Perhaps it was due to that memory being recalled, or perhaps it was due to a completely different reason altogether, but with the first attack during his duel with his father, the young man immediately realized that he had done something quite problematic, forcing him to mutter something quite awkwardly.
"I might've overdone it…"
Argus mutters to himself as he looks upon the destruction he brought. His father, standing in front of his sword, now with his upper body completely exposed, and if he were a bit later in deploying mana as his protection, perhaps even his lower half would be rid of the clothing he is still wearing right now.
It might've seemed like an illogical matter, the fact that the young man even managed to surprise the old, powerful war veteran so much that he barely had time to defend himself from the attack, but standing at a mathematical, or rather, at the most basic arithmetical standpoint, everything else just makes so much sense.
For one, entering the Body Refining Realm just recently allows Argus' strength to undergo an unprecedented increase, where people will only possess around a ton of strength once they entered the most basic cultivation realm, he already took several steps ahead of everyone else, the strength he possesses at the peak of Meridian Cleansing increasing tenfold, allowing him to exert a force not even Spirit Tempering Realm Cultivators can even dream of.
Adding to that the fact that even the Body Refining Realm he is in right now is a realm completely different from the normal due to him succeeding in practicing his once theoretical Augmented Circulation method, the Nine Stellar Palace Scripture's extreme, tyrannical power pushing the baseline of his strength even further, an increase not just significant, but on the border, if not already crossed the realm of divine.
Ten thousand ton of unrestrained, sheer brute force, all in the hand of the young man wielding the sword in front of his father, a hero hailed as one of the strongest of the empire, a person who reacted to such massive force with his own strength completely rivaling his son's output, a smile cracking his face as he do so as even when considering the fact that he felt his son changing, becoming better in cultivation compared to before, never had he expected that he will receive such terrifying attack from his own child anytime soon.
Expectations are meant to be subverted though, and subverting his old man's expectation is exactly what the young man did, as the weight of the sword becomes the very proof to the father that the child that the old dragon is taking care of as a kid is now a full-fledge adult as well, an already mature dragon whose claws and fangs are already sharpened, whose wings are already wide and strong ready to soar above the heavens.
And is if it wasn't enough, what truly took that legendary Ever-Burning Sword Dragon by an absolute surprise is at the moment that the two frail swords each of them is wielding comes into contact with each other, the son's strength has grown once more, something else pulsing within the young man's system, but not the heart that is on the left, but another completely different core within the right side of his chest.
The star's purpose is to grant its controller, its creator and master, with the power they need whenever they will it, the brightness of the star burning through the spirit energy in the surrounding and feeding their master with immeasurable strength, strength that goes beyond the measures of what any other Body Refining Realm Cultivator can ever hope to rival.
'Heavy…'
Feeling his arm collapsing under the force of his child's attack, the Sword Dragon couldn't help but utilize his strength even more, his muscle, previously relaxed through each of their exchanges, now a bit flexed and strained as mana ran throughout his vessels, improve his strength even more, gone was the father patronizing his son, now only a warrior who is determined to overcome the great wave of attack coming towards him.
'What the… shit… I need to reign it in…'
Feeling the increase in his strength as the power of the first star surges all throughout his entire body, even Argus himself fell into a state of extreme shock as he realized that the force he is exerting is far greater than he had ever expected, surpassing all the potential he thought the Nine Stellar Palace Scripture had.
It was supposed to be a twelve-fold increase per star activated, a total of a hundred and eight times increase in one's baseline strength once they fully cultivated this augmentation technique, and yet even with overestimation on his part, thinking that perhaps similar to the previous thing he achieved in the initial cultivation of the technique, his limits over ten percent above what he thought is the limits, and even accounting for greater improve than that, the most he expect is at most, a twenty-fold increase with each star he possesses.
Reality, more often than not, will be far different from what anyone will ever expect, and this holds true even for this case.
However, while it is more often said that the difference in reality and expectations is more of a disappointment of not reaching up to what is expected, this time, reality becomes completely different from the great sage's expectation through a completely different virtue.
A full hundred-and-eight-fold increase.
The might that should've been achieved through the completion of the Nine Stellar Palace Scripture's cultivation is already at the hand of the once greatest sage who reached the peak of cultivation, all that just by possessing a lone star in his meridian-core, a fact, a feat indicating that sometimes, even the creator of the something will fail to realize just what sort of absurdity they are capable of creating.
It is exactly this full hundred and eight times of sudden increase of force that also forces the defender to exert mana within their body to the fullest, and the result of such a clash between raw, absolute powers?
First, the air all around is being forged through the sheer pushing force that these two clashing attacks will generate, creating what can basically be considered a void that expels everything that was once within its range.
Second, the moment that the force pushing away every particle within its surrounding starts to dissipate, everything else in the immediate surrounding of the void will rush and surge to fill the empty space, structures, air, mana, and even spirit energy itself, rushing as if there's a great treasure at the center of this void.
Third, all these, particularly mana and spirit energy, will eventually converge within the very center of this void, and the speed and the strength of the collision will be enough for the clash between these two energies to react with each other, perhaps in the most normal of ways if one were in nature.
Of all the things where such an implosion should happen though, it just has to be within the Draconia Household's manor, a place well known for its people wielding a fierce, fire elemental mana whether if it's for magic arts or martial arts, meaning that the most abundant mana within the place is of course, the very thing that the residents of this place absorb, and exude, the most.
And with that, condensation of fire elemental mana, the spirit energy further exciting this threatening bomb, and worst of all, the Sword Dragon's, Arthur's mana along with Argus' spirit energy coming out of their being, fuels something about to shock the entirety of the capital's third level, a shock that can be felt even all the way to the furthest first level of the place.
Indeed, through this exchange, the father and son created a massive bomb capable of tearing entire estates apart.