Ascension of the last Celestial

While Valerian and Goran the bearkin were dashing towards each other, Arthur and the pantherkin Vespera did the same.

But while Goran was pretty slow for his rank and Valerian was able to keep somewhat up, Vespera was built for speed and agility, so while Arthur was only able to walk a few meters, she already closed the gap and was within striking distance, one of her dual daggers already in a striking motion.

The speed of the woman shocked Arthur, but he kept his cool and did something he got the idea for from the fight against the elemental.

[Lightning Gods Descend]

The tips of his black hair turned light blue and stood up like they were charged with electricity, his crimson eyes got a blue glow on the outside of his iris leaving a crimson core.

With the speed of the lightning form Arthur moved his head to the side, narrowly avoiding the blade. Immediately he deactivated his form and his hair and eyes turned back to normal.

And like he thought, there was no backlash at all; the short activation plus the rank up and the new bloodline made it so that there was no backlash if he only activates his [Elemental Ascension] for a split second.

Now that the dagger missed, Arthur coated his own daggers in wind to decrease the air resistance and lightning for speed, but the pantherkin was way faster than him and easily avoided the strike, she twisted her body with trained ease.

From behind Arthur, the shadows became alive and hands reached out to grab his ankles. The second he felt something touch his legs, he channeled his mana through his fire affinity and in a short burst of [Fire Gods Descend] he created an explosion of fire to clear the shadows.

While it did work and the shadow hands disappeared, Vespera was still in melee range as she made no effort to dodge the fire.

With the speed of a predator, she stuck her dagger into Arthur’s thigh.

Seeing that he is cornered, Arthur threw his dagger to the side and activated his [Skill].

[Mark]

His body vanished from the spot, leaving the commander in a confused state, but her centuries of battle experience made her regain her composure instantly.

Following the mana trail, she saw Arthur standing 20 meters away, his hand on his bleeding thigh trying to stop the bleeding. He used his water affinity, as water had a mild healing factor, to cleanse the wound and accelerate the healing, but Vespera saw something that made her question who the boy she was fighting was.

"Golden blood?"

After gaining the origin bloodline, Arthur’s blood turned golden and that golden blood confused the pantherkin more than anything else.

"Boy, you are not human, are you?"

Seeing this as an opportunity to stall for time, Arthur engaged her in a conversation.

"No, I am human. How about we can talk about what I am over a nice dinner, my treat?"

At the shameless flirt attempt, the pantherkin didn’t even bat an eye, her expression staying cold throughout.

Seeing his flirt attempt shaken down so effortlessly, he for a moment really began to doubt he is the protagonist of this world.

"It seems you don’t have anything of worth to say."

Vespera readied her daggers again and, with mana coursing through her mana veins, dashed toward Arthur.

Luckily, the minor healing of the water affinity plus his bloodline managed to close the wound enough for him to fight for now. So he too readied his daggers to meet the beastkin assassin for another clash.

Arthur knew he couldn’t match her in speed and he couldn’t rely on short bursts of [Elemental Ascension], so he channeled his lightning through his veins and into his brain like he did against the elemental spirit.

His senses expanded, his perception got sharper and the movements of the assassin became easier to follow. They were still faster than he was, but it was more manageable.

Their daggers met, and what followed was an exchange of dozens, then hundreds of attacks and blocks. Arthur somewhat managed to keep up and not die on the spot, but that doesn’t mean he evaded and blocked every attack.

After exchanging so many swings and stabs, Arthur’s body was riddled with cuts where the daggers hit and bruises where she just kicked or punched him.

His golden blood covered his body and he couldn’t even use his water to accelerate his healing, as she gave him no time to even think about anything but defending.

Vespera, on the other hand, wasn’t hit once. Her speed and agility allowed her to perform twists and turns that Arthur didn’t know were possible. And the worst part: while Arthur was permanently using his lightning to enhance his body and senses as well as his wind to even further increase his speed, she didn’t use her affinities once after the initial attempt to restrain him.

Instead of enhancing her body with her shadow, or attacking him from the darkness, or even using the blood affinity which Arthur has never fought against, she merely relied on her body and simple mana enhancement.

And a big reason why she wasn’t hit until now was her unique skill [Absolute Perception]. Whatever increase Arthur could get through his lightning magic, she was far ahead. Maybe if he reaches a higher level in his [Lightning Gods Descend] he would be able to match her in the perception field.

But as it stands now, he was outclassed.

And Vespera knew that, so she increased her speed even more, closing in on Arthur. If before he managed to defend against 4 out of 5 blows, now it was 2 out of 5. The wounds on his body kept increasing.

None were big enough to take him down individually, but they kept accumulating, making him even slower. Once again trying to create distance, Arthur threw his dagger away and activated his [Skill].

But as he arrived at the dagger, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, because behind him, coming from his shadow, was Vespera. She used her shadow affinity to teleport into his shadow.

She didn’t waste the opportunity and moved her dagger to his neck. Because she was behind him, he couldn’t bring up his daggers to defend. Still, he activated [Lightning Gods Descend] to increase his speed, but she was faster and there was no way he would be able to dodge in time.

Just as the blade was about to slice his neck, an explosion rolled through the space. It wasn’t loud and it was one that threw dust up. It destabilized the fabric of space itself. Arthur knew exactly where that explosion came from, so he managed to adjust to the weird shift in space faster. With the shock wave rolling through the space, Arthur used that moment, gathered as much mana as he could into his legs and hit off the ground, catapulting himself away from Vespera.

The pantherkin, on the other hand, was stunned for a moment by the shift in the fabric of space. Because of her unique skill, the shift in space hit her harder than Arthur, making her lose her sense of direction for a second and stumbling on her feet.

Arthur, who now stood 30 meters away, used this moment of confusion to gather lightning in his hands. With another short activation of [Lightning Gods Descend], he created a large bolt of blue lightning. Before it left his hands, he added his fire to the lightning, lightly changing its property so that it will explode into an inferno of fire, the same way he had seen the elemental do it. And because the core of the spirit was weaved into his body during the bloodline assimilation, weaving elements together felt much easier than it should.

The lightning bolt left his hands and with it he deactivated the skill. As the bolt was flying towards the commander, Arthur opened the system shop and bought a mana potion.

When the bolt finally struck, Vespera was still too disoriented to defend herself and was hit directly by the lightning, which exploded into a massive fireball on impact.

Arthur used the moment to down the potion, bringing back his mana to full. He channeled his water affinity and began to heal his wounds to the best of his ability.

While the fire was raging on in front of him and the water was healing his wounds, he looked into the direction of the mountain where the spatial explosion came from, already knowing who was responsible for it.

But he didn’t have much time to think about Valerian, as he had to completely focus on the opponent in front of him.

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