Chapter 1174. I Laughed Because Defeat Was the Only Language He Understood

Chapter 1174: 1174. I Laughed Because Defeat Was the Only Language He Understood

The terrifying realization settled into Rex’s mind with the cold clarity of a blade: the working Apollo had produced was not a barrier, nor was it a shield or an absorption mechanism. Those were external layer tools that could be dismantled, bypassed, or severed.

This was different. This was a fundamental change in state. Apollo had not merely equipped a new power; he had converted his entire metaphysical existence into something else entirely.

There was no longer a seam between the man and the effect where an intervention could be inserted.

Rex’s Energy Manipulation function screamed in warning. Twenty minutes ago, it had found a promising fracture between Apollo’s innate affinity and the goddess’s divine layer.

Now, that function went hunting for the same vulnerability, only to recoil. That crimson current pulsing through Apollo’s veins had welded the two components together into a single, seamless, continuous structure.

To attack the magic now was to attack the flesh, and to attack the flesh was to attack the magic. They were one and the same.

’Fine,’ Rex thought, his jaw grinding as his teeth knitted back together. ’If I can’t unravel the weave, I’ll just try to tear the loom apart.’

Rex abandoned his complex magical constructs. He went back to fists, because fists were honest.

Fists did not rely on layers of theory; they relied on mass, velocity, and the brutal reality of impact.

For ninety seconds, the center of the collapsing domain became a slaughterhouse of kinetic energy. It was the most vicious, unmitigated stretch of physical exchange either of them had ever endured.

Rex was objectively faster; Rex was objectively better. That was a fundamental truth that remained unshaken.

His technique remained flawless even as Apollo’s degenerated into raw, desperate swinging.

Rex’s reads remained two full seconds ahead, allowing him to dance through the storm of Apollo’s fury, landing three precise, devastating strikes for every one he was forced to absorb.

But physics had become an enemy.

It did not matter that Rex landed more strikes. It did not matter that his technique was superior.

Because Apollo’s singular, unrefined blow carried more destructive potential than Rex’s three calculated counterattacks combined. The math of the fight had been corrupted.

WHACK CRUNCH.

Rex drove a knife hand into the side of Apollo’s neck with enough force to collapse the carotid artery. He watched, clinical and detached, as the crimson light flooded the wound, reknitting the vessel before the blood pressure could even begin to drop.

The artery sealed as quickly as it had torn.

SNAP.

Rex pivoted, catching Apollo’s left arm in a vicious joint lock. With a sharp twist of his hips, he executed a perfect break, the elbow joint exploding outward in a spray of cartilage and bone fragments.

But Rex couldn’t savor the victory. Four seconds later, he had to release the arm when the bone began to reset itself while still trapped within his grip, the regenerating limb snapping back into place with such violent force that it nearly shattered Rex’s own wrist.

THUD.

Rex drove his heel sideways into Apollo’s knee, feeling the patella shatter and the ligaments tear apart. But as the joint collapsed, Apollo’s free fist found Rex’s sternum.

BOOM.

The impact was like being struck by a runaway train. Rex felt his ribs buckle and crack inward, the pain white-hot and all-consuming.

He was launched thirty meters across the fractured domain, tumbling through the air before crashing into a pillar of light. All the while, he could see Apollo already standing, the ruined knee rebuilding itself beneath his trousers even as the man stepped forward to pursue.

Rex rolled onto his side, coughing up thick ropes of blood. His own ribs were already beginning to click and pop as they finished their rapid reset, the pain fading into a dull, manageable ache.

He looked up at Apollo through the haze of blood and sweat, his expression almost conversational.

"You’re healing faster than I am," Rex observed.

His voice was steady, almost academic, despite the carnage. "That’s twice today... The rate of cellular regeneration is outstripping my own compensatory adaptation."

"I’m going to be thinking about that for a while."

Apollo didn’t pause. He didn’t slow down.

He moved through the debris like an inevitable force of nature, his eyes two pits of burning, molten hatred.

