Chapter 27: Clash of Monsters
The boy and girl faced each other across the vast, dark volcanic wasteland—thirty meters of alien terrain separating two exceptional prodigies. Violent winds howled through the gray sky, raising waves of black dust that swirled between them like a living veil.
"Your name is Vaelor Draeth, correct?"
Kaelith's voice carried across the distance with crystalline clarity, her three thousand strands of black hair fluttering dramatically behind her. Despite her slender frame, she radiated an aura of absolute authority—the bearing of someone who'd commanded armies and toppled kingdoms.
"Since we're academy classmates, I can still offer you a chance. It's not too late to admit defeat now."
"That won't be necessary." Vaelor clenched his fists, smiling with perfect calm. His light golden eyes blazed like flames kindled in endless night.
"Because..."
His smile widened slightly—dangerous rather than friendly.
"I genuinely cannot imagine a scenario where I would lose."
Through the consciousness link, his main body observed with analytical interest. The clone only possesses 60% of my total capabilities. Energy potency is significantly reduced compared to the original. If I want to properly test myself and learn everything she knows, I'll need to push harder than normal.
This won't be a casual sparring match. This will be genuine combat.
"That's because you haven't witnessed true strength."
Kaelith's ice-blue eyes carried absolute conviction—the certainty of someone who'd already reached the pinnacle once before. "I acknowledge you possess some capability. But before me..."
"It's not enough."
The instant her final word concluded, she kicked off the volcanic rock with explosive force.
The ground beneath her feet didn't just crack—it detonated. A crater fifty meters wide and twenty meters deep formed instantly as her Kinetic Intent synchronized with physical movement, multiplying force exponentially. The shockwave shattered nearby stone formations across a hundred-meter radius.
BOOM!
Her figure became a blur—not through simple speed, but through sophisticated Intent manipulation. Space Intent warped the distance between them. Wind Intent created vacuum channels that eliminated air resistance completely.
Three-Star Martial Art: Phantom Cloud Step (Enhanced with Intent Synchronization)
She materialized directly before Vaelor, her right fist wrapped in white gaseous energy that crackled with barely contained power. Her consciousness directed Ice Intent and Thunder Intent to synchronize perfectly, creating a hybrid attack that shouldn't naturally exist.
Five-Star Martial Art: Black Thunder Flash
The strike drove toward his chest with devastating precision.
Vaelor's hand rose to intercept—but Kaelith's form dissolved like morning mist. Space Intent created a genuine dimensional displacement, allowing her to literally step between coordinates.
She reformed behind him, her attack already in motion.
CRACK-BOOOM!
The impact generated a shockwave that carved through the landscape like an invisible blade. The volcanic rock fractured in expanding rings—two hundred meters, five hundred meters, a full kilometer radius showing spiderweb cracks. The pressure wave obliterated everything within three hundred meters, reducing stone formations to powder finer than sand.
But Vaelor had twisted at the last instant, his forearm intercepting the blow. His sleeve vaporized instantly from the concentrated energy, revealing skin that glowed faintly with compressed power.
The kinetic force had to go somewhere. It transferred through his body into the ground beneath his feet.
BOOM!
A crater a hundred meters wide opened beneath them. Both combatants were launched into the air by the explosion, their forms becoming airborne as debris erupted skyward like a volcanic detonation.
Kaelith's consciousness directed her Wind Intent immediately, creating platforms of compressed air that she used to change direction mid-flight. Her eyes locked onto Vaelor's ascending form.
"Impressive reflex," she acknowledged coldly.
Her consciousness projected outward, synchronizing Ice Intent with Light Intent. Moisture in the air crystallized instantly—not into simple ice, but into thousands of needle-thin projectiles harder than steel alloy, each one refracting light to make tracking impossible.
Five-Star Martial Art: Thousand Frost Needles (Enhanced)
The projectiles converged from every angle simultaneously, moving at supersonic velocity. The air screamed as they cut through it, creating visible shock cones.
Vaelor's response was immediate. His Absolute Insight analyzed the attack pattern in microseconds while his consciousness synchronized multiple Intents at once.
Fire Intent. Plasma Intent. Kinetic Intent. Wind Intent.
