Lagron surged with incredible power and pointed at his rival and exclaimed, “It’s time I show you that I’m not me of the past anymore!”

Lakshman looked at him and remained silent for a moment before replying, “I can see that your grammar got worse.”

“W-What?” Lagron asked, looking surprised.

“Me of the past. I know what that means but… I just feel it’s so odd the way you said it,” commented Lakshman with a small smile. “You’re probably too excited to think properly about your sentence structure.”

“Y-You…!” Lagron began, looking aggravated. “Stop that nonsense and fight!”

In an instant, Lagron kicked off the ground and flew towards Lakshman, which was so fast that he was already on top of his enemy in the blink of an eye. He pulled his fist back and lashed out with incredible force, leaving a trail of his aura as the punch flew through the air.

“Huh?!” He reacted with surprise when Lakshman instantly disappeared right before the punch could connect and appeared right behind him.

The Dragon Titan felt his movement and swung his body around and aimed his leg directly at his rival’s side. Lakshman brought up his guard by raising his hands to the side as the impact occurred. The strike appeared to be much stronger than the one the Phoenix Titan had expected, causing him to widen his eyes and grit his teeth from the sudden pain.

Lagron gave an intense push on his kick and sent his rival away while his feet got dragged on the ground. Lakshman came to a stop after a few meters and shook the arm that blocked his rival’s earlier attack, which put a smile on the Dragon Titan’s face.

“That’s just a small taste of what I’m capable of!” Lagron exclaimed confidently.

He began to surge with incredible power before kicking off the ground and flying straight at the Phoenix Titan. Lakshman quickly braced himself, but he was surprised when Lagron suddenly peeled away at the last minute and soared around while firing energy blasts at him.

Lakshman leaped away from the energy blast but was startled when the blast seemingly bounced off the ground and followed him. This continued to happen to the numerous energy blasts that his opponent fired at him, each of them bounced off the ground and kept following him around as if he was their target.

“I see you learnt something new!” He shouted at his ancient rival while dodging the attacks.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m not like my past self!” Lagron replied back proudly.

“Yeah, and I see that you’ve fixed your sentence structure from earlier!” Lakshman called out with a laugh.

“Shut it and dodge, fool! One touch from them and you’ll explode!”

“Isn’t that a given since they’re energy blasts?” Lakshman asked back scathingly. “Why are you being oddly specific?”

“You… fool…! I just don’t want you being beaten by this level of my attack!”

The Phoenix Titan laughed and said, “You underestimate me.”

He stopped in dodging them and spun around to aim his hand at them and shouted, “Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, the energy blasts that surrounded him came to a standstill and suddenly exploded. Lakshman was startled by this as wild smoke suddenly began spreading around the arena that made visibility difficult. Even the spectators could not see what was happening due to the heavy cloud of smoke that covered the arena.

“What is this smoke?” Lakshman thought to himself, feeling something off about the drifting smoke.

No sooner did he have that thought when a violent burst of lightning came out of nowhere and struck him. He yelled out in pain at the unexpected attack that struck him without him being aware of it. A moment later, the attack subsided, and he breathed a sigh wearily and glanced around as the smoke continued to hang around him in a strange dense form than any other smoke.

“How did that happen?! Where did that lightning come from?!” He thought to himself as he could not identify the magic source it came from.

Yet again, another burst of lightning came, and he was struck by it once again. As he yelled out in pain, he managed to focus his mind and realise the attack was actually coming from the Dragon Titan.

“So, it’s you!” He yelled, ignoring the pain from the lightning as he spun to face the direction his rival stood at and launched a wave of destruction at him.

“Woah!” Lagron exclaimed as the wave came, and he dodged it by leaping away to the side and disappearing into the smoke once again but this also released the lightning that was attacking him.

Lakshman aimed at the smoke and said, “Maga Distrab.”

He was expecting the smoke to disperse since it felt unnatural, but nothing happened instead. This surprised Lakshman, who then heard his rival laugh and say, “Your magic canceller won’t work here.”

“What?!” Lakshman exclaimed in shock.

At that moment, he was suddenly attacked from the side by Lagron, who came out of nowhere and punched him in the face, knocking him momentarily out of focus. He pushed forward with his attack of landing relentless blows on his rival’s body without giving him any chance to rest or recover.

“You should’ve been careful!” Lagron shouted as he continued to riddle his rival’s body with fists and kicks. Then he sent one strong punch that pushed his rival away before he pointed at him and said, “Look at you now! Pathetic!”

Lakshman coughed blood from the heavy impact he received before kicking off the ground and flying towards his rival. As he was about to reach him, Lagron smirked and turned around as he prepared to hide in the smoke like before. However, his opponent was prepared for him this time and activated Elemental Coated Armor and used it to extend an energy hand to hold his rival in place.

“What?!” The Dragon Titan exclaimed, looking shocked.

