Jin was getting better and better at using his aura. Yet the situation he found himself in was anything but favorable.
Icebergs rained down on him at incredible speed, each one crashing toward an area where he might potentially move.
And yet...
He dodged every single one without difficulty.
His aura flowed through his body in a way that maximized the power of his legs. Moving at unbelievable speed, he slipped between every impact zone and its surroundings without so much as being grazed by a shard of ice. Jin appeared and disappeared in several places at once.
From his perspective, the world itself seemed frozen in time. He was moving at speeds he had never imagined possible.
And yet Astra's attacks still appeared perfectly normal to him. Almost even faster than he was.
Every single exchange left Jin a hair's breadth away from death. It was exhilarating. His body moved faster. His senses had become impossibly sharp. His coordination had reached its absolute peak, and maintaining his concentration required almost no effort.
By using his aura, Jin had become the very best version of himself.Three times stronger.
He smiled. A wide grin spread across his face as freezing droplets of water struck his skin.
It was incredible.
Simply incredible...
An iceberg suddenly cut off his path, preparing to crash directly into him. But Jin was faster.
He stopped at the last possible instant before leaping backward. The iceberg crashed harmlessly in front of him, water and ice swallowing the entire area.
Astra looked around. The genius of fighting was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, she felt a hand resting on top of her head. It was Jin. He was balancing upside down on a single hand atop her like a handstand.
An instant later, he drove a violent kick into her and Astra's body slammed into the ground.
It was the first real blow Jin had landed since the battle had begun but he didn't even have time to celebrate.
Chunks of ice shot toward him from the impact site.
Spinning through the air, Jin quickly tracked every incoming projectile while instantly calculating the safest trajectory. Moments later, he shattered several of them midair while the others completely missed him.
Astra, however, had no intention of giving up.
Soon, the entity in her humanoid water form spread both arms wide. Instantly, water from every direction began flowing toward her.
At first, only droplets. Then entire streams.Before long... They resembled full rivers rushing toward her. The mass soon grew to the size of a house.Then a building. And slowly, it began taking shape.
Little by little, terrifying jaws lined with thousands of razor-sharp teeth appeared before Jin's eyes. It didn't take him long to recognize one of the most terrifying fish species to have ever existed.
A gigantic Megalodon.
Jin watched the beast form before him. He had no idea how he was supposed to escape. Unable to change his trajectory, he concentrated his aura into both hands.
Soon, they became coated in a dark green substance that resembled both gas and liquid at the same time, almost black in color.
Astra smiled. Jin was falling exactly into her trap.
The colossal beast opened its enormous jaws toward him.
Only then did Jin see what lay inside. A bottomless abyss...One he wasn't sure anyone could return from. All around him... There was only water. And deep within...Nothing but darkness.
Then, the instant he entered its reach...
The jaws snapped shut.
But Jin didn't care.
Because the very moment those jaws closed, Astra suddenly felt two hands collide with her at full force.
At the same time, Jin's voice echoed beside her in an arrogant whisper.
"It's only water, you know?"
Behind him, the pierced Megalodon burst apart into billions of droplets, raining down across the entire city in a breathtaking spectacle.
Astra grew furious at the genius of fighting's words and hurled him forward. Jin crashed several meters away.
His hands scraped harshly against the ground, but he reinforced them with aura so they wouldn't be damaged too badly.
He then raised his head to witness the spectacle Astra had prepared for him.
The entity had risen into the air. Her eyes glowed with a pale yet vivid light. Her body was still made of water, but her hands had now become molten lava and burning rock. Her feet resembled two gigantic storms, while her long hair had turned into blazing flames.
It was magnificently terrifying. Yet Jin only became more excited than ever.
The longer the battle went on, the more Astra revealed the true power of the monster standing before him.
"Die, bastard."
Her voice was carried by violent winds that forced Jin backward. Resisting such a storm was difficult, even with his newfound mastery over aura.
Soon, countless powerful gusts struck him from every direction. Jin tried to reinforce his footing with aura, but a massive earthquake threw him off balance, sending him crashing onto his back.
At the same time, Astra moved with the speed of her own winds. She glided between them and slammed her magma-reinforced fist straight into Jin's abdomen, the impact shattering the ground behind him.
Jin definitely felt that one.
At this point in the battle, he couldn't help but wonder if he truly stood a chance against such a terrifying entity.
Her command over nature was monstrous, and her mastery of aura was far beyond his own. Even if he occasionally gained the upper hand, it was only a matter of time before she took control of the fight once again.
Jin was launched dozens of meters away.
After coming to a stop, he lifted his shirt to reveal a massive crimson bruise spreading across half of his torso.
It hurt.
It hurt like hell.
It was the hardest blow he had taken so far. But he gritted his teeth and focused on Astra once more.
She was smiling.
Unfortunately for him, the earth suddenly split open beneath his feet and swallowed him in an instant.
Astra casually raised a hand.
A hundred bolts of lightning crashed into the spot where he had disappeared. Every single one struck the exact same place without missing once. Seeing that Jin wasn't coming back up, Astra began to enjoy herself.
"So? Where did you go, handsome fighter?"
However, in the very next second, a hand burst out of the ground and grabbed her ankle.
