Without waiting a moment or even pausing a beat, Noel dashed through its frontal attacks and tried to circle around it. However its speed wasn’t slow either, especially considering it only had to twist its body rather than run around the field. Furthermore, being a puppet of sorts meant it wasn’t personally tracking Noel as a living being, but as a commanded tool running on orders and borrowed magic. Whenever Noel entered a blind spot, it would shift its body quickly. And considering the size difference between them was so huge, Noel’s high level of speed just barely met its match against the larger target of destruction that moved at a slower pace, but covered a lot less ground in the process.

With it turning quick enough to create distance between Noel and its back, wings, ankles and tail. After a moment of aggravation, Noel swiftly evaded its clawed strike and finally closed distance with it, trying to climb up its arm and onto its shoulder, but its wings extended, as if on reflex, and wind blew everywhere around him. The lack of room to dodge on top of its body sent him flying.

He made a careless error once again.

{Dammit. Why do I keep messing up? Once again, I made a terrible mistake and made the wrong choice out of my many probable actions. Again! Back then, when it stomped… I should have dodged towards its left side! the left foot would have obviously positioned it in a vulnerable position and I would be in a blind spot, protected from its left claws! I Can still do it after I wind up in that position again. And since it has no inherent intelligence then trying to cause such a thing shouldn’t be too much of a problem… but the problem here is the second mistake I made – I should have jumped! Even if that thing held a chance of lashing out at me with its right hand—er, claw… thing, instead of allowing my thoughts to run back and focus on the initial time I got blown away – then hastily guarding myself and ‘giving up without a struggle, I should have focused all of my attention on its wings! If I had done that, maybe I would have seen its wings spreading out and jumped down to allow its left pectoral to block my body from enduring a whole lot of this wind! After I could have directly dashed between its legs and reached its back tail! I’m such a stupid moron!

...Haaah… calm down, Noel. There will be other opportunities in the future. *Breathes Slowly* I should… just spend this as an opportunity to learn!}

Once again, Noel was shot flying backwards, but this time he mad some great changes to his defensive posture. He guarded with both arms and crouched low, tucking both of his short legs in. This simple and small change brought the boy massive improvements to his descent and wind resistance. He tumbled back through the air a few times before he managed to ‘fall’ a lot more refined than the last blow.

…

It’s just, only after he began to fall did it combo its wind force strike with a gliding attack from above!

It took flight and heavily flew over the child, then, as if imitating his air somersaults, it spun forward! The thick, hardened and heavy stone tail smashed down like a mountain shaped like a whip. Noel’s line of sight immediately disappeared right then.

But this can also be seen as a sort of ‘good news’, for him as well.

{...Ha. Haha! Great! This makes things much easier! Since my descent is actually faster by 2 seconds than its strike, that give me lots of leeway options. For example, I can plant my feet after landing, let all the innertia travel up through my legs and body, through my arms and … my fists, and clash with it. It shouldn’t be able to overpower me in strength so easily, if I try.

But the recoil isn’t something I can handle too much of. After all, this thing could give A ranked invulnerable super - powered users a tough run for their money. I’m not so good with defense, when compared to my other trained skills... but maybe I don’t have to. I could also think about escaping, but – Ahh, nonono! Ptew!! Ptew! Never ever, ever! That may be a potential possibility I have, but its a no good thought! Bad things need to leave – bad thoughts need to disappear!

So, I’ll go with my third option.}

He eventually landed to the ground even as the pressure from the gargantuan gargoyle loomed right above, but rather than dodging far or pouncing up and overhead – he simply stepped to the side and firmly planted his feet.

If this one strike didn’t cause a stir, then the school’s heroes would truly be hopeless. That tail smash caused such a massive tremor, that its shock waves traveled through the ground and even spread into the closest blocks surrounding Hero High School.

But why did such a blow cause this much attention? Mainly because of a particular ability it contained, thanks to that mysterious, blurry - faced man’s magic: Vibrato.

It’s a magical enchantment that eats up quite a good amount of magical energy from the caster, but in return, the individual it’s cast on can transform that magic into kinetic energy that shatters the air and earth nearby and around with matter-splitting shock waves.

It’s temporary though, and constantly drains magic so long as it’s ‘running’ its effect. But for such a being, this level of consumption on this insignificantly sized puppet isn’t even worth remembering, let alone mentioning. That rock puppet silently had its tail strengthened with this magic, meaning only a portion of magic was consumed in order to only apply Vibrato’s effects to a single part of its body, and smashed down with the full momentum its commands allowed it to operate under. The shock waves normally would have also sent Noel flying – in fact, this was the man’s intention. To use overwhelming power to keep this dangerous King Midas-like boy away from touching the thing, while simultaneously dealing massive but gradual damage to him. It would be a lengthy process if done wrong, but in his hands, this sort of tactic wouldn’t even need 45 more seconds worth of time. That’s why he dared to use this method. One tail slam to send him away with internal damage and one momentum – supported air - stomp to crush him in the floor. If that wasn’t enough, his weakened and dizzy body should be a little easy target to blast away with another gale wind blast and hand—er, claw combo…!

Little did he know that Noel didn’t actually plan on using that ‘King Midas – like’ touch of destruction anymore during today’s fight. He only wanted to improve his physical training in case he ever needed to fight without depending on it.

And that’s why, even at the cost of withstanding the high pressure shock waves this tail caused, his response was to simply jump over the tail, revealing its lighter gray underbelly on the tail. He spun his body and allowed the momentum – improved punch to finally land another satisfying blow at the appendage!

However even this only produced another spiderweb of cracks. Was it protected by the shock wave or shattered earth below? Noel didn’t really know.

Nor did he care either. After his left fist punched down, it was nigh – instantly followed by his right punch. Then his left, and again, by his right – this sort of thing continued for a rapid succession of 500 Grade A super strengthened punches!

Not surprisingly; that powerful tail was directly crushed apart from the rest of the body.

And he didn’t stop there.

He picked up the tail, spun around thanks to his super speed, and combined with the enhanced strength, ended up creating a tornado of momentum that actually empowered the claimed tail he now possessed in his hands beyond what levels of force that gargoyle’s simple act of ‘rotating its body’ could squeeze out. At least it managed just that after he’d pointed it from the original and vertical position it was held, to the horizontal pose of a batter attempting to hit an out – of – park home-run. The very moment it was forcefully dragged down, it struck the Gargoyle’s upper arm and sent it flying! Shattered arm debris and bodily cracks showed serious signs of spreading further, however unfortunately for Noel, it stopped itself from flying through the fifth tree by spreading out its wings and flying up – directly breaking apart the forced pressure that struck it away.

Noel didn’t care though. His speed was already in a league of its own compared to these high school students. He ran along with its body being sent flying, occasionally being forced to dodge scattered debris that were no smaller than his own body. When it was just spreading its wings, the 12 year old jumped high, and barely managed to grab its ankle tightly enough not to fall. As it eventually stabilized itself in the sky, its wound was slowly healing – the spiderweb of cracks actually disappearing at a visible rate to the naked eye!

The arm didn’t grow back though – neither did the tail.

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