Book 13: Part 14 – Hiken

In response, Ace didn't say anything. He merely spread his palm, allowing for his glaive to fly into his palm, as he lazily waited for Teresia to begin.

Seeing Ace's expression only served to anger Teresia further, but he had nothing further to say. Instead, he attacked, holding nothing back – determined to forcibly wipe that lazy and unbothered expression off of his opponent's face.

As Teresia attacked, the expressions of most of those watching turned into one of surprise, and that included Ace.

The reason behind their surprise was because, as Teresia's sword moved, it was layered with an almost otherworldly grace and radiance. Something only possible by those who had begun cultivating a Concept.

The only ones who didn't seem surprised were the three Overgods, all of whom were able to see through Teresia's progress with a mere glance. Still, whilst a glint of anticipation flickered through Phueus' eyes, Orloff and Bluefire seemed wholly unphased – they had complete and utter confidence in Ace.

As for Ace, as he wasn't an Overgod, he wasn't able to see through Teresia before he took action, but once he did, he could clearly see that in 2000 years, he had actually become a paragon of the Concept of Wind.

It was a feat that made Ace raise an eyebrow as he, more than anyone, understood how difficult such a task was. Still, aside from a trace of surprise, Ace didn't feel much else. It would take a lot more than that to phase Ace as he was now.

Unfortunately, Teresia had no idea how much Ace had grown. As he neared his opponent, he could practically feel his sword slicing through his neck unimpeded. Although he wasn't using the power of his Will, he wasn't holding anything else back. As far as he was concerned, it was too powerful for Ace, who didn't have the support of his wife or friends. Unfortunately, reality was far from what he had expected.

Instead of trying to block or parry, Ace met offence with offence. The tip of his glaive tore through the air, bending space around it as it clashed with the tip of Teresia's sword.

Both men took exactly three steps back before coming to a stop, but whilst Ace remained just as calm and collected as he did at the start, Teresia's eyes were filled with undisguised shock.

It had to be understood that although it hadn't quite met the level of the average Lesser Sovereign, after breaking through to become a Full God, his Spiritual Essence had long since surpassed the bounds of a deity and was rapidly approaching the level of a Lesser Sovereign. Between that and the ethereal nature of his [Observation Haki], it made it impossible for even a Chief Sovereign like Wodred to see through him.

Just like with Teresia, it was only when Ace moved that everyone was able to see that he had impressively managed to become a Full God in the Mandate of Pure Yang. Still, that didn't explain how he was able to match up to Teresia's Will-powerless, but otherwise, still full-powered strike.

The truth of that, though, was three-fold. First was the power of his body; his blessings for creating Pure Yang made it so that even without [Armament Haki], his body was still equal to that of a humanoid Apex Divine Beast of the same level, but when his [Armament Haki] was added to the mix, the raw power of his body was no weaker than that of his Spiritual Essence – approaching the level of a Lesser Sovereign.

Second was the power of his Divine Essence. Once again, thanks to the blessings for being the progenitor of Pure Yang, The Heavens blessed Ace by increasing the power of his Divine Essence 2000x those at the same level. The average High God's divine power was ten times that of a Full God, a High God Paragon's Divine Power was ten times that, and the Sovereign Power of a Lesser Sovereign was 100x that of a High God Paragon and 10,000x that of an ordinary Full God.

Although Teresia's Sovereign Power was still five times stronger than that of Ace's, the difference wasn't too vast. Still, between the difference between their physical abilities and Divine and Sovereign Essence, Teresia should've come out on top, by a significant margin at that, but that was where the third truth part came into play, and that third part stemmed from Ace's comprehension of two of the Mandates of True Yang. Specifically the Mandates of the Pure Yang Body and Explosions.

As previously mentioned, the Mandate of the Pure Yang body allowed Ace to significantly increase the power of his physical body, and when fused with the Mandate of Explosions, that increase in physical ability became all the more explosive, to the point where, in a direct clash, Ace didn't lose out in the slightest against even a Sovereign like Teresia.

Ace could understand the shock Teresia felt, but he didn't care. As he said before, he no longer saw Lesser Sovereigns like Teresia as a worthy opponent.

