The first clash between Karna and Acnologia gave Karna a new realization about where he stood in a fight against the strongest creature in the world.
The first clash ended with Karna's death arms being shattered and him crashing back into Tenrou Island.
"Ouch, that hurts!!" Karna muttered as he got back up.
"Guess I have to give more than a hundred percent if I want to survive this fight," Karna muttered to himself as he summoned his armor to cover him completely.
He still had not finished combining his armor with death energy, but for now he had to do as much as he could.
He realized once again why the system had told him to survive instead of win. Both the dragon and he were on completely different plateaus of power.
He then covered the armor with death energy while simultaneously summoning Etherion dust into his mouth. The more energy he expended, the more he got filled up. He could feel that his consumption of energy was nowhere near how much he was recovering due to the ethernano dust.
So basically, he was currently running at a rate at which he might die if he stopped fighting.
"Perfect for now," Karna said while clenching his teeth to hold back the energy that was trying to destroy his body from the inside.
The black dragon was watching Karna power up in the last few seconds. It had appeared here to battle an old enemy but had found that he had escaped before it could reach this place. So it had decided to vent its frustrations on anything related to this location.
But before it could attack, it sensed the presence of someone strong — stronger than the man he had fought a year ago on another continent.
It made things interesting for the dragon, who had no opponents left that could make him fight seriously to the death.
So it waited. It gave its new prey a few seconds to prepare for battling against him.
He hoped that this fight would at least let him use half of his full power.
Karna stood up and began to feel the energy coursing through his body.
'Armor and death demon slayer energy are not enough. I have a lot of energy right now, so I don't need to hold back,' Silva realized as he began simultaneously activating every ability and artifact he ever had with him.
The moment Karna activated all these powers, he was able to feel the rampaging ethernano inside his body slow down. Earlier, his power did not have enough outlet to use up all the ethernano building up inside him. But right now, simultaneously using all these powers was helping him cope with how much he was consuming.
His increased processing power allowed him to see everything happening in slow motion. He was also able to see how the demeanor of the dragon changed as he activated each one of his powers.
The moment he cut off fifty percent was when he saw a visible reaction from the dragon, who shook his head like he was annoyed at what had happened. When he activated his Drakon Force mode, the black dragon started charging up a roar.
'Yeah, cannot let that land on the island,' he thought as he immediately shot into the sky at a speed he had never nearly attained before. The rabbit talisman increased his speed, while the ox talisman increased the strength of his armor along with him. With the increased speed and rate of wingbeats cutting through the air more easily, Karna easily broke through the sound barrier and landed a punch straight toward the dragon's jaw.
Karna remembered reading Baki in his last life, where it said a punch needed only three things for it to properly work: strength, speed, and the strength of the grip.
He had the rabbit talisman for speed, the ox talisman and Drakon Force for strength, and for grip, he had the combined power of his armor, death energy, and his newly created arms inside the armour which were designed to be tougher than what he had before.
BAMMMM!!!
The punch connected.
Instead of creating a muffled sound of hitting flesh, the sound that came out was similar to metal striking metal. After the strike landed, it sharply pushed Acnologia's head to the sky, making the earlier attack fail and causing a massive detonation in its mouth.
GRAUGGG!!
It screamed with smoke coming out of its mouth.
The people watching the battle had their eyes widened at how the attack had landed, while Karna had no such emotion of happiness.
Unlike the others watching this battle, he knew he had only landed minimal injuries on the dragon. It was not even using half of its power when it attacked, and it was already stacked with a buff that reduced half its power.
Even after being weakened to this limit, the dragon only got a small crack in the scales under its jaw from Karna's attack. The rest of the damage was from the roar he had interrupted moments ago.
Just as he was about to attack again, a window popped up.
[Achievement unlocked: Brian Ungles
Similar to the level fifty human who managed to chip the nail of the level hundred vampire, you managed to chip the scale of a dragon who had not been hurt in the last three centuries. For accomplishing this almost impossible achievement that no human can do, you get an appropriate reward.
Reward: Fragmented Gamer ability (Temporary) — The limits you will break in this battle will be recorded, and later, when you completely heal, the fragmented system will edit your body to handle the energy output that you show in this battle.
All the best]
Karna read the skill. He smiled.
A/N — Hope you like it.