Ottar headed toward the source of the commotion, eventually arriving in a densely forested area.
This sound… is someone fighting? At first, he had assumed it was a rampaging beast or a stray monster. However, the distinct rhythm of the impacts quickly made him realize that a battle was taking place.
"This is…"
When Ottar reached the clearing, the sight before him made him stop in his tracks. Tsuna and Reborn were engaged in an ultra-high-speed sparring match, moving too fast for an ordinary person to even track their afterimages.
"Hm?"
"You're…"
Noticing Ottar's arrival, Tsuna and Reborn halted their spar and turned their attention to the Boaz.
"You know this guy, Tsuna?"
"…Yeah. That's Ottar. He's the Captain of the Freya Familia and a Level 7 adventurer."
"So this is him…" Reborn murmured.
Reborn knew Orario's strongest adventurer by reputation, but he hadn't expected to run into him all the way out here. A faint, genuinely pleased smirk crept onto the infant's face.
So this man is the baby I've heard about… It seems the rumors of him forcing Mia to back down were true, Ottar thought.
In a single glance, Ottar saw through Reborn's unassuming exterior and recognized his true, terrifying strength. Word had reached him about the incident at the Hostess of Fertility, and now, standing before the infant, he knew the stories hadn't been exaggerated.
"So, what do you want with us?" Reborn asked.
"Nothing. I heard violent impacts coming from near our encampment, so I came to investigate."
"My bad, then. Didn't mean to cause a nuisance with our training."
"Do not worry about it."
Since their encampment hadn't actually suffered any damage, it wasn't a nuisance. More importantly, Ottar understood the relentless drive to train and grow stronger. He wasn't petty enough to interrupt another warrior's pursuit of strength over something so trivial.
"I hear you're the strongest adventurer in the city." Reborn smirked.
"…That is merely what others have decided to call me."
"Humble guy, aren't you?"
"I only state the facts. Besides, there is one other Level 7 adventurer in existence."
"That's news to me. Which Familia?"
"He is not in Orario. The other Level 7, Leon Vardenburg, resides outside the city."
"I see."
Learning of another Level 7 adventurer widened Reborn's smirk.
"Furthermore, there were once adventurers in this city whose strength made me look like an absolute insect," Ottar continued quietly.
"You mean the Zeus and Hera Familias."
"You know of them?"
"Heard about 'em from Finn. Zeus Familia's Captain was Level 8, and Hera's was Level 9, right?"
"Correct. I always believed that unless I surpassed them, I had no right to call myself the strongest. That is… until I fought you, Sawada Tsunayoshi."
"What's this, Tsuna? You fought this guy before?" Reborn asked, glancing at his student.
"Just a little. And he wasn't fighting seriously."
When they clashed in the Dungeon, Ottar had been unable to use his full strength. He was fighting under Freya's strict orders to eliminate anyone who interfered with Bell's duel against the Minotaur. If Ottar had fought Tsuna seriously, the shockwaves from their battle would have caught Bell in the crossfire, ruining his Goddess's desire.
"Then how about a rematch?" Reborn suggested.
"What did you say?" Ottar's eyes narrowed.
"You want to be the strongest adventurer, don't you? If you fight Tsuna right here, you'll earn some high-quality Excelia. Sounds like a pretty good deal for you."
Reborn was absolutely right. Fighting Tsuna would yield a massive amount of Excelia, and if he somehow managed to defeat him, it might even be enough to trigger a [Rank Up]. There was no reason for Ottar to refuse. However, he couldn't fathom why Reborn would willingly offer a rival Familia's Captain a chance to grow stronger.
Of course, Reborn was simply using Ottar to fulfill his own mission. By deliberately helping Ottar grow stronger and forcing Tsuna to fight him, Reborn intended to use the Boaz as a sharpening stone to accelerate Tsuna's own growth.
"I won't pull any cheap tricks like blabbing about this fight to the rest of the city. You don't have to worry about your reputation," Reborn added.