Casually spinning his glaive around his fingers, Ace explained that he couldn't be bothered to continue this façade anymore. Next, it was his turn to attack, and he wouldn't be holding back.

Ace's arrogance instantly snapped Teresia out of his daze and back to reality, but before he could voice his anger and frustration over being looked down upon by a mere deity, his eyes constricted into pinholes as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge.

It wasn't just him, either. As Ace's soul self-materialised in the air behind him, the eyes of just about every Sovereign present constricted as they felt something that, by all measures, should be completely and utterly impossible.

Even Phueus and the former Spirit of Darkness turned weapon soul frowned as they felt Ace's Willpower.

Before his most recent breakthrough, Ace had accumulated seven units of Will. After becoming a Full God, thanks to his heavenly blessing, Ace's Willpower doubled to 14. Incredible for a deity, but still weaker than even the weakest of Lesser Sovereigns, let alone Teresia, who now had a total of 22. But when using his Divine Ability, Ace's Willpower reached a new grand total of 28.

Looking at Ace, Teresia, for the first time since their battle began, felt genuine heart-wrenching fear. He felt like an insignificant little mortal that had flown too close to the sun. Any thoughts of fighting back had been incinerated. As his sword dropped from his hand, the only thing on his mind was escaping.

Without a second thought, Teresia turned and tore through the void to escape, and as a Lesser Sovereign of the Wind – an element known for its speed – his speed was anything but slow, but Ace revealed why his Mandate of Pure Yang was so impressive.

This time, Ace revealed his new movement technique, which utilised three of his six comprehended mandates; The Mandate of the Pure Yang Body was used to increase his physical abilities to its maximum. The Mandate of Explosions was used to increase his explosive speed, allowing him to reach his top speed almost instantaneously. And last was The Pure Yang Mandate of Warped Light.

The Mandate of Warped Light was the evolved combination of The Law of Fire's Profound Mystery of Mirage and The Law of Light's Profound Mystery of Refraction. Both allowed users to create illusions, but where the Mystery of Refraction was focused on confusing one's vision, the Mystery of Mirage was focused on distorting the sight of one's soul. When fused, not only did they cover up for the weakness of the other, but they elevated the illusion capabilities of the user several times over.

Ace was never one for illusions – he always preferred the direct approach, but upon realising its capabilities, he knew that he would be a fool if he didn't find a method to incorporate this particular Mandate into his fighting style.

It had only been a fraction of a second, and yet Teresia had not only entered chaotic space but also travelled hundreds of thousands of miles. Unfortunately, Ace wasn't one to be outdone.

His steps were casual and light, and yet, with each step Ace took, not only was he able to shorten the distance between them, but Teresia felt as though the world around him was distorting, making it hard to tell up from down and left from right.

Thankfully for him, Teresia was a battle-hardened veteran with billions of years of experience. He may not have understood how exactly Ace was doing it, but he did know it was an illusion of some sort; as such, he stopped attempting to use his eyes and/or soul to see what was happening and just focused on moving in any direction as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, just understanding it was an illusion wasn't enough. Unless one was able to see through it, escaping its effects was all but impossible.

As they entered the void to watch the ending of this shocking fight, the other Sovereigns were shocked to find Teresia, who effectively had a headstart flying around in seemingly random directions – although his overall direction was correct (being away from Ace), sometimes he flew at a downward angle away from Ace, and then he'd arc his flight to the left away from Ace.

And yet, all the while, Ace would casually walk in his direction, slowly cutting the distance with each step until he was finally within striking range.

Remembering the sight of Teresia dropping his sword – a sword that should, by all intents and purposes should, be Teresia's partner after he began cultivating Concepts – Ace casually said that using his glaive to strike down such a shameful swordsman would be doing a disservice to his glaive.

As he said that, he raised his fist, allowing for a bright golden flame to coat his fist as he thrust forward to use a technique he hadn't used in thousands of years now – a technique he had created during his first life.

A golden-fist-shaped flame tore through space, completely enveloping Teresia's body and incinerating it in but a second, but all that could be heard was Ace's indifferent voice, "Hiken!"

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