Original Technique: Crimson Annihilation Wave
A sphere of crimson energy exploded outward from his position—not heat exactly, but particles vibrating at frequencies that disrupted molecular bonds. The Thousand Frost Needles touched the sphere and simply disintegrated, broken down to atomic components.
The sphere continued expanding—five hundred meters, a full kilometer, two kilometers—before dissipating.
WHOOOM!
Everything within that radius vanished. Volcanic rock was scoured down to bedrock. Hills were completely leveled. The shockwave created a visible distortion in the Rift's atmosphere, forming a brief dome of compressed air.
But Vaelor wasn't finished. His consciousness directed Spatial Intent and Motion Flow Intent simultaneously, using the explosion's momentum to launch himself toward Kaelith at impossible velocity.
His fist drove forward, wrapped in layered Intent synchronizations that made the air itself scream.
Kaelith's eyes widened fractionally. That speed—!
Her consciousness reacted instinctively, projecting Ice Intent with spatial manipulation properties. A hexagonal ice mirror materialized between them—five meters in diameter, impossibly intricate crystalline structure forming in microseconds.
Unique Technique: Hexagonal Ice Mirror - Complete Reflection
The construct didn't just block—it existed partially in another dimension, using spatial folding to create a reflective barrier that reversed kinetic vectors.
BOOM!
Vaelor's strike connected with the force of a meteor impact.
CRACK!
The ice mirror fractured—but held. Then the impossible occurred. His kinetic force, the Intent-infused power, even the momentum itself—everything reversed.
The reflected attack struck him before he could adjust, launching him backward through the sky like a railgun projectile.
He crashed through the air at supersonic speed, his passage creating a visible shock wave. When he finally impacted the ground five kilometers away—
BOOOOOM!
The collision created a crater three hundred meters wide and a hundred meters deep. The impact generated seismic shockwaves that propagated across the entire Rift. Fissures opened in the ground, some of them dozens of meters wide and seemingly bottomless. Magma began bubbling up from the planet's depths, only to be flash-cooled by Kaelith's residual cold energy.
Kaelith hovered in the air, using Wind Intent to maintain altitude. Her consciousness directed Thunder Intent downward, synchronizing it with Ice Intent to create a hybrid element.
Purple-blue lightning—thick as a building—coalesced above the impact crater. Not normal electricity, but plasma infused with absolute-zero properties that could freeze and burn simultaneously.
She brought it down with a thought.
CRACK-KABOOOM!
The lightning struck with the force of divine judgment. The explosion vaporized everything within a kilometer radius. The mushroom cloud rose three kilometers into the gray sky, visible from the Rift entrance dozens of kilometers away.
When the flash cleared, a molten glass crater remained—a thousand meters across, glowing orange with residual heat. The surrounding landscape for five kilometers in every direction showed severe devastation—craters, fissures, and scattered debris.
Kaelith's breathing had become labored. Blood began seeping from her nose—maintaining these Intent synchronizations demanded tremendous mental and spiritual energy.
That should have—
The molten crater exploded.
BOOM!
Not from external attack. From within.
Vaelor emerged from the devastation, his body glowing with rainbow luminescence that suggested perfect Intent synchronization across his entire being. His torso was exposed—shirt completely destroyed—revealing the Eternal Cosmos Physique that was already healing the minor burns and frost damage at visible speed.
But more importantly, his golden eyes blazed with excited comprehension. Rainbow light danced wildly as Absolute Insight operated at maximum capacity.
"Fascinating!" His voice carried genuine enthusiasm. "That reflection technique combines Ice Intent as structural base, Space Intent for dimensional folding, and Time Intent for instantaneous activation. Brilliant design!"
And I've completely analyzed it now.
Through the consciousness link, his main body was already cataloging the principles, identifying optimization pathways, preparing enhanced versions.
She's the perfect training partner. I need to push her harder—force her to reveal everything!
Vaelor kicked off the molten rock. The ground beneath him didn't just crack—it shattered across a two-kilometer radius as his Kinetic Intent synchronized with Spatial Displacement Intent.
BOOM!
He didn't run. He warped. Space folded around his form, compressing the distance. In less than a second, he'd crossed five kilometers.
Kaelith barely had time to react. Her consciousness projected desperately—
Space buckled. Reality cracked with an audible sound like breaking glass.
