CHAPTER 208: PROOF

An oppressive silence filled the stone hall. Fody, who stood nervously by the door, seemed to shrink into himself, caught between his formidable Lord and the impossibly powerful human.

Damien’s stance looked like he was ready to unleash devastating force at a moment’s notice.

Adrian, however, remained perfectly still. He did not flinch nor even shift his stance. His calm, unbothered presence in the face of such naked aggression was a display of power all its own, and it was enough to give even the proud Dwarven Lord a moment of pause.

"You are correct," Adrian said in a clear voice that cut through the tension. "I am not Theron." He let the statement hang in the air for a beat before continuing. "King Theron is dead. I killed him. I am Adrian, and I am the new King of Zarion."

Damien’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he let out a short, booming laugh that was completely devoid of humor.

"HA HA! Dead?" he scoffed. "Theron was a fool, but he was a Transcendent Mage. A boy spouting lies is a poor excuse for an assassin and an even poorer one for a king. Leave my halls now, before you stain them with your own blood."

He hefted the war hammer, its head glowing like it was ready to be triggered. The threat was not idle.

Adrian’s expression did not change. He understood that a proud warrior-king like Damien, a leader of a people who valued strength and tangible proof above all else, would not be swayed by mere words.

"Words are meaningless to a man like you," Adrian stated, acknowledging the dwarf’s nature. "You require proof."

With a single thought, a wave of blue-black nanites, a sight that only Fody recognized, flowed over Adrian’s body.

The advanced technology formed around him in a fraction of a second, creating the sleek, powerful armor that stopped just below his eyes, leaving his calm, gaze visible.

Whoosh!

Before Damien could even comprehend the sudden transformation, Adrian vanished.

The Dwarven Lord’s instincts screamed at him. He tried to pivot, to bring his massive war hammer to bear, but he was milliseconds too late.

Adrian reappeared directly in front of him, his armored hand grasping the front of Damien’s formidable plate armor.

The moment he made contact, he didn’t strike; he pushed, his suit’s thrusters igniting with a silent, violent burst of force, propelling them both forward at an incredible speed, even while in the air.

CRASH!

Damien’s powerful body, now an unwilling projectile, broke clean through the thick stone wall of his own throne room, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

The dwarves inside and out could only watch in shock and fear as the armored figure pushed their mighty Lord out of the hall and into the sky, a blue and brown streak ascending at an astonishing speed.

It took mere seconds for them to reach the mountain’s peak. By then, Damien had gotten himself together. This was no mere boy; this was a true challenger. He would let this intruder witness a bit of his real strength.

With a guttural roar, Damien channeled his own immense power. His muscles bulged, and the air around him grew heavy, thick with the pressure of the earth itself.

He broke Adrian’s grip with a surge of pure, brute force, planting his feet on the rocky peak.

Without a moment’s notice, moving with a speed that defied his stout frame, he channeled his mana through the shaft of his war hammer.

Its head blazed with a brilliant white light. He pivoted, a perfect and powerful rotation, and swung the hammer in a devastating arc aimed directly at Adrian’s torso.

BOOOOM!

The impact was cataclysmic. It wasn’t just a simple strike. The hit was so powerful that it released a visible, concussive wave of kinetic energy, a vibratory ripple that expanded outwards for meters, shattering the very rock of the mountain peak.

Adrian, who was at the receiving end of the attack, was sent flying, a black and blue cannonball shot several hundred meters back into the empty sky.

He tumbled through the air before the suit’s flight systems managed to stabilize him, leaving him hovering in the silence.

[Durability: 92%]

He felt the attack vibrate through his entire body. The armor had negated most of the direct damage, but the force had been immense.

He analyzed the strike in his mind. The dwarf hadn’t just hit him with brute force; he had imbued the hammer with a kinetic repulsion effect, striking him like an empty vessel to propel him away with maximum force while minimizing the actual crushing damage. It was a masterful, tactical blow.

Damien smiled from the mountain peak, his grin wide and fierce.

"Very good!" his voice boomed across the distance. "I believe you now. I believe you killed Theron." He hefted his hammer onto his shoulder, then rose into the air himself, his feet glowing with earthen power.

"But you do not have the right to speak with me as an equal just yet. You will have to defeat me for that privilege!"

