The Lux once again thrashed around fervently, trying its best to land an odd attack on Alex, as the vibrations and aftershocks of its fist slamming into the ground continued for a few more seconds.

    Alex used these few seconds to give himself some room, and he had the perfect method of doing so.

    ''Teleport!''

    He used his mostly unused teleportation talent to put the distance between himself and the Lux from a few dozen metres, to a few kilometres.

    Alex reappeared on the strange textured ground a few kilometres away, and immediately crouched his body down, controlling his breaths once more.

    He pressed his palm to his chest, feeling his heart drum against his ribs and couldn''t help cursing himself internally.

    ''Calm down dammit!''

    If his heartbeat didn''t reduce to the bare minimum in the next few seconds, he had no doubt that the Lux could use it to find him again.

    The only reason he had managed to stay hidden last time was because he''d slowed his heartbeat down to 0.1 bpm. Yes, as a C+ rank Variant class awakened, it wasn''t much effort to slow his heart rhythms down all the way to one beat every 10 minutes, as his internal energy itself could supply him enough energy to survive.

    As only five minutes had passed before the Lux had gotten frustrated and started thrashing about in an attempt to find Alex, Alex had assumed he was safe and it was only his blunder of smiling that gave his position away.

    However, slowing his heartbeat still took some effort!

    Not to mention that while his teleportation was instant and silent, it still drained a significant amount of his energy.

    Every drop of energy used meant smaller intervals between each heartbeat. At his current pace, even if he slowed his heartbeat down before the Lux and its surrounding environment recovered to silence, he would only have around 2.5 minutes between each heartbeat.

    ''Inhale...'' Alex took a deep breath in, but didn''t exhale.

    This helped calm his heart down much faster.

    ''Good, I managed to slow it in time.'' Alex felt reassured and mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

    He wasn''t going to make the same stupid mistake as last time and show his emotions externally on his face, no matter how small it seemed!

    "Shit!" Alex cursed under his breath, and he hurried his preparations.

    He could feel the shifts in the air, and he watched the Lux clear as day through his spatial perception as it began to move.

    But he wasn''t willing to let it get the first strike on him.

    With a sweep of his arm, Alex sent the fireballs of Phoenix Flames flying in all directions. The Lux lunged toward him, but it was just a second to late.

    The light that gave his position away had left him, and he was now once again enshrouded in darkness – the Lux only had the memory of his previous location to go off.

    But even then, it was still too late.

    Boom!

    Boom!

    Boom!

    Bo...

    The first fireball made contact with the ground, triggering a deafening explosion that sent ripples of shockwaves cascading through the dark expanse, and the other fireballs soon followed suit.

    The chain reaction was almost instantaneous.

    One explosion after another, over a couple dozen in total, erupted across the desolate nothingness.

    The ground quaked violently, and drowned the sound and sensitive vibrations out with its force.

    The overlapping shockwaves created a chaotic storm of pressure, distorting both air and earth and rendering the Lux''s vibration based perception utterly useless.

    ''Yes!''

    Alex rejoiced, seeing that his plan had worked flawlessly.