944 The Final Trial
"Varian, what happened to you?" Sarah asked after noticing his weakened condition.
"…I'll take care of it," Varian shook his head, "No matter what happens on my side, focus on your battles. Win if possible, else maintain a stalemate."
Sarah still looked at him with worry. The last time Varian said these words were still fresh in her memory. He died then. And to bring him back from the dead, they too nearly died. It was both luck and struggle that they're here today.
So, Sarah was naturally afraid of Varian doing something risky once again and… dying. If something happened now, she had no confidence in bringing him back.
Noticing her trembling body, Varian wrapped his arms around her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "I'm not going to lie. It's hard to win, but I can do it. Please trust me."
Looking into his eyes, Sarah had the urge to cry for some reason. But she held back her tears and snorted. "If you die, your shadow will kill us both. So you better not die."
Varian's smile subsided and he nodded seriously.
Indeed, if one of them died here, the shadow would join in the battle against the remaining two, and all of them would die.
To win, everyone needed to win.
Sia took a deep breath and teleported to a few hundred miles right. Sarah went to the far left. Their shadows left with them.
"Now then…" Varian took a deep breath and smiled at his shadow.
The moment he prepared to fight, the shadow 'came to life'. He teleported in front of Varian the next second and swung his hand at him.
By the time his hand reached Varian, an exquisite sword made from the mix of lightning and ice.
As Varian was about to dodge, he felt the Shadow suddenly speed up. But with his time power, he could sense that his own time flow was actually slowed down!
And at the very last moment, the sword that was about to reach Varian's shoulder was tilted by an invisible force to target his neck.
It was a clear operation to kill him in one strike.
And because the Shadow has all of Varian's combat experience, it made no mistake for Varian to exploit.
The only way to dodge this dangerous attack was through his one advantage.
'The Shadow has shown Body, Space, Lightning, Macrokinetic, Water, and Time powers. As expected, only six. It doesn't have Psychic and Plantae.'
When Varian entered this place, he deliberately hid the auras of these two paths. And he did achieve what he wanted.
"Let's see who can keep fighting!" Varian let out a roar of laughter and a fierce aura shot out of his body.
First, the space around him solidified, slowing down the sword. Then, his own time power repelled the foreign time power and neutralized his time flow.
A shield made from lightning and ice was formed to counter the spear of lightning and ice.
But since Varian's paths were weaker, it was obvious the spear would pierce the shield.
So, the Shadow didn't make any changes to his attack.
That was a mistake.
An intense psychic energy assaulted the Shadow and forced its attack to deviate from Varian's neck to his shoulder.
Then his macro kinetic power assumed the shape of a hammer and struck the end of the sword, once again changing its trajectory from Varian's shoulder to a few millimeters beside Varian's shoulder.
All of this happened in less than a second.
The sword passed right next to Varian's shoulder and using the window of opportunity, Varian punched out.
The Shadow punched back and the sounds of bones breaking reverberated across.
Varian stepped back three steps while the Shadow only went back one step. The former also had a bloodied hand while the Shadow's hand was slightly injured.
But…
"Hehehe," Varian's injury healed in a blink while the Shadow's injury was only healing at a moderate pace, "You're stronger than me, but I can take way more injuries and survive. What about you?"
The Shadow replied with a flurry of attacks. Varian let out another laugh and fought back.
Varian's battle style was clear. Inflict the maximum number of injuries.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The silhouettes of Varian and the Shadow blurred and they kept teleporting all around as colorful explosions occurred wherever they went.
Since the Shadow's experience was equal to Varian, it was an incredibly tough battle.
"Arghh!" Varian felt his left arm going numb as lightning electrocuted and burnt it. But he didn't stop using his psychic power to slightly distract the Shadow and kept punching him.
In every exchange, it was Varian at a disadvantage. He was pushed back again and again. For every drop of blood the Shadow spilled, Varian would spill two.
But thanks to the critical plantae power, Shadow's injuries relative to Varian began to increase.
And at some point—
"Die!" Varian's punch smashed through the Shadow's defense for the first time and struck him in the chest.
The Shadow was blown back coughing out blood but quickly returned with a bunch of lightning bolts paired with space blasts and invisible needles.
Varian teleported in front of the Shadow and started close combat.
The Shadow was still stronger than Varian. But he's much more injured. That's why Varian decided to fight him in close quarters and exploit that weakness.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rang out continuously as the Shadow's and Varian's bones continued to break under their brutal exchange.
As they moved from one place to another with each attack, their red blood rained from the sky.
With each attack, the injuries were getting worse as every attack targeted the existing injuries!
The only difference was that thanks to his healing, Varian's injuries were getting worse at a significantly slower rate.
As a result, when Varian once again punched the Shadow's chest, it crashed onto the ground and tried to breathe.
The piled-up injuries no longer allowed it to fight.
"Over?" Varian landed on the ground and almost collapsed due to the severe pain all over his body.
But keeping a strong smile on his face, he walked to the Shadow. With every step he took, his injuries opened up and blood poured out, making his already bloodied dress even more bloody.
Varian stopped when he was three feet away and smirked.
He knew his own tactics. If he's losing and his enemy was walking toward him—
Whoosh!
Varian swirled to the side and dodged the dangerous space blade shot at him.
The space blade, made with space power as the base, lightning, and ice as the elemental powers, propelled by telekinetic power and superhuman strength, and sped up by time power was the concerted effort of all the six powers of the Shadow!
Missing Varian narrowly, it shot into the sky and exploded.
Boom!
The explosion was so powerful that even standing fifty miles away from it, Varian's skin was cut by the shockwaves.
"Good," Varian punched the collapsed Shadow and it dissolved into specks of black dust.
After confirming his enemy was dead, Varian's feet wobbled and he collapsed on the spot.
"Fuck that monster!" Varian cursed through gritted teeth as he rolled on the ground in pain.
Every inch of his body was hurting like hell and every injury was bleeding profusely. His Shadow really knew how to inflict both pain and damage on his enemies.
After laying down for twenty minutes, Varian stood up with a weak face and glanced at the explosions occurring in the far right and far left.
"Phew," With a tired sigh, he disappeared from the spot.
A few minutes later, Sarah and Sia, full of injuries and bleeding like hell, also collapsed on the ground and fainted.
Varian fed them some healing potions and used his own plantae power. Still, their battle was so intense that they wouldn't be waking up for another hour or so.
As he sat down between his lovers and wanted to rest for a bit, the sky lit up and an invisible wave rippled from the palace and spread to the rest of the world.
The Matriarch resting in the palace's garden raised her head and glanced up. The maids beside her followed her.
And be it the Matriarch or the maid, they all froze with their mouths wide open.
"T-This…"
The sky lit up with the lights of blue, yellow, and red.
After fifty million years of wait, a hundred million attempts and failures, and the death of all hope—
The trial was cleared.
