Banda mauled what remained of the axe into a thousand pieces and burst at the minotaur. His fist of immense weight struck Dabru’s face hard enough to stagger the great guardian back.

  As Banda lunged again, Dabru hammered him into the dirt and pummeled the ground relentlessly with a mad bellow. It wound its hand back wide and smashed down, but Banda threw his own.

  The two fists met and Dabru’s cracked as the impact sent fracturing shockwaves through its bones. The minotaur roared in pain and stomped down on Banda.

  Banda strained under the strength of its hoof as it pushed him deeper into the sundering ground. But with frenzy in his face, his divinity surged and he threw the minotaur by the leg into the mountain.

  Dabru raised his head to find Banda already barreling down, and now it was the horned savage’s turn to pummel. With each strike, Banda’s density and power grew as the resilient mountain cratered beneath the giant guardian.

  Dabru struggled futilely against the heavy barrage, but then his power surged as well to match the new value before him. The minotaur grasped Banda with both hands and threw him into the ground with the force of a small meteor.

  As Banda thrashed and tore his way out of the earth, Dabru slammed down on the ground in front of him. It thrust a hand into the worthless mud and pulled out another stone axe. And Banda lunged again.

  ---

  As the sounds of a titanic battle raged in the background, Otto flickered at Eres’ blindside. He dodged the silver spear of the Avatar and slashed his scimitar with the intention to take her leg.

  Otto jolted into a defensive guard just barely in time to block the slap of a giant hand. He let himself be knocked away with the force, but a second soared towards him.

  The rubbery black tail whipped out and slapped the blue hand. Sparks flew as the destructive forces of both clashed. Otto’s tail paw managed to slow the hand, but to his surprise it did not dissipate.

  The first hand blurred at his side, even faster than he could move, and reached out with a deadly grasp. Otto threw himself away from both, and in the opening, the Avatar pierced his chest again.

  Like an illusive ooze, he slipped away unharmed just as before, but Eres formed her two hands into one and the giant palm cratered the ground in thunderous blur.

  Otto appeared out of the dust, as his watery rubber body took longer to reform this time. His expression one of vigilance heightened to the extreme.

  Eres took calm assessment. Her Avatar was almost twice as strong as Otto but nearly half as slow. She had to rely heavily on her Hundred Hands to match him, and she had not been miserly in that reliance.

  Four-tenths of her total capacity had been used on the Hands she wielded now, leaving her with less than a tenth remaining. Still, that had come with benefits.

  With the tenfold increase to her aura capacity, her Hundred Hands had gotten tenfold stronger. 40% of her current aura was the equal of 8,000 men.

  A single giant hand was far stronger than Otto and about three times as fast. Split in two, both were still several times stronger and not far off from twice as fast.

  She thought all of this in the back of her mind through little more than hollow instinctual feeling. It was not nearly as comprehensive as normal thought, but it had the advantage of not betraying her thoughts to Otto’s mindreading.

  Eres had the upper hand. He could not match her Avatar and the Hundred Hands technique together. But the fight was not won yet. She had no way to wound him through his intangibility.

  She had hoped to deal some damage with that initial Hand strike, but his Yin-Yang aura held up far too well against her own. At a glance, she even noticed that the palm of the Hundred Hand that met his tail-paw had started to fray.

  His destructive erosion of Yin Aura was superior to hers. Enough that he might be able to destroy her hands before he ran out of aura. If that came to be, she would stand no chance.

  “It’s not hard to tell what you’re thinking, more or less. Even if you don’t really think it.” Otto spoke as composure and nonchalance returned to his face. “But unfortunately for you, I’m not the one short on time.”

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  The giant hand slapped down again, but Otto escaped towards the Misty Forest.

  He was right. There was no need for him to secure victory here when it would be certain tomorrow.

  The only reason he met them in battle to begin with was because he expected only one of them to return. And the only reason he stayed was to test his newly gained abilities. He had done so, and with the way the fight was headed, it only made sense to retreat.

  Careful assessment and and ruthless commitment. Cunning and strength. That was how he plundered all he had so far, and that was how he intended to plunder all there was in the days to come.

  Shock struck through Otto’s mind. He halted at once as his head jolted towards Eres, who waited calmly with aura and eyes brilliant gold as she let the secrets flow through her mind freely. The Avatar loomed behind her.