"I hope it’s the last thing you think about," Apollo growled, the dual tones of his voice promising nothing but the end.

The next assault was not a strike; it was a cataclysm. Apollo descended like a falling god, his fist wreathed in that unstable, crimson gold corona.

When his hammer strike connected with Rex’s shoulder, the sound wasn’t just a crack; it was a thunderclap that shook the very foundations of reality.

BOOM CRASH!

The force drove Rex downward with such obscene velocity that he didn’t just hit the floor; he obliterated it. He punched through layers of crystallized domain light and reinforced violet stone, plummeting into the dark void beneath the platform.

The floor beneath them failed to reconstitute. That section of the domain simply stayed broken, a jagged, bleeding wound in a reality that was already unraveling.

The anchoring principles of the space were buckling under the sustained, divine adjacent pressure of their conflict, leaving behind a ragged crater that screamed of instability.

Rex didn’t even have time to register the fall before Apollo was above him.

WHAM!

A knee connected with Rex’s face before he could even right himself. The impact was wet and sickening.

Rex’s head snapped back, vertebrae grinding against each other with a sound like gravel in a blender. Blood sprayed from his nose and mouth in a crimson mist as he was propelled upward from the hole.

But the onslaught was relentless. As Rex scrambled to find purchase, Apollo’s fist found his ribcage.

CRACK SQUELCH.

Four ribs shattered simultaneously, the bone fragments driven inward like shrapnel. The accompanying heat was so intense it cauterized the wound instantly, turning the surrounding muscle tissue into blackened, charred meat.

Rex’s internal systems went into emergency override: ’Regeneration protocols engaged. ’

But there was a delay, a terrifying three-second lag, where his body had to prioritize clearing the necrotic, burned tissue before it could even begin the delicate work of knitting the bone back together.

In those three seconds, Rex was vulnerable. And it felt raw like a human.

Apollo exploited it with merciless efficiency.

Another knee buried itself into Rex’s abdomen. The force was so concentrated it lifted Rex off the ground entirely, sending him hurtling through a secondary light formation that shattered like glass upon contact with his body.

Rex spun through the air, a tangle of broken limbs and bloodied flesh, before slamming into a debris pile.

Before he could even draw breath, Apollo was there. An elbow caught Rex across the temple.

SHLICK.

The impact split Rex’s scalp clean open, peeling the skin back to reveal the pale white of the skull beneath. Blood flooded his vision, crimson rivulets pouring into his eyes, leaving him trapped in a nauseating world of double vision.

In a fight moving at Mach speeds, two seconds of blindness wasn’t just a disadvantage; it was a death sentence.

And yet, through the haze of pain, through the taste of copper and the scream of his own nerves, Rex laughed.

It was a wet, gurgling sound, but it was unmistakable.

That was the trigger. That was what truly broke Apollo’s composure.

It wasn’t the defiance, the strategy, or the tactical genius; it was the laughter. Every time Apollo slammed him into the earth like a broken doll, Rex came crawling back up with a blood-slicked grin that mocked the very concept of defeat.

Every time a strike landed with enough force to liquefy a normal man’s organs, Rex made a small, almost appreciative noise, a hum of approval, as though Apollo had simply played a particularly difficult chord on a piano.

"Come on," Rex wheezed.

His voice was a ruined rasp; Apollo had landed a blow square across his throat moments earlier, crushing the larynx before the regeneration could rebuild the cartilage. "That’s it...? Harder than that!"

Rex spat a glob of blood onto the shattered floor and leaned forward, his eyes bright with a terrifying, manic hunger. "I know you’ve got more hatred stored in there, Apollo."

"I can feel it pulsing... I put most of it there myself when I broke you."

The mockery in his tone was razor sharp, cutting through the divine fury like a poisoned blade.

Apollo’s reaction was primal. His face contorted, the red light in his eyes bleeding outward until his entire head seemed to be composed of nothing but burning rage.

He didn’t speak and he didn’t roar. He simply became motion.

He hit Rex again. And then he did not stop.