Chapter 499: An Absurdly Ridiculous Physical Constitution
"Enchant: Control Boost!"
With his power suddenly skyrocketing, Noah needed significantly stronger control to actually wield his enhanced strength effectively.
"Enchant: Dragon Slayer Attribute!"
Finally, Noah enchanted himself with the Dragon Slayer attribute. After all, standard magic was completely useless against Acnologia; only Dragon Slayer Magic could have any real effect. He had no intention of actually casting Dragon Slayer spells, so enchanting his physical strikes with the attribute was the best way to further increase his damage output. Against a monstrous enemy like Acnologia, every single drop of extra damage mattered.
"Gravity Magic!"
Noah cast Gravity Magic on himself—not to increase his weight like he did during training, but to drastically reduce it, making his body feather-light and exponentially faster.
Phew...
Noah let out a long breath, unclasping his hands and standing up straight.
Golden waves of magic power continuously erupted from his body, blowing outward in all directions and sending countless clouds of dust and debris flying. His hair swept wildly into the air, and his clothes whipped violently in the magical gale.
Relying on his magically enhanced control, Noah reigned in the violently leaking aura, compressing the newly multiplied magic power back into his body. The roaring magical shockwaves abruptly vanished, and the surrounding area fell dead silent.
Noah looked up at the sky. Acnologia was already rapidly closing the distance.
I can't let it get any closer. Otherwise, the collateral damage might compromise Tenrou Island's barrier.
Noah dropped into a half-crouch and kicked off with explosive force. The already-cratered bedrock beneath him violently caved in once more, sending countless shards of earth flying into the air as his figure vanished from sight.
In the very next microsecond, he materialized directly beneath Acnologia's abdomen. Drawing his fist back to his waist, he unleashed a devastating, upward-rising uppercut.
KABOOM!!!
Noah's fist slammed dead center into Acnologia's stomach. The Black Dragon's high-speed forward momentum was instantly halted. A split second later, its massive body was violently launched upward into the sky. A catastrophic shockwave erupted from the point of impact, tearing through the atmosphere.
Noah glanced up at the airborne Dragon, stepped on the empty air, and rocketed upward in pursuit.
ROAAAAR!
Acnologia opened its maw, unleashing a deafening roar accompanied by a hurricane-force sonic blast straight at Noah.
Noah quickly shifted his trajectory, carving a tight arc through the air to bypass the devastating sonic cannon, and reappeared right in front of Acnologia's face.
Acnologia raised its right claw and swiped viciously at Noah.
Seeing the chilling, razor-sharp glint of Acnologia's massive talons, Noah's mouth twitched. When he punched it in the stomach earlier, Acnologia barely seemed to feel it, but Noah's own fist had throbbed with intense pain. The Black Dragon's scales were absurdly, terrifyingly hard.
Backed by that indestructible body, its claws were practically divine weapons. Noah absolutely refused to test their sharpness with his own flesh.
Pushing his speed to the limit, Noah shot straight up, narrowly evading the deadly swipe, and positioned himself directly above Acnologia's head.
"Gravity Magic!"
In a fraction of a second, Noah inverted his Gravity Magic, switching from weightlessness to crushing, hyper-dense gravity. He clasped both hands together, raised them high, and brought them down like a massive sledgehammer onto Acnologia's skull.
BOOM!!!
A massive shockwave rippled outward from the impact, and Acnologia's colossal body plummeted toward the sea.
Thrown upward by the sheer recoil, Noah's eye twitched violently.
That hurts!
Noah had no idea if his hammer-blow actually hurt Acnologia, but it definitely hurt him. Amplifying his strike with extreme gravity and aiming for the head—one of the hardest parts of any creature's body—only compounded the brutal recoil. Fortunately, thanks to his monstrous natural regeneration and his active healing buffs, the pain rapidly subsided.
Not daring to pause, Noah reapplied his downward gravity and dove like a meteor in pursuit of the falling Dragon.
SWISH!
But the moment he closed the distance, Acnologia had already righted itself mid-air. Its massive, stinger-tipped tail whipped toward Noah, tearing through the sound barrier.
Seeing the incoming tail, Noah hastily thrust his right hand forward, firing a point-blank golden magical beam at Acnologia. Simultaneously, he shifted his gravity field, using the powerful recoil of his own magic cannon as a thruster to violently brake in mid-air.
