Physical Supremacy

A/N: I had difficulties writing this chapter, so it's possible the quality of it is lesser than normally. Meh, hope you enjoy it anyway. Also, with this chapter, the Riser ark is coming to an end.

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Julian's rarely felt surprised, and even more rarely angry.

Upset? Annoyed? Yes, but pure wrath born out of outrage? Never.

His outburst against Mikan was merely denial, and his encounter with Elsa simply anger against his own failure.

He had never been strong on the honor side of things.

But right now, as his skin burned away and his lungs melted from the heated air going past his aura of PoD.

As he sensed Ravel dying from Riser's very own attack.

Julian despised himself deeply from even being caught off guard by such a move.

But more than that, at that moment, he despised Riser with all his being. His inside burning up hotter than the white flame he was engulfed in.

He couldn't afford to lose this match. This victory was imperative for his future plans.

Not only that, but he wouldn't be able to fulfill his promise with Rias.

At the thought that he wasn't even able to fulfill the only things keeping him going, the nature of his anger shifted.

It wasn't because of Riser's cowardness or the hypocrisy of his attack anymore.

No...

It was because he was threatening to destroy the already fragile foundations of his current life.

'OUT OF MY WAY.' Julian gritted his teeth and stopped breathing in the boiling air to keep his inner organs intact. Then, he condensed his aura of destruction around his wings, his head and his upper torso, leaving the rest with only the sphere of wind as protection and dove toward the origin of the spell.

The closer he got to Riser, the hotter the fire became.

Evading would be pointless if Riser could direct the attack. So it was better to not waste time and stop the source directly.

He couldn't feel the pain, both because of his PoD and because his nerved were fried. But he could still feel his extremities flaking away from the progressive heating of the air the closer he got to his objective.

In a burst of speed, he fired a continuous beam of PoD from his right arm and tried carving a path to Riser and protect the little left of his body.

The source of the deadly flames barely began to back away before Julian grabbed something and, not having time to realise the attack had been interrupted, crashed into the ground at supersonic speed with his catch.

—————

*BOOOOOM*

uprooting trees and digging a trench dozens of meters long in the ground, Julian's form could be barely seen from all the smoke and dust covering him.

The left half of his body was almost completely gone, burned to ash by the attack.

Beneath him with his hand grasping his throat tighly, Riser's eyes bulged gazing at him.

Riser could only light himself with his flames under Julian's iron grip.

"You should've taken the chance I gave you of a fair fight." However, the only reaction Riser's got was barely restrained rage-filled words as Julian covered Riser's skin with PoD, negating the move.

"Because I can play dirty too." Julian growled and pinned Riser's shoulders to the ground with his wings, using their points as a blade. Then, he crushed his throat and teared it out. At the same time, he paralysed him with a constant stream of grey lightning, sparing no expense.

With his only remaining arms, Julian savagely ripped his arms away.

But brutalising Riser and teaching him an unforgivable lesson was just a side goal as he closely monitered the process of the Phenex clan's regeneration.

He had locked away his EV before the fight because he couldn't show it to the world. So he couldn't uses its time factor to heal himself.

Living with multiple racial abilities and bloodlines. Julian had always been curious about how they worked exactly, be them just being magical sheneanigans or true science. That was why he had been studying about them since he had access to his clan library.

Everything there was to know about bloodlines was already documented. That's why the people of the supernatural world knew that it couldn't be replicated, despite the numerous experiment there had been on them in the past. Julian was no exception to the rule.

He couldn't replicate it, but in theory, he could borrow the ability of a bloodline for a time if he had a source at hand that wasn't too much stronger than him.

That's why, creating a screen of mana filled mist around him and Riser. Julian relocated one of his wing to plunge into Riser's chest to pierce his heart.

Entering a quick state of meditation, Julian forced his wing to suck in the surrounding mana.

Feeling the mana inside Riser's trash about but still slowly being filtered inside him at a rate about a hundred time slower than unclaimed mana would. He flexed his willpower over his wing to not purify the burning energy he could feel slowly creeping up into his body from his leathery appendage.

