Loraz's fists accelerated, pushing the last of Fay's sparks away. By now, Fay didn't even have the time to send a new wave of her aura to try to contend with her father again.
And right as I started to sense first hints of panic and unrest in Fay's soul, I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder...
Only to jerk her to the back, removing her from the path of her father's aura-coated fist.
"It's okay," I spoke silently, more through our bond than through my lips, "let me deal with him."
Just a few moments ago, I couldn't do anything about this man. The difference in raw strength between the two of us was simply too great. Too overwhelming. And just a single strike of his was enough to send me out of commission for a good while.
But that was all before my affinity with darkness skyrocketed, unlocking a whole new potential hidden within the skills of the same affinity. Back when my eye of time only raised my intelligence by three points. Back, when my natural intelligence was still merely halfway through my current limit.
And now?
Loraz's fists surged through the air, gaining more and more speed with every inch it moved, no longer restricted by the pressure of Fay's divine aura. The divine's leader aura continued to solidify at a rapid pace, soon turning his simple fist into a fearsome hand, full of dragon's claws and covered in sturdy scales for added defensiveness.
But in my eyes...
Fay's mind scrambled as she desperately searched for anything she could use to counter the attack. Yet, with her mind failing to provide any satisfactory result, she ended up bracing herself for the strike, raising her hands to intercept and block it.
And she was just a single second too late.
'Is this really that simple?' I thought, pulling Fay to the back while taking a step forward myself. And with nothing but my bare hand, I reached out straight for Loraz's dragon's arm...
And I solved it.
I solved the equation of the aura that made up the illusion of this bestial form for the man's arm. And now that I had the solution for this equation...
My hand moved right through the illusion of the dragon's arm, removing its physical enchantments aimed to turn it into a solid, physical object.
With Loraz's dragon's arm turning into nothing more but a scary illusion, I pushed my hand even further, putting it right in the path of Loraz's fists.
I didn't try to redirect the strike. I had no plans to dodge or block it.
But this wasn't the only thing that I saw. Not by a long shot.
"You really struggle a lot for a filthy human," Loraz muttered, his cheeky smile souring when he saw no hint of hesitation or fear in my eyes. And as he raised his eyes and shook his head to get rid of the broken mirage of a dragon's arm only to summon it again...
'So sloppy...'
There was no other way for me to comment on it.
The act of deciphering the equation of his skill was, quite honestly, just a fluke. A sleeptalk moment of my brain getting used to its new processing power. And now that I've chased away the drowsiness of my own weakness from just a few moments before, from back when I still had yet to raise most of my stats to their limits...
It wasn't Loraz's skill that I could decipher.
Right now, his whole flow of aura appeared like a slightly more complex equation. Yet, for no reason other than my gut, I decided against trying to decipher it.
Not because I couldn't. Not because it would be of no use.
I gