Fingertips were holding onto the edge of a rocky slab. Eventually, Brack had pulled himself up and stood on the edge of the strange makeshift arena he was on.
"That was a close one; that Qi energy almost blew me away to the floor. If I weren't a middle-stage warrior, maybe I would have been blown all the way back to the Neverfall Clan base," Brack said, wiping the sweat off from his head.
"That punch from before... I can't even imagine how strong Belil really is! I thought maybe Raze would have a chance. After all, he's the Dark Magus who took on Sha Mo!"
"Weren't Sha Mo and Belil meant to be of equal strength? It doesn't seem like that, and I can't really follow what they were saying before, either."
Brack started to scratch his head, as he couldn't believe he was about to bear witness to the fight that was going to take place.
No one but him knew that the Dark Magus and Belil were fighting against each other, and only he had the privilege of watching everything.
"I won't take my eyes off this… I won't, just like Belil said. I might be the one who will have to record this down in history!"
Belil, after pounding his fists, had a large smile on his face, then, reaching out with his hand, he taunted Raze, pulling his fingers toward himself, telling Raze to come at him.
"You're not the only one who has strong Qi!" Raze said as he summoned another sword in his hand, which was the wind-enchanted sword.
He swung them both, and red crimson slashes came out toward Belil. With swings of his arm, they shattered, not cutting his skin.
Raze continued to swing his sword, as the attacks hit Belil more and more.
"Come on, this is noth—" he began, in the middle of his sentence.
That was when he could see an even bigger red crimson slash come at him. At the perfect time, Belil clapped both of his hands, hitting it and making it disappear, breaking down into nothing.
"I see… your Qi is impressive; it's heavily condensed, so it feels stronger than the stage you are at… that's actually something most need to do once they reach the higher stages and start to plateau!" Belil claimed. "It's quite impressive, considering how long you have been at the middle stage, how far you have come."
"And to top it off, you used magic in that attack." Belil raised his eyebrows. "Are you surprised that I could tell?"
Raze had already rushed forward, performing three of the descending steps in succession, one after the other, and took a swing at Belil from the side.
Belil raised his hand, blocking the attack, and just looked at Raze, who quickly bounced back. As he moved backward, he fired off a Dark Pulse from his hand.
The beam of Dark energy shot forward. Once again, though, like everything before, Belil swung his fist, and the Dark energy on impact was destroyed, just exploding away.
'My Dark magic affinity has already increased so much, yet it still failed to even put a scratch on him. Is he coating his body in Qi?'
The fight so far had reminiscences of his match with Sha Mo. He, too, had a strong body that seemed unable to be scratched. However, Raze was stronger than that now, with more Magic and more Qi, yet this was still the major difference between the two of them.
"I'll just have to wear him down," Raze said as he put both swords away and pointed both of his hands toward Belil.
Out of them, a constant dark beam of magic came out, hitting Belil's body. It pushed against his bare chest, seemingly doing no damage, and eventually, Belil moved his hand in front of the attack, stopping it from hitting his body.
Belil then shoved his hand forward. In doing so, in front of Raze's eyes, both of the beams of Dark energy were destroyed as they were being pushed back.
Raze quickly stopped the attack and moved out of the way. Just behind where Raze had been moments ago, the attack hit the giant slabs of earth that surrounded their fighting area, creating two large holes in them.
"Come on! Is this all you have?" Belil said. "I haven't attacked yet because I don't even feel any danger coming from you. Are you really the person who defeated Sha Mo and my two sons?"
The truth was, the Raze who had defeated all three of them was the old Dark Magus, the nine-star mage. The current Raze wasn't stronger than that… but he had to win this fight, and right now, all he was being was a disappointment for Belil.
'I didn't have time to figure out how to do a Dark Core breakthrough. So, the powers I displayed before, it's impossible for me to display them now.'
"Then I will just have to go with it!" Once again, both swords were seen in Raze's hands. If Belil was just going to stand there, then he had time on his hands.
He performed the first descending step, all the way up to the sixth, when he was up in the air. With both swords raised above his head, they were condensed in Dark magic.
"Dark Edge Sword Arts, Second Formation: Duel Eclipse Strike!" Raze threw both of his swords, and the entire area was covered in Dark magic as they left his hands.
They hit the floor and caused the whole place to shake. Belil was nowhere to be seen, and Brack, watching, had to hold on tight again.
Eventually, the power of the attack was fading into particles, and when it did, Belil was seen standing there, his body completely fine just like it was before.
"Now that's more like it, but you made a foolish mistake," Belil said as he lifted his hand in the air. Soon, orange energy flowed out of his body and started to condense around his whole arm, including his fist.
"Didn't I tell you already? I was the one who helped make those techniques in the first place! Neverfall, Eclipse Strike!" Belil shouted, swinging his arm out.