Round 2

'Watch it carefully.' Mike thought as his eyes watched the large creature.

This was the first time he'd ever used his Partial Transformation and aura together at maximum output. For all intents and purposes, this is the strongest he'd ever been since he got his abilities. However, he wasn't going to let the boost go to his head.

Instead, he was simply using the strength gained to his advantage, specifically in terms of his perception as he did what he did best.

He watched his opponent.

The way every muscle pulled taut. The breathing, the pounding of its heart, it's intent and it's gaze on him. He analyzed all of it closely and carefully as he began to build an image within his head.

He stretched out a hand, and the creature pulled back two arms to punch.

However, instead of meeting the attacks like before, Mike twirled his fingers twice in quick succession and created two haven rings which shot forward at the creature.

Instead of block the attacks, though, they actually wrapped themselves around the arms it was preparing to throw and tightened.

In that brief moment, Mike stomped on the ground and shot forward. Reaching the creature in an instant.

It instantly responded and swept it's other arms while rearing its tail for a follow up. But Mike positioned his other hand like a blade and jabbed it at one of the arms. A primal Rend shaped like a blade slammed into the side of one arm, actually doing decent damage for once as well as throwing the attack off course, and in a show of beautiful flexibility, Mike hopped slightly and twisted his body to avoid the second arm, then he spun in the air and used his arms to brush against the follow up which was the tail, making it so that the attack glanced past him harmlessly.

The last two arms came from above, aiming to smash him down, and Mike's eyes glowed as he created a Haven Ring at his feet and avoided the attacks at the last moment.

What's more, it put him in the perfect position for a...

Manji Kick!

His leg smashed into the head of the creature, the force throwing it off balance as Mike flipped and landed on all fours, then he surged forward and brandished his claws.

The creature let out a sound as its eyes glowed, but instead of dodging, Mike slapped his hands together and pointed them forward like a spear, and his aura responded as it formed a sharp tip where his hand were and covered the rest of his body.

The familiar irresistible force came, and with it was destruction. Except, this time...

Mike resisted it.

The shape his aura took acted almost like an aerodynamic object cutting through the wind as he was able to force through the attack with minimal damage, and as soon as the force washed over him, he continued his charge.

The creature had broken through its restraints at this point, and it once more swept two limbs at Mike, aiming to slap him away and the others were ready to defend.

However, as soon as Mike got close, he suddenly dropped to the floor to the point that his stomach was almost brushing against it, and he shot forward, past the creature.

It spun, but as soon as it did so, blood spurted from its right leg, far more than what Mike should have been able to draw with how little damage he'd been doing since the fight began.

However, when he jumped and landed horizontally on a tree, it was revealed that he wasn't wearing his gauntlets anymore. Instead, thick white fur covered his arms up to his elbows, and his fingers had turned into razor sharp claws that had his aura wrapped around them tightly, looking like he might unleash a Primal Rend, but instead, he just left them there, and that increased the sharpness of his claws to a completely different level.

His legs tensed before he kicked off the tree, shattering the bark as he once more brushed past the creature which tried to swat him out of the air, but he somehow twisted his body at the last moment while inflicting another deep gash in its hide.

This repeated a few more times before the creature seemed to get frustrated, and the muscles in its impossible large legs bulged as it blurred, and Mike's instincts blared as he caught a nearby tree mid-charge, stopping him abruptly as a powerful force shot in front of him and utterly devastated the area he would have been in had he not stopped.

When he saw the creature again, its legs, had gotten even bigger. What's more that glowed of energy was now surrounding them, and Mike grinned.

'Seems like you're getting serious now too, eh?' He thought as his body blurred, and so did the creature, and what followed was even more devastation as the two of them would randomly appear in another part of the forest like they teleported, followed by more devastation as they continued to clash relentlessly.

However, it didn't take long for Mike to come to a conclusion.

'It's faster than me.' He confirmed. Even with all his boosts, the speed of the creature was simply absurd, and now that it seemed to have focused whatever that strange force was into its legs, it had reached another level.

Mike could react to it, sure, but that didn't make it easy, and even with Crimson Ladder slowly building his stats, it wouldn't be fast enough.

As such, he came to a decision.

The stat points that had been building thus far in his stat column appeared in his mind... and he put all of them into perception.

Instantly, it was like the world had gotten a bit slower. Not by a whole lot, but enough to the point where he coukd notice a tangible difference.

His senses became sharper, but there was something else, too. Something beyond simply picking up mundane things.

No, it was something else.

As he focused his senses on the creature, all of a sudden, something strange happened.

He could see it, but he could also see it again.

He could see what it was going to do.

This wasn't anything new. Mike had been developing this specific skill for a while now. However, it had never been so clear and vivid, like every attack the creature made was perfectly telegraphed in his mind down to the faintest twitch of its tail.

At that moment, his ability to predict his opponent had reached an all time high.

That wasn't all, though.

With his senses so focused on the thing before him, his eyes seeing the outside and his ears observing the inside, he subconsciously conjured an image, and all of a sudden, it was like he was looking into the creature.

Past the skin, he could see then dense and intricate network of muscles, bones, veins, tendons, and the like. He saw how it's body had to grow unnaturally to compensate for the three extra limbs, how it's muscles and bones were far denser than what was considered normal. The way it's center of mass wasn't the same.

And he saw how it moved.

Down to the electric signals traveling through its veins to command its muscles, Mike saw all of it.

And he capitalized.

When the next attack came, he moved with an... eerie calm.

The attacks he'd been struggling just to meet up with due to the difference in limb number were suddenly deflected and brushed aside so fast that even the creature was surprised. Then, Mike stepped forward into its range.

His hand blurred, and in the next moment, several fist-shaped depressions appeared all over the creature's torso, but their positions weren't random.

Spots where nerves converged, places were muscles coiled with difficulty, he'd systematically found and struck every significant weakpoint in those areas, and the result was clear.

The creature spammed like it had been electrocuted, its entire body going rigid as pain overloaded its senses, and that gave Mike the perfect opening.

He clenched his fist as his aura condensed around it, his body coiling to maximize the potential of his muscles.

Steam left his mouth as he started to throw the punch, and then, mid-motion, he felt something.

Not in the creature, or really the punch itself. Rather, it was the energy that made up his aura.

To make his aura move the way he wanted. He needed to feel and control it properly, sort of like moving another limb. And in that moment, he felt the way his aura interacted with the world, and it felt... perfect.

It was a brief, almost fleeting sensation that he might have overtime ignored. But as soon as he detected it, he didn't want to let go, and his instincts shouted at him to do something with it.

So he did.

As his fist was about to hit the creature, he sent out his aura, his energy, and the interaction with the ambient energy felt... perfect. Seamless, even.

Like for the briefing instant, they were connecting in a way that they should have long ago, but we're only doing now.

Then Mike's fist struck the creature.

And there was a spark of white

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