CHAPTER 368: COPYING THE GRANDMASTER

The air buzzed with tension. Like a stretched thread about to snap.

David took a slow step forward and then the world snapped.

A sharp crack split the air behind him, as if space itself had been torn apart. Wind burst outward in violent spirals. His figure blurred, almost erased from my vision for half a breath.

He reappeared just inches away from me, mid-swing.

His body moved with terrifying precision, every muscle locked in a single, perfect motion. His coat flared wildly behind him, caught in the wake of his sudden momentum. Strands of his hair flew across his face, but his eyes were locked onto mine with unwavering focus.

And then his fist came down, glowing with the twin forces of convergence and rejection. His fist glowed with twin energies.

One felt like it was pulling everything toward it.

The other, like it wanted to explode away.

"[Polar Hammer]," he whispered.

Everything happened too fast even for my mind to track and I could not dodge properly.

Instead, I activated [Sovereign Reversal]. Violet vortexes bloomed around me.

His fist smashed into one of the vortex right in front of my chest.

In that same moment, I took what I had learned, the way force compressed under layered attraction, the way repulsion burst from a single point and I shifted my stance, leaning into the direction of pull.

Then I braced, flooding my limbs with Essence. My vision narrowed.

BOOM!!!

His fist broke through the vortex and connected. The world flipped.

It felt like I’d been struck by a hammer and yanked by a black hole at the same time. Every atom in my body trembled under the contradictory forces, sucked in and blown apart.

The ground beneath me shattered into layers, and I was sent flying downward, like gravity had turned rabid.

I smashed through a floating walkway. Through another platform. Through the edge of a tower.

And finally, BOOM!!!

I cratered into the earth.

Dust exploded around me, a wide depression forming under my body. I felt my shoulder fracture. My ribs scream.

But I was still conscious.

My eyes opened slowly, blinking through dust. The vortexes hovered around me, dim but still spinning. They had managed to absorb just enough of the energies to keep my spine intact.

I let out a sharp exhale.

I pushed myself up, body aching. The crater hissed with leftover force.

Above, David hovered with a faint smirk on his lips, shaking out his hand again.

"Did you like that one, kid?" he called out.

I rolled my shoulder.

"It was allright."

My focus moved toward the overflowing generator core, pulsing and crackling like a storm trapped in a cage. Every atom in my body screamed for release, for more Strength to smash this man apart.

But I didn’t listen.

Instead, I clenched my jaw and funneled all the surging Essence into Constitution.

Muscles locked tighter. Tendons hardened like braided steel. My skin shimmered faintly with a pale violet glow as my bones reinforced themselves with layered Essence. Pain dulled. Breathing steadied. I wasn’t faster now, but I could take more

.

I met David’s gaze.

"It’s my turn," I said calmly.

His lips curved ever so slightly. "Show me."

I exploded forward, the ground behind me cratering from the raw push of force.

I spun low, ducking under his defensive stance, and swept my leg at his ankle. He jumped with a flicker of repulsion, floating backward just enough to avoid it. His defense was clean, minimal, and efficient.

My Psynapse lit up. The runes floating in my domain started to glow, flickering one by one. Through them, I felt everything around David, the push of repulsion left in the air, the pull of gravity near his feet, and the soft electric charge building in his hand.

I twisted my wrist.

Essence obeyed.

The air shimmered, bent, tilted unnaturally as I replicated the very law he’d just used. Not perfect. Not nearly as refined. But enough.

I imbued my next strike with a rudimentary form of Repulsion, not the law, but its impression. And I layered it within a skill of my own.

A skill I hadn’t used in a long time.

[Seismic Burst], now fused with a hint of the law David had mastered.

My foot dug in. My torso twisted. And I slammed my fist upward into the space between us, not targeting him but the very air.

A shockwave burst from my fist. The world tilted again, space compressed unnaturally and then snapped outward in a dome of sheer kinetic rejection.

David’s eyes widened.

He raised both arms just in time and crossed them in front of his chest. But the impact still hit.

BOOOM!

He was blasted backward like a cannonball, leaving a rippling trail of distorted air and broken wind currents in his wake.

His body smashed through a window of a towering skyscraper with a thunderous crash, glass shattering in all directions. Dust and debris burst from the impact, and for a moment, only the howling wind remained.

But he flew out instantly.

He looked at his arms, one of the sleeves torn, a thin red line traced across his forearm where the force had kissed his skin.

He raised his eyes to me again.

"...You mimicked my law," he muttered, voice low with disbelief. "No, you interpreted it. And weaponized it. Mid-fight."

I shrugged once and slowly began floating toward him, fists still clenched, chain gone, domain active, vortexes spinning behind me.

"I didn’t understand everything," I said. "But I understood enough."

David let out a sharp exhale and dropped his stance. For a moment, his shoulders loosened then tensed again in focus.

"That was a warning shot," I said. "You want to test my limits?" I raised a hand and flicked my fingers slightly. The air around me rippled. "Then get ready to see yours."

David said nothing.

But the way his foot slid back, the way his hands opened wide, and the way his Essence flared in silent waves told me everything.

He wasn’t holding back anymore.

He pointed a single finger toward me, and the battlefield stilled.

"You’re no Master," David said. "Not anymore. You’re already on the edge of something far more dangerous."

I stopped walking.

"And you’re starting to worry that edge might cut you," I said.

He smiled. But there was no amusement left.

"Worry?" he echoed. "No. But I will treat this seriously now."

David raised both arms again. The air around him pulled inward, distorting like a black hole. I felt the force ripple in my bones. The sky above shimmered with crisscrossing bands of invisible energy, lines of attraction and repulsion drawn like webs.

I prepared myself, legs tensing.