Chapter 574 - 574: My Attacks Don't Work, but His Do? Isn't That Cheating?

Against Acnologia, the power disparity had been so astronomically vast that Noah had to fight flawlessly just to survive. There was no room for error, no room to test new theories, and absolutely no room to enjoy the fight.

But this was different. The gap between Noah and August was narrow enough that Noah didn't have to fear being instantly vaporized if he made a single misstep. He could throw his entire being into the fight, adapting and evolving in real-time.

"I must confess, it has been decades since I felt my blood boil like this. This is an exceptional battle!" August cheered, the heavy, stoic lines of his face completely smoothed out by a radiant, exhilarated smile.

Due to his unfathomable innate talent, August had rapidly outpaced every single mage around his age when Zeref first found him. Before long, he had outpaced the older generation as well. By the time he reached adulthood, there was simply no one left who could rival him. He had spent his entire life without experiencing the thrill of a genuinely even match.

When Irene joined the Empire twenty-one years ago, he finally had an equal. But Irene hated unnecessary conflict and spent all her time obsessing over enchantments to cure her dragonification. Plus, if the two strongest shields fought, the political fallout would be immense.

Now, fighting Noah with absolutely no restrictions, August finally got the epic, unrestrained duel he had always wished for.

"Let's go again!" Noah roared, stomping the ice and rocketing toward August once more.

August grinned wildly, pumping even more Ethernano into his arms and meeting Noah head-on.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The two titans clashed furiously, their fists meeting with deafening, thunderous impacts that echoed across the desolate ocean.

The ice beneath their feet was subjected to constant, apocalyptic abuse. It shattered, was flash-frozen, and was shattered again in a never-ending cycle. Thousands of pulverized ice shards danced in the air around them, only to be instantly vaporized by the terrifying shockwaves generated by their strikes.

The battlefield—a three-kilometer-wide sheet of temporary ice—was the only solid ground left in a ten-kilometer radius. The surrounding ocean was completely filled with the drifting, shattered remains of their previous clashes.

As the fight dragged on, the intensity steadily escalated.

Noah continuously increased the raw kinetic force behind his strikes, pushing his physical body to its absolute limits. August matched him perfectly, continuously amplifying the magical density reinforcing his own musculature.

Eventually, August began weaving subtle enhancement spells into his strikes, pushing his physical parameters beyond what his baseline magic could achieve.

Initially, the martial arts brawl had been perfectly even. But as August continued to layer high-tier physical enhancement spells over his body, Noah began to slowly lose ground.

Noah had already pushed his un-enhanced physical body to its absolute peak. While fighting an opponent of this caliber was slowly forcing his muscles to adapt and grow stronger in real-time, that microscopic evolutionary growth wasn't enough to overcome August's exponentially compounding magical buffs.

Realizing he was losing the physical exchange, Noah decided it was time to level the playing field.

"Enchantment: Physical Augmentation!"

Using the recoil of a massive clash to create distance, Noah rapidly cast a high-tier enchantment on himself.

Instantly, a surge of raw power flooded his muscles. His speed and strength skyrocketed. He stomped the ice, instantly closing the gap and re-engaging August.

Empowered by the enchantment, Noah effortlessly reclaimed his lost ground, perfectly matching August's magically enhanced strikes once again.

"An Enchantment? That specific runic formula... it's functionally identical to Irene's," August noted, easily parrying a heavy right hook.

"Really? I reverse-engineered it from a few foundational texts I read at the guild. It's incredibly useful, so I spent a lot of time optimizing it," Noah replied smoothly, weaving under a high kick.

"You've clearly mastered it. It seems I can no longer rely purely on physical combat to secure an advantage," August admitted, stepping back to create distance.

With Noah utilizing high-tier enchantments, their physical brawl had returned to a perfect stalemate. Since Noah's baseline physical constitution was vastly superior to August's, Noah required significantly less magical enhancement to match August's peak output.

August's true strength lay in his unfathomable mastery of elemental and Caster-Type magic. Having thoroughly enjoyed the martial arts warmup, he was ready to transition to full-scale magical warfare.

Hearing August's declaration, Noah's expression instantly turned dead serious. He planted his feet, hyper-focusing his senses.

He knew perfectly well that physical combat was August's secondary skillset. If the Magic King was finally getting serious, the real fight was about to begin.

"Rend," August commanded simply.

The moment the word left his lips, a catastrophic, howling hurricane materialized out of thin air directly in front of him. The localized wind pressure was so intense it instantly carved massive, jagged trenches into the glacier as it roared toward Noah.

"Freeze," August added a second later.

A profound, absolute-zero chill erupted in front of him. The freezing wave instantly caught up to the hurricane, seamlessly merging with it.

