Luthor took a deeper, steadier breath as he forced his heartbeat back under control. The nobles' murmurs, the failed suppression, the runes on Nova's armor—none of it mattered anymore. If Nova could ignore the Gravity Field, then Luthor would abandon broad control and shift into pure precision.
He tightened his fingers.
The Gravity Field instantly shrank from a wide dome to a compressed circle barely five meters around him. The air inside that circle thickened violently, and everything within it bent inward. The stones beneath him groaned as the pressure intensified.
With another breath, Luthor clenched his fist.
All the rocks around him—large chunks, shattered debris, dust—were crushed down in a split second. They ground against each other under brutal gravitational force until they turned into fine sand, and then the sand itself compacted again, clinging to his body in smooth layers.
In heartbeats, a dark, dense armor of compressed rock wrapped around his limbs and torso. It didn't look elegant. It looked functional—like a shell designed to endure force far beyond what normal stone could bear.
Luthor wasn't preparing for defense.
He was preparing for impact.
He moved the gravity around his body again, this time pushing it to one side. The shift was instant. Because he was using Anti-Gravity on himself, the redirected force slingshotted him across the arena at terrifying speed—like a human meteor launched in a straight line.
One blink.
He appeared in front of Nova as if he had teleported.
Before Nova could adjust, Luthor threw a punch.
He wasn't simply swinging his fist—he bent the gravity inside the field to flow with the direction of his punch, turning the downward force of the entire dome into one concentrated stream that reinforced his strike.
Nova had only a fraction of a second to react.
He crossed his arms in front of him.
Luthor's fist slammed into the Ven-Drive armor with a deep, resonant impact. The force behind it rolled outward in a heavy ripple, cracking the stone beneath Nova's feet and sending a burst of air exploding in all directions. Nova's boots slid several meters, gouging deep lines in the arena floor.
Luthor didn't slow.
He redirected the gravitational flow again, tilting the pressure sideways. His body was yanked into a sharp spin, completing a full rotation in an eyeblink before his leg shot out in a gravity-enhanced roundhouse kick.
The kick struck Nova's side with brutal accuracy, sending him crashing through two stone pillars before he managed to stabilize himself.
Nova landed hard and skidded back, leaving fractured stone in his wake.
Luthor pointed his hand toward the debris.
"Gravity Magic: Vector Pull."
Multiple shards and half-broken pillars wrenched themselves out of the ground and hurtled toward Nova. The gravity guiding them didn't just pull in one direction—it twisted in arcs, curving their flight paths like homing projectiles.
Nova moved fast, but the debris moved faster. He blocked three pieces with his arms, redirected another with a slight shift of his stance, but the last few slammed into him and cracked against the armor in explosive bursts of force.
Luthor didn't wait for the dust to clear.
He redirected the gravitational current again, altering its flow beneath his feet. The moment the pressure shifted, the ground launched him forward. This time he came down from above, cloak fluttering behind him like a shadow caught in a storm.
He raised both hands.
"Gravity Magic: Collapse."
The space directly above Nova compressed violently, crushing downward with a weight meant to flatten anything caught inside. It didn't rely on physical force—it simply forced space to contract, making the force unavoidable.
Nova braced with crossed forearms again, the armor's runes glowing sharply under the pressure, but the impact still sent him dropping to one knee, stone cracking beneath the sudden load.
Luthor landed immediately afterward, boots hitting the ground as he redirected gravity across the entire five-meter zone again. The compressed gravity spiraled around him clockwise, lifting debris and swirling dust like a miniature storm.
He stepped into that spiral and vanished from sight—gravity spun him around the field faster than the eye could follow.
Nova barely had time to raise his guard before a punch slammed into the back of his armor.
Then a kick struck his ribs.
Then a knee hit his stomach.
Every impact carried the weight of redirected gravitational flow, and every hit pushed Nova backward, destabilizing his stance a little more each time.
From the stands, nobles reacted with startled murmurs.
"His movement—he's using the gravity flow to accelerate himself in curved paths."
"He's striking from blind angles! That's not teleportation—that's vector redirection!"
"He's faster than before."
"He's finally fighting like an Alderay heir!"
Down below, the attacks continued in a relentless rhythm. Luthor circled Nova again and again, each strike accompanied by a burst of shifting gravity that made tracking him nearly impossible without enhanced senses.
Nova caught one punch—but another struck from behind.
He blocked a kick from the left—but a heavy gravity-driven elbow smashed into his shoulder from the right.