"…Very well."
Though Ottar couldn't completely read Reborn's true intentions, a warrior of his caliber would never turn down an opportunity like this.
"There you have it. Get ready, Tsuna."
"…Got it."
Having spent years under Reborn's tutelage, Tsuna instantly understood his master's intentions. And knowing perfectly well that there was no stopping Reborn once he made up his mind, Tsuna accepted the challenge and shifted into a combat stance.
"I shall not hold back."
Ottar unclasped the massive, two-meter greatsword slung across his back, drawing it from its sheath and shifting into a flawless middle guard.
This was his Supreme Black Sword. Forged by the master smiths of the Goibniu Familia using the rare drop item from the 37th Floor Boss, Udaeus, it was a devastating weapon that cost a staggering 410 million Valis. Incidentally, it was Freya who had bestowed the weapon its name.
"Hmph!!"
Ottar made the first move. He closed the distance in an instant, bringing the massive greatsword crashing down toward the earth. The sheer kinetic shockwave pulverized the ground and shredded the trees, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
How will he react…?
Fully anticipating the dodge, Ottar remained composed, waiting to see his opponent's next move.
Suddenly, Ottar twisted his torso, swinging his greatsword in a wide, horizontal arc behind him. Tsuna was already there, his arm pulled back to deliver a devastating right straight. But the very instant Ottar laid eyes on him, he forcefully halted his swing mid-arc and slammed the blade into the ground.
In that same moment, the Tsuna behind him vanished like mist. The real Tsuna materialized from Ottar's blind spot, launching a full-power right straight at the Boaz.
Tsuna had dodged the initial strike, propelled himself behind Ottar, and utilized the Mist Flame's Construction to create a perfect illusion infused with Sky Flames. He had planned to use the illusion as bait while he struck from another angle.
However, his opponent was the strongest warrior in Orario. The split second Ottar laid eyes on the illusion, his honed warrior instincts immediately recognized it as a fake. He completely ignored the phantom and seamlessly shifted his greatsword to block the real Tsuna's incoming fist with the flat of the blade.
A magnificent strike… Ottar praised internally.
It's too hard… Tsuna gritted his teeth.
Ottar successfully absorbed the right straight with the broad side of his blade. The weapon, forged from a Floor Boss's drop item, didn't suffer a single scratch. Tsuna realized breaking the sword was impossible.
Simultaneously, the concussive force of Tsuna's punch traveled straight through the metal, rattling Ottar's bones.
So cheap tricks won't work against him… Understanding that illusions would be useless against a warrior of this caliber, Tsuna fired his flames backward, launching into high-speed maneuvers around Ottar in an attempt to throw off his timing and breathing. Refusing to let him escape, Ottar swung his colossal greatsword with terrifying ferocity, the wind pressure snapping the surrounding trees like twigs.
He can swing that thing faster than Ais swings her sword…? Despite his shock that Ottar could wield a weapon several times heavier than Desperate at such blinding speeds, Tsuna relied on his Hyper Intuition to read the trajectory of every strike, evading the deadly blade with absolute minimal movements.
No matter how fast Ottar swung, he couldn't break the laws of physics and teleport his attacks like Bermuda. Furthermore, wielding a massive greatsword inherently limited his attack patterns to vertical cleaves and wide horizontal sweeps. Compared to a one-handed sword, it was far more predictable. Because of this, Tsuna remained perfectly calm, systematically evading the relentless onslaught.
He is incredibly accustomed to fighting other people… Seeing Tsuna maintain his absolute composure against his overwhelming power, Ottar realized that, unlike most Orario adventurers who specialized in slaying monsters, Tsuna was a master of interpersonal combat.
During the golden age of the Zeus and Hera Familias, every adventurer in Orario was subjected to their ruthless "baptisms," forcing them to learn how to fight other humans. Those who survived that era, or the horrific Seven Days of Death brought about by the Evilus seven years ago, were forged in the fires of human conflict. But once those threats vanished, current adventurers rarely faced life-or-death battles against their peers, causing the city's overall proficiency in PvP combat to plummet.
