This time, I didn"t hold back myself at all. Not because of the elder"s warning that he would go at me without putting any stops but obviously not because I was scared of his potential either. Rather than those silly reasons, I simply decided that it was finally the point where I could start nailing it down to everyone"s head that I didn"t come here to have some fun nor to save the Penguin sect, but to achieve my own desires!
But despite how tense both the arena and the entire crowd below it that could watch the proceedings reflected on the barrier that surrounded this entire place, neither I nor the old man made our moves.
With how I never really invested myself into developing my energy visions, I realised that if this opponent of mine would attempt to hide from my sight, then I would have no way to deciphering his steps just like this monkey that dared to kill my witnesses managed to escape my attention before.
That"s why, while doing my best to appear as if the elder"s menacing face was drawing my complete attention, I fully focused on all my other senses, long ago maxed to their previous limit and now itching me to invest in them and pull them all the way up to their new quality along with more points in my perception statistic.
But rather than doing so, I simply allowed myself to clear my mind from all the spare thoughts, allowing my senses to fully enter my consciousness rather than blocking them out in an attempt to retain my sanity.
In a split of a second, the entire world seemed to turn completely black, silent and cold, only to erupt in the plethora of information all at once. All the tones of the colours seemed now far more vibrant, saturated, with the shadows cast by the distant flying beast dancing gracefully on the wind only to fall down on top of the rocky disk and attract my attention.
Plop.
The sound of made by the falling of the droplet of my own sweat as it freed itself from my body and jumped joyfully in the air, tearing through the wind currents despite their screams only to end its life when it turned into a myriad of its offspring shattering on the small, stone protrusion.
"Do you need a moment?"
Only when I heard those words did I realise that in this beautiful world of details where every single smallest thing showcased how intricate the world surrounding me was, I failed to keep my consciousness straight, completely ignoring the fact that I was in the middle of a fight!
"Yeah, it was a while since I last used my full strength."
Not directly admitting to the fact that I was hiding my strength, I forcefully retracted my attention from all those details, focusing myself solely on anything that would break the flow of all the elements around me. While one could hide from someone"s eyes, some tracks would still remain from his footsteps through the chaotic swirl of wind all the way to the change of temperature!
And it was the sudden change of wind that alerted me from the coming attack!
Retracting the full scale of my senses from my mind, I was finally able to use my normal capabilities to just step aside from the path that I sensed this attack to take.
Yet to my surprise, while I saw the energy condensing right in front of my previous position before it would reach where my body once was, it suddenly disappeared as if it wasn"t even there in the first place!
While at first, it startled me, when I saw another attack appearing in front of my current position only to vanish just like the one before, I realised one thing. If the disciples of his sect were capable of using a technique similar to my own hiding spell, then being an elder himself, maybe he could do it in reverse, fake the attacks while standing in the plain sight?
When this realisation struck me, I had the urge to raise my head and look at my opponent to confirm this doubt, but before I could do such a blatant mistake I managed to stop myself and put a startled look on my lips and eyes.
If I were to react like that, he would be sure to change his tactic!
But wait, would that be such a bad idea? With my intention from the very beginning being to conquer this land in one or another and learn what kinds of tricks those people had to offer while preparing to fight the ancestor, if I were to use this opportunity to end this fight, wouldn"t I lose my chance to learn more about those people?
Yet once again, I still had to consider the threat posed by the ancestors! If they turned out to be as strong as I was worried they would be, trying to learn more about elders before even going toe to toe with the leader of the sect would only make me more vulnerable during my last and most important fight against the overlord of this entire town and nation!
"Okay then, it"s time to end this."
Rather than hiding my intentions, I simply harnessed enough entropy in my hands before sending it forward and surrounding either real or fake body of the elder with it, sealing it completely away from the external world.
Sadly, if I were to do it from the ground as well, the rocks would start evaporating under the destructive force of entropy, so I had to make this strange confinement barrier end right at the line of the elder"s footing.
And just like expected, after a few moments with no attacks following the last one before my move, a look of puzzlement appeared on the elder"s face. This by itself was a good sign, as it meant that not even a single lucky boy from the overlord"s camp managed to make it back to this place in order to report what had happened there!
"I"m sorry, but I will have to make you lose now!"