He raised his guard high—but the next blow came from beneath, gravity dragging Luthor's entire body upward like a whip before slamming him downward in an inverted strike.
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Luthor's inverted strike crashed down with a brutal thud, forcing Nova back several steps as cracks splintered beneath his boots. The rhythm of the blows was overwhelming—gravity-redirected attacks hitting from angles that defied normal combat logic. Each impact carried the full momentum of Luthor's shifting gravitational vectors, and each time Nova braced, the next hit struck from somewhere else entirely.
For a moment, it looked like the flow was entirely Luthor's.
But even in the chaos, Nova's eyes sharpened behind the armor.
He absorbed each strike, studied each angle, and measured the fraction-of-a-second distortions in the air right before Luthor launched another redirect. He felt the gravitational pull shift in tiny pulses, noticed the way debris moved just before Luthor appeared, and learned the timing between one vector shift and the next.
And then—very subtly—the pattern started to emerge.
Nova's next block wasn't late. It was timed.
When Luthor appeared on Nova's right side for another spinning elbow, Nova raised his forearm into the perfect angle. The impact rang out, but this time Nova didn't get pushed back—he held firm.
Luthor blinked in confusion but flowed immediately into the next vector. His body whipped around to the rear angle again, ready to drive a knee into Nova's spine.
He appeared—
—but Nova was already turning.
The armored gauntlet caught the knee mid-strike, halting the blow with a harsh metallic crack that ripped through the air.
The nobles reacted instantly.
"He predicted it!"
"He's reading the direction of the gravitational pull!"
"That's not luck—he's adapting!"
Luthor felt it too. The small but unmistakable hitch in Nova's movement wasn't coincidence. Nova was following him now. Every time Luthor changed direction, Nova responded faster. Every time the gravitational flow flickered, Nova stepped exactly where he needed to be.
Luthor gritted his teeth and vanished again, forcing the spiral to spin even faster, redirecting himself at sharper and more erratic angles. He shot upward, then curved sharply left, then bent downward in a twisting arc no normal fighter could track—
But Nova moved.
He lifted his left arm and blocked the downward punch just as Luthor materialized.
Luthor's eyes widened in shock.
Nova followed immediately. He turned sharply, anticipating the next redirect, and raised his right arm—catching Luthor's side-kick before it even formed fully.
The two forces collided with a heavy, echoing thud.
Dust scattered from beneath their feet.
This time, Luthor was the one pushed back.
Nova exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders as the Ven-Drive runes pulsed with calm, steady light. The armor glowed with each breath he took, perfectly attuned to his growing rhythm.
Luthor attacked again, desperate to regain momentum. He redirected the gravity beneath Nova's feet, trying to yank him off balance. At the same time he shot forward, attempting to land another blind-side punch while Nova stumbled.
But Nova didn't stumble.
He shifted his weight, forced his center of gravity lower, and allowed the gravitational tug to slide across his armor rather than pull him off balance. The anti-gravity runes pulsed again, minimizing the distortion just enough.
When Luthor appeared at his flank, Nova turned into the blow, not away from it, catching Luthor's fist in his palm.
The arena collectively gasped.
Luthor froze mid-attack, cold realization running through him.
Nova had fully adapted.
With Luthor's fist still trapped in his grip, Nova tightened his fingers just enough to stop the next redirect. Luthor attempted to alter the vector, tried to pull himself away, tried to bend space around him—
Nova stepped forward and killed the spiral.
A knee slammed into Luthor's abdomen, crushing through the compressed rock armor and forcing the air out of his lungs. His breath hitched violently, the gravitational current faltering for the first time since he initiated his spiral combat.
Nova didn't slow.
He released Luthor's fist only to drive his own into Luthor's ribs with brutal precision, sending him flying across the field. Luthor crashed into the ground, rolling across broken stone before he forced himself up again, breathing hard, chest burning.
The nobles watched with trembling excitement.
"He countered gravity-encoded footwork… mid-battle."
"He's anticipating the vector shifts!"
"No one outside the Alderay family has ever read gravity flow during combat!"
On the battlefield, Nova's posture remained easy, almost relaxed now that the pattern was dismantled. The armor pulsed faintly, crimson veins glowing like a heartbeat.
Nova tilted his head, voice calm and almost conversational beneath the helmet.
"You rely too much on your movement patterns."
Luthor clenched his fists, stung by the accuracy of the observation.
Nova continued, lowering his stance slightly as his runes brightened.
"And predictable things stop working once someone sees through them."
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CHAPTER:- [145 - FLUER DELECOUR] IS AVAILABLE ON MY P@TREON