'This is the end..' Landbreaker thought.

There was so much mana inside the azure flames that even he could not sense Damian's pitiful mana trapped inside it.

"No!" Spellmaster screamed beside him.

The beasts did not free them though. Neither did Sea Snake stop his assault.

'He is still there..'

But he won't be for long. At this point, even if he wants to, there is no mana left to use his spells. And Damian had no advantage in speed to create distance between the two. That is, if he can still move with such injuries.

But once again, the boy proved all of them wrong.

The extinguished black flames of aura reignited around Damian's flesh. And it did not stop growing. The intense stream of azure now had a black sphere within it, and it was growing larger by the second.

'Aura? He was already at the peak of what any non-pugilist transcendent could reach in aura mastery. Did he.. break through that as well?'

A skill for learning spells and mastering mana control can be explained, but never in history was there anything for aura. Hard work was the only way a pugilist could gain strength. For most pugilists, ascension trials were simple one-on-one fights.

Even the most talented of pugilists can only reach transcendent rank after half a century of honing their skills. Talent mattered not for becoming a pugilist; that was the iron fact.

Then.. how could a barely two-decade-old youth do this? Did that forceful aura-pulling spell he often uses unlock this trait of his physical body? But that can't be. Faerunians had been using that spell for some time now, and there was no change.

There was no clear answer.

"Hm?" Landbreaker narrowed his eyes, noticing something odd.

"What is.. that?" One of the legendary holding them muttered.

Gasps of surprise and noise of confusion were everywhere. Even the creatures submerged in the water were showing uncertain movements.

The dark fire was slowly taking shape. The aura grew higher and wider than any newborn pugilist transcedent could handle. And it was still going. It grew to the size that shadowed even the widespread azure flames of Sea Snake.

The king of Faerunia was so rattled by the oddity that he transformed back into his most natural blue-scaled giant snake form. Maintaining a healthy distance from the growing cloud of abyssal darkness.

In a matter of seconds, the enormous black cloud had taken shape into a terrifying being.

He looked like a thing carved out of darkness itself—no skin, no flesh, just a thick, rolling aura shaped into the rough outline of a man.

The edges of his body kept shifting, like smoke fighting to stay solid. His eyes were the only steady part of him, two burning red points that watched everything with a predator's calm.

When he moved, that dark mass rippled with the weight and wild strength. Long limbs, broad shoulders, and claws that formed and unformed in the shadows.

With a loud splash, the titanic hundreds of meters big dark aura figure's bare feet touched the surface of the ocean.

Standing near him felt like standing at the edge of a deep forest at night, where the air tastes of earth and danger and something far older than oneself.

"Calling of the beast," Landbreaker whispered.

Even though he said it, his own mind struggled to believe it. Runebreaker was.. beastmen?

Landbreaker ignored the chaos his answer had created among the forces of the sea god. Even Stormcaller and Spellmaster were stunned into silence.

Only beasts could call upon the souls of their ancestors after breaking through the peak of aura mastery. At least that's how it was supposed to be. However, 'Calling of the Beast' actually referred to summoning the primal beast. Before Landbreaker was a man, a humanoid monstrosity. There were no such beasts in this world.

More than a beast, it looked like a monster.

Whatever it was, that was the true origin of the man called Runebreaker.

'That's not all he is called though..'

Landbreaker remembered the other true name Damian Sunblade had.

DemonLord.

If there was anything in this world worthy of being called a Demon, then it was the thing before him.

The Sea Snake's enormous figure was barely one-third of what Damian had become. In width, that was, in length, the two monstrous beings were almost equal.

The blue scaled snake finally remembered that he was not one of the spectators. The battle was still going on. With somewhat of an abrupt change.

Sea Snake circled the giant black form while unleashing his azure flames once again. It wasn't fully charged, too soon since the last use. It could not penetrate the thick, dark aura at all. Damian's Demon form was still shaping up.

Sea Snake was the first to notice it.

The snake flew at a lightning-fast speed, diving into the ocean. When he came up, his size had been tripled with layers of solid and moving water all around his body like a natural flowing armor.

It started coiling around the dark aura humanoid, but could only reach halfway through. The red points of the Demon's eye gained intelligence and illuminated with the brightest color.

In one swift movement, Damian grabbed the water-covered body of the Sea Snake from the middle using his left hand and forcefully pulled it away from himself. The hold was so powerful that it was actually crushing Sea Snake's scales and bones. Landbreaker could hear every crack clearly.

The titanic Demon stretched his long, black right arm to the side and formed a long sword out of pure solid aura.

The siblings of Sea Snake standing around Landbreaker had their breathing accelerated when they figured out what was about to happen next. He could sense their nervousness and unease as the strange scene unfolded before them.

Sea Snake forced tons of water to take place between himself and the descending giant black blade. But the force behind the sword was enormous.

Damian's dark blade tore through all the water, aura, and mana shields that Sea Snake put up in between. And pierced the azure snake right in the middle. The dark, fiery sword went through Sea Snake's flesh. Tons of deep red blood gushed out without stop.

Damian had thrown the sword downwards. After piercing through Sea Snake's flesh, it continued descending further, taking Sea Snake's body along with it. The two slammed onto the surface of the sea and continued going below it.

Landbreaker could sense it all the way tens of kilometers down, till it landed on the seabed.

It was over.

Runebreaker had won the duel without using a single external spell.

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