(Nov 7)

Even though this was supposed to be a friendly sparring match, both Briggs and I were both releasing an intense amount of magic capable of crippling people.

Luckily though, we were inside of a royal court that had a built-in magic barrier that would prevent us from wrecking havoc and destroying everything.

Briggs was in a slight berserker stage releasing an absurd amount of his curse miasma.

I, on the other hand, was in my dragonoid form with every single dragon ability activated and ready to use.

My current dragonoid form wasn’t as strong as it was during The Grinch fight since I didn’t use drugs this time, but it was still worthy of being considered an A ranker.

I raised my hand and sent forth my dragon missiles to test the waters.

As expect, the missiles were easily swatted away with a single hand from Briggs.

Even the explosions barely scratched his skin.

My dragon missiles were by no means weak.

They were extremely effective against groups of average strength enemies since my dragon missiles were quick, mobile and does good damage for what its worth, but against an enemy with absurd defenses, no matter how fast or mobile it was, it wouldn’t do anything.

Basically, it was strong against weak foes, while weak against strong foes.

Dragon missiles are my strongest long ranged attack, so weaker spells like fireball was out of the question.

I wasn’t sure how to approach this fight.

Should I just charge in with my fist, tanking all of Brigg’s attacks and just brawl it out?

Should I play smart, dodging attacks and attacking at critical moments?

Should I stay far and continue launching dragon missiles until it slowly breaks down his seemingly unbreakable wall that is his body?

I wasn’t sure since I never had my own unique fighting style.

Briggs was mainly a brute front line fighter with an aggressive fighting style, William who was a AOE wizard who fought from afar with destructive spells or even Alisha who was a long-ranged supporter with fast and accurate shots.

They all had their own way of fighting.

I had none of that, I fought differently depending on the situation.

I simply lacked my own distinct style.

Instead, I adapt accordingly to my opponent.

Even though it’s not necessary for me to have a specific fighting style, I should find something I lean towards so I can develop in a certain direction.

Since I gain new skills all the time, I’ll have a lot of options that I can explore.

And as I get into more battles and gain more experience using my abilities, I think that I will naturally develop my own way of fighting so I don’t think I need to really worry about it.

But for now, I’ll do what I do best and fight depending on the situation.

However, that’s when I realized that neither Briggs nor I had moved at all.

Briggs was standing there staring at me, and I was standing there… staring at him.

In complete silence, we awkwardly stood there staring at each other.

“So… um. You gonna attack me?” Briggs finally spoke up.

“Huh? Oh. I thought you were going to make the first move…”

“Nah, you were transforming into your new form for the first time so I thought that you should have the honor of attacking first. Plus, I attacked first earlier so…”

“…”

“…”

Both of us had unleashed tremendous amount of magic and power, and yet we just stood there waiting for each other to make the first move…

I couldn’t bear the awkward silence anymore and charged at Briggs, breaking our stand off.

My fist blasted forward at full speed.

Briggs raised both of arms in front of him and didn’t even bother trying to dodge.

KA-BAMMM!!!

From the impact of my punch, Brigg’s entire body was launched backwards but he landed on both of his feet a few meters away.

He took almost no damage at all from my full-strength punch.

“Ara ara~ That was quite the punch…”

Brigg’s eyes were now glowing white, it’s light piercing through the black miasma that engulfed his entire body.

Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew that he was grinning.

My dragon instincts instantly alerted me of danger… but it was already too late.

My entire vision flipped upside down.

Just as my head was about to smash into the ground, I activated my dragon’s jet on my feet to gain enough momentum to make a full 360 spin in the air and land safely.

Blood slowly dripped from my nose.

Yikes.

He punched me so hard that my entire body completely flipped upside down.

It’s true that my reflexes weren’t as fast as they were when I fought The Grinch, but it was still quite good, yet Briggs was still able to instantly land a strike on me.

Although my brain was still rattling inside of my skull, I didn’t have time to wait so I immediately got down low and started moving.

Literally the moment I took a step forward, the area where I was standing just a mere second ago blew up as Brigg’s fist smashed the ground, barely missing me.

Seeing how Briggs was going all out without holding back at all, I went full try hard mode as well.

My mind calmed down, the world around me slowed as my concentration reached it’s peak.

I sensed danger approaching me from my side and immediately summoned a dragon missile.

