New Strength

Looking towards Tylia's soul, Minos focused slightly, causing the cloudy soul to suddenly become clear, revealing all of Tylia's thoughts at this moment.

His Omniscient Eyes of the past weren't this efficient, and while he could look at memories, they were a bit choppy and unclear a lot of the time, making them a bit unreliable in battle.

But now they were completely crisp, as if Minos was directly in Tylia's brain, listening in on all of her thoughts, whether verbal or visual.

'Compared to last time, I understand Minos a lot more now, especially after understanding how he won the Battle of Strategy.'

'He isn't one to attack strongly, instead preferring to win with weakness, exploiting his enemies' excitement to his own advantage.'

'Last time I attacked with no regard, letting him exploit me, but not this time.'

'Instead I've got to goad him into attacking, but how…'

Smiling as he read all of Tylia's thoughts, Minos decided to surprise her slightly, bolting towards her just as she had that last thought.

Having not expected Minos's sudden movements, Tylia was slightly shocked, but she quickly reacted, blocking Minos's heavy punch.

Switching over to his True Vision, Minos activated his Future Vision, the world once again splitting into two.

Retaking control of his body, Minos once again began fighting with 'future' Tylia, understanding all her moves.

Reading her mind didn't actually help much, after all, a lot of her reactions were purely instinctual.

But Future Vision didn't care about instincts, revealing the entire future equally, nothing hidden from it.

After the minute was up, the entire world seemed to immediately rewind to a minute ago, though Minos reacted instantly.

Already knowing exactly what Tylia was going to do, he easily evaded the attack, though Tylia wouldn't give up so easily.

However after a few moves, she realized Minos was easily avoiding every punch, like he had already predicted it beforehand.

A bit surprised, she decided to change her strategy, which seemed to work, because this time Minos blocked rather than dodging.

The future was prone to change, and since Tylia had changed, the images he had seen before no longer helpful.

But Minos still had plenty of energy, so he once again activated his Future Vision, though this time he only looked one move ahead, which was only a split second or so given how fast the two were fighting.

With this strategy, Minos once again began easily dodging Tylia's attacks, but this time no matter how hard she changed her strategy, Minos still saw through it.

"What the hell! How are you doing that!" She shouted in frustration as another punch flew past his nose.

"What can I say, some people are just born for combat." Minos laughed, stoking Tylia's anger even more.

"Enough playing around, time for the big guns!"

Having shouted that, Tylia began gathering Nux around her body, forming ice armor and a long ice spear.

With a mighty swing, she slammed the spear towards Minos, causing him to quickly jump back, barely avoiding the blow.

"I didn't know you used spears."

"You don't know a lot of things about me!" She replied, her large ice spear leaving behind phantoms as it rapidly stabbed at Minos.

"Good moves." Minos laughed, not at all afraid.

Instead, like a belly dancer, his hips began rhythmically moving side to side, easily dodging the spear by only a hair each time.

Tylia had first thought that Minos's Divine Sense was the reason he dodged things so easily, but with his current movements, she was finding that harder to believe.

As strong as Divine Sense was, when it came to two people of similar strength, it didn't actually help much.

Instead it was mostly used to avoid surprise attacks, making it near impossible for one to be caught off-guard.

Of course some people were born with powerful souls or cultivated soul techniques, which in turn gave them stronger Divine Sense's, which would give them an edge, but not one this blatant.

She had fought plenty of peers, and while she wasn't sure how strong Minos was, based on their earlier confrontations, he was likely at the early stages of Aperture Opening as well.

He would have to have a Divine Soul comparable to mid stage or even late stage Aperture Opening Realm Cultivator to be able to see through her so clearly, but how likely was that?

Though after a little further thinking, she remembered just how unique Minos was, so maybe his Divine Sense really was that powerful.

Shaking her head slightly, she put these thoughts behind her, having realized these small range attacks wouldn't have much effect on him.

Hence, with a thought she quickly gathered the Nux around her with her Divine Sense, combining it with her own to form a massive ice tornado.

"Take this!" She shouted, sending the freezing twister towards him.

Though rather than running like Tylia had expected he'd do, Minos just stood in place, his eyes looking towards the tornado that was rapidly heading towards him, all it's information becoming clear to True Vision.

It didn't take much looking for Minos to find its weak spot, summoning the Abyss Flame into his hand before feeding it the Nux in the environment via his Divine Sense.

As it devoured the Nux, it began expanding in size, Minos finally tossing it once it reached the right point.

Flying forward, Minos controlled the Abyss Flame into the eye of the tornado before releasing itself in an explosion in the opposite direction.

Thanks to his True Vision, Minos not only knew where the eye of the tornado was, but he also knew exactly how much energy he needed to dissipate it.

As the energy of the explosion and the tornadoe met, the two forces quickly neutralized one another, causing the tornado to quickly break down into ice shards and dust.

"H-how!" Tylia could only utter in shock, not even understanding how Minos had pulled that off.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Screw this, I quit." Tylia said, dissipating her ice armor and spear.

"Giving up already?"

"I'm not giving up, I've just realized any more fighting is pointless."

"So you're giving up."

"... Fine, I'm giving up. What did you even call me to fight for, did you just want to humiliate me again?" Tylia said with some annoyance.

"Of course not, I was genuine in what I said, I just never expected I'd have gotten so much stronger." Minos replied honestly.

"I'll believe you this time… Anyways, with your current power you should have no problem with the Battle of Strength, meaning kingship is as good as yours!" Tylia said with shining eyes, her depression rapidly vanishing.

This time Minos didn't even bother acting humble, his confidence in his new strength making him quite certain of victory.

"On that note, we'd better go meetup with Suki. The battles going to begin soon, and I doubt he wants to be late."

"To think he'd be more excited about this than I would." Minos smiled.

"Well it is his entire future at stake here, so this may very well be more important to him than you."

"Fair enough. Then let's not make him wait any longer."

…

"Finally here? I almost thought you guys had forgotten about me." Suki said as the two entered his room.

"We were just sparring a bit before the big battle." Tylia responded.

"Oh? Who won?"

"... That doesn't matter, what does matter is that Minos should be strong enough to at least place within top ten in this next competition!" Tylia answered.

"That's great news! As long as he can achieve that, his victory is pretty much guaranteed!" Suki replied excitedly.

The hope of being cured was getting closer and closer to Suki, so much so that he found himself invigorated with new energy these past few days.

He had no idea that a man he had only bet on due to his lack of options would be such a tremendous dark horse!

All that was left was the final hurdle, after that they were home-free, and not only would he hopefully be cured, but the next king would also become his close ally.

"Well then, what are we waiting for, let's set off!" He shouted as he thought of all this, feeling a sense of exhilaration he had never experienced before.

"Hahaha, that's the spirit! Let's go!" Tylia echoed, sharing the enthusiasm, though Minos was just smiling calmly as he usually did.