Dani Asterio VS Oberon Slicious

"I don't give a fuck about your plans... I couldn't care less about whatever scheme you have brewing, holding Sky until Eirikr can come back. I care about my friends. I don't care about your underhanded tactics or your mental integrity," I told Ultima.

At the very will of my fingers, I cut Ultima in half, cut a deep wound into Novi's leg, and narrowly avoided Mizu as I walked toward Oberon.

The ground cracked underneath us as a large mound of dirt from underneath our feet started to rise out of the Earth.

As Ali Asterio once did in The First Trial, I rose the ground up to avoid the others and their interference, placing Oberon and me up into the air far above the reaches of Ultima.

"You're still working this hard to save Sky Asterio? It is absolutely pathetic how much you care for a man that would dump you out like garbage," Oberon attempted to antagonize me more, but his attempts were unfruitful.

My hair began to glide in the wind as it rested on my shoulders and pushed up. Focusing on Oberon was my only goal. I had no aspirations to fight Ultima anymore and refused to interfere in any more battles.

The key to this altercation is resting on his neck. All I had to do was obtain it. 

With a mound of the Earth floating up higher into the sky, I ran at Oberon with the intent to kill I noticed through the furrowed eyebrows on his head that violence was the only answer to his plight to 'stop' me.

With a quick flip from my end and a slash down to end it, Oberon caught my saber and pushed it backward. It didn't cut through his hand anymore, but I had already planned for such an annoying trait.

I dropped the saber while it was still in his hand and charged my hand back with as much power as I could muster, infusing it with gravity to heighten the force of the blow.

Six jabs toward the right side of Oberon's head and he would be dead.

I threw the first.

Blocked.

Second.

Blocked.

Third.

Blocked.

He masterfully blocked all of the jabs I threw at him without paying any attention to his other side. He was reading my movement perfectly, refusing to give up even an ounce of his guard to let an attack slip through.

His hand moved back and forth, with his fingers attempting to grab onto my hand where he could. I stopped on the fifth punch after he blocked the fourth, and kicked at his heels next to flip him on his back.

He took the hit gracefully and flew up into the air, parallel with the floating block of Earth I rose into the ground.

I flipped my body upward, enhancing the force of my punch with the gravity in swirling up my arm, only for Oberon to take it gracefully and allow the ground beneath us to crack in half from the pressure.

He bounced off of the ground without even the slightest eye movement, following me as blood seeped from his back.

His spine was poking out of the very top of his back, broken from the pressure of the attack. However, Oberon still stood confidently with a frown on his face and dead eyes. He was alive, but felt no pain?

No... Oberon should've wailed out in agony from what I did to him. I broke his back, I should've paralyzed him completely.

"Why do you fight me, knowing how pointless it is?" Oberon asked me.

I came at him again with my fists raised, throwing several more punches toward his face from the side.

He flicked his arm back and forth, defusing, deflecting, and pushing me in several directions to throw me off my balance. It was horrifying seeing how he pieced together a strategy to beat me without even attacking back at me. The sheer scale of power I've experienced peaked at the ability to wield Golden Strands as powerful as Illya and Sky.

However.

Oberon was a live demonstration of how winning wasn't always just about strength. I should've known. Avie, Hikari, and Umbra are the embodiments of bringing more than just strength to the table.

Speed... Intelligence...

[Oberon cannot feel pain. He is not human.]

Hikari filled me in on the information I missed as I focused my mind on purely attacking. 

I created distance between Oberon and myself, looking from a point of view that Hikari would be proud of.

"You're letting me attack to throw me off balance and get what you want out of this, that's what you're doing, aren't you?" I asked him.

"Oh? It looks like you're smart after all... I can't believe it. I thought Sky Asterio permanently plagued your intelligence," Oberon added once more.

The insults toward Sky no longer affected me, but I had to take care of him in one strike. He couldn't throw me off-balance if I killed him in one move.

I moved toward him again with all of the fathomable speed set in my body. Both Hikari and the Eye of Providence predicted a path in which I could strike at Oberon's necklace and free the orb. I moved, as fast as I could.

As my hand got closer and closer to Oberon's neck in the flash of a second, I watched his eyes move frighteningly fast from staring at my old position to moving toward the new one. He predicted my path before it happened.

Millions of thoughts flooded in my mind as I considered how he could do such a thing. Nobody was fast enough to break the flow of gravity. Not even Avie could beat me out with how much swirled around my body, so what was different with Oberon?!

Think Dani... think...

Then, as my arm broke under the pressure of his fist stopping my trajectory, I saw it in his eyes. Oberon wasn't a human.

Hikari was right, this man wasn't human. He's not an Arkian... he's... a Strand-Entity, like Sky...

A being capable of forcing his entire being into any state he wants, paired with the Dimensional Eyes... that's why he's the one to hold onto Sky.