Rygar dominated the fight. He never once allowed Esterópes to fully catch his breath.
Still, he knew he couldn't get carried away by the advantage; the regeneration of the Depths Giant was insane — he could recover easily, even after fatal blows.
He needed to find out whether Esterópes still had cards up his sleeve, something capable of turning the battle.
Rygar needed to study and learn every detail of the enemy's abilities before using his own hidden cards.
The last thing he wanted was for Esterópes to decide to escape.
Of course, that wasn't the only reason; this fight awakened in him something he hadn't felt in a long time.
This guy was a true whetstone.
How many years had it been since he'd faced a single opponent who posed a real risk, who forced him to fight without holding back?
Since the fight against Gall Farion, the former Sword God, few battles had brought him the same heat. But against this Cyclops, he once again experienced the tension of a true battle.
He was enjoying the fight.
Of course, killing Esterópes was a necessity. He was a threat to the Kingdom, a danger to his family.
Enjoying the battle was acceptable; sparing the giant, never.
They clashed for thousands of rounds. With each clash, Rygar tightened his knowledge of the enemy.
Now, he was finally ready to end the fight.
He had cataloged everything — there were five abilities of the cyclops that represented the greatest dangers.
The first, the Light Cannon.
Rygar had already tasted this power when a mere grazing hit pulverized part of his forearm. A direct shot would amount to annihilation.
The second, Space Distortion — purple waves that twisted the air into displacement illusions, making any approach confusing.
Fortunately, Esterópes could not use Distortion together with the Cannon. There was a delay in switching between the two powers.
The third, Repulsive Force, worked like telekinesis, and its strength did not seem to have a specific limit.
The fourth, Regeneration, sustained by the cyclops' bond with the sea. As long as there was saltwater around, Esterópes was practically immortal.
And the fifth, the Nullification Magic Aura, a disruptive field that distorted or nullified magics.
During the combat, he tested everything: how far his magic was suppressed, how much his Demon Eyes were weakened, how his magical items reacted within that interference.
He compared the aura with his own Disturb Magic. He studied the Regeneration timing, the exact strength of the Repulsion. Now, he knew every detail.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles."
This principle guided the Beast God in that battle.
He didn't know exactly how many hours had passed — probably many, since it was already night.
But the moment had come.
While dodging again a Light Cannon that swept the landscape, Rygar took a deep breath.
His body tensed like a bow about to fire an arrow.
The Battle Aura covered his muscles, compressing every fiber. Then he used his familiar technique again, the Wild Light.
The Doomsday sword could not be seen, as a curtain of blue-incandescent flames enveloped it.
Then he revealed his first hidden card, his Magic Cloak.
Thanks to it, his trajectory stopped being predictable. He was like a lightning bolt; he could change direction midair. Rygar dashed in impossible zigzags, creating visual illusions while advancing almost in a straight line toward the cyclops.
Esterópes' single eye widened. Why had the insect become so fast all of a sudden?
The Depths Giant prepared to use the Repulsive Force while keeping the Light Cannon firing.
If he managed to align both, Rygar would be pulverized at once, with no possible escape.
Rygar couldn't help it. A sinister smile opened on his face.
He was incapable of containing his own excitement.
Esterópes was ready to release the Repulsive Force and hurl the annoying insect away again.
But then, Rygar revealed his second hidden card.
From the beginning of the fight, he had studied the cyclops' yellow aura that nullified magic around it.
The Disturb Magic was similar, but at the same time different.
If Esterópes' aura was a constant field, Rygar's technique was more localized and directed, obeying his will.
Watching the formation of the Repulsive Force, Rygar raised his hand.
'Disturb!'
A dry, violent snap echoed through the air.
The burst of repulsive mana was undone before it even existed.
Esterópes' single eye bulged in shock, unable to believe what was happening.
The interruption was so sudden that even the Light Cannon faltered for a moment, dissolving into an unstable flash.
Rygar seized the instant.
'Hell Slash!'
Doomsday sliced the air. A purple flaming wave ripped the space, covering the entire upper part of the colossus' body.
The giant tried to defend, raising his left arm — still in the process of regenerating.
The entire limb was carbonized, incinerated down to the marrow.
The purple flame did not stop there. It expanded, painting the ocean sky with an aurora of destruction.
For miles, the night was stained with purple fire.
A howl of agony echoed.
Esterópes took another step back, his Regeneration already mobilizing to rebuild the lost flesh.
He then activated his Space Distortion.
In Rygar's vision, everything twisted, deforming like broken glass into thousands of reflections. Illusory lines became visual traps, making any precise attack difficult.
But Rygar gave him no time.
A deep roar rose from his throat.
'Howling Magic!'
His third and final secret card. He had prepared it some time ago, accumulating mana in his throat.
The roar exploded.
The sound echoed more violently than thunder, traveled across the sea in concentric waves, destroying wind currents, raising walls of water.
The shockwave was overwhelming.
