Fighting the Nine-Tailed Emperor

"What happened, why are they just standing around all of a sudden?" Orino asked his siblings.

Only Minos could hear the Nine-Tailed Emperor, as for them, it was just like Minos had gone crazy, speaking to the air.

"Not sure… But look, the puppet finally moved."

"Maybe the tower decided to raise the difficulty again." Asumi said, the two nodding, feeling like that made the most sense.

"I'm just curious how it could raise the difficulty any further. As it is, Minos is already outclassed in every regard, anything more would just be unfair." Orino said.

"He's outclassed yet he's still standing, not a single move having landed. It's clear the tower feels that any more fighting would just be a stalemate, so it decided to break the board all together."

"I just wonder if that's even enough, or will Minos push even further?" Asumi said, her eyes glued on the holograph, having never been this invested in anything before in her life.

…

"You've got quite the fighting spirit boy, I appreciate it. Since you're so confident, then I'll go ahead and make the first move."

"Be my guest." Minos smiled.

Returning the smile, Nine stomped on the floor, releasing dozens of wooden tendrils that grew out towards him.

"Wood? Interesting, I've never fought anyone with that element before!" Minos laughed, quickly summoning up a dozen wind blades to cut down the wooden tendrils.

"This isn't just any wood." Nine smirked, his tendrils speeding up even more as they slammed against Minos's wind scythes.

As the two came in contact, the cutting effect that Minos expected didn't happen, instead the wood easily shattered his wind blades and continued towards him.

Not even having the time to say anything, Minos immediately blessed his legs with wind power before jumping backwards, gracefully dodging the tendrils piercing towards him.

But the tendrils were relentless, and after the first one came dozens more, but Minos made perfect use of his Future Vision, weaving through the seemingly endless tendrils.

"Just what is this wood?" Minos couldn't help but ask as he continued dodging, having finally taken a good look at this strange wood.

While it looked normal on the surface, a closer inspection would reveal that its color was closer to a yellowish gold rather than the normal brownish one would expect.

On top of that, this wood was covered with small wooden spikes, each one with a fire-red tip that looked like it would burn at the slightest touch.

"Finally noticed? You couldn't have thought I used just any ordinary cultivation method, did you?" Nine laughed.

"Of course not, but this wood… It looks a little familiar." Minos said, his True Vision passively scanning the foreign wood.

"So that's what it is, Magma Emperor Wood!" Minos said, immediately recalling exactly where he had seen this.

It was back in Suki's mansion, when he had free reign in this library. There he had read a small excerpt about a kind of wood that had the same qualities as this one, unfortunately the information was extremely limited.

Though from the little he took, he knew Magma Emperor Wood was incredibly rare and valuable.

Just like the name suggested, Magma Emperor Wood could only be created when two already rare treasures came together.

The first one naturally being the Magma Dragon, as for the second one, that was the Golden Emperor Wood.

When nurtured via the heart blood of a Magma Dragon, the Golden Emperor Wood had a chance of mutating, turning into Magma Dragon Wood.

As for what qualities Magma Dragon Wood had, Minos had no idea, the records he had read only going that far.

"Oh? An astute one, aren't you? You're right, though just knowing its name won't help you much." Nine grinned, his hands clenching as he released another move.

As soon as he saw this, Minos's pupils immediately shrunk, his Instinct screaming at him that something bad was about to happen.

Like expected, the Magma Wood tendrils suddenly began vibrating chaotically, causing the red tips to start glowing with a demonic luster.

After reaching some sort of critical limit, they came to a stop, though this wasn't to say the trouble was over, instead quite the opposite.

Almost immediately after stopping, they suddenly shot out, each small spike extending out with no limit.

One or two of these spikes would be easy to dodge, but one had to know that each tendril alone had thousands of them, and there were dozens of such tendrils.

Hence in the snap of the finger, every single conceivable angle around Minos was covered, the spikes coming in from all directions.

While they were small, the sheer numbers were overwhelming, creating an all-encompassing wave of destruction.

At this point, some weaker hearted members of the audience couldn't help but cover their eyes, not wanting to see the tragedy that would soon come.

As for Minos, he was similarly stumped, none of his abilities capable of helping him against such a powerful attack.

Future Vision was useless, after all there was absolutely no way to dodge this attack, meaning even his Future Vision couldn't help him see a way out.

As for his Heart Path abilities, they wouldn't work against Nine who was so much stronger than him…

That was, except for the Heart Path abilities that didn't act against others, rather himself!

'Looks like I've got no other option. This may be suicidal, but it seems like I no longer have the option to play it safe…'

'Surprise, I have yet to use your abilities, so I hope you don't fail me now.'

'Era, Release!'

As he thought that time seemed to freeze completely, Minos's mind pulled to a strange realm.

In this strange place, his attention was immediately attracted to the large 'movie' playing ahead of him.

In that film he saw what seemed to be himself, though rather than the current him, it was the young him who was fresh into the world.

After a short view from that period of his life, the film cut, this time an older version of him appearing.

With another short viewing, the scene again changed, this time an even older version appearing.

This Minos had long gray hair and a thick beard, a smile on his face as he gently played away on a flute in a vast green field.

Seemingly hearing someone running up behind him, this old man Minos turned towards the noise, the smile on his face becoming even wider.

But before Minos could see who he was smiling for, the vision again swapped, once more playing snapping to a random period in his life.

The interesting part was that these periods could be portions he had already lived, or even one's he hadn't, this ability seemingly capable of seeing his future.

Unfortunately each vision was too short to take anything from, and the more time passed, the faster the 'movie' seemed to become.

By the end of it each scene was moving so rapidly that it was only a blur, Minos no longer able to take anything from it.

Just as he was beginning to wonder when exactly this would come to an end, the 'movie' stopped.

Focusing, Minos saw a middle-aged version of him, though considering his cultivation, this middle-aged version didn't look much older.

The only real difference were the crows feet that had started forming around his eyes, denoting his slowly advancing age.

Of course Minos was already 'immortal' due to his Aptus, though these figures' appearances seemed more reflective of his mental age.

Before he could question anything, the middle-aged man turned towards him with a familiar smile, the two's eyes fusing together.

With what seemed like an explosion, Minos's vision snapped back to the real world, the spikes surrounding him from every angle reminding him of the danger he was in.

Though this time he wasn't worried, instead a confident smile similar to his middle-aged versions appeared on his face.

If one paid close attention, they would also notice that Minos had gained a few crow's feet suddenly.

'Looks like my luck isn't that bad.' He thought, clenching his fists as he experienced this new power.

This was the ability of surprise, which he called Era, allowing him to transform into a random age.

A younger age would decrease his power, but in turn increase his talent, whereas an older age would decrease his talent and increase his power.

While talent was also useful, it wouldn't help in this scenario, and instead the decrease in power would just cause him to lose faster, though luckily for him, his gamble had paid off!