It was Jin again.
He yanked her downward before using the momentum to propel himself back out of the earth.
"I'll admit... catching a storm isn't exactly easy."
Astra's expression twisted with rage and Jin instantly leaped backward.
Moments later, she emerged from the ground, floating effortlessly through the air. This time, her entire body was covered in solid rock.
She roared at him.
"Let's see if you survive this!"
Jin didn't understand what she was talking about because Astra didn't move. He waited a few seconds, but the attack still didn't come.
"Is this some kind of jo—"
Suddenly, Jin sensed something bad. Something very bad. His aura was screaming something at him, but he didn't understand. The sensation was so intense that he began to tremble.
He looked around anxiously but still couldn't see anything. On the contrary, his vision grew dark.
"Huh?"
Something was obscuring his vision, but he didn't know what it was.
Then he realized.
"It's behind me, isn't it?"
He slowly turned around. And he saw the monster.
A tidal wave over a thousand meters tall was charging straight toward him, destroying everything in its path.
It quickly swallowed the sun behind its colossal wall of water and surged forward at an impossible speed. Nothing seemed capable of stopping it. It devoured houses, the city's ice statues, massive buildings, trees, even enormous chunks of solid ground without slowing down in the slightest.
The pinnacle of the Natural Disaster. Jin had never seen—nor even imagined—anything like it.
He already knew Astra was powerful... But witnessing it with his own eyes nearly made his heart stop. The wave was colossal. Larger than any tsunami that had ever existed.The sight was so horrifying that even Jin struggled to believe it.
He stared at the gigantic wall of water rushing toward him. He couldn't stop or disperse it.Of that, he was certain.
This thing was a monster born from his own planet. A planet whose limits he had believed he understood so well. But there was one thing. One thing he could still try.
A completely insane idea. One that might leave him gravely injured...
Or simply cost him his life.
"It's all or nothing."
Jin crouched down and tensed his legs, flooding them with aura.
Every bit of aura he could gather. He needed every single drop flowing through his body. Everything he had accumulated until now. For the first time in his life, he needed all of it.
Astra watched him as the tidal wave rushed toward him, yet he still didn't move.
"What is this idiot going to do?"
Jin remained crouched for a long time. His legs were almost smoking from the overwhelming concentration of aura.
Eventually, he decided it was enough.
Of course, he had no idea. He knew nothing at all.
If he couldn't stop the wave...
If he couldn't disperse it...
Then he could at least attempt one of the craziest things humanity had ever dreamed of doing.
Pierce straight through it. Charge into it head-on with overwhelming force.
With a little luck, he would come out the other side.
Jin wasn't really human anymore. So for him, it was possible.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
"Come on..."
Soon, the wave was only a hundred meters away.
It was impossible to see its summit. Up close, the sight was even more terrifying than he had imagined.
Jin took a deep breath. The deepest breath he had ever taken.Then he raised his head...
And shouted—
"Forward!!"
Suddenly, Jin compressed his body even further...
Then vanished.
Launching himself faster than a rocket, he shot through the air toward the colossal wave.
The wind shrieked in his ears, nearly bursting his eardrums, but he reinforced them with aura before it could happen.
His body burned from the tremendous friction, heating up at an unbelievable rate.
And in less than a second later, he reached the wave.
He braced himself mentally for the impact. The water felt like a solid wall.
Breaking through it hurt far more than he expected.
But fortunately, it wasn't enough to stop him.
He charged through the water as if nothing had happened, while feeling the crushing weight of the wave pressing down on him.
The torrents pulled at him like countless ropes wrapped around his shoulders.
Yet he refused to stop.
From his perspective, the wave wasn't that thick...
But crossing it still felt impossible.
Still, the speed he had built up gave him hope.
Jin's momentum dropped exponentially.
He could see the other side, but the resistance kept slowing him down.
Little by little, he began to lose hope.
Even so...
He didn't give up.
He kept charging through the tsunami, that living sea trying to swallow him whole.
His speed continued to fall, but he could still see the end.
The finish line stretching through that heavenly expanse before him.
Then...
Just as his momentum reached its absolute limit...
His body perfectly straight—
He pierced through the wave a second time....
He was now soaring hundreds of meters above the sky. Water covered his entire body, making him slightly heavier.
Even so, it took a long time before he began to fall.
From up there, he admired the view.
The sun was setting over Garma. Its rays shimmered across the thin, almost transparent ice.
Some frozen bodies hadn't moved at all. Their lifeless gazes were all turned toward the setting sun. Others had been shattered into countless pieces after the wave had passed.
And Jin knew...
Many more were simply gone now.
The frozen buildings also looked as though they were on the verge of collapsing.
Yet somehow, they still stood.
Far away on the horizon, the sun itself seemed to be skating across the frozen sea. Its reflection stretched endlessly, pale and ethereal. It looked like a painting. A masterpiece created by an artist who could only find beauty amidst despair and destruction.
Jin thought for a moment. For someone who didn't care much about art...
He figured the painting could be called...
"Sunset Over the Frozen City."
Even though the city had already died.
Jin smiled...
Then let himself fall.
Astra wasn't defeated.
Far from it.
She looked eager to continue.
Jin was too.