Pushed downward by the beam's kinetic force, Acnologia accelerated its descent, causing the tip of its deadly tail to slice through the empty air mere inches from Noah's chest. Noah could literally feel the lethal chill radiating from the stinger. If that had connected, he would have been severely injured.
The second the tail passed, Noah inverted his gravity again, plummeting after Acnologia.
At the same time, he checked the spot where his golden beam had struck. Absolutely zero effect. Even though his magic was actively enchanted with the Dragon Slayer attribute, and his raw output vastly eclipsed Natsu's, his direct magical attack still failed to leave a scratch.
Acnologia's magic resistance was so incomprehensibly high that it was practically immune to all forms of magical energy. Even if Dragon Slayer Magic theoretically worked, that absurd resistance mitigated almost all of the damage. Pure, unadulterated physical trauma truly was the only viable way to fight it.
SWOOSH!
Acnologia flapped its colossal wings, perfectly stabilizing its posture in mid-air. It slashed its right claw upward at the descending Noah.
Noah instantly fired dual magic blasts from the soles of his feet. Riding the thrust, he aggressively altered his trajectory, dodging the lethal swipe and arriving directly in front of Acnologia's chest.
"HRAAAH!"
Noah threw a devastating punch, driving it squarely into the white scales on Acnologia's chest.
A massive shockwave blasted outward from the impact. Through his fist, Noah felt the scales yield and dent inward ever so slightly. His eyes lit up.
When he first punched the white scales on its abdomen, he had felt zero give. Now, by combining his enhanced physical strength with high-density gravity acceleration, he had actually managed to produce a tangible effect. It proved that his gravity-amplified strikes could deal actual physical damage!
In contrast, his earlier gravity-enhanced, two-handed sledgehammer strike against the black scales on its head had yielded absolutely nothing. Aside from the skull naturally being thicker bone, it was highly likely that Acnologia's black scales possessed a significantly higher defense rating than its white underbelly scales. He would just have to test that theory later.
Meanwhile, the right claw Acnologia had just swung missed, arced through the air, and violently hooked back around, aiming straight for Noah's blind spot.
Noah's hyper-enhanced reflexes instantly picked up the threat. He inverted his gravity and fired his foot-thrusters again, launching himself straight upward to dodge the lethal backhand. Acnologia's massive claws swept through the space Noah had just occupied, literally crushing the residual magical exhaust of his thrusters.
"Hah!"
Riding his upward momentum, Noah threw a ferocious uppercut aimed squarely at Acnologia's jaw. Acnologia merely pulled its head back an inch, casually evading the strike. Because of the Dragon's slight evasion, Noah's punch missed the jaw entirely, leaving him floating directly in front of Acnologia's mouth.
Suddenly, a suffocating, needle-like spike of primal terror pierced Noah's brain. Every single survival instinct screamed at him to move immediately. He desperately accelerated upward, scrambling to get away from the beast's maw.
The millisecond Noah cleared the zone, Acnologia unhinged its jaw. An apocalyptic concentration of pure, destructive magic gathered at the back of its throat.
A Roar?!
Noah panicked, pushing his speed to the absolute limit.
ROAAAAR!!!
Acnologia inhaled the swirling ether deeply into its lungs, then unleashed a catastrophic Dragon's Roar straight up at Noah.
Noah violently twisted mid-air, barrel-rolling to the side. The apocalyptic beam of pure destruction grazed past him, the sheer kinetic backlash whipping his clothes and hair into a frenzy.
"Hmph!"
Capitalizing on the Dragon's attack animation, Noah flipped upside down. He engaged extreme gravity and fired his foot-thrusters simultaneously, rocketing back down toward Acnologia like a golden meteor.
Acnologia simply turned its head. The massive, continuous beam of its Roar swept through the sky like a giant laser sword, tracking Noah.
Noah rapidly altered his descent vector, carving erratic, high-speed corkscrews through the air to stay one step ahead of the pursuing beam while continually closing the distance. Before Acnologia could finish its breath attack, Noah had already maneuvered directly above the Dragon's broad back.
Exploiting the opening, Noah raised his fist, cranked his Gravity Magic to the absolute maximum, and slammed a devastating punch squarely into the black scales on Acnologia's back.
KABOOM!!!
A massive shockwave exploded from the point of impact. Acnologia's colossal body jerked downward, violently interrupting its Roar.
