After quickly checking his stats, Orion wasted no time and headed straight for the portal. Upon reaching it, he stepped onto the glowing surface and vanished from the arena.
Not long after, he appeared in the temple once again.
Looking around, he observed and found that he didn't see Runo here.
'Looks like he went to fight the third guardian.'
He furrowed his brow as he mulled over the situation. Despite his dislike for Runo, he couldn't deny Runo's strength. So he hoped that maybe he would be able to defeat the third guardian and end this once and for all.
'I should also defeat the second guardian in the meantime.'
Thinking of the second guardian, he remembered that its strength lay at the peak of bronze rank.
But he didn't know how he would fare against it. If he would have a hard time fighting against the second guardian, then he should forget about fighting the third guardian.
'Let's fight and see it for myself.'
He thought as he went to the portal at the other end of the hall before stepping on it and disappearing from the temple once again.
***
A moment later, Orion again appeared in a similar battle arena as the last two times.
Looking ahead, he spotted a figure clad in golden armor, standing tall with a sword resting casually on his shoulder, gripped firmly in his right hand.
'A golden one?'
If there were any difference between the second guardian and the first one, then that would be the color between the two. The second guardian's armor appeared fully golden in color, while the first guardian's was white.
Orion tightly held a sword in both of his hands as his eyes narrowed at the guardian. He wanted to fight the second guardian head-on to see if he could hold his own against someone at the peak of the bronze rank. This would also help in determining whether he had any chance with the third guardian or not.
As Orion took his stance, the guardian started running towards him.
Seeing this, Orion activated his curse—Burdened Gravity which increased his weight tremendously.
At that moment, the guardian appeared in front of him, his sword stabbing straight at Orion's heart.
Reacting quickly, Orion parried the attack with his own sword to his left side while he used his right feet to kick the guardian.
The guardian couldn't react in time, and his attack landed on his stomach, causing the guardian to get blown back by the force of Orion's kick.
This time, Orion took the opportunity and appeared in front of the guardian as he slashed his sword diagonally at the guardian's right shoulder.
However, before his sword could touch the guardian, Orion sensed something behind his back.
Not having much time to react and use his absolute defense, Orion quickly activated his curse—Dimensional Dissonance and made his body tangible.
Almost instantly, a gleaming golden sword passed through his back and came out of his stomach.
At the same time, Orion's sword, which was about to touch the guardian, also passed right through the guardian, and because of the momentum of the attack, he too passed right through the guardian.
The guardian became confused for a moment about how Orion passed through his body as he stood their balnkly.
Orion saw this as an opening. He quickly deactivated his curse of Dimensional Dissonance and stabbed his sword straight at the back of the guardian.
"Bang!"
Even though his sword didn't cause much damage because of the armor the guardian wore, it didn't stop the guardian from getting blasted back by Orion's attack.
Intending to finish the battle, Orion sprinted towards the guardian while he still hadn't stabilized himself from the blast just now.
However, as Orion closed the distance between them, five golden swords gleaming in the distance came towards him.
Seeing that, he used his other two swords and let them fly in the air as both swords started to glow red, including the one in his hands.
His two swords flew like red streaks towards the incoming five gleaming golden swords and collided head-on with the two of the golden swords, deflecting them from their path.
At that moment, the speed of the other three golden swords increased, and they arrived in front of Orion before he could call back his two swords.
However, Orion didn't worry and reacted swiftly as he used the sword in his hand to deflect the first one to the side.
Almost instantly, the other two came in front of him. One towards his waist, and the other towards his head.
Seeing that, he tilted his head in time to dodge the first one, while he hurriedly brought his sword and placed it in front of him to block the second one.
He had been running this whole time while deflecting and dodging the golden swords. So it took only a moment before he arrived in front of the guardian once again.
But this time, instead of slashing his sword at the guardian, he threw his sword straight at it.
The guardian reacted by deflecting his sword, but at that moment, two more swords came at him from both of his sides.
Seeing that, the guardian rotated his body like a tornado and deflected those swords too.
But that was enough for Orion to buy him some time and distract the guardian while he disappeared from the arena.
The guardian swept his eyes around the arena and saw that the one he had been fighting until now had disappeared from the arena.
At that moment, he suddenly felt a sensation of touch behind his back as he swiftly turned around and slashed with his sword, but to his surprise, there was no one standing behind his back. Seeing the strange phenomena, he once again felt confused.
However, what the guardian didn't notice was that a purple glow appeared in the part of the armor where he felt that sensation of touch. It appeared to be pulsating like a heartbeat.
Orion, who had been hiding in a different dimension, could see everything that was happening in the arena. But he didn't know how to explain that.
To him, it felt as though he hadn't moved from his place at all, but layers of invisible walls appeared on all sides of him, making him invisible.
These layers of invisible walls made him feel like he had been trapped in a cage where even a sound couldn't be heard outside of it.
Strangely, though, he could see everything happening outside the cage and could also come out of there anytime he felt like it.
Although he didn't understand the basics of this, it didn't stop him from using it to implant a ticking bomb on the guardian's back that would blow up anytime he wanted.
Seeing that the guardian was still clueless about it, Orion detonated the bomb he planted.
"Boom!"
A blinding purple light emanated from the guardian before an explosion happened at the back of the guardian, blasting it forward like a broken kite.
Sliding and tumbling across the arena, he left a trail of broken tiles in his wake as his body continued its uncontrolled rampage before gradually coming to a halt.