  Otto hesitated only for a moment, then a hundred wailing souls cried out from within him and faded into the void. The ground cracked beneath the weight of his feet, and he lunged back into the fight with severing intensity. Eres simply wielded her Hands for the fight she expected.

  If Otto had fled, they would have lost. But he would not. Not after hearing the true nature of her physique. None in the world would be able to resist the power it could grant.

  If it were only the true nature of the Vestal Warbride Physique that she revealed to him, it changed nothing. He could simply leave anyway, and wait until their seals vanished. Then it would be an effortless matter to incapacitate them and take the Physique from her.

  But he could not. For she had also revealed that her Winged Amulet had drank some of that demon god’s aether. She could, at any time, transport her and Banda to the second floor and find someone who could remove the Soul Seed.

  It was a viable path. The removal only required someone with a sacred grade art, and they both were supremely talented enough to make a deal with such a person by virtue of their bloodlines alone.

  They could rid themselves of the current threat, then simply make their escape before having to fulfill their obligations to any such deal.

  But there was a steep risk to that plan. Too many things could go wrong, and it gave Fate too much justification to send them further into peril. Should her options dwindle to that last resort, she would take it without hesitation. But Otto needed to die, and as long as that was possible, she would remain in this danger.

  Eres would lose everything if someone took it from her, but that was a fact she had lived with all her life. This situation or the next, it was no different. She would drown all who threatened her.

  ---

  Dabru battered him down again, but Banda burst right back up to land a devastatingly heavy blow to its torso. The minotaur lurched at the waist in mid air and spat up a river of drool, but its approach did not change either.

  Dabru grabbed Banda and hurled him into the ground. It slammed its clenched fist down on the savage the moment its own feet landed. But Banda caught it, and snapped its wrist with his own monstrous strength.

  The minotaur let out an agonized bellow, and battered Banda away as its strength grew in concert with the savage’s once again. Spiritual cracks spread across Banda’s form even deeper, but he charged back without hesitation and struck Dabru again.

  Both monsters exchanged reckless blows with no care for defense. Each sounded like terrible thunder and shook the world like seismic quakes. But Banda could bear the blows far better, and Dabru’s wounds were mounting.

  As Dabru’s movements started to falter, he let out a strange bellow. Worthless mud consumed the land around him in an instant. Tendrils of the swamp writhed rapidly to bind Banda as he lunged.

  Banda thrashed and mauled, ripping and breaking the tendrils of mud as he pushed forward, but more always took their place. His charge slowed to a crawl and he was soon bound again.

  Foreboding mana surged from Dabru as it plunged its hand deep into the mud. It pulled out a giant greataxe made of ominous black stone, this one far more imposing that those before. The minotaur raised it back high with Banda as the target in its sights, and the savage’s instincts flared.

  Divinity surged over Banda too, as his sheer weight cratered the mud in a clean half sphere beneath his feet. Iridescent cracks split deep all at once, threatening to tear him apart.

  Dabru swung down his great axe with a roar, and Banda shattered it to dust with a swipe of his hand. He burst forth with a clenched fist, and caved in Dabru’s chest.

  The great minotaur fell to the ground. It thrashed and struggled to rise, but the overwhelming weight of Banda standing atop him prevented it.

  Dabru grasped Banda and tried to crush him with his hands, but the savage broke its fingers as he thrashed out. And he unleashed a barrage.

  Cratering, smashing, shattering. Breaking. The minotaur tried to thrash back helpless, but its movements soon faltered. Not from fear or desperation, but because its body was too broken.

  The helplessness of his prey matter nothing to Banda. He raised his fist again and splattering the organs and flesh within Dabru’s chest.

  The great minotaur spat out a foundation of blood. Its body trembled, and its limbs fell limp against the gray mud. The fire in its mad blank eyes died out, and it thrashed no more.

  But Banda did not stop. It pummeled the dead guardian over and over. Mauling and smashing erratically as his instincts fought against itself.

  Strained showed on his face as his body started to twitch with opposing urges. And soon something gave. Banda opened his mouth, and the soul of the minotaur ripped from its body.

  It resisted Banda’s ability for a moment, but nothing could resist it for long. The savage swallowed the Dabru’s mighty soul, and the Tower trembled with apocalyptic magnitude. It shook so violently it seemed as though the far distant walls of this world within would shattered and crumble down.

  But just as quickly as it began, the trembling died down. Banda’s horns crumbled to ash, as the strength of weight left his body and focus returned to his eyes.

  Banda did not linger. The moment he regained his senses, he burst away like the wind.