With Briseis acting as the referee under the watchful eye of Goddess Athena, the very instant the call to start left her lips, a terrifying gale erupted from the focal point of their locked wrists.
The raging shockwave swept outward, nearly blowing up Briseis's long skirt before she quickly managed to pin it down, while the surrounding trees and grass thrashed wildly.
Tearing off his cloak, Night stood bare-chested to grapple with Achilles, their arm muscles instantly bulging with countless veins the second they unleashed their power.
Their overlapping auras surged higher and higher as they steadily ramped up the pressure to test each other's limits, parting the very heavens and scattering the clouds above with their staggering momentum.
Athena cursed silently to herself, exasperated that a simple contest could generate such a massive commotion after they had explicitly agreed to keep a low profile.
Even so, her eyes remained glued to the match, using her divine power to suppress their spreading auras while secretly rooting for Griffith to keep his winning streak alive.
First Hector, and now Achilles!
Only by overcoming both could he truly forge his reputation as the most brilliant and powerful hero in all of Greece.
She genuinely anticipated that day, willing even as a goddess to personally crown such admirable valor and wisdom, though she thought with a pang of disappointment that she likely wouldn't get the chance with Artemis around, leaving the privilege of crowning him to his patron goddess alone.
Meanwhile, completely oblivious to Athena's internal thoughts,
Briseis recoiled a few paces from the terrifying spectacle, her eyes filled with awe as she stared at the epicenter of the match.
Though it was a silent clash of strength, she could naturally feel a heart-stopping power erupting continuously from the point where their palms met.
Her basic instincts screamed at her to move further away, warning her that if the volatile force trapped between them were to explode into the open air, the atmosphere itself would tear apart.
A normal human body caught in that nexus would be pulverized instantly, and she doubted whether anything in this world was durable enough to withstand a pressure that felt capable of crushing all creation, save perhaps the divine artifacts wielded by legendary heroes and gods.
Briseis lacked any concept of the cosmos or black holes, otherwise her current dread could be perfectly described as the terror a human would feel watching an all-consuming singularity form right before their eyes.
The apocalyptic force vibrating between them felt real enough to warp reality around it.
The sheer willpower radiating from their contest was intense enough to pierce the minds of the weak, causing them to hallucinate their worst fears under the pressure of absolute power.
As their concentration solidified to the point of altering reality, the visual effects manifested, causing the phantom projections of a vicious dragon and a radiant demigod to materialize behind Night and Achilles, resembling two prehistoric titans locked in an unyielding struggle.
Crush, shatter, pulverize!
If that wasn't enough, they burned their very blood and ignited their wills, unleashing their raw, primal instincts as the dragon factor roared inside Night's veins, granting him a strength that multiplied with every passing second until it rivaled a true dragon.
This bottomless, explosive growth began to put immense pressure on Achilles, melting the confident smile off his face as his expression turned deadly serious.
Achilles was sharp enough to perceive that Night's initial physical strength was actually slightly inferior to his own.
He wasn't being arrogant; Griffith simply hadn't been training long enough.
Back during their first encounter, Achilles could have thrashed him effortlessly, viewing his abilities as barely above an average mortal's.
That was precisely why he never imagined Griffith could overpower him, since no matter how fast someone grew, they still had to obey the basic laws of conservation of energy.
Even a miracle drug shouldn't let someone skyrocket like a spaceship!
Yet Night defied all logic.
Realizing that the young man's power was nowhere near its limit,
Achilles chose to hold back his finishing blow, steadily ramping up the pressure instead to force Night to his absolute threshold and see where his potential ended.
To his utter shock, the latter met every single surge of power, matching his output blow for blow.
By the time Achilles realized he had exerted every ounce of his maximum strength, he could no longer push his limits any further.
It was then that a dual-colored aura of red and blue flames erupted from the corners of Night's eyes, his draconic pupils radiating a suffocating pressure as his raw power suddenly spiked yet again, causing a sudden, profound sense of dread to wash over Achilles.
A split second later, a deafening crash echoed as the young man overwhelmingly slammed Achilles's arm down, burying it deep into the soil.
The massive wooden stump had long since been pulverized by the residual shockwaves, leaving the ground beneath their feet sunken several layers deep as the final impact gouged out a bottomless crater like a comet striking the earth.
"Finally, finally... the winner is Lord Griffith!"
Seeing the result finally come out, Briseis called out the final victor with pure excitement, though she was still deeply shocked by that terrifying, dragon-like strength that had wrecked the ground like a wild typhoon and left the area looking like a disaster zone.
It felt as if she was the one who had won instead of Night, leaving her completely amazed that Lord Griffith had actually beaten Achilles in a direct contest of raw strength.
He had overcome the nightmare in her heart, the Greek hero who had always stood like a massive mountain.
Everyone in Greece and Troy knew how powerful Achilles was, and Briseis had seen his unstoppable, terrifying power firsthand on the battlefield where he treated the front lines as if they were nothing.
The stronger Achilles was, the more it highlighted Griffith's own incredible strength, so how could she not feel absolutely overjoyed by her hero's amazing performance?
"Victory is mine!" Night said, drenched in sweat but bursting with energy, a powerful fighting spirit still burning brightly in his eyes.
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(End of the Chapter)
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