Rygar's Sixth Sense flared the moment the energy blade sliced Esterópes' fingers.
At first, he had ignored the roar that reverberated from the sea; he assumed it was some peculiarity of his opponent's presence.
But then he realized that the source of danger his instincts had warned him about was also the sea. It was as if the ocean itself had turned against him.
Originally, Rygar wanted to tear the colossus to pieces, blow after blow, with the Instant Light Flow, until it finally died.
But before he could even take the next step, a repulsive force hit him like an invisible hammer.
His body was thrown upward, soaring hundreds of meters above the frozen surface he himself had created.
Esterópes did not waste time. The Light Cannon glowed again in his golden eye, and the devastating beam was fired at Rygar while he was still in the air.
"Tch!" he clicked his tongue.
At the last moment, Rygar channeled a Wind Explosion behind him, violently propelling himself out of the beam's path.
Recovering his balance quickly, Rygar ran across the water again, immediately regaining his accelerated pace.
His racing thoughts processed every detail of the fight.
'What was that? It wasn't Gravitational Magic… some kind of telekinesis? Shouldn't it be the same thing? I've never seen anything like this in this world…'
He narrowed his eyes as he observed Esterópes' scorched yellow aura, which was radiating as if it were an extension of the sea itself.
'That aura… it's not just around him… it already is part of the ocean.'
The sea around seemed furious — not metaphorically, but literally.
Even when the water reached the giant's knees, he moved without resistance, as if he were made of the ocean itself.
Cutting Esterópes' fingers was like wounding the sea itself.
As Rygar advanced again, he saw the severed fingers regenerate with ease.
He already knew that. The records in Oldgar's Timeline described the cyclops as almost immortal while he was in the ocean; he had spent a long time researching that ability.
"It won't be easy to kill…"
If he could use his magic freely, the fight would already be far more in his favor.
But Esterópes fought the very existence of magic with his ability.
The Light Cannon fired at regular intervals, redrawing the seabed with each impact.
Underwater mountains crumbled to dust, rifts opened on the seafloor, and devastating waves swept for kilometers.
"Damn… is that beam infinite or something?" Rygar murmured, dodging another shot.
The blue flames of Doomsday remained practically unchanged in the face of the magical interference. In other words, his Fire Magic, unlike the others, responded more easily.
Besides, even if the colossus was nearly immortal, Rygar was also a monster of vitality.
His familiarity with Regeneration Magic was such that, even under the cyclops' corrosive aura, he could still use it, rebuilding muscles and bones when necessary.
Knowing this, he once again made his way toward a close-quarters fight.
The Light Cannon suddenly stopped.
And, surprisingly, the giant vanished from his position.
Esterópes was running toward him.
It was like a mountain moving at high speed.
The ocean rose in response, displacing billions of liters of water.
Rygar suddenly thought that that displacement of water alone could generate a tsunami.
In fact, in the coming days, people on the coast of some continent would suffer the consequences of this fight.
Still, he was surprised by the colossus' boldness. He thought he had made it clear, by cutting his fingers moments before, that approaching him would be a problem.
Any lapse at close range would mean being torn apart by Doomsday.
But his Sixth Sense was on alert for some reason.
"…So you have another hidden card."
Rygar was small compared to the colossus; yet his presence was no less significant.
They charged at each other, both aiming to destroy their opponent.
One of them ran to crush an insolent insect. The other advanced determined to overthrow the second deity of the Sea Race.
When they were about to collide, Esterópes' single golden eye shone strangely.
A purple light escaped from his pupil, not as a beam, but as waves, pulsing in the air like invisible electromagnetic waves passing through everything around.
Rygar felt a chill run down his spine.
He went into full alert. When he stared at the eye, an uncomfortable sensation overwhelmed him.
Suddenly, an invisible shockwave struck him.
He kept running toward the giant, but then the world seemed to warp before his eyes.
Esterópes, who had been close, suddenly seemed to move away, farther and farther, as if the space between them was multiplying endlessly.
The sea, the horizon, everything looked distorted in multiple layers.
His sense of depth, which had always been flawless thanks to the Sharpness Eye and his bestial senses, was now completely disrupted.
And then, suddenly, the giant's massive body appeared in front of him, just a few meters away. Without warning.
Instinctively, Rygar swung Doomsday in a flaming arc, the blue flames devouring everything in front of him. The strike could have reduced a forest to ashes, but it hit only water and void.
The impact came right after.
Baaam!
A punch descended from above like the hammer of a god, striking him with crushing force.
Rygar was launched downward, piercing the sea like a cannonball until he crashed into the ocean floor with a snap.
A gigantic crater opened; the corals shattered and cracks spread across the seabed like broken glass.
Esterópes gave no time to breathe. His speed was absurd. The colossus that seemed to defy all laws of physics was already preparing the next attack before Rygar could get up.
Regeneration Magic kicked in immediately, stitching broken bones, rebuilding tissues, redirecting internal blood in his lungs.
But even if the flesh healed, his body was still stunned, and his spatial perception remained distorted by the giant's mysterious ability.
The cyclops did not rest. His fist fell again. And again. And again.
From a distance, it might have looked like a giant punching the water senselessly, raising liquid columns that struck the sky.
But each punch was an endless nightmare for Rygar, who was forced deeper and deeper into the submerged crater.
