Otherwise, Loran had even considered giving himself titles such as "Spear Emperor" or "Tyrant Spear."
Immediately, Loran took out his long spear from his interspatial ring. After flourishing it once, he pointed it at the God opposite him.
"'Sea Emperor' Loran. Please enlighten me!"
"Loran?"
Hearing Loran's name, the God was momentarily stunned. Then he raised his head and glanced at the sky of the Netherworld.
In his eyes, the proclamation celebrating the birth of the Sovereign's child that covered the skies of the Netherworld also bore the name "Loran."
However, the God quickly shook his head.
How could the child of a Sovereign possibly appear here?
Most likely, the boy's parents simply wanted their child to benefit from the Sovereign's good fortune and had deliberately given him the same name as the Sovereign's child.
Seeing his opponent look up, Loran also raised his head and looked toward the sky.
However, while everyone else in the Netherworld could see the celebratory proclamation spread across the heavens, what Loran saw was merely a blue sky covered with dark clouds. There was no proclamation at all.
Naturally, this was Locke's doing.
Given Loran's personality, if he learned that both Locke and Lilia were Sovereigns, Locke feared he would end up raising an insufferable second-generation Sovereign.
Thus, after leaving Mount Netherworld, Locke had placed a subtle suggestion on Loran, causing his subconscious mind to ignore the proclamation in the sky.
Of course, Little Black had received the same suggestion.
"Wild Goose Blade Dudley. Please!"
Dudley drew his mid-level divine artifact saber and assumed a combat stance.
Although he had lost more matches than he had won in the Battle Arena, those losses had all occurred over a century ago.
After a hundred years of cultivation, Dudley felt that his strength had improved significantly.
His current three-match winning streak was proof of that growth.
Dudley had already decided that once he achieved ten consecutive victories, he would register at the Fiend Castle and become an official Fiend.
This was his fourth match.
Although his opponent was only a Demigod, Dudley still maintained a degree of caution.
He knew very well that some monstrous Demigods were capable of defeating Gods.
After all, compared to a Demigod, an ordinary God only possessed ten times more divine power.
If the opponent had comprehended a high-level Profound Mystery and developed a powerful ultimate technique, defeating a God who had only comprehended two low-level Profound Mysteries was entirely possible.
"The battle begins!"
The moment the referee announced the start of the battle, Dudley immediately unleashed his Domain.
When facing an opponent of a lower rank, a Domain was the most powerful support technique.
Due to the suppression imposed by the higher-ranked divine spark, even if a Demigod used their own Domain to offset a God's Domain, they would still suffer approximately ten percent suppression in all aspects.
Seeing the green light spreading toward him, Loran's expression became serious. He immediately expanded his own Domain to counter Dudley's.
However, unlike Dudley, whose Domain spread freely outward, Loran compressed his Domain around his own body, using it to weaken the suppressive effects of Dudley's Wind Domain.
Feeling his body suddenly become heavier and noticing that his divine power, Laws, strength, and speed had all been somewhat suppressed, Loran let out a roar and charged forward with his spear.
Whoosh!
Facing Loran's attack, Dudley transformed into a gust of wind.
His saber traced a mysterious trajectory, graceful and effortless like a wild goose in flight.
He easily avoided Loran's spear and swept out a crescent-shaped green arc that struck directly against Loran's chest.
Boom!
This strike instantly shattered Loran's Domain.
The tremendous force sent Loran flying backward.
"A Highgod defensive artifact?"
While the audience cried out in shock after seeing Loran struck, Dudley himself also exclaimed in surprise.
What kind of joke was this?
Although he had never intended to kill Loran, that didn't mean he had held back with that attack.
As long as a Deity's head wasn't destroyed and the soul within the divine spark wasn't annihilated, they could restore their divine body through the expenditure of divine power.
Even if Loran hadn't been able to defend against that strike, at worst he would have suffered severe injuries and needed to expend at least a third of his divine power to recover.
Yet the technique that had earned Dudley three consecutive victories against other Gods hadn't even managed to break Loran's defense.
That was absurd.
Even a mid-level divine artifact shouldn't have been capable of completely blocking that attack.
That confidence had been built from Dudley's recent three-match winning streak.
Yet now, his technique had failed against a mere Demigod.
Although he had sent Loran flying, he hadn't even managed to penetrate Loran's defenses.
Other than the possibility that Loran possessed a Highgod-level defensive artifact, Dudley couldn't think of any other explanation.
"So strong!"
Loran's eyes lit up.