Six-Star Martial Art: Spatial Severance
Invisible blades of folded space manifested around Vaelor—dozens of them, each one capable of cutting through virtually any material by exploiting dimensional weak points.
But Vaelor's Absolute Insight had already analyzed the technique. His own Spatial Displacement Intent activated, creating counter-distortions that intercepted the spatial blades.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Space itself fragmented in the zone between them. Visible fractures appeared in the air—black lines spreading like cracks in glass, revealing glimpses of void beyond reality.
The dimensional instability created a localized catastrophe. Everything within a hundred meters was torn apart at the molecular level as space lost cohesion. Rock, air, even light became distorted and scattered.
Both combatants were forced backward by the spatial collapse. They landed a kilometer apart, reassessing.
Kaelith's ice-blue eyes carried shock she couldn't suppress. He manipulated Space Intent with perfect precision. That's...
No. Focus. I haven't shown my true power yet.
She rose higher into the air, using Wind Intent to ascend three hundred meters. Her consciousness expanded outward, touching the fundamental fabric of the Rift itself.
Ice Intent. Time Intent. Space Intent. Gravity Intent. Light Intent. Shadow Intent.
Six different Intents synchronized into perfect harmony—something that should have been impossible for anyone below Demigod tier.
Seven-Star Martial Art: Frozen Time Prison
Reality itself froze.
Not just temperature. The dimensional fabric solidified. Within a five-kilometer radius around Vaelor, fundamental laws changed.
Time slowed to 1% normal flow. Space became rigid, preventing teleportation. Gravity intensified to crushing levels—fifty times normal weight pressing down on everything. Light refracted incorrectly, making vision unreliable. Shadows solidified into restraining chains.
And everywhere—everywhere—absolute cold. Not temperature drop, but fundamental Ice Intent elevated to near-Law comprehension, trying to impose the concept of "absolute zero" onto reality itself.
Massive ice constructs manifested—spears the size of skyscrapers, walls hundreds of meters thick, chains that could bind titans. They converged on Vaelor's position from every angle, moving with lethal precision despite the time distortion.
BOOM! CRASH! CRACK! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The impacts were continuous—a symphony of destruction. Each collision created shockwaves that propagated across tens of kilometers. The ground shook so violently that fissures opened across the entire region, some of them a hundred meters wide.
The assault continued for thirty full seconds—an eternity in combat terms. When it finally paused, the landscape had been completely reshaped. A ten-kilometer radius was now a frozen wasteland of icebergs and craters, looking more like an arctic battlefield than a volcanic Abyssal Rift.
Kaelith hovered above the devastation, breathing heavily. Blood poured from her nose, ears, and eyes—the strain of maintaining such a technique pushing her to absolute limits.
Nothing survives that. Not at our level.
"Incredible technique."
Vaelor's voice—calm, analytical, excited—shattered her confidence.
He stood at the epicenter, his body radiating compressed power that made the air shimmer. The Frozen Time Prison was fragmenting around him, unable to maintain cohesion against his opposing Intent manipulations.
"You synchronized six different Intents perfectly. The execution was flawless." His golden eyes locked onto hers with intense focus. "But let me show you what I've learned."
His consciousness expanded outward—not just touching his immediate surroundings, but encompassing the entire devastated region.
Fire Intent. Ice Intent. Shadow Intent. Light Intent. Kinetic Intent. Spatial Intent. Time Intent. Plasma Intent. Gravity Intent. Impulse Intent. Motion Flow Intent. Thunder Intent. Wind Intent. Earth Intent. Metal Intent. Water Intent.
Every single Intent he'd mastered—sixteen in total, all at peak Level 9—synchronized simultaneously.
Not organized. Not balanced. Not harmonized.
Entropic chaos.
All sixteen Intents clashed, merged, separated, reinforced each other in constantly shifting patterns. The contradictions should have caused catastrophic failure—Fire and Ice Intent canceling each other, Space and Time Intent creating paradoxes, Gravity and Motion Flow Intent generating impossible forces.
But Vaelor's Absolute Insight provided perfect comprehension of how to make contradictions coexist. His Divine-Grade Eternal Cosmos Cultivation Scripture treated opposing forces as complementary aspects of unified whole.
Original Legendary Technique: Primordial Chaos Domain
Reality screamed.