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Julius was confused, Theodore realized. He refrained from grinning. Julius had no idea what skill Theodore was using, much less find a way to copy it, however he did it usually.
The kinetic energy from the sliced kinetic blast hadn't even cleared before Theodore was moving. His vision shifted, the world bleeding into the vibrant, layered hues of [Arcane Sight].
Without hesitating, Theodore pulled on the ambient mana of the arena through [Convergence], drawing it in like a dying man gasping for air. At the same time, [Dimensional Siphon] hummed to life in the background of his soul, constantly pulling mana to fuel in preparation for what he was about to do in this match.
Consequently, he layered [Basic Armament] over his skin, and flooded his muscles with [Mana Reinforcement]. His physical strength skyrocketed, his perception slowing down as his mind worked at breakneck speeds.
Julius's eyes tracked his every move even as he did all of that in a second. The blue light faded from his irises, replaced by a cold, calculating focus.
Theodore closed the distance in a fraction of a second, utilizing a burst of kinetic energy beneath the soles of his boots to launch himself forward, sucking the friction and resistance out of the air to move like a frictionless projectile.
He swung a fist aimed directly at Julius's jaw, meeting a forearm Julius had raised to block. The kinetic energy Theodore had packed into his strike discharged violently, shattering the stone beneath their feet and sending a concussive shockwave rippling outward.
But Julius didn't even budge, though his lips curled into a light smile. He absorbed the blow, his eyes suddenly flashing that brilliant, ethereal blue once more.
Instantly, Theodore felt the kinetic energy of his own follow-up strike drain away. His fist, aimed at Julius's ribs, lost its momentum, hitting the man's side with the force of a gentle breeze. Fucking copy cat. Despite knowing this would happen, Theodore sighed internally.
"Fascinating," Julius murmured, flicking his hand, discharging the exact same kinetic payload Theodore had just hit him with.
Theodore's mind cleanly fractured as [Mind Division] took hold. One partition of his consciousness immediately took over his spatial movement, reading the incoming kinetic blast. Another dedicated itself entirely to the maintenance and manipulation of [Sunder] and his severing aura. A third handled his mana situation, regulating [Convergence], [Dimensional Siphon], and [Mana Manipulation].
Without needing to consciously think about it, Theodore shifted his center of gravity, burning a burst of kinetic energy to sidestep the point-blank kinetic explosion Julius had hurtled at him. Even so, the shockwave caught his shoulder. The [Basic Armament] cracked like cheap glass, and the raw force dislocated his left shoulder with a sickening pop.
Pain flared, but one of his minds instantly routed mana into [Heal]. The muscles seized, forcibly snapping the joint back into the socket, tearing ligaments and immediately knitting them back together.
Meanwhile, his right hand snapped out, fingers splayed, condensing the ambient heat of the arena, compressing it into a dozen hyper-dense thermal needles. They glowed white-hot, and he fired them in a scattershot spread at Julius's chest and face, tracking him even as he moved to dodge it all.
Julius's eyes flashed blue again, and a perfectly mirrored set of twelve white-hot thermal needles materialized in the air in front of him. Julius fired them forward to intercept.
The projectiles collided in the space between them. The resulting explosions were blinding. Superheated plasma splashed across the arena, melting the stone floor into bubbling slag where the aftermath fell. The sheer thermal shockwave blew both men backward.
Theodore manipulated the air around him to anchor his feet to the ground, sliding through the molten rock, his boots burning while he formed a massive thermal lance. He hurled it through the smoke screen just as Julius burst through the smoke a microsecond later, his own thermal lance in hand. He deflected Theodore's lance with a violent parry.
The collision of the two spells showered the arena in liquid fire, splashing across Theodore's thigh before he absorbed all of it discreetly.
Julius closed the gap, a dagger of compressed kinetic energy forming in his hand, thrusting the blade toward Theodore's throat.
Invisible tendrils of severing aura lashed out from his aura. The tendrils sliced through the dagger and it detonated prematurely in Julius's hand.
The blast shredded Julius's fingers, blowing them off in a spray of blood and bone fragments. Even so, Julius twisted his hips and drove a kick into Theodore's abdomen. Theodore felt three ribs snap like dry twigs. The force lifted him off his feet, driving a bone splinter deep into his left lung as he flew backward.
While mid-air, Theodore manipulated his kinetic momentum, forcefully arresting his flight and dropping back to the ground, [Heal] burning through his mana reserves to knit everything back together before he even landed.
