Chapter 311: Uhtred vs Apetitan (III)

A chaotic storm of violent lightning erupted from the beast’s body, radiating outward in a blinding sphere of electricity. Powerful high-voltage shocks slammed into Uhtred, burning through his heat-resistant clothes and searing his skin.

He let out a pained roar, his muscles spasming wildly as the violent currents coursed through him.

His grip on the axe construct slackened under the intense shock, but through sheer, stubborn willpower, he somehow kept the spell corporeal and stable in his hands.

The Apetitan seized the opening. With a desperate, violent wrench of its body, it pried its bleeding hands free from the axe edge, tearing Uhtred off and hurling him backward.

Before Uhtred could recover his footing, the beast launched into a relentless, blood-fueled frenzy.

It swarmed Uhtred, raining down a barrage of brutal, heavy blows. Even with its hands split down the middle, the sheer force behind its attacks was still overwhelming. Uhtred raised his arms and tried to construct quick air barriers to block, but the powerful blows kept coming.

Eventually, he was able to stall the strikes for a brief second — enough to wave his hand and cast a quick [Void Slash], one of the basic spatial attacks he had learned from Zara. A crescent blade of distorted space shot toward the Apetitan’s throat.

The Apetitan reacted instantly. Lacing its split fist with spatial force, it slammed its arm straight into the blade, shattering the [Void Slash] into harmless spatial fragments.

Without breaking its rhythm, the beast continued its rampage, its massive fists now glowing with spatial essence as it hammered down on Uhtred. It was almost as if it had only just been reminded that it also possessed space magic.

The addition of a spatial layer to its already absurd blows sent shockwaves tearing straight through Uhtred’s internal organs.

Uhtred coughed up a spurt of blood, but the wild glint in his eyes only burned brighter. Blood coated his teeth as his smile widened into something terrifying.

"My turn," he rasped, then calmly, he spread both hands...

"Inferno Violence!"

In a fraction of a second, the surrounding air spontaneously combusted. A pillar of hellish flame erupted from his body, turning the immediate area into a roaring inferno.

The sudden wall of fire engulfed the Apetitan, scorching its thick hide and setting its fur ablaze in seconds. The beast shrieked and reared back in agony.

Instinctively, the ape tried to use its Air magic to blow out the flames, but the sudden draft only fed the inferno, causing the fire to roar higher and consume its body with greater ferocity.

Uhtred pressed the advantage, pouncing on the burning monster.

But as his fire sub-core took center stage to sustain the Manifestation, the electric battleaxe in his hand flickered violently and vanished. Maintaining a different elemental construct while using [Inferno Violence] was nearly impossible at his current mastery.

Noticing that, Uhtred immediately canceled [Inferno Violence]. The inferno dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the surrounding forest ablaze and the ground molten beneath his feet.

Several meters away, the Apetitan threw itself to the ground, rolling frantically to smother the remaining embers on its body. It managed to put out the fire, but its hide was severely scorched, its flesh charred and bleeding.

When the beast pushed itself back up, it looked at Uhtred, and for the second time that night, a glint of genuine dread was clearly visible in its eyes.

With its high Intelligence, the apex predator realized a terrifying truth. This human was not just fighting for survival — he was deliberately putting himself at a disadvantage, using this brutal life-or-death battle as a forge to sharpen his own skills...

He had spells that he could use to end the fight if he truly wanted... but he was consciously limiting his use of them.

Driven by survival instinct, the Apetitan let out a blood-curdling roar and charged one final time. It knew it couldn’t run; the human’s overpowered movement art would catch it anywhere. Its only hope was to crush him right now.

As the beast surged forward, Uhtred extended his hands. This time, the sparks of electricity converged far faster, heeding his call with fluid ease.

By the time the Apetitan reached him, a battleaxe woven from violent electrical currents was already formed in his grip.

Though this construct was slightly weaker due to the rushed gathering time, Uhtred swung it without hesitation, clashing head-on with the charging beast.

What followed was a brutal, five-minute melee. They traded bone-crushing blows, elemental slashes, and relentless strikes.

With every exchange, Uhtred’s control over his new magic evolved. Each time the Apetitan’s spatial-enhanced fists shattered his electric construct, Uhtred remade it on the fly, refining the shape faster with every iteration.

Realizing pure electricity was too brittle against spatial force, Uhtred began weaving Earth and Metal magic into the core structure of the weapon, coating the outside in a dense, humming layer of high electric current. The hybrid construct held up significantly longer, giving Uhtred the window he needed to deal devastating damage.

Five minutes turned into ten, then fifteen...

By the end of the grueling struggle, silence returned to the scorched forest grounds.

Uhtred stood tall, breathing heavily, his feet planted atop the Apetitan’s weakly heaving chest.

Methodically, over the course of the duel, Uhtred had severed the beast’s arms and legs piece by piece until it could no longer fight back.

Uhtred himself was battered, covered with bleeding holes and several broken bones. Under normal circumstances, his self-imposed limits would have cost him his life in this fight, but his Basic Healing Magic had come in clutch.

Whenever a vital organ was injured, he diverted cosmic essence to mend it on the fly, letting the lesser injuries bleed out instead. Only the wounds laced with the Apetitan’s piercing Esoteric magic proved resistant to his healing, taking far longer to close up.

Uhtred wiped a smear of blood from his jaw, looking down at the dying beast.

"It was a shitty fight at first," he muttered, his voice calm and steady. "But in the end... I actually enjoyed it."

He stared into the Apetitan’s dark, fading eyes. Extending his left hand, Uhtred began conjuring the spell he had started this entire ordeal for.

This time, the process was seamless. A violent surge of pure, blinding electricity... or rather, lightning, this time... erupted across his palm, humming with an oppressive intensity.

The energy converged instantly, forming a tight, swirling electromagnetic field that vibrated with hair-raising force.

Instead of using a metal spike as the projectile, Uhtred relied entirely on pure, hyper-condensed lightning. He closed his eyes, shaping it like plasma, compressing it until the energy took on a dense, solid property.

The projectile hovered between the invisible rails, vibrating violently as the magnetic charge reached hair-raising levels.

Uhtred opened his eyes. Taking one last look at the Apetitan, he released the spell.

For a brief second, a peculiar, symphonic whoomp sound echoed. But Uhtred barely processed the sound before a catastrophic explosion shattered the quiet night.

Even as the caster, the shockwave and electromagnetic feedback slammed into him with terrifying force, blasting him backward through the air.

The Apetitan’s head vanished instantly, vaporized into nothingness.

The condensed lightning beam punched straight through the beast’s neck and drilled deep into the earth, cutting a gaping, mile-deep crater that glowed white-hot with energy.

The rest of the Apetitan’s body was thrown violently across the ground by the shockwave, its scorched and barely recognizable.

Uhtred, also tumbling across the ground, came to a stop on his back several meters away. He opened his mouth wide, trying to pop his ears against the ringing pressure left behind by the blast.

"Fucking hell..." he groaned, shaking his head to clear his vision. "That shit has some crazy recoil!"

He was still shaking off the aftereffects of the shockwave when a series of System notices and chat messages popped up in his vision, taking him by surprise: