Difficulty Increase

Seeing her like this, Suki couldn't help but reel back for a moment, having never realized Tylia was so… Committed to Minos.

In her eyes he saw absolute faith, as if even if the sky were to fall, she was confident Minos would be there to hold it up for her.

He couldn't understand this kind of devotion, after all he was born royalty, others would only show devotion towards him, never the other way around.

Of course with his sickness, he could only experience such looks from peasants who knew no better, but it couldn't compare.

After all they only looked up towards him in ignorance, seeing him for his title and bloodline, not who he truly was.

But Tylia really knew Minos, and this devotion was towards him and himself only, not his title, not his bloodline, and not even his powers, just who he was.

He couldn't help but become a little bit envious, but as he remembered he would soon be cured, he managed to hold back these sour feelings.

Once he awakened his physique, it wouldn't take long for people to start looking at him that way, and not out of ignorance, but out of genuine reverence.

…

'Close.' Minos thought, still feeling the heat that singed his skin as the bolt traveled past.

Returning to his normal stance, he looked at the puppet that was getting ready to volley another attack towards him.

Using the same move once more, the tower clearly thought that Minos had only dodged out of luck.

But as he once again avoided the move, it was beginning to become clear that he was somehow predicting the lightning's movement beforehand.

This time the puppet didn't levy the usual attack, instead pointing both its hands upwards, even confusing Minos for a moment.

While he wasn't sure what the puppet was going to do, he knew it would be dangerous, so he prepared himself accordingly.

As the puppets arms reached full extension, it released a few bolts upwards, but rather than hitting the ceiling like one would expect them too, they quickly came to a pause, fusing into one another.

It didn't take long for a massive orb of electricity to form above the puppets head, little arcs of lightning constantly flashing throughout it.

With a wave of both its arms, the lightning orb rocketed towards Minos, quickly entering his space.

Like a flame touching a fuse, the second it arrived near Minos, it seemed to 'ignite' immediately exploding into hundreds of smaller bolts.

While these bolts lacked the ferocity and strength of the puppets earlier attacked, they won out in terms of sheer numbers.

But even so, it seemed the puppet thought this wasn't enough, so at the same moment the orb reached Minos, it also slammed its foot down.

As its foot smashed into the floor, it sent a wave of lightning out from within itself, almost immediately arriving at Minos through the ground.

While this move was far too weak to do any sizable damage, it was more than enough to paralyze Minos for a moment, which was all it needed.

The brilliance of this move was that the only way Minos could dodge was by jumping, but doing that would just put him directly in the orb's path of attack.

As for not jumping, it went without saying that also wasn't an option, meaning at this point, Minos had been completely cornered.

'Well played, unfortunately your opponent is me.' Minos smirked, his True Vision once again activating at full force.

But this time, rather than using his Future Sight, he instead made use of the other heaven-defying ability of his True Vision.

Looking down at the electricity traveling towards him through the floor, time seemed to slow down, Minos absorbing all of the attack's information.

Almost immediately, everything about the lightning entered his mind, from the energy contained within it, to its speed of movement, even its weight.

But he ignored 99% of the information, mainly focusing on the energy within it, which was the main problem.

With a thought, he quickly dialed the number back temporarily, dropping it to an amount he could handle without any paralysis.

As he did so, he felt the drain on his stamina, fortunately the change was small, so it didn't affect him much.

At the same time, his head snapped up, looking towards the dozens of bolts heading down towards him.

With a wave of his arms, a large thick wind shield formed in front of him, purposely only blocking the attacks that had a chance to hit him.

Due to the weakness of the move, plus Minos only targeting the bolts that may hurt him, the wind shield managed to hold, though only barely.

However the tower didn't seem to care about that at all, just wondering how Minos could make that move when he had clearly been struck by the floor electricity.

He should have been stunned temporarily, making it impossible to defend himself, but it was like the attack had completely missed.

However the tower was certain the attack had landed, it had clearly seen as much directly.

Once again it was stuck wondering if Minos had some other hidden move, one that could grant him temporary immunity.

Or maybe he had a special physique that made him more durable? Or maybe he just had a lightning affinity, making attacks of such nature less effective? Or maybe it was something else?

With a spread of its incredibly powerful Divine Sense, it attempted to scan Minos's body, but while it could clearly sense him, everytime it attempted to probe deeper, it failed.

Like a drop of water returning to the sea, despite the strength of its Divine Sense, Minos's body seemed endless, it only capable of perceiving vast swathes of boundless darkness.

Pulling its Divine Sense back, it reached the same conclusion it seemed to always reach with Minos, which was that it just didn't know.

It frustrated the tower to no end, after all it was used to mastering whoever entered it, but Minos seemed impossible to grasp.

Such a lack of control reminded it of one person, its master, the Nine-Tailed Emperor himself.

The comparison just further angered it, after all in the towers mind, no one could compare to its master, so Minos's performance was just a mockery.

It didn't plan on doing this at first, after all its master had clearly warned it to never do this unless absolutely necessary, but Minos had crossed its bottom line too many times.

Deep within the core of the tower, the tower's soul gathered a small vial, a green wisp held within it.

'I know you warned me, master, but he forced me, so I'm sure you'll understand!' The tower thought, opening the vial and sending the wisp down into the puppets body.

The wisp was invisible, but given Minos's nature, he immediately sensed something strange, snapping open his Soul Vision before looking towards the puppet.

There he saw a small green soul wisp enter the puppet through the top of its head, causing its movement to pause for a split second.

After only a moment, the puppet came back too, but this time it had a vitality it had lacked in the past.

And Minos knew exactly why. That strange green soul wisp had taken a vessel within the puppets body, giving it life.

Even more strange was that Minos was somewhat familiar with this soul accent, having experienced it before in the Nine-Tailed Emperor's phantom.

'It couldn't be…' He thought, but as the puppet spoke, his impractical thoughts were proven true.

"To think I'd come back this way, didn't I warn that silly tower to only make use of my soul wisps sparingly?"

Despite having no mouth, the 'puppets' words immediately traveled into Minos's mind, the voice so iconic he could never forget it.

"Nine-Tailed Emperor?" Minos asked, his voice a little uncertain.

"Heh, it's you again little fella. To think we'd meet again so soon, I guess this is fate."

"I thought you were dead?" Minos couldn't help but ask.

"Dead? Yes and no. If you can make it to the blossoming, you'll understand, until then, this isn't something you need to concern yourself with."

"Blossoming?" Minos asked again, having never heard this term before.

"I've already said too much, of course given your talent, you'll know eventually, so just be patient. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'm here to fight you, so come on." He said, raising his puppet hands.

"Fight?"

"That's right. Don't tell me you're scared."

"Quite the opposite. Ever since I first heard your name, I've wanted to fight you. To think the chance would actually come." Minos smiled, raising his hands in turn.

"Hahaha, that's the right attitude, but be warned, I've fought thousands of opponents in my lifetime, and I can count the number of times I've been defeated on one hand, so don't think it'll be easy."

"If it was easy, you wouldn't be the Nine-Tailed Emperor. No, it's your strength that makes it so exciting!"