Julius was already healing too. The bleeding stubs of his fingers were sealing over, though the bone didn't immediately regrow. The man's eyes were locked onto Theodore, assessing, analyzing.
Julius was truly an incredibly annoying opponent. After all, he was nothing but a mirror.
They met in the center of the arena as Theodore threw a straight punch infused with a kinetic blast. Julius ducked under it, driving a knee into Theodore's previously shattered ribs. This time however they didn't break as Theodore turned into his partial slime form to mitigate the damage before dismissing the form as he didn't want Julius to copy it.
Theodore's thermal lance pierced through as Julius roared, twisting his body tor tear himself off the lance, leaving a cauterized, smoking hole in his shoulder. He retaliated with a backhand cloaked in copied [Basic Armament], striking Theodore across the temple, sucking away his kinetic energy to stop him from moving while simultaneously using that energy to power his attack.
The hastily conjured mana shields as well as [Basic Armament] did nothing as the strike shattered through them all and the skin over his skull split open, blood pouring down the side of his face, blinding his left eye. Julius pressed the advantage. He grabbed Theodore by the throat, hoisting him up, and drove a kinetic-infused fist into Theodore's sternum. The chest plate of Theodore's mana armor shattered completely.
Slicing through the [Mana Reinforcement] protecting Julius's muscles, Theodore brought his own hand up, forming a thermal lance point-blank, and drove it straight through Julius's bicep.
The beam of heat severed the muscle completely. Julius dropped him, stumbling back, clutching his ruined arm. Julius looked at his ruined arm, then back to Theodore. A strange, serene smile spread across his face.
"You are extraordinary," Julius said. "I haven't been pushed to this physical limit in a very long time."
Indeed. Theodore had used many of his tricks to try fill up Julius's slots. If he were a betting man, he'd bet Julius couldn't just continuously cycle through skills. With his skills filling up his slots, he couldn't use Darius's damage transfer or Caleb's repelling field.
Even if his skills weren't enough, Julius had to have some other priority skills he'd copied that he'd rather keep instead of those two, after all this tournament wasn't the end of things.
So, Theodore decided to ramp up the intensity now that Julius was "used" to him. With an insane amount of mana continuously gathering in him through [Convergence] and [Dimensional Siphon], Theodore [Blinked] behind Julius, only to [Blink] above him, sucking away his kinetic energy as he did so as well as forcing him to freeze in the spot by pressuring him with kinetic energy from all sides.
Concentrating all the kinetic energy he'd absorbed throughout the fight into a single punch, Theodore pulled back his arm for a strike. It swelled painfully, and he whipped it down at the man, using releasing all of it.
The punch connected, and Julius flattened against the ground, and a small crater formed as cracks spiderwebbed from the epicenter of impact. Theodore's arm disappeared as it exploded into pink mist due to the amount of kinetic energy he'd released.
Julius had [Blinked] before the attack fully hit him, while simultaneously absorbing all the kinetic energy he could. Even so, it wasn't enough, as half his body turned to mist as he crashed hard into the ground, [Blink] cancelling halfway through as he was hurtled across the arena, skidding to a halt just before the boundary.
Before the man could get up, Theodore was onto him again, his arm reforming. Unfortunately, Julius was not one to take lightly, as he'd already healed himself, pumping what Theodore could only guess was not a small amount of his mana reserves into some kind of healing skill. He dodged away with a [Blink] just Theodore's foot crashed where he had been, a kinetic blast following the motion and destroying the arena floor.
Turning over, knowing he'd find Julius attacking him, Theodore slammed his fist with no small amounts of thermal energy, blasting the man in the jaw and knocking him back.
His jaw exploded and he went flying back, but Theodore knew better than to wait, and so he followed, hitting Julius in the abdomen with a kick that shattered all of his bones, but not his spine, as he flew into the air, crashing onto the arena wall and breaking it.
The crowd went wild, screaming their lungs out, but Theodore tuned them out, exhaling as he finally had enough mana to do what he wanted to. So he [Blinked], grabbed Julius by his head, and spun to throw him far into the arena, but Julius recovered midair, and landed gracefully, looking on curiously as Theodore then lowered himself into a specific stance.
A sword materializes on his hip, hovering slightly away from him, and he grabbed onto it.
There was a moment of silence, and he unsheathed his sword.