He turned around and was in time to watch Lakshman fly at him and deliver a powerful punch to his face. With the attack successfully connecting, the Phoenix Titan began to push forward by unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks at his rival at a speed that was much faster than what Lagron did against him.

“I told you power isn’t everything!” Lakshman shouted at him as he rained blow after blow at him as he dominated him with his speed.

After being beaten numerous times, Lagron gritted his teeth and yelled “Like I care!”

He clicked his fingers and a spark occurred where his fingers clicked. In the next instant, a violent lightning began circulating around the smoke before it shot a powerful burst towards its target, Lakshman.

“Argh!” Lakshman yelled in pain from the tremendous strike that left him feeling momentarily numb.

With the punches coming to a stop, Lakshman coughed blood out of his mouth and glared fiercely at his rival before gathering an incredible amount of energy in the palms of his hands and prepared to fire it straight at his rival.

“Dragon Drive Cannon!” He yelled and pointed it at his rival.

As he exerted his control over the wave, a massive red wave of destruction shot out of his hands and flew directly at his opponent. Lakshman saw the attacking coming, but he was feeling slightly numb from the violent lightning that had the power like he had never experienced before. As such, he just could not use his magic canceller on it and instead used his brute strength and strong mind to force himself to face the attack.

He put both of his hands in front of him and stretched his arms out as he gritted his teeth from the pain the lightning was dealing him as he tried to focus his mind on the attack coming his way. As soon as it came and smashed into his hands, he felt an immense force from it and got pushed back while his feet got dragged on the ground. Then he came to a stop as he pressed hard on the ground to hold his position and not let the wave reach him.

Lagron sensed his rival stopping the wave and smirked as he sensed him weakening due to the pressure of the attack as well as the lightning that was attacking him.

“I can feel you stopping it but… it’s futile!” He remarked in a loud carrying voice as his rival struggled to block the attack.

Up in the spectator seats, everyone was leaning over the edge of the railing and watched with tense looks on their faces. They could not make out anything as the smoke was covering the entire arena but could sense the intense battle that was occurring inside the smoke.

“That’s such an unnatural smoke!” Zen remarked, looking troubled. “What is it?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be smoke,” commented Dominic, and the Phoenix Emperor looked at him. “It could be that Lagron used some kind of magic spell that mixed in with the smoke that came when his energy blasts were destroyed by Lucky’s attack. So, right now they’re probably in some kind of magical field.”

“Yes. I feel the same about it,” agreed Amaranda telepathically as she stood a little way away. “It’s like a magical field that was mainly targeted towards the supply of lightning, and I feel Lagron is using that to chain a looping lightning strike at Lucky.”

“What?! A looped lightning attack?!” Priya asked in alarm. “That’s basically a continuous lightning attack!” She looked down at the black smoke and asked, “Annayya is getting hit by that?!”

Amaranda nodded silently in agreement, and they looked down as they heard the battle cries of the two warriors.

“Annayya…!” Indira said slowly with a worried look on her face.

“It’s okay, Indi,” said her twin sister as she patted her soothingly. “Annayya will be okay. Just look how confident Vadinalu are.”

They turned to look at his nine wives, who all watched the smoke-filled arena despite not being able to see any of the action. Only Venezuela, Silvera, Cantia, and Ondine were looking slightly worried while the rest seemed calm and composed. It was as if they were not worried about their husband in the least because of the faith they have in him.

“Well, we are worried,” admitted Venezuela to the twins as she stood nearest to them, “but we also know there’s nothing to worry about knowing what Lucky is capable of.”

“Yeah. If we, as his wives don’t have faith in his victory, then what kind of wives are we?” Erza asked them, to which the twins nodded in understanding.

“But this is still amazing, though. To think that Lagron sure did pull a surprising one this time,” commented Silvera coldly. Then she realised what she said was rude about Amaranda’s lover, so she quickly turned to her and apologised with, “No offense, Ama, but that guy is so arrogant that he didn’t seem capable of doing something like this.”

“Yeah! I also thought the same!” Zen admitted while looking surprised.

The Magic Titan smiled wryly as she heard the impression her lover gave them before saying telepathically, “I’m not perturbed by your impression of him, and he does come off like that. It is true, but… he has changed. He has gotten stronger and… he’s got another thing to reveal in this fight.”

“Another thing?” Zen asked as everyone turned to look at her in surprise. “What is that?”

This time, Amaranda shook her head and said telepathically, “Sorry. You’ll have to find out when he eventually uses it in this battle.”

“Oh! So much suspense!” Priya complained.

“Can you please tell me, Amaranda? Pretty please?” Indira asked as she too was curious about whatever it was that Lagron still had to reveal.

But the Magic Titan shook her head and said telepathically, “Sorry, you two. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

There was a moment of silence as the twins looked upset before Dominic said, “Well, it better not be disappointing.”

“It won’t be disappointing. Trust me,” she said, and they looked at her in wonder before looking back down at the arena filled with black smoke like substance.