The resulting combination spell—a hyper-compressed, absolute-zero blizzard—was exponentially more devastating than the sum of its parts.

Noah didn't try to dodge. He raised his right hand, instantly constructing a colossal, heavily reinforced Ice-Make wall directly in the path of the blizzard.

BOOOOOM!

The freezing hurricane slammed into the wall. The sheer kinetic and magical pressure instantly spider-webbed the dense ice. It didn't even last a full second before violently shattering into dust.

But that single second was all Noah needed. Using the wall as a momentary visual block, he leapt backward, smoothly evading the primary blast radius.

Before his boots even touched the ice, August's voice echoed across the battlefield again.

"Detonate."

KABOOOOOM!

The exact patch of ice Noah had just vacated violently exploded. A continuous, rapid-fire sequence of massive detonations tracked Noah's trajectory, blasting massive craters into the glacier and sending lethal shrapnel flying in every direction.

Landing smoothly outside the blast zone, Noah raised his right hand.

The ice around him aggressively churned, instantly shaping itself into a dozen massive, intricately carved Ice Dragon heads. The dragons opened their jaws, blinding golden light concentrating in their throats.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A dozen massive light lasers fired simultaneously, converging on August.

August recognized the Holder-Type hybridization immediately. He knew his Copy Magic was useless here, so he didn't try to absorb the attack.

He waved his hand. Dozens of crimson runic arrays instantly materialized around him, firing a relentless barrage of condensed magic missiles to intercept the incoming lasers.

KABOOOOOM!

The spells collided midway, generating a catastrophic, overlapping explosion that carved a massive, smoldering trench into the glacier. The shockwave ripped outward, sending a blinding storm of pulverized ice into the sky.

Noah didn't hesitate. He stomped the ice, pumping a massive surge of magic into the glacier.

Instantly, over a hundred miniature Ice Dragon heads—each roughly half a meter wide—erupted from the ice directly in front of him. The swarm of dragons opened their jaws and unleashed a terrifying, rapid-fire hailstorm of golden lasers, completely blanketing the sky as they screamed toward August.

Seeing the sheer volume of the attack, August didn't panic. He smoothly swept his right arm.

The massive crimson array hovering beside him instantly fractured, multiplying into over a hundred smaller arrays that perfectly mirrored Noah's swarm. The arrays fired simultaneously, launching a flawless counter-barrage of crimson lasers.

Before the two attacks could even collide, August raised his right foot, channeling a massive, concentrated surge of magic into his boot, and stomped the glacier.

THOOOOOM!

A terrifying, deep-earth tremor violently ripped through the ice. Colossal, jagged fissures instantly erupted from August's boot, spider-webbing outward at supersonic speeds until they covered the entire five-kilometer-wide glacier.

A split second later, the massive sheet of ice completely shattered.

The solid battlefield was instantly reduced to thousands of drifting, unstable ice floes.

Because the ice beneath them shattered, Noah's swarm of Ice Dragons lost their structural anchor. The dragon heads tumbled into the ocean or aimed wildly off-target, completely ruining the trajectory of his laser barrage.

While Noah hastily commanded a few of the remaining dragons to intercept the incoming crimson lasers, he noticed August had already taken to the sky.

The Magic King was floating high above the shattered battlefield, surrounded by his swarm of crimson arrays, raining a relentless, continuous orbital bombardment of lasers down upon Noah.

Noah instantly cast his own flight spell, rocketing into the air. If he stayed on the ground, he would be a sitting duck; he had to contest the airspace.

As he ascended, Noah deployed a hundred golden arrays behind him, firing his own massive barrage to intercept August's orbital strike.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The two mages floated high above the ocean, unleashing thousands of high-density lasers at each other in a blinding, chaotic dogfight.

The continuous, overlapping explosions completely deafened the air. The resulting shockwaves were so intense they violently pulverized the remaining ice floes below, whipping the ocean into a towering, chaotic maelstrom of displaced water and steam.

However, after a few minutes of continuous orbital bombardment, Noah noticed a critical issue.

Because August's raw magical density was superior, Noah had to expend significantly more Ethernano to generate lasers capable of perfectly neutralizing August's strikes. In a pure, symmetrical clash of Caster-Type magic, August's superior efficiency meant Noah was burning through his reserves much faster.

Fortunately, Noah's monstrous passive regeneration rate almost perfectly offset the drain. He could theoretically maintain this level of output indefinitely.

But looking across the battlefield, Noah saw that August wasn't sweating either. The Magic King's breathing was perfectly steady.

Noah clicked his tongue. If we just sit here trading lasers, this is going to turn into a pointless war of attrition. We could do this for a week without either of us landing a clean hit.