When he felt it settle inside his demonic magical reserve, he tensed as a burning feeling rose up from the foreign energy trying to wreck his inside. Yet, the feeling quickly disappeared as his magical energy fought against it, his holy, demonic and even his current reserve of destructive energy.

His holy and demonic magic were inferior to the Bloodline magic, but they would have won the struggle because of their quantity in the end.

As for his Bloodline magic, — destructive energy in its raw material and PoD in its refined state — it was on equal standing with the immortality energy in term of quality. So they simply canceled each other when they came in contact.

But he didn't want to destroy the Immortality energy. He wanted to used it, and for that. He needed to subdue it with a bloodline of crushing superiority.

That's why when the orange-pink energy coming from his Nephalem bloodline came into contact with the Yellow like energy of the phenex bloodline, it froze completely and stopped trashing completely when it became encircled.

It wasn't that it wanted to surrender, in fact, Julian knew that any bloodline energy would fight until their own destruction or their stealer's when captured.

The reason they stopped was because their destruction wasn't something of their accord anymore. As the Phenex's bloodline energy couldn't even scratch Julian's EC energy.

To use any kind of mana effectively, it needed to be obediant and still. Something that would never happen with stolen Bloodline mana normally.

Just like Julian, Riser's bloodline mana that was used to produce their bloodline's magic came form his demonic mana. These two reserves were interchangeable, so if Riser wanted to keep regenerating, he had to keep producing this mana in permanence.

If he wasn't using his regeration right now, Julian would have just got classic demonic mana instead.

Hence, the reason Julian kept mutilating Riser's.

When he deemed it enough, he forced the mana to act as it was created to do, regenerate.

A chill of disgust passed through his spine as he used his Nephalem's bloodline to coarse a lesser one to heal him, but he ignored it.

It was obvious that the regeneration was less efficient than with Riser. But his burned skin still proceeded to flake away as his entire body was engulfed in fire.

A couple of seconds later with a brand new body, Julian laughed a bit hysterically as he flexed his renewed left arm. The familiar glee of a theory working when he needed it to making him remember how much loved researching.

Because of his success, his anger had diminished quite a bit, who knew dismembering and trashing Riser would be so therapeutic?

Still...

Punching Riser's head to a pulp with his brand new left hand, Julian stood up from his position above Riser and stopped fueling magic to his grey lightning.

This paralysing stunt had left him pretty low on his reserves. If only his devil's side. He was still full on holy energy and EC.

Having his heart stops beating for a minute hadn't killed Riser, but he sure looked pretty weak, and very... Shaken.

Taking into account the tearing arms part, his regeneration should not be that far from clocking out.

If there was something that made Julian confident in his win despite running low on magic, it was the fact that it was clear that he was physically superior to a caster like Riser. Recent Ultimate-Class or not.

And seriously, that was all he needed.

Coating the side of one of his hand with thick PoD. Julian sliced Riser's body into tiny bits in the spam of a single second.

Then he waited for him to heals and not letting him any time to react, he did it again, and again. And that, until Riser stopped bursting into flame because of his injuries and instead turned into ashes.

—————

Leaping exactly ten meters away from the ashes. Julian's face was a mask of neutrality as a fiery pillar of flame erupted barely a foot away from his position.

Thinking back shortly on the past 2 minutes or so while the pillar faded away. Julian had to admit that he was lucky.

Without his protective bubble of wind, he would have instantly lost. With the damage he was dealt only the result of the flames heating up its surrounding. Coming into contact with the white flames would have burnt to a crisp in seconds such were the potency of a Ultimate-Class main magic.

Being only a caster who never trained his body made Riser's weak on the physical aspect. But in exchange it made his magic rather strong, he couldn't deny it.

Seeing Riser's form emerging from the wisps remaining of the pillar, Julian smiled codly.

"What's the matter Riser? You seems pretty pale. Maybe you should surrender if you're not feeling well." Julian suggested seeing the state Riser was in.

