Chapter 4674: Lumina Godspeed

"Here I come," was all Runark felt the need to say once the match began. With just the first step he took, Ria’s amber eyes lit up as she spotted anomalies she hadn’t seen before. The faint radiation of light that she sensed from him spiked, causing him to shine like a star.

Except this time, the light wasn’t omnidirectional. No, instead, his Martial Art deployed light as propulsion, directionally focusing it in the opposite direction that he moved, using Newton’s Third Law to propel himself faster than he ever had before.

"Lumina Godspeed."

This was one of the prized techniques that Runark had developed in the manifold. He had already mastered the refined Fulminata Godspeed that his father had passed down to him. However, he had never possessed an affinity for electricity the way his father did.

No, his affinity was for light.

So he worked hard to replace the electromagnetic currents of the technique with a light propulsion technique. Instead of converting matter into materia prima, he converted it into light propulsion beams that directly propelled his body.

This was a significantly streamlined process that bypassed a lot of the operational inefficiencies of traditional Sage-level energy manipulation. Normally, a Martial Sage converted matter into materia prima, controlled it with the trait of efficiency and the Martial Soul, and then used it to fuel Martial Art.

Lumina Godspeed directly converted the matter of his body into propulsion. It made him fast even among speed-oriented Martial Sages who still adhered to a laggy general method of materia prima manipulation.

An onslaught of blindingly fast jabs converged upon Ria over nearly every possible trajectory there was. In just microseconds, thousands of attacks threatened to pepper her body.

His palms and hands abandoned the fist in favor of more focused striking forms, each meant to inflict concentrated impacts on her vitals. He lacked power naturally, a maneuvering-oriented martial artist, but he could make up for it by making his attacks smaller without necessarily sacrificing lethality.

His attacks struck true and hard, for not even Ria and the immense speed that she possessed came anywhere near the kind of agility to dodge every single attack he launched. Her amber eyes flashed with shock at how much faster he had gotten. He was but a glowing blur in her eyes, faster than she had ever imagined he would be.

He had truly grown stronger, she realized. If she made a single error, she could lose the battle then and there. That was why she steeled her expression, resolving to fight with all her power.

She knew she could never combatively outmaneuver Runark and that even attempting to do so was a fool’s errand. Thankfully, her constitution was much tougher than his; she could withstand most of his attacks with passive defenses for the most part, choosing to block only those attacks that were aimed at her vitals.

And she nailed it, much to Runark’s admiration. He knew that only the attacks to her vitals could possibly hurt her; the rest of his attacks would at most cause minor bruises. Ordinary Martial Artists wouldn’t be able to block only those attacks that were a threat out of a sea of identical attacks, but Ria didn’t even bat an eye.

Attacks from above or below, from her sides, from her blind spot, and even from behind her—she dealt with them all. It didn’t matter if she could see all of them; her Martial Body was the ultimate sensor.

He could tell that she wasn’t even anywhere near strained to her limit. Her amber eyes caught a glimpse of his as he tried to worm her away through his guard. Yet, so long as he was vastly faster than her, he didn’t think she could do anything about it.

He was wrong.

CRACK

His silver eyes widened as he felt one of his knuckles fracture upon impact, gazing at her in surprise. He had thrown a knuckle punch at her throat, but rather than intercept it with her hands, she used her chin to snap down on his attack, crushing it against her collarbone.

Her bones were much tougher and denser than his, having been put through intense conditioning training in her early days.

She didn’t need to attack him actively to cause him pain, she was saying, and yet she did anyway.

She inhaled deeply, spreading her arms, exhaling with a breathing technique as her palms slammed together with great force.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The collision created a gravitational wave instead of a sound wave, precisely the point of it. A sound wave was slow and inefficient, only easier to produce. The gravitational wave swept the battlefield at the speed of light, washing over Runark deftly. He weathered the impact with a grunt, but it was merely a distraction.

The real attack was the teleportation she activated, allowing her to catch him off-guard behind her.

In the past, that would have been enough to end the battle between them. Teleportation was damning to maneuvering-oriented Martial Artists, but very few could master it. But those who could hunt maneuverers down rather easily.

But not Runark.

WHOOSH

Her eyes widened as her attack hit an empty image.

It wasn’t a feint. The light of the image was real, scattering upon contact with her body. It was just an extremely realistic light illusion.

It was at that moment that she realized that she may have underestimated Runark’s proficiency with light. The momentary distraction the image provided was all he needed.

From behind her, plunging into her back was a shining fingertip.

It released a piercing beam of light.

"Lance of Light."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The beam of light he inflicted upon her was point-blank and contained a charged reservoir of materia prima. Not only did he accelerate himself to the maximum for the attack, but that very acceleration in turn increased the energy of the ensuing beam of light, blue-shifting it.

It was the sole finisher move that he had developed.

"Yes!" Runark grinned as he felt a surge of triumph. Never before had he been this enthusiastic about an attack he landed on Ria. He was confident that he had at least wounded her, making it easier to whittle her down for the rest of the battle.

Unfortunately, he underestimated her yet.

"Impressive."

Her tone of voice was sincere but composed.

His eyes widened as she emerged from the dimming glare of light, unfazed. Her Martial attire had been burned a little, while her skin had been merely singed. What was most astonishing, however, was that a beam of light circled around her in a ring.

VMMM

It was the same attack that he had launched against her.

Though it was light and though it was point-blank, Ria had managed to actually intercept the attack.