For Esterópes, the effect was even worse.
Never, in all the millennia of his existence, had he experienced such a mental attack. His mind collapsed.
Bright blue blood spurted from his ears, his nose, his eye, even from his half-open mouth. The pain was indescribable.
He froze.
At the worst possible moment.
Rygar landed on the giant's carbonized arm, which was beginning to regenerate.
His body lowered into a perfect fencing posture.
The Cyclops noticed the small figure on his skin, and his will to crush the tiny insect was at its peak.
But his body did not obey; his mind was shattered.
That hostility was all Rygar needed.
He laughed.
"Hahahahahah!"
In an instant, he moved.
"Instant Light Flow!"
Never before had Rygar reached such speed.
His movements dissolved from logic, becoming flaming light.
Doomsday swept the air, leaving trails of flaming blades that buzzed like thunder.
The colossal body of Esterópes was torn to pieces.
Each strike sliced, burned, and reduced his flesh to incandescent ashes.
The millennial giant was being shredded into thousands of fragments before the eyes of the whole sea.
And Rygar did not stop.
"UOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
Esterópes' roar reverberated, making the entire ocean tremble. When Rygar reached the giant's trunk, the colossus tried to crush him with his intact arm.
But there was no salvation.
As soon as the fingers approached the field of the Instant Light Flow, they were cut off one by one, reduced to sparks and ashes.
The hand shattered, the arm disintegrated into successive cuts, the flesh carbonizing before even falling.
Desperate, Esterópes tried to activate the Repulsive Force again. But Rygar raised his hand:
'Disturb!'
The snap resonated, and the magic was canceled in the same way.
Esterópes stumbled back, swaying like a collapsing mountain, until he plunged beneath the ocean.
Waves formed with his fall.
But Rygar did not stop.
Each blow was an explosion of purple flames; each cut consumed flesh, bones, and organs much faster than the titan's Regeneration could keep up.
"AAAAAAAOOOOOUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!"
Howls of pain reverberated in waves, but were muffled by the incessant cuts.
The cyclops tried to drive the small insect away in every way, but it was useless. Rygar was like a natural disaster.
The sea could not touch them — each wave was vaporized by incomprehensible temperatures.
Vapor rose in columns to the sky, forming storm clouds.
The submerged sand was marked by flaming craters, threatening to fuse into incandescent glass under the heat of Doomsday.
And then, Rygar's plan moved to the final stage.
He incinerated the last connective tissue of Esterópes' skin.
At the same instant, the Nullification Aura ceased.
Yes. The source of the yellow burned aura was the cyclops' own skin. With all the epidermis carbonized, the effect simply ceased to exist.
Rygar smiled. An even more sinister smile.
He raised his hand, and gravity inverted.
Moving a five-hundred-meter body was no joke in terms of mana expenditure.
But Rygar had plenty to spend.
Esterópes' colossal body was ripped from the ocean.
The giant howled in absolute despair as he left the waters. His single eye widened in terror.
Rygar remembered well what Oldgar had written in his timeline:
"While Esterópes is in the ocean, even if he is killed, he will return."
If he wanted to extinguish him once and for all, he had to tear him from the depths. Without the sea to sustain him, Regeneration became limited.
And now Rygar could use magic without interruption.
His body seemed to float, invincible once again.
He raised his arm to the sky.
Esterópes continued to regenerate, although to a lesser extent, still firing Light Cannons at random, trying to reach the enemy.
But nothing worked.
His body ascended at great speed under the Gravity Inversion Magic.
Rygar rose with him using his Flight Magic. Both ascended to the heights, piercing the storm cloud layers, until only a giant and a beastly one dueled above the world.
Then, the Gravity Magic dissipated.
The cyclops' body hung suspended, floating for an instant.
It was time.
Rygar needed all his concentration.
He did not want to destroy the Cyclops' Eye nor the Heart.
He took a deep breath, feeling the tempestuous wind. Lightning roared around, as if the very sky awaited his order.
And, at the instant Esterópes' eye shone once again, ready to release another Light Cannon, Rygar's voice sounded, tearing the thunder apart:
"Chain Lightning!"
The sky exploded.
A blue torrent of plasma lit the clouds. It was as if a star had been born in the firmament.
The spell, an Emperor Lightning Spell elevated to God-Tier, expanded with such absurd violence that it was perceived from the four corners of the world.
Before Esterópes could react, lightning fell from all directions.
Electric currents tore through his flesh, his bones, his organs.
The brain was burned, the body shredded by incessant discharges.
The cyclops' last howl was drowned in the infinite symphony of lightning.
The electricity spread somewhat through the ocean, descending for kilometers.
The Lightnings were so intense that thousands of marine creatures would be killed if the spell were used directly in the ocean.
The greatest powers of the world felt the spell.
That day, the Apocalypse Beast, Rygar Adoldia, killed Esterópes, the Depths Giant, heir of the seas since the dawn of the Six-Faced World.
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