'The moon is one of the primary symbols that represents Artemis' divine power.'
Judas thought silently as he raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow.
Because of the low gravity, the droplets broke away, drifting lazily through the vacuum like small beads of liquid silver.
He glanced to the side, watching the remnants of the catastrophic beam Antares had fired completely sputter and dissolve into nothingness before it could touch a single thing.
Since the attack had been empowered by the moon itself, the moment Judas inflicted a devastating amount of damage upon the moon, the connection severed.
The blast simply starved of fuel and died.
Judas lowered his gaze to his palms and saw the glow coating his body flickering on and off… the Arcanum within him reacting unstably.
'I can feel the Arcanum weakening… but it's still there...'
He then shifted his gaze toward the sea of floating lunar debris surrounding him.
Of course, Judas hadn't actually destroyed the moon entirely.
The damage it would cause to the surface world if the moon truly vanished would be catastrophic.
Instead, he had precisely sheared away its outermost surface, effectively stripping the celestial body of its crust.
If the cloud of orbiting rocks were to clear away, the core of the moon remained fully intact... though anyone looking up from the planet below would easily notice it had visibly shrunk.
'Found you.'
Judas didn't waste any time.
Spotting Antares slowly forcing itself up onto a floating platform of stone, he launched himself forward like a railgun.
Antares turned its head the moment it sensed Judas approaching and let out a furious roar.
Their figures blurred simultaneously.
A series of violent shockwaves exploded throughout the sea of floating debris.
BOOM—! BOOM—! BOOM—!
Every collision sent fragments of moon rock spinning away, pulverized into dust by the sheer force of their clashes.
Space itself trembled with every exchange as bursts of light and explosive impacts repeatedly erupted between them.
Antares swung first.
Its fist tore through space with enough force to shatter anything in its path.
Judas met the blow head-on.
Their fists collided.
A violent burst of energy exploded outward, annihilating the nearby debris field.
Antares immediately followed up, its tail lashing upward from below, the stinger glowing with condensed Arcanum.
Judas twisted midair, narrowly avoiding the strike as it pierced clean through a cluster of floating rocks behind him, obliterating them instantly.
He counterattacked.
A knee slammed into Antares' torso, folding the creature slightly before Judas unleashed a barrage of strikes… each blow landing with precise and brutal efficiency.
But Antares endured.
Its exoskeleton acted like armor as hard and durable as adamantium.
Reinforced further by Arcanum, its defensive capabilities had reached an entirely different level.
But Judas wasn't discouraged.
He continued relentlessly pressuring Antares without pause, landing blow after blow.
He tactically utilized the floating debris around them as solid footholds, jumping from rock to rock to strike from impossible, jarring angles that left the monster entirely unable to react in time.
'To defeat Antares as efficiently as possible, I need to stay close, prevent it from using high-powered attacks, and force it into close combat… the one area where it's weakest.'
When Antares desperately tried to throw another punch, Judas read the telegraph instantly and countered with a precise strike of his own, burying his fist into the monster's carapace until the armor began to show audible signs of cracking.
'In terms of pure stats and raw firepower… I can't match Antares.'
'But when it comes to combat skill and experience… Antares might as well be a newborn baby.'
Judas observed how Antares was gradually growing more enraged the longer it failed to land a clean hit.
Despite living for over a thousand years, its actual combat experience was no different from a toddler that had only recently learned how to walk.
Especially now that it still hadn't fully adapted to its new humanoid form.
'Alfia… it looks like the brutal beatings you put me through were worth it after all.'
Judas briefly recalled the brutal training Alfia had forced him through.
During those grueling days, his close-combat techniques and martial instincts had been forged in fire, elevating his skills by a massive margin.
'Although… I still don't think I can match Belle in pure combat skill… not yet.'
Though that was not the only factor, his control over Arcanum had grown more refined as the battle continued.
While Judas was still improving, Antares had already plateaued, effectively being left behind in the dust.
The gap between them had only continued to widen.
'You can no longer keep up huh?'
Judas thought as he spun and delivered a devastating overhead kick directly onto Antares' skull, sending the creature flying like a cannonball, crashing through dozens of floating boulders.
Antares roared and dug its claws into a massive rock to stop itself from being launched any farther.
It shook its head, looking disoriented, before grabbing a gigantic chunk of rock beside it and hurling it toward Judas.
Judas shattered it with a single punch.
But in that exact instant...
Antares' eye flared crimson.
A massive surge of energy rapidly condensed inside its mouth, swelling to the brink of release.
It was about to fire.
In a flash, Judas vanished.
He materialized directly in front of the monster's face.
His hand shot forward...
Clamping Antares' jaws shut.
"Why don't you have a taste of your own medicine?"
Antares' crimson eye widened.
The energy gathered inside its mouth detonated internally.
A horrific, violent backlash tore through its internal anatomy, bright red light bursting outward beneath the seams of its carapace as the explosive pressure rampaged through its organs.
Its lower jaw was completely blown to pieces, fragments of flesh and shell scattering into the void as its entire body convulsed in agony.
It couldn't even scream.
Only agony flickered within its singular eye before Judas fully extended his arm, pressing his palm against its chest.
BOOM—!
A blast of condensed power erupted point-blank, engulfing Antares completely in blinding light.
A violent surge of force exploded outward from the impact point, scattering the surrounding debris field like dust in the wind.
Massive chunks of lunar rock were hurled in every direction, some shattering outright under the pressure.
Judas remained motionless, arm still extended, his eyes locked onto Antares' body as it was blasted away and re-entered the planet's atmosphere, falling back toward the surface world.
A streak of crimson light carved across the night sky as Antares descended like a meteor.
Coincidentally, it crashed near the edge of the Great Forest, only a few kilometers away from the Elsos Ruins where it was originally imprisoned.
BOOM—!
A deafening impact echoed across the land as a gigantic crater formed where Antares landed, clouds of smoke billowing outward.
When the dust finally settled, Antares' battered form was revealed.
Its lower jaw was completely gone, and half of its face had been reduced to a charred, molten slag.
Large portions of its exoskeleton had been blasted away, exposing its insides as blood poured endlessly from its wounds, pieces of flesh and organs barely hanging together.
Cracks spread across its entire body, faintly glowing as though its form was barely holding itself together.
It was still alive.
Barely.
But Judas could tell it was already standing on the boundary between life and death.
Just one more fatal blow...
And Antares would perish for good.
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