Now!! Tsuna ducked under a lethal horizontal sweep and lunged directly into Ottar's inner guard, pulling back for a point-blank right straight. Despite his compromised posture, Ottar immediately brought his left arm up to block the incoming strike.
In that fraction of a second, Tsuna shifted his ring's attribute from Sky to Cloud, opening his hand to turn the punch into a heavy palm strike that slammed into Ottar's guard.
"!?"
The palm strike connected cleanly against Ottar's left arm, but the Boaz was confused to find there was almost no physical force behind it. A split second later, Cloud Flames surged into his body.
What is this…!? Suddenly, Ottar's already massive, muscular frame swelled to a grotesque size. Unable to support the sudden, unnatural increase in his own mass, Ottar's knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the ground. Stunned by the inexplicable phenomenon, he couldn't comprehend what had just happened to his own body.
When Tsuna's palm connected, he had injected Cloud Flames directly into Ottar's muscles. Driven by the Cloud attribute's Propagation trait, Ottar's muscle mass multiplied exponentially in a matter of seconds, drastically increasing his weight to the point where his legs could no longer support him.
Without giving him a moment to recover, Tsuna shifted to Lightning. As the Cloud Flames vanished and Ottar's muscles rapidly returned to normal, Tsuna unleashed a devastating, high-speed barrage of punches directly into Ottar's upper body.
"Guhh!?"
The synergistic effect of punches hardened by Lightning Flames, combined with paralyzing high-voltage shocks, forced a groan of agony from the Boaz.
He's incredibly tough… While the Lightning-enhanced barrage was undeniably inflicting damage, Tsuna knew it wasn't enough to serve as a finishing blow.
Ottar's greatest asset wasn't his offensive power, but his absurd durability. His body, forged through decades of hellish combat, was an impenetrable fortress. The only people who had ever managed to shatter his absolute defense in a head-on clash were the executives of the Zeus and Hera Familias, and Leon Vardenburg.
Realizing that blunt force alone wouldn't cut it, Tsuna shifted his flames from Lightning to Sun. He grabbed Ottar's left arm, injected Sun Flames into his body to violently stimulate his cells, and used the momentum to spin clockwise, hurling the massive warrior into the air. Fueled by the Sun Flame's Activation trait, Ottar was launched through the forest at the speed of a fired bullet.
What absurd physical strength…!? Though shocked by the sheer force of the throw, Ottar flawlessly adjusted his posture mid-air. He slammed his greatsword into the earth as he descended, using the blade as a brake to violently kill his momentum before landing on his feet.
"[Big Bang Axle]!!"
"!?"
Tsuna had already shifted his flames back to Sky and initiated a Cambio Forma, transforming Natsu into the [Mitena di Vongola Primo]. Condensing an astronomical amount of flames into a single, terrifying sphere of energy, he fired the devastating blast directly at Ottar.
Realizing evasion was impossible, Ottar dropped his greatsword and thrust both hands forward, bracing himself to catch the apocalyptic fireball barehanded.
"Guhhhhhh!!"
The sheer concussive force of the blast dug Ottar's boots deep into the earth, pushing him backward and carving twin trenches through the forest floor.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!"
With a deafening, primal roar, Ottar gathered every ounce of his monstrous strength and violently deflected the fireball, sending it rocketing into the sky above.
"Haa… Haa…"
Though he had successfully diverted the blast, the palms of his hands were severely burned, and the physical exertion had taken a massive toll on his stamina.
"[Burning Axle]!!"
"Gahhhhhhhh!?"
Before Ottar could even draw breath, Tsuna materialized directly behind him. At point-blank range, Tsuna unleashed a second, even more concentrated blast of flames directly into Ottar's unprotected back. Unable to dodge or defend, Ottar took the full, unmitigated force of the explosion and was violently blown away.
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