The move that this God called "Wild Goose Blade" had just used was elegant and unpredictable, moving without any trace.
It was vastly superior to his own straightforward attacks.
Had he not been wearing the defensive artifact his father had given him, he might already have been defeated.
Furthermore, from that single exchange, Loran could tell that his opponent was a wind-element Deity whose speed far exceeded his own.
When facing an enemy faster than oneself, Father had once said, one should never use targeted attacks.
Instead, one should overwhelm the enemy with massive area coverage, leaving them nowhere to evade!
Recalling his father's teachings, Loran felt that his father had been absolutely correct.
If he continued attacking as he had just now, his speed simply couldn't keep up with Dudley.
Dudley could easily avoid his attacks and then exploit the openings created afterward.
If he wanted to hit his opponent, then he needed to rely on area attacks and cover the entire Battle Arena within his attack range.
Thinking this through, Loran steadied himself.
The power of the Laws surged through his body.
His spear spun at his waist as vast amounts of divine power were drawn by the Laws and transformed into a violent water tornado.
"Flood-Covering Dragon Wave!"
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
In an instant, with Loran as the center, an enormous amount of water-element divine power swept across the entire Battle Arena, forming a gigantic vortex.
As Loran spun, the vortex raged wildly, seeking to drag everything within it into its depths and tear it apart.
"Haaah!"
Under ordinary circumstances, Dudley could have used his speed to remain far outside the attack range of this move.
But this was the Battle Arena.
If Dudley left the arena's boundaries, he would be declared the loser.
As a result, he had no choice but to unleash his divine power and confront Loran's Flood-Covering Dragon Wave head-on.
The moment he was drawn into the vortex, Dudley realized that this battle was becoming dangerous.
The vortex contained not only a terrifying pulling force.
More importantly, the waves within it carried overwhelming power.
Wave after wave crashed forward continuously, cycling endlessly without pause.
After only a few breaths, Dudley had already figured out the principle behind the technique.
At the center, Loran only needed to expend a small amount of divine power to maintain the vortex.
However, anyone trapped within the vortex of Laws had to constantly consume tremendous amounts of divine power to protect themselves.
Otherwise, they would either be torn apart by the vortex's immense pulling force or destroyed by the endless waves.
Unless one possessed enough power to tear the vortex apart outright or had an enormous reserve of divine power, anyone caught within the attack range of this technique would eventually exhaust their divine power and be ground to death.
And this assessment was made from Dudley's perspective as a God.
If the target were merely a Demigod, then in fewer than three breaths, even a Demigod-level defensive artifact would likely be shredded apart.
...
"Not bad."
In the skies above, Lilia nodded approvingly when she saw Loran immediately respond to his disadvantage by trapping his opponent within this domain-type technique.
"As expected of my son. To defeat a God while still a Demigod—An'an has grown considerably."
Everything Dudley could see was naturally obvious to Lilia as well.
One must not forget that the water divine clone accompanying Locke on this journey was herself a supreme expert who had fused five Profound Mysteries.
Even against a Paragon, the move that could invoke Spatial Laws would allow Lilia to remain undefeated.
"Still too crude."
Unlike Lilia, Locke shook his head after seeing Loran's technique.
Although, given Loran's current strength, being able to create a technique that amplified the power of the Profound Mystery of Water Elemental Waves by nearly seven or eight times was already quite impressive—
In the eyes of Locke, a Water Laws Paragon, Loran's application of the Laws remained far too clumsy.
The traces of imitation were too obvious.
The limitations were too great.
Its practicality in actual combat was also not particularly high.
Of course, in Locke's view, its greatest flaw was the sheer number of openings it contained.
Loran's Flood-Covering Dragon Wave had been inspired by the vortex tsunami Locke once created within the Nethersea.
Because Loran's mastery of the Profound Mystery of Water Elemental Waves was nowhere near Locke's level, he used himself as the core, driving the Laws around his own body while imitating one of his father's casual attacks.
As a result, the greatest weakness of the technique was Loran himself.
If an opponent trapped within the Flood-Covering Dragon Wave endured the vortex's destructive power and managed to approach Loran at its center, then Loran would face only two choices.
Either continue maintaining the Flood-Covering Dragon Wave and directly endure the opponent's attack.
Or cancel the Flood-Covering Dragon Wave altogether in order to dodge or block the attack.
Furthermore, the technique possessed another weakness.
Because it used Loran's own divine power as the foundation, forming a vortex around himself through the Profound Mystery of Water Elemental Waves, he could maintain the vortex with only a small expenditure of divine power.
(End of Chapter)
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