Raze knew that he couldn't rely on the Dark Edge Sword Arts. It was the perfect set of arts for the situations he was in—an art that combined magic and Qi together. It was something that had a lot of effort put into it and would be better than anything he could come up with on the go.
So he decided to try and enhance it in other ways. One of those ways was to combine his Lightning magic along with a foot technique, allowing him to have superior speed and power when attacking.
He then combined it with the most powerful piercing technique the Dark Edge Sword Arts had, the Void Pulse Formation.
In a way, it was his most powerful attack that focused on a single point, with the main goal of breaking through any defense, and it had succeeded, but looking at the small drop of blood in front of him, it had only succeeded at the smallest level.
'Murkel held the title as the one closest to reaching the Divine realm, and Sha Mo was said to have equal power to Belil, but I can tell all of that was false. Now that I have met the real thing, it's quite obvious that this is the very peak of the middle stage!'
If Raze thought about it a bit more, he would realize it was even beyond that. Since Belil was actually a Divine Stage warrior, he had spent years still trying to grow his strength in some way, not something a typical warrior would do after reaching his level.
"I guess it means it's finally my turn to go on the attack," Belil stated.
A large smile appeared on Belil's face, and seeing this, Raze decided to quickly go on the defensive. He used his lightning footwork to move away.
Right after, the swords had changed in his hands once again, one with lightning attribute, the other with ice. His feet lit up, sparking, and quickly disappearing, Raze reappeared by Belil's side.
He swung both swords, slashing as hard as he could against Belil's body. Right after hitting, he would move with his footwork again, disappearing and reappearing in another location.
The sword strikes weren't piercing Belil's skin, but that wasn't what Raze was aiming for in the first place. The constant attacks from the swords had been aimed at Belil's legs.
He was hoping for one of two things to occur: either for the static from the lightning-enchanted sword to paralyze Belil's entire body, or for the latter, which occurred. Belil's legs began to freeze from the constant attacks. Quickly, Raze placed both hands on the floor, and walls lifted up around Belil's sides and back.
Right after that, Raze started to gather his Dark magic, condensing it into balls, and throwing them in the air. They were slightly bigger than a fist, and as he threw them above him, they lingered for a while.
He had made around twenty in total, and then, moving both of his hands, he cast large tornado-like wind spells. The black balls gathered with the magic of the wind, and then they were all pushed right toward Belil.
The condensed balls hit his body, and Raze didn't let up, as he started to combine Dark magic with his tornado-like wind, creating a tunnel of darkness from his hands and wrapping around Belil's entire body.
'With the way I am now, I also don't have every affinity unlocked like I did when I had my breakthrough. It would have been nice to have fire and water elements to help me in this fight, but I'll have to do what I can!'
Raze was trying to recreate some of his spells that he could perform but on a smaller scale than when he was a nine-star mage, with his Dark magic as the core of the attack.
With the constant attack hitting Belil, some marks could be seen on his body, but it didn't appear as if they had broken through his skin.
Then, with his hand, Belil grabbed onto the tunnel of Dark magic. He did so as if the Wind or Dark magic had some type of physical form.
Raze had never seen a mage or a Pagna warrior do something before. Then, Belil lifted the entire attack like it was some giant snake's head and then bashed it into the ground.
No matter what Raze tried to do, the attack from his hands was now just going into the ground, so he quickly decided to cancel his spell.
In Belil's hand, he had grabbed and ripped off part of the magic attack, and now it appeared as if a ball of darkness was in his hands, and he hurled it right at Raze.
Quickly, Raze made several earth walls, raising them up, but the ball of darkness went right through the walls. Holding both of his hands out, Raze used several Dark Pulses, hitting the ball, and as they hit, the ball eventually got smaller and smaller.
Then, at the last moment, Raze was able to pull out his Ghost blade and slice at the dark ball of energy, destroying it completely.
'That was close… I was nearly taken out by my own attack,' Raze thought. 'With him throwing it, he had added his Qi into the attack as well. It made it a lot stronger and fiercer than my attack.'
Belil's words started to ring in his head. Belil still hadn't gone on the offensive, but surely now he would… So just what was Raze to do? Now, he was hoping he would have at least injured him.
"You said you can perform up to the Fourth Formation perfectly, right? Then let me show you something special!" Belil said, lifting both of his hands in the air, orange energy coming out from his body, covering his shoulders and going all the way to his fingertips.
When he moved his hands down to his side from the air, several arms of energy appeared to linger, making him look like he had multiple arms hovering around his body, made of pure Qi energy.
"The Fifth Formation! The Neverfall Clan's Phantom Formation!" Belil exclaimed.