Adrian could tell that the Dwarven Lord wasn’t angry. He was exhilarated. He just wanted a good fight, a true test of his strength, and he wasn’t willing to let this opportunity go.

Adrian felt a similar thrill. He hadn’t had a chance to test himself like this, to use the full might of his Power Suit in a true hand-to-hand battle.

He had not used it against Von, and Theron’s fight was before his improvement. But now, against a Transcendent warrior and a fellow Knight, Adrian knew he would get the fight he craved.

His eyes glowed a brilliant blue as he activated [Omnisense] to its fullest extent.

"Then I accept your challenge, Lord Damien," Adrian’s voice projected with confidence. "Prepare yourself."

The fight began.

Damien was a force of nature. With a mighty roar, he slammed his hammer into the mountain peak.

Mountain’s Fury!

The peak itself fractured, and a colossal chunk of rock, the size of a small house, was ripped from the ground and hurtled towards Adrian like a meteor.

Adrian didn’t dodge. He met it head-on. He flew forward, his fist cocked back, the gauntlet glowing with the contained energy of a Resonant Fist.

He struck the meteor, and a shockwave of vibrational energy pulsed through it, shattering the massive boulder into a cloud of harmless pebbles and dust.

"Hah! Good!" Damien bellowed, clearly enjoying himself. He stomped his foot in mid-air.

Earthen Shell!

Living stone erupted from his body, flowing over his armor to create a second, much thicker layer of rock-like plating, making him a walking fortress.

The battle became a clash of styles: the unstoppable force versus the untouchable phantom.

Damien’s attacks were wide and devastating. He swung his hammer, unleashing waves of concussive force.

He smashed the ground, sending fissures of raw energy racing across the landscape. Adrian, in contrast, was a blur of high-speed precision.

He used Phantom Steps, his form flickering in and out of existence, creating a dozen after-images that the Dwarven Lord swatted at in frustration.

Adrian’s true edge was his [Omnisense]. To him, the battlefield was a stream of data. He didn’t just see a dwarf swinging a hammer; he saw the flow of mana into Damien’s muscles, the minute stress fractures forming in his stone armor, the exact trajectory of the hammer calculated a full second before it completed its swing. It was the ultimate form of precognition.

"Stand still and fight, you slippery ghost!" Damien roared, smashing his hammer down in a World-Splitter Slam.

A massive shockwave erupted, but Adrian was already moving, using Vortex Counter not on Damien, but on the shockwave itself.

He caught the wave of kinetic energy, his gauntlets glowing as he absorbed and redirected it.

"You are too slow," Adrian stated calmly. He appeared above Damien, who was still recovering from his own attack.

Adrian unleashed a full-powered Twin Dragon Spiral, his fists a blur of spiraling energy that hammered against Damien’s stone armor.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The Earthen Shell began to fracture under the relentless, focused assault. Damien, realizing he couldn’t win a battle of speed, roared and planted his feet in the air, channeling all his power into a final defense.

Heart of the Mountain!

His stone armor glowed with an impenetrable golden light, and he became an immovable, unbreakable fortress.

Adrian knew he couldn’t break through with simple force. He needed to combine everything. He used [Omnisense] to find the single weakest point in the now-godlike armor; a micro-fracture near the collarbone from his earlier assault.

He then used Vortex Counter to absorb the ambient energy radiating from Damien’s own technique.

Finally, he focused all of that redirected energy and a full-powered Resonant Fist into a single, infinitesimally small point. All within a second.

He struck.

CRACCCKK!!

The resulting impact was audible for all to hear. The golden light of the defense technique flickered and died.

The stone armor didn’t just break; it exploded outwards in a shower of rock and dust, the sheer focused resonance having disintegrated it from the inside out.

Damien was thrown back, his war hammer flying from his grasp. He crashed onto a lower ledge of the mountain. Although his body was largely unharmed, the fight was over.

He lay there for a moment, stunned and disarmed. Then, a low chuckle started deep in his chest, growing into a huge, booming, joyous laugh that echoed across the mountains.

He pushed himself to his feet, a wide, exhilarated grin on his face.

"Hahahaha! Incredible!" he bellowed, looking up at the hovering Adrian.

"In all my years, I have never had such a fight! You have won, King Adrian! You have earned your right!"