrier and enchantments placed on the robes, but he had used a lot of power behind the blow, and the robes were unable to handle it.

He felt the ribcage of Riven fold into itself, and Julius found himself covered in a pint of blood that the mage puked up. He kept him in place with his kinetic energy, clamping down on him to prevent him from moving or teleporting away.

Because of his surprise, he managed to use his willpower like a sledgehammer, breaking whatever resistance there was.

He hit him once more out of sheer habit, but didn’t hit him a third time. He stopped his fist inches away from Riven’s nose, and the excess kinetic energy exploded outwards, but thankfully didn’t injure Riven any further. Despite there not being any actual death, he didn’t feel like it was sporting to “kill” Riven. After all, how else was he going to fulfill his side of their agreement if he was dead?