The impacts reverberated for kilometers. Tsunamis formed with each blow, titanic waves rolling outward in all directions.
The giant wanted to crush the resilient insect once and for all, before it could react.
Esterópes, amid the fight, felt something he rarely experienced. Strange emotions. Emotions he did not understand.
The result of such blows, against any other opponent, would be fatal.
An entire mountain could be reduced to dust with ease.
Even Ku, the Crab-Man — one of the strongest warriors of the Sea Race, who on the surface could be classified as a King or even a North Emperor — had been gravely injured by just a flick.
Crushed bones, cracked shell, shredded organs.
That was normal. That was Esterópes' reference.
A single direct blow would be enough to turn even a Sword God-level swordsman into meat paste.
That was reality. That was the standard of the giant of the depths.
At the top of the food chain, he had always been there — even before the First Human-Demon War.
Human warriors, legendary mages, renowned heroes, colossal sea beasts or terrible land monsters… all were the same to him. Insects. Nothing more than insects.
Some tasted good. Others, disgusting.
But they never left that classification: food.
His whole life had been dedicated to savoring the delicacies the Sea Race brought for his delight and to increasing the number of his offspring.
There were only two exceptions.
The Kraken Zeroth, his companion, whom he respected and recognized as an equal.
And the man in golden armor — the terrible Fighter God.
In that fateful fight, the Golden Knight did not want to exterminate him, and so he lived another day.
With the end of the war, he fled to the seafloor, where he continued to exist, establishing his reign when the Ringus Sea was born. Years and years of stability and sovereignty followed.
And now, while punching that insolent insect without stopping, what should have been just another effortless annihilation, Esterópes felt those strange emotions again.
Was it fear? Anger? Excitement? He could not say.
And then it happened.
From the bottom of the crater, a blue flame explosion burst forth like the birth of an underwater sun.
The energy tore through the seafloor and expanded like a nuclear detonation.
The wave of blue fire engulfed the sea and covered even Esterópes' colossal body, illuminating the depths.
The cyclops' colossal body was swept away by the explosion of blue flames.
Even after the impact, the flames still burned on his body, scorching his gray skin, leaving it charred.
But, as before, his wounds did not last long.
The burnt flesh began to regenerate at record speed.
His single golden pupil remained still, but any observant onlooker would notice by the giant's posture that he was… perplexed.
It was a sensation he had not experienced in ages.
Esterópes' last memory of being hurt by Magic dated back to his early days, before his Magic Nullification Aura was fully formed.
After that, every mage before him had been nothing — particularly fragile insects whose powerful magics became useless and chaotic in his presence.
And yet, now… the ocean around him was vaporizing, the surface burning in blue flames.
The impossible had happened.
From the flames, like a phantom, the insect emerged again.
Wielding the sword that longed to burn everything.
He ran toward the colossus, his body still marked by the titanic blows;
Enduring that barrage of punches had not been a joke — it had been very painful.
Wounded, yes, but not defeated. Just like the giant, the wounds on his body disappeared in real time.
If anyone could see his thoughts at that moment, they would be astonished.
Across the entire world, the number of people capable of surviving a sequence of Esterópes' punches would probably not reach double digits.
Rygar only remained standing because he carried three great advantages: his monstrous touki, the Laplace Factor that strengthened his body, and Regeneration Magic that constantly restored him.
Even Barrier Magic, though weakened by the giant's anti-magic aura, had helped him withstand part of the impact.
And even with all that, his bones were pulverized several times in a matter of seconds.
But Rygar had another concern now, that strange illusion ability of the colossus.
He had not felt his mind invaded.
It was not a direct mental attack, but something that distorted the environment itself, fooling the victim's perception of reality around them.
It was another ability he had never seen before — and therefore did not know how to directly counter.
But he had a vague idea.
His Demon Eyes analyzed the battlefield in milliseconds, memorizing every square meter that surrounded them.
Meanwhile, the cyclops, already recovered from the initial shock, acted again.
From his golden eye came the purple light once more, and again Rygar felt his sense of depth be completely distorted.
Distances became irrational and space an impossible mirage to decipher.
Esterópes advanced, planning to crush him again, blow after blow, until his regeneration could no longer keep up.
Rygar closed his eyes.
And, in an instant, he leapt toward the approaching giant's neck.
Esterópes reacted at the last moment, bringing a hammer-like punch down against the small being, confident that the opponent's perception was still distorted.
But then Rygar brandished Doomsday.
The flaming sword cut through the air and a blue-silver incandescent blade tore through space.
Shhhiiiing!
The strike hit the cyclops' fist squarely. From the fist to the forearm, the colossal flesh was split open by a perfect vertical cut.
Blue blood burst forth in torrents, boiling at the contact with the flames.
Rygar kept his eyes closed until the end of the strike.
Only then did he open them, a smile painted across his face.
His theory had been correct.
The illusion could fool perception.
It could distort space, distance and depth.
But it could not fool… a premonition.
He had advanced trusting only his Sixth Sense.
-----
Hello! If you want to support my writing, check out my subscription P@treon
By subscribing, you will get access to up to 20 advanced chapters of the Webnovel and polls to decide various things about the story.
Your support will encourage me to continue writing more chapters! Check it out here: pa treon.com/DaoistJunkYard