Chapter 178 Double Awakening

Double awakening. Originals, who had not only awakened one Innate ability but two.

If it was already rare for Originals to possess a single Innate ability, then awakening two could be considered no less than a lottery win.

There were quite a few Originals, who had awoken an Innate ability, even more so in an influential family as their bloodline had many traces of Originals with awakened Innate abilities.

However, the number of Double awakened Originals was definitely small.

In most cases, one of the two Innate abilities was far inferior to the other because the human body would not be able to cope with the pressure two Innate abilities created.

Yet, in Jase's case, it looked like both [Blade Intent] and the [Holy Aura] he created were extremely powerful and even complementary to each other!

The holiness and purity of the Holy aura, combined with the materialization of the Battle Intent, increased Jase's defenses, attack power, and the intensity of his presence.

Due to the Holy aura, even his mana was transmuted, and now held traces of holiness within them.

To Nial, this was extremely bad. His control over the dark energy and the Curse [Hodur's Heir] was high, to put it simply.

But even he faced problems when Jase's Holy aura reached his dark energy.

They negated one another which deteriorated their strength.

Nial's dark energy's lethality decreased by nearly a third in an instant, preventing him from fighting like before.

With a wave of his hand holding the Dragonflame Spear, Nial retracted the 30 or so Darkness Balls.

The dark energy merged with his body and was stored inside the Odyssey seed once again.

'Looks like I cannot rely a lot on my dark energy in this fight!'

In a single motion, Nial changed his stance, while a dark blazing flame shrouded the tip of the Dragonflame Spear.

Jase was less than 10 meters away from Nial, but he didn't charge at the young and blind Original.

Rather, he looked at him in amusement.

"Are you afraid of me now that I showed you what true strength is?" Jase sneered while slashing his longsword at Nial mockingly.

It might have been a simple slash but with the use of his Blade Intent, Jase could create long-range attacks, which was exactly what he did.

A Blade beam shot out of the longsword Jase had slashed at Nial, forcing the blind Original to pierce out at the blade beam.

It was a semi-transparent attack that many Originals might not even be able to see. However, that was no issue for Nial who was already blind.

At least Nial didn't expect it to become an issue.

He relied on his range of perception and other senses to pierce the blade beam the moment it reached his range.

Considering that not a single trace of mana had been used to create the blade beam, Nial's simple spear thrust was phenomenal as his other senses had been more than enough to help him locate the exact position of the blade beam.

'My Mana Sense cannot detect the blade beam? Is it created purely out of his Blade Intent?'

Nial felt that he was slowly being pushed into a corner. Not only did the blade beam go undetected by his Mana Sense but its strength was also much higher than expected.

He had no idea how often Jase was able to attack him with the Blade Intent via long-range. However, what Nial knew for sure was that he wouldn't allow Jase to gain an advantage.

That being said, Nial thought of something.

He released a concentrated dark miasma in an explosive manner.

It shrouded Nial and a quarter of the small arena in an instant, preventing anyone from seeing Nial. However, one could sense him…at the beginning at least.

Moments after he disappeared inside the dark miasma and not even Nial's mana fluctuations could be perceived.

The dark miasma continued to spread out in the meantime.

Simultaneously, tiny darkness needles were created in the black miasma and shot at Jase from all directions.

Dark miasma…a product Nial had created by merging his dark energy with the black miasma from [Hodur's Heir].

When it was within Nial's Mana Sense's range, the dark miasma could be controlled by Nial at will.

Thus, creating tiny darkness needles was no problem for him. It could be done easily by converting the dark miasma into tiny needles before shooting them in the desired direction.

Nial could easily attack Jase from all directions in such a manner.

Not even half a minute had passed and the arena was engulfed in the dark miasma Nial had released.

It had cost him lots of mana. However, using mana was not something he was afraid of.

His heightened senses allowed him to clearly hear Jase's calm breathing, the sound of darkness needles clashing with his longsword's blade, and the subtle noises his tiny steps caused which made Nial smile faintly.

Bending toward the ground, Nial's free hand reached it. His flat hand touched the ground in a calm manner as he spread out darkness through the ground itself, dyeing it the tone of the darkest ink.

This used up the vast majority of his remaining mana, leaving behind mere traces.

But that was equally fine because he didn't need anymore mana to control everything around him. The released dark miasma obeyed the thoughts in his mind and the ink dyeing the ground did exactly the same.

While Nial finished preparing the next few steps of his plan, he noticed that his mana replenished rapidly. It also felt as if his control over mana kept increasing the more he digested the bitter-sweet liquid Miranda had forced down his throat.