As Brigg’s fist quickly drew near me, I telepathically guided my dragon missile to collide with Brigg’s elbow, knocking his punch a few centimetres away from my face.

He threw several more punches, even a few kicks and lunge attacks as well, but I narrowly managed to dodge all of them.

Briggs was quick with tremendous strength.

All of his attacks created shockwaves that quaked the entire area with explosive tremors that resonated throughout the vicinity.

I didn’t get hit, but I was still accumulating minor shockwave damage and fatigue was building up.

Even with dragon instincts and full concentration, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last.

I did land a couple hits on him, but he was built like a defensive castle, and I lacked the time and opportunity to deal any significant damage.

Luckily for me, I recently learned the perfect spell for situations like this.

As I was dodging around, jumping from place to place, running around, I also created web essence and spilled it all over the ground.

If this were William, he would’ve noticed me doing this immediately.

But Briggs wasn’t William.

He was completely oblivious to the fact that my web essence was slowly getting attached to him as he was running through puddles of my web essences that I had set.

Eventually he did notice that something was wrong, but it was already too late for him by then.

His entire body was covered in my sticky web essence, slowing and restricting his movements, while at the same time accelerating my attacks towards him.

Web essence was the ultimate debuff for my opponents and buff for me.

I’m starting to realize how useful it is in a one-on-one fight.

Briggs bent down and lunged at me, but he was significantly slower than before due to the web essence.

As he was in mid-air, I grabbed my web essence (which was attached to Brigg’s entire body) and yanked it downwards causing Briggs to also fall down and smash into the ground.

I was now in control of the flow of this battle.

Briggs forced himself back up and threw his fist forward.

This time, I allowed myself to get hit because I wanted to see how effective my web essence was at reducing damage.

Since web essence has the properties of both rubber and gum, it also softens the impact.

Its like getting hit by very powerful rubber ball instead of a canon ball.

Still hurt, but manageable.

I pulled back my arm to increase my elastic potential energy from the web essence, and then shot it straight into Brigg’s chest blasting him backwards.

As he flew into the air, Brigg’s tried to grab my web essence and pull me along with him, but since web essence is my own ability, I was able to release it from my body at will.

Only I was able to benefit from it’s perks and only my opponents suffer it’s debuffs.

With this, I was able to close the gap between my strength and Brigg’s strength giving me a chance for victory.

Then I decided to use the strongest attack I had to end this duel: my super dragon missile (yes, I know I’m not very creative with naming my special moves).

If this were any other person, I wouldn’t have used it because of how dangerous it was, but this was Briggs. I knew he’d be safe. In fact, I think he’d survive if a meteor hit him.

I summoned my dragon missile, wrapped it in as much web essence as possible, burned up a ton of my dragon essence to create the strongest dragon’s jet and then telepathically pulled it backwards to increase its elasticity.

I waited for a bit as Briggs was still getting up from my previous attack…

And just as he looked up at me, I unleashed it: my super dragon missile.

Ka-boom! (Too lazy to write extra letters in my journal for dramatic effect, just imagine a very loud sound)

Once again, a thunderous ear raping boom sound exploded forth as my missile broke the sound barrier and hit Briggs head on.

Even if he tried to dodge, my web essence would’ve slowed him and guided the super dragon missile to him at the same time, so I didn’t worry about missing.

It was a direct hit.

Briggs tried to stand his ground against the sudden attack, but my super dragon missile dug deep into his stomach, eventually pushing the air out of him and then launching him away after exploding.

The magic barrier around us was wavering, but somehow didn’t break.

Thank god for that barrier.

I walked forward, inspecting the aftermath of what just occurred…

And then it happened.

Another explosion, not from my dragon missile, erupted which blew away all the smoke.

A bone chilling amount of killing intent and curse miasma was being released.

A literal beam of pure black energy shot upwards into the sky, piercing the heavens above.

I was staring at a wall of pure miasmic energy.

“Hm. Well. I’m fucked.”

I had forgotten a very important thing.

I had forgot what Brigg’s ability was.

He was a berserker.

The more damage he took, the more pain he went through, the more powerful he became.

Just now he took quite a bit of damage… which must’ve gave him quite the powerup.

A fully pitch-black beast, with no sanity in sight, emerged from the darkness.

At this moment, my instincts warned me that he was about on the same level as The Grinch.

From the very beginning, it was impossible for me to win.