"Y-You..." Riser opened his mouth and closed it, fear in his eyes. He knew damn well what Julian just did. But he he didn't know what to say, and he was traumatized from the recent experience of being rip apart so helplessly.

"No, don't say anything. I don't know why you attacked me like that, even eliminating your sister in the process. And I don't care. Because you failed at whatever you wanted to achieve with that cheap shot in the end."

Julian took a step forward, making Riser takes a step back. "I just want to know if you want to follow on our little testing session of how your regeneration heals all different type of injuries."

A bit of awareness came back to Riser's eyes. And with it came humiliation and anger, strong enough to push back the fear. "Giving up? After what you've done to me!?"

Riser's roared and answered with a burst of fire at Julian's face.

Dodging it, Julian's eyes steeled. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Using his superior speed, he blurred and uppercuted Riser's into the sky.

Then, chasing after him. He flew around every attacks the Phenex threw at him. Be it fireballs or streams of sustained flame.

When Riser would cover himself in his own fire to keep him at bay, Julian would drop to the ground and throw whatever he could find at Riser. Boulders, trees or intact buildings, he would use them to keep his distance and harass him. Even coating some on them with PoD to keep riser on edge.

The moment Riser stopped immoling himself either to stop the annoying attacks or conserve his mana. Julian would blitz pass him and cut his body in two with an hand coated in PoD. In the process, he would also tug and separate one of the two body part to deal the most damage to Riser's reserve.

This scenario repeated multiple times between Riser and Julian as the former tried landing even a single hit upon the later and the later chipped at the former reserve.

Who had the upper in the tug of war was evident, as one made more and more mistake out of frustration or tiredness while the other never faltered in methodically taking his pound of flesh each time the opportunity presented himself.

"ARGH! STOP DODGING AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" With bloodshot eyes, Riser stopped trying to hit Julian with his magic and brandished his fists which he lit aflame in challenge.

Stopping his flight in front of Riser and ducking under a wild right, Julian squinted and shrugged. "Fighting like a man? You lost the opportunity the moment you tried finishing me off behind my back when I wished for nothing else. But since this is quite boring, and frankly too easy. I'll grant you your wish."

Tilting his head to evade another punch, Julian grinned wickedly. "Let me warn you just in case. I don't do refund."

Bringing his hands into a hammer, he smashed Riser into the ground from the sky. The impact forming a ten meters wide crater into the ashes covered earth that was now most of the pocket dimension.

Dropping to the ground himself, Julian waited for Riser to stand up before he took a loose boxing stance and jabbed at his face. Breaking his nose and caving his head in with his light hits.

His head regenerating slowly from his exhaustion, Riser ignored his injuries and tried hitting back at Julian.

Weaving fluidly under everything Riser was throwing at him, Julian profited a laps between the blows he was receiving to whip a devastating right at Riser's jaw. Outright punching all his teeth out and breaking his neck.

Blocking a kick with his arms, Julian stepped forward and explosively kneed Riser's in the side. No doubt obliterating his kindney and a couple of other internal organs.

Seeing how sluggish Riser's was and how much time his injuries took to heal. Julian stopped and took a step back. "You lost, Riser. Give up."

Shaking on his feet from tiredness, Riser laughed bitterly if not a bit crazily, his eyes dazed as he answered. "Me? The great Riser? Losing? Impossible."

Julian calmly stood still as Riser advanced toward him. Letting him rest his fist on his chest in what was a pathetic excuse of a punch. The embers still coating it barely singing his skin.

Staying like that for a few seconds, Julian put one hand on Riser's shoulder and pushed him off him. Watching and not doing anything as his body slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Seeing Riser's vanishing into blue motes of light and hearing his victory be announced. Julian snorted at how things had turned out.

Nevertheless, a small satisfied smile slowly rose upon his face as he had won in the end and at everything he gained.

Indeed, because of how desperate he had been and how hard he had fought in this fight. The itch in his back was no more, now, the sensation was actually painful. He could feel something fondamentally changing within him.

And that wasn't all, as he had unlocked another aspect of the seven capital sins earlier during the fight.

Wrath.