Rebounding into the air, Noah frowned deeply. His absolute strongest, gravity-amplified punch had just struck the black scales directly... and done absolutely nothing. The feedback was drastically worse than when he hit the white scales.
As expected. Even an indestructible monster like Acnologia couldn't escape fundamental biology. Its underbelly was significantly less armored than its dorsal plating. Meaning, if he wanted to deal any actual damage, he had to exclusively target its white scales. However, the Dragon was obviously aware of its own weak points. Even if Noah's attacks currently felt like insect bites to it, its primal instincts would still prompt it to protect its underbelly, making landing clean hits exponentially harder.
ROAAAAR!
Acnologia let out a furious roar. With a single, powerful beat of its colossal wings, it completely stabilized its posture in mid-air. Beating its wings again, it surged directly toward Noah.
Noah naturally didn't back down. He rocketed forward to meet it.
Seeing Noah approach, Acnologia swiped its massive right claw forward. Noah intended to use his previous tactic: accelerate rapidly past the guard and dive straight for its exposed chest to strike the white scales again. He fired his foot-thrusters, aiming to blitz past the swipe.
To his horror, Acnologia seamlessly accelerated its claw swipe to match Noah's new speed. The razor-sharp talons were inches away from slicing him in half.
Noah frantically overcharged his thrusters. The golden exhaust flared wildly, propelling him straight up just in time to dodge the deadly talons. However, the meaty palm of the Dragon's claw was still barreling toward him like a freight train.
"HRAAAH!"
Noah roared, instantly shifting his target. He threw his fully charged punch directly into the oncoming palm.
BOOM!
A shockwave erupted between them. Completely overpowered by the Dragon's incomprehensible physical mass, Noah was violently swatted away, tumbling backward through the sky. Acnologia's massive arm was halted, and it was pushed back a tiny fraction of an inch by the kinetic impact before stabilizing.
ROAAAAR!
Opening its maw without any wind-up whatsoever, Acnologia fired a concentrated beam of pure destructive energy straight at the tumbling Noah.
Deciding to test the raw output of the Dragon's breath, Noah stabilized himself, thrust his right hand forward, and instantly fired a colossal golden magic beam from a rapidly forming array to intercept it.
KABOOM!!!
The two apocalyptic beams collided mid-air, triggering a blinding explosion whose deafening roar shook the very heavens.
Exactly as Noah had predicted, his golden beam was immediately overpowered. Acnologia's destructive breath easily crushed Noah's magic, steadily pushing the golden beam back toward its caster.
Refusing to let the blast reach him, Noah instantly surged his magic power. His golden beam widened and flared with blinding intensity, managing to halt the advancing Dragon's breath in a tense deadlock.
But Acnologia simply opened its jaw a fraction wider. An unimaginably massive surge of energy flooded its breath attack. The beam instantly thickened, effortlessly shattering Noah's deadlock and barreling toward him at terrifying speed.
Noah could absolutely pump more magic into his beam, but that would lock him into a pure battle of magical attrition. A battle of attrition against the Black Dragon? He would lose without question. When he was up close earlier, he had clearly sensed the bottomless abyss of Acnologia's magic. Whether in absolute purity or raw volume, Noah was entirely outmatched.
The only reason he was currently trading blows with it was because the Dragon was merely playing around. The second it got serious, Noah would be annihilated.
Engaging in a beam struggle would only put him at a lethal disadvantage. Therefore, Noah momentarily spiked his output to briefly stall the advancing breath attack, then immediately severed his mana feed.
Deprived of fuel, the golden beam instantly dissolved into nothingness. Acnologia's breath attack surged forward unopposed, but Noah had already engaged his thrusters and blurred out of its trajectory. The apocalyptic beam pierced through his afterimage, tearing a massive vacuum through the sky.
Seizing the opening created by his evasion, Noah zipped through the air, charging straight back at Acnologia.
Acnologia closed its maw, cutting off its breath attack. It curled its massive claws into a fist and threw a devastating punch at the incoming human.
Noah's eyes lit up. If it wasn't using those god-slaying, razor-sharp talons to slice him to ribbons, and was opting for a blunt fist instead... he could definitely trade blows!
Clenching his own fist, Noah roared and threw his entire body weight into a punch to meet the Black Dragon head-on.
~~~
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