The crushing, devastating punch from Takashi shook the Legendary Master's very soul. The ancient warrior rose from the shattered ground, his entire being radiating pure, unadulterated fury. He placed a heavy hand directly over his stomach and slowly rotated it.
Suddenly, an explosively blinding golden light erupted from his core, violently engulfing the entire surrounding area. He had transformed. Golden Lion Form. Initial Stage.
Mere hand-to-hand punches would no longer suffice. It was time for something entirely different. The Master knew the harsh, undeniable reality: physically, Takashi held a terrifying, absolute superiority. Continuing a simple physical brawl would be nothing short of a blatant mockery of Takashi's immense, monstrous strength.
The Master's ancient body was absolutely nothing against a young, indestructible physique forged in the fires of fifteen years of absolute hell. That hardened, bedrock-like body had endured the utterly unimaginable. It had survived an entire, agonizing year trapped in a dark world crawling with bloodthirsty beasts. When normal food vanished, survival meant chewing and digesting highly toxic, poisonous herbs just to stay alive.
During grueling training sessions, those muscles were forced to lift solid boulders weighing several tons. Takashi wore specially crafted clothing weighing a staggering one hundred kilograms every single day. Outwardly, the garments looked entirely normal a simple shirt and pants but the massive, concentrated weight hidden within the fabric was utterly mind-boggling. Dropping those clothes carelessly onto the ground would instantly crush the earth, triggering violent mini-earthquakes that could be clearly felt meters away.
Even eating wasn't peaceful. He used incredibly heavy utensils, cups, and plates weighing several kilograms each, just to consume daily meals. And the most terrifying part? Takashi did not even realize the absurdity of it all. He completely believed this agonizing torture was a normal, everyday routine. He had been slowly, methodically conditioned over the long years to accept the impossible and the torturous as everyday life.
Against this monstrous physical fortress, the Master's own physical strength fell drastically short. But the fight could not simply end here. The Master needed to prove something. He needed to test and check something absolute.
Upon fully transforming, the Divine Golden Lion Spirit spoke directly into the Master's mind.
"Are you absolutely sure about this? If you push him harder, if you force him more, things might rapidly spiral out of control. If any seal loosens even a fraction, or if his control over his own body snaps, the Legendary Wolf will take over. It will not be a pretty sight. It will be impossible to stop, because the Legendary Master's body cannot maintain my power like it used to."
The Legendary Master replied instantly, "It doesn't matter. I will not back down today. I am using my full power."
Takashi understood immediately. The situation had completely escalated out of hand. He instantly deployed his Invisible Barrier a defense mechanism incredibly difficult to create, and even harder to maintain. He forged it purely by manipulating the surrounding wind, wrapping it and fitting it perfectly over his skin like an impenetrable shield. He had learned this advanced technique purely by accident, through constant mistakes during solitary training, completely unaware of what it was until the Legendary Master finally pointed it out to him.
The Master pushed hard off his back foot. The dirt beneath him exploded with a violent, crackling flash of golden lightning. The Master completely vanished.
The first strike landed on Takashi instantly. He was sent flying far backward, violently smashing straight through several massive trees before crashing brutally into the solid rock side of a towering mountain. If not for the barrier, the physical damage would have been catastrophic. The Invisible Barrier shattered into nothingness the very moment Takashi cratered deeply into the rock.
The Invisible Barrier carried a very heavy price, both in its creation and its destruction, as it consumed a massive amount of power. Takashi lacked any original power reserves of his own, relying entirely on the accessible portion of the Legendary Wolf's strength, which was strictly capped at A-Rank. Because of the barrier's destruction, he was rapidly approaching the absolute limit of that energy.
But for the Legendary Master, this was merely the beginning. He was facing a monstrous human bordering on the apocalyptic Z-Rank, whose personal rating was SSS-Rank, and whose binding Spirit rating was X Rank. Six hundred years of bloody experience made every single one of the Master's attacks fatally perfect.
And the Golden Lion's main property ,Butsuri Shiritsu(Physical Rhythm), granted the Master a terrifying, overwhelming advantage. Because of this, Takashi could not rely solely on Butsuri Shiritsu anymore.
He instantly drew his Shapeshifter weapon from its diamond seal. A small, unassuming dagger carrying the crushing, localized weight of a mountain. But for the Yorishiro, and against Takashi's impossibly dense, hardened muscles, wielding that mountain-crushing weight felt like swinging absolutely nothing.
The Shin energy Takashi drew from the Legendary Wolf Spirit was now completely depleted. Yet, there was still far much more the Legendary Master needed to witness. He needed to evaluate Takashi's ultimate power control, his unshielded physical durability, his mastery over Tamashiritsu(Soul Rhythm), and his execution of Itazura Shiritsu(Phantom Rhythm).
The Master wanted absolute certainty that his work was complete, and that Takashi was ready for every single impending threat waiting in the outside world. The battle was far from over, and Takashi's power reserves were practically empty.
[The Legendary Clash Continues in Chapter 35...]