Deep Water Sorceries

Axiolypito rushed at great speed in spite of the enormous pressure trying to crush him from every single angle.

He had to make sure to keep touching the ground, fearing that the pressure would be strong enough to maintain him in the air, turning him into nothing more than a practice target.

As such, he ran close to the ground like an animal as he rapidly closed in on the immobile mage.

He sneakily accumulated abyssal blood in his mouth as he first attempted something more typical, trying to hit the king with one of his instantaneous towers, one without Abyss first to test him.

The Old Hadal King didn't disappoint, the tower wasn't even able to start forming as the seed of challenge was destroyed instantly by blade of water, which almost claimed both of Axio's hands as well, had he moved out of its path.

The slashes tore through the room, appearing from wherever they wished and even homing in on Axiolypito, forcing him to contort himself to make them collide with one another, otherwise they wouldn't have gone away.

He didn't even need to try using his spawners in such an overt fashion to know that they would be destroyed too.

Inside of his zone, the king of the depths was aware of everything that happened almost instantly, and even if he did manage to set up one of his overcharged spawners and let whatever was inside loose on his opponent, it was highly doubtful that much would happen.

'Do I really have to keep facing enemies that counter me in every way?' the monster rolled his eyes as he dodged a flurry of water bullets, getting into position to spew the abyssal blood right at the king's eyes.

He spat it out similarly to one of those fish that spew water to push insects of branches, hoping that the Abyss would deal good damage to him.

Reality is harsh however and rather than hitting him square where Axio wanted, the dark blue blood splattered as if it had hit a hard surface and vanished entirely.

The Abyss had been dilluted in water, in a water barrier to be exact, which had only manifested when necessary.

This gave insight to Axiolypito about how exactly the king had managed to stop the Abyss and abyssal creatures from pouring out the breach.

Perfectly on cue, as if to confirm Axiolypito's thought, something tried coming out of the rift, only to be instantly shredded by the barrier placed in front of it.

The water in the barriers used by the king must be so dense that anything that entered into contact with it was instantly taken apart, but if that was the case, then the Old Hadal King would have simply needed to focus a bit to apply this same pressure onto his zone, even if only on localised scale.

Either achieved this sort of pressure wasn't so simple, or that wasn't what was happening at all, Axiolypito suspected the second option held more truth.

The abyssal blood had seemingly been dilluted incredibly fast and disappeared from view, although not an expert on the subject at all, he believed that this wouldn't have happened had his water magic simply been very densely packed.

It was more like, not only was it dense, making it much like an impenetrable wall, it was also moving at an incredible speed.

So it was like a small but unstoppable current was moving the barrier around at all times, making it both defensive and offensive spell, which could tear every single fiber of a creature and move it so fast that it seemingly disappeared.

'That will destroy my body instantly...' thought Axiolypito, acknowledging the dangerosity of this single spell and knowing just how proficient the king was, he probably had a lot more spells up his sleeves.

Axio's quick thinking was interrupted as the hadal king moved for the first time since the start of their fight, a swift movement that would make many warriors nod their heads in appreciation at the mere sight of it.

Coming from a mage, it was much more surprising, although Axio wasn't too impressed.

He had had a premium seat to witness Sir Solitar in action, who was definitely much more skilled than this and without using mana to boost his movements either, although Axiolypito couldn't tell that mana was being circulated throughout the king's body.

That didn't stop him from flinching a bit when he took a closer look at the mace head of the staff coming his way.

'Oh shit' he simply remarked to himself as he put his entire focus in evading the series of flowing strikes from the king, who was swinging his staff like a mace, spear and blade without problem.

Physical blows from him didn't scare Axio in the least, however, the Old Hadal King wasn't simply swinging his staff around, he had revealed to know a lot more about Axio than he reasonably should, so he obviously wasn't foolish enough to come at the monster in this way.

The deadly barrier was surrounding both his body and weapon, technically making him more deadly than Solitar was, as he could tear through Axiolypito by simply brushing up against him.

He even attempted strikes with his legs and fists, mixing things up to try and catch Axio off guard, even with the pressure bearing down on him and the threat in front, he wasn't thrown off and kept on dodging seamlessly, for it was his specialty, after running away.

He kept an eye for any pesky spell forming being his back, above his head or even below his feet but as none of those happen, he grew suspicious, it made no doubt in his mind that the king could both be fighting up close and cast spells, so for him to not do so was rather off putting.

A spell did soon form however, right next to his head, a small droplet of water that was vibrating a little bit...

And then another, and another and then a whole freaking lot!

The way they were behaving screamed one thing:

Explosion!

And indeed, the small droplets off condensed deep waters soon began detonating sending even smaller drops of waters that could pierced through armor as though it was butter flying everywhere as Axiolypito ran as far as he could from them.

Whilst he focused on evading this insidious attack, the Old Hadal King had slipped away from sight.

Or rather, glided out of sight as the ground had turned into a minuscule puddle, allowing the king to move around as if he was standing on some supersonic dolphins or something.

Twisting his head around like an owl, Axio saw the spiked end of the staff at just the right time to avoid having his brain shish kebabed, only having his temple grazed and losing the top of his hear.

'I have no idea how to defeat this guy...'