He needed to change the tempo.

Coincidentally, August had reached the exact same conclusion.

The two men locked eyes through the chaotic explosions, instantly understanding each other's intent.

Simultaneously, both mages dismissed their massive array swarms. The deafening roar of the orbital bombardment abruptly ceased.

Without a moment's hesitation, they both leaned forward and rocketed across the sky directly toward each other.

As he charged, Noah rapidly conjured a flock of dozens of intricate Ice-Make birds. The birds swarmed around him, rapidly firing condensed golden lasers from their beaks.

August countered by seamlessly weaving fire, wind, and water spells into a localized maelstrom, surrounding himself in a chaotic elemental shield as he charged.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

August's elemental shield effortlessly shredded the incoming lasers. Seeing the frontal assault fail, Noah mentally commanded the Ice Birds to scatter, surrounding August in an erratic, unpredictable spherical formation, constantly bombarding him from blind spots.

August didn't slow down. He effortlessly deployed dozens of precise, localized defensive arrays, blocking the lasers while simultaneously firing pinpoint wind-blades to systematically swat the Ice Birds out of the sky.

While managing their respective magical swarms, the two mages finally collided in mid-air, resuming their brutal, high-speed martial arts brawl.

But for Noah, this round of close-quarters combat was significantly more frustrating.

While they exchanged devastating punches and kicks, August seamlessly integrated Caster-Type magic directly into his martial arts. He fired point-blank lasers, wind-blades, and concussive blasts alongside his strikes.

Noah couldn't just ignore these spells. They were fueled by August's monstrous Ethernano; taking a point-blank laser to the chest would cause severe damage. He was forced to constantly expend magic to block or dodge the attacks while simultaneously defending against August's fists.

Naturally, Noah attempted to retaliate in kind, firing his own point-blank Caster-Type spells while striking.

But the moment Noah fired a spell, August completely ignored it. He didn't block; he just let the spell hit him. Because it was standard Caster-Type magic, his Copy Magic instantly assimilated the formula, rendering him completely immune. The spell simply washed over him harmlessly.

"Okay, this is literally cheating," Noah grumbled, aggressively parrying a glowing, magically enhanced knee strike.

His physical strikes were working, but his Caster-Type magic was completely useless. Meanwhile, August's physical strikes and his Caster-Type magic were fully effective against Noah. It was an incredibly unfair, asymmetrical dynamic.

Realizing he needed a different conduit, Noah mentally triggered his spatial pocket.

Dozens of specialized magical cards instantly flew out, swirling around him like a razor-sharp cyclone before shooting directly toward August.

Since Card Magic utilized physical cards as the primary conduit, it was classified as Holder-Type.

Seeing the incoming cards, August finally reacted defensively. He abandoned a punch, rapidly deploying a dense elemental shield to deflect the razor-sharp projectiles.

But the moment August paused his physical assault to block, he immediately compensated by dramatically increasing his magical output, unleashing a massive, overwhelming wave of Caster spells directly at Noah.

Noah was forced to rapidly deploy his own defensive arrays to intercept the barrage.

KABOOOOOM!

The point-blank magical collision generated a massive explosion, engulfing them both in a thick cloud of smoke.

SWISH!

August violently burst through the smoke screen, his fists glowing with chaotic elemental energy. He closed the gap instantly, unleashing a terrifyingly fast, relentless barrage of punches, kicks, and point-blank spells.

Noah gritted his teeth, commanding his magical cards to swarm August while desperately parrying the physical blows.

It was a chaotic, brutal mid-air brawl.

However, Card Magic wasn't Noah's primary discipline; he mostly used it for spatial storage. Because he hadn't spent decades refining it for high-tier combat, his control over the cards wasn't precise enough to seriously threaten someone of August's caliber.

As a result, Noah was slowly but steadily being overwhelmed.

While both men were accumulating minor cuts and bruises from the intense brawl, Noah was definitively taking more damage.

His monstrous physical constitution and rapid regeneration meant the injuries weren't life-threatening, but he was clearly losing the exchange. If he didn't break the current tempo, the accumulated damage would eventually overwhelm him.

He was perfectly fine with losing to August—it was a learning experience—but he absolutely refused to lose via slow, agonizing attrition. If he was going down, he was going down swinging.

"HAA!"

Noah roared, violently swatting August's incoming punch aside with his left arm while simultaneously driving his right hand down to block a vicious knee strike.

With August's limbs momentarily checked, Noah planted his feet in the air, took a deep breath, and violently detonated his magical core.

A colossal, blindingly bright tsunami of pure, unadulterated golden Ethernano violently erupted from his body. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of the eruption slammed into August, violently launching the Magic King backward across the sky.

~~~

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