This caused him to smile weirdly, and it made him think as if he was cheating.

'Well, whatever. Everything is fair in love and war!'

Nial shrugged his shoulders after a moment. He kept observing Jase's efforts to cut through the dark miasma and dispel it.

His Holy Aura was only effective in a radius of fewer than two meters. This range around Jase was also the only location where not a single trace of dark miasma was located.

While the arena was engulfed in darkness, the only brightly shining light was Jase's Holy aura.

However, even the Holy aura of the Sword Master's son was not bright enough to reach the spectators.

They could only see darkness, forcing them to use their mana perception and other senses to continue 'watching' the fight.

"Where did Nial disappear? I can only faintly hear him but his steps are echoing through the arena…" One of the few young Originals, who were known for being Jase's cronies, asked in bafflement.

"You can hear the echo of his steps? I cannot sense or perceive anything…" Another of Jase's sidekicks admitted, feeling embarrassed.

The others agreed to the second subordinate as well, but they didn't voice out their incompetency and remained quiet.

On the other hand, Miranda and Junades had a weird smiles plastered on their face as if they knew what was about to happen.

Commander Ullyr saw this and he felt the need to ask what was going on. After all, it was quite obvious that Nial was overclocking his mana core in order to remain standing on his two feet against Jase's two Innate abilities!

'I had never expected Jase to have two Innate abilities. This old fox concealed his son's true talent quite well!!... But then again, this blind youth is not bad either. He forced Jase to reveal this Holy aura, or whatever it is.

Nial Orin didn't even have to use much mana to achieve this. A little bit of provocation and copying Olivia Miradnin's technique was more than enough…'

Commander Ullyr began to analyze the first part of the battle in his mind while keeping his senses and mana perception on high alert so as to not miss it if things spiraled out of control.

"What is this youth doing to the ground?" An Instructor asked in doubt the moment he sensed that something happened to the ground.

It was a subtle change that could be perceived by the most sensitive Originals that were trained in picking up changes in the surrounding.

At first, the other Instructor didn't sense anything but by the time they realized what was going on, the entire arena ground had already been flooded with Nial's unique energy.

And it was at this moment when even Kassandra couldn't hide her smile anymore.

"Jase waited too long." She mumbled.

"Yep, it's over." Miranda agreed matter-of-factly, her eyes shining in excitement as if she was expecting something grand.

There was no need for her to say anymore because she could tell that Nial had gained a huge advantage against Jase.

It might look like Nial had used his entire mana in exchange for some black smoke and to change the ground's characteristics.

However, that was not even close to the truth. Nial's mana core was much bigger than one would assume. Thus, he had more mana than the Instructors believed him to possess.

Until Nial was to face a state in which he overcharged his mana core quite some time would have to pass.

Meanwhile, Jase had become way too vigilant since the dark miasma had emerged.

Nial concealed himself with near perfection in the dark miasma. But even then, attacking the Black Miasma with his Blade beams or by expanding his Holy aura should work perfectly fine.

'Under normal circumstances, I would say that Jase will win…but why does it feel like the high compatibility between Jase's two Innate abilities is preventing him from fighting properly? Does it drain too much of his mana to have both abilities activated at the same time?

Is it taxing for the body to fire more Blade beams, or can't he expand his Holy aura?'

Many had similar thoughts as Miranda. Commander Ullyr was also doubtful about Jase's action. As he could perceive everything going in the arena down to the finest detail, Ullyr was pretty sure that Jase would win the fight.

However, from the looks of it, the tables had turned, and Nial's energy seemed to be overwhelming Jase's Holy aura!!

'Interesting'...

'I should shake this idiot's mind a little bit…as an appetizer right?' Nial thought, smiling faintly as he inserted some of his mana inside the small earring which he had begun to wear after leaving the ancient ruin's dungeon.

In an instant, he activated the earring and targeted Jase with the ring's effect which made a painful scream fill the arena a moment later.

Jase had not been prepared for an attack on his mind, which had left him defenseless against Nial's move. His mind was shaken, and he couldn't think about anything for a moment.

It was almost as if his entire brain was drained of the thoughts that had flashed through it beforehand.

This state was what allowed Nial to initiate a first surprise attack as darkness spikes shot out of the ink-dyed ground.

They mercilessly pierced through the thick layer of Jase's Battle Intent, causing the young Original to issue a muffled groan.

Meanwhile, Nial merely smiled as he prepared for the grand finale and last leg of his fight.

'Was it really necessary for me to be wary of his Holy aura?…it's ridiculously weak…'