Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 358: Gargantua

Chapter 358: Gargantua

Focus.

Focus.

’Focus.’

Crack!

Three barriers were summoned.

Not a single one of them broke. By funneling the shield in one area, Kazi Hossain succeeded in blocking the giant flipper. The crack that emerged spread as the turtle arm kept its weight down. It wouldn’t last for long.

That was all Kazi needed to slip by. He burst forward, the arm and weight of the turtle tipping over from his disappearance.

Slash! Slash! Slash! Super Spark Strike! Double Super Stark! Breath of Eolus! Breath of Eolus!

He aimed for the soft underbelly without mercy, pierce through her flesh repeatedly. His mana regen kicked in.

But Otohime was quick to react.

Boom!

Monster Otohime dropped her body down, creating a shockwave that rammed him into the water. He landed hard. Breaking into water so suddenly felt like falling straight into concrete. His spine nearly shattered.

Two Ultra Magic Barriers. Two ultra-focused barriers like before, planted right in time due to foresight.

Yet the results spoke for themselves. He was deep in the sea, drowning.

’Move, dammit! Move!’

He opened his eyes and saw black whipping. He raised an arm and blocked the swinging tail with a focused barrier. He was blasted to the side—

’Shit!’

Only to get struck by the other side. Monster Otohime was in the water with him.

Left, right! Bam, bam! Up, down, up, up, then bam! Down again! He blocked the strikes yet ultimately failed to get out of it. Otohime’s tail was volleying and playing him.

’How—ngh! Do! I! Grah!’

Slam! Slam!

’Escape this!?’

After all, in the water, sea turtles reigned supreme. In a cycle like this, Kazi was only prolonging his death.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

With every hammer, his hold on his magic weakened. His brain was breaking. Any more and even he would slip!

Bam! Bam! BAM! Crack!

The two-layer barrier was breaking fast. He needed to counter! He needed to do something! A barrier! An attack! A critical hit! A weakness!

Its eyes! A projectile! That was what he needed!

’Super Fire Dart!’

From his finger, a surge of fire erupted. This deep, in this pressure and this kind of water, alone, the Fire Dart couldn’t have travelled far enough to stab into the turtle’s eye. However, wrapped in a small magic barrier, the Fire Dart could.

Monster Otohime cried out. A critical hit struck. Between the swinging tail that cracked at Mach 5, aiming and landing the Super Fire Dart was like finding a needle in a haystack. A one-in-a-million sniper shot from nearly a kilometer away. The best snipers on Earth would have struggled to make the shot in such turbulent, brain-rattling conditions.

But Kazi Hossain did—and he did so while earning the critical hit marker.

The tail swung down into the water directionessly, pain curling, and the fury of Monster Otohime surged.

Alas, Kazi was already gone.

He swam up as fast as he could, slithering like a snake. A rage of mana fluttered and he could see the bubbles catching up. With a mana-made step on his heel, he sprung up.

Another rage of mana followed. Monster Otohime was hot on his heels, refusing to lose him or this advantage. It was she who wanted to kill him and take his eyes, not Kazi. In other words, the one that dictated the environment of this battle was him: the prey.

Looking up at the sky which still seemed so distant, he activated Foresight. He saw himself looking down...and seeing white. Not dying but losing an arm.

He created footing and then pushed himself aside. His eyes widened by a fraction as the white projectile. ’What the hell—’

He didn’t need Foresight to dodge again. He eyed the projectile again. ’That’s raw mana!’

He sprung upward to reach the air he so desperately needed. Activating Foresight again, he dodged without losing momentum. These attacks were pure with no element whatsoever. Fast in speed and rapid in execution, Kazi was forced to dodge another half dozen until finally—

Splash!

He was free.

High in the sky, he glanced down and saw a huge shadow bubbling up.

What came up first was not Otohime but silvery-white projectiles. Kazo summoned an Ultra Magic Barrier and properly blocked all three of them.

Then Otohime herself burst forward. That was something he could not block. Flat arms reaching out, she was ready to dunk him back into the water.

As if.

Foresight wasn’t available but his natural senses were. Already diving, he deftly slipped past the arm and stabbed the burnt eye with a Super Spark Strike. Otohime did not flinch and actually attempted to crush him by blinking.

Kazi backed away.

This giant monster turtle was next to impossible to kill with his current assets. He needed to upgrade. He needed to keep doing what he was doing but on a larger-scale.

Behind, Monster Otohime’s arm attempted to crush him into her head. Kazi jumped, nearly slamming into the arm yet managing a flip that narrowly let him escape death. To Monster Otohime, it was a mere swat and meant nothing. She was back to chasing him with the pincers of death. She attacked faster and faster, gaining momentum. Her eyes focused.

Indeed, like a human swatting a fly, she would at some point kill him. Kazi jumped and back-flipped repeatedly, soaring through the air, gaining distance yet never enough.

"Cast! Activation!"

The fundamental point of incantations was focus and resonating with the meaning of the chant. Great focus and great mana. That was all that mattered.

All the mana in his system was swept. He dodged. He briefly got footing and leapt backward, an arm suddenly raised up.

"Stabilize! Balance! Realize!"

His most trustworthy move. The one spell had casted a thousand times over. He knew what it felt like down to every last inch. Even without an outlet, formless and weak without Stormedge, he was one with the spark. He was one with his mana.

To Ascend meant to understand. To Ascend meant to become one with the System.

It wasn’t Odin’s eye that was responsible for Ascendency. It was merely a catalyst to Kazi’s embedded understanding. To the contrary, it was because of Odin’s Eye that he had not seen this. He had not understood his true self.

The blue-electric blade was formless. In his eyes, he saw danger and his body reacted. The mentality, the thought process—suddenly, everything came together. Everything was at the tip of his fingers.

The formless blade grew until it dwarfed Kazi. Expanding, expanding, expanding until it dwarfed the limbs of the monster in front of him.

"Cast! Activation!"

The true power of an Ascendant had bloomed.

"Gargantua—"

He found his footing again and stopped. Monster Otohime’s arm hurled at him.

But she was too slow.

"Spark Strike!"

The gargantuan blade surged forward, a blinding streak of electric blue, and hammered down on Monster Otohime.