Luke immediately prepared to dash toward Ren, and Ren was ready for it—but instead of dashing, Luke kicked a rock toward him. Ren was surprised, but he used a Shade to slap it away. Then, the Luke wasn't in his spot he disappear, ren immediately used Shadow Radar to detect him—and he was right next to him, in his blind spot, ready to stab.
He had used the rock and the Shade that slapped it away to create a blind spot he could use to reach Ren instantly.
But Ren immediately dodged, slapping the sword away with his Shadow Skeleton hand. Even though Luke's attack didn't work, he seemed interested in something—Ren's reaction had been slightly delayed.
What does that exactly mean? Luke thought to himself.
Looking for answers, Luke decided to experiment a bit. He created an illusion of himself, and both him and the illusion charged toward Ren. Ren easily blocked Luke while completely ignoring the illusion. They clashed a few times again, but this time Luke tried something different—he created an illusion of himself striking downward while he was actually going to slash sideways.
Ren tried to block the illusion—so he was cut on the stomach.
Thankfully, it wasn't that bad of a cut… but on the other hand, it was really bad—because Luke had discovered something.
Ren was tensing he didn't want Luke to figured it out.
he could only sense my location, Luke thought, grinning widely.
"Dammit…" Ren thought. He quickly made distance between them and glared at Luke.
This guy now knows his Shadow Radar allowed him to detect shadows—but that was it. He had been practicing with his Shades and had become stronger with them, but because of his single focus on them, he had neglected his Shadow Radar.
Because of that, he could only detect shadow spots. He couldn't really detect their shapes or anything—he would know there was a shadow there and how big it was, but he wouldn't know what shadow it was. It could be an apple, it could be a cup—he wouldn't exactly know what was behind the shadow.
He didn't know if that was a limitation of his Shadow Radar or just because of a lack of training.
Didn't matter which one—because now Luke knew about this limitation of his, which made this battle worse than it already was.
At a distance, Ren frowned and got into a proper fighting stance.
In that case… I can't just stay on the defensive forever.
Ren immediately summoned his Shades and started throwing rubble at Luke—rocks, trash cans, whatever was lying around. Luke couldn't help but either dodge or slice down whatever was thrown at him. Considering Ren could sense his location, illusions wouldn't work in this situation—but that didn't mean Luke took his eyes off him. He kept watching Ren closely, waiting for him to mess up his rhythm at some point.
And eventually… Ren did.
His supply of rubble ran out, and he couldn't throw much at Luke anymore. Luke immediately tried to attack—but Ren attacked back with a Shade Jab.
Luke was surprised. He didn't know what this move was—he had never seen it before. But he quickly blocked it with his sword.
Clank.
Luke managed to block it pretty successfully, even though it sent him back a little.
That was a powerful attack, he thought.
But before he could process it further, the Shade Jab that he blocked didn't dissolve after impact Instead it moved and wrapping itself around Luke's sword. Before he could react to that, Ren summoned his Shadow Skeleton on the same right arm he launched the Shade Jab from and immediately used the strength of the Shadow Skeleton to drag Luke all the way toward him.
Then he kicked Luke—with his leg reinforced by the Shadow Skeleton—sending him flying straight into the building next to him.
KABOOM.
The entire front of the building exploded from the impact.
"Woohoo—holy shit, that was amazing!" Ren exclaimed.
That was the very first time he had actually unleashed a full strike with his Shadow Skeleton. He had struck John before—but he held back then. Now, with just one leg reinforced, he had destroyed the front wall of a building.
That alone makes him excited when he finally achieves the full shadow skeleton and what type of strength he will achieve that not to mention how much it will scale up with his shades becoming stronger
Luke got out of the debris, dazed—but he glared at Ren.
He was furious.
He got caught off guard. He didn't expect him to make that move—but now he wouldn't let that happen again. He immediately dashed toward Ren, intending to finish this right away.
But Ren wouldn't let that happen.
He knew it would be over if Luke managed to get close to him—so he had to keep the distance between them.
And since using moves Luke had never seen before—and a little bit of experimenting with them seemed to work…
Ren smirked and summoned the Shadow Skeleton on his right arm.
Luke tensed up. He was clearly seeing Ren's smirk—and the Shadow Skeleton arm forming again. He was planning some—
He couldn't finish the thought.
SMACK — BOOM.
He got hit again, sending him flying back and destroying more of the building behind him.
"Holy shit… that works much better than I thought," Ren exclaimed.
What he just did was his normal whip attack—but this time, instead of using his entire body's momentum like usual, he relied purely on the speed and power of his Shadow Skeleton arm.
And the difference… was incredible.
The speed of the whip was so fast Luke barely registered it.
And speaking of Luke—he didn't even bother processing what just happened. The moment he landed, he immediately started moving again.
Ren followed up instantly.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
A series of explosions rang out across the area—created from the whip strikes Ren kept launching at Luke. Each strike that missed smashed into the ground, buildings, or debris, sending fragments flying everywhere.
Luke kept dodging as fast as he could.
Before, he was trying to predict what Ren was doing—but now he couldn't afford that. He had to focus entirely on dodging.
And he was dodging.
But in no way was it easy.
Sometimes he had to rely on his sword to deflect the whips away just to survive the assault.
Damn… this is really bad, Luke thought.
Luke could easily finish the fight if he managed to reach him, but he couldn't avoid the whips so he can reach him.
Which is a problem since Luke doesn't have any real long-range methods of attack—other than throwing things, which he couldn't even do right now. If he stopped dodging for even a second, he wouldn't be able to avoid the next whip.
And he was not taking that hit again.
The first time he took it, the pain was terrible enough to stun him. Thankfully, he recovered quickly—but he wasn't sure that would happen again.
Luke kept dodging, waiting for an opportunity to close the distance—but it never came.
Dammit… I can't keep this up forever. I've got to do something.
But what could he do?
His enhanced physique wasn't overwhelmingly powerful—it was around super-soldier level. And his illusions wouldn't work—at least not the standard ones. Only close-range illusions had any chance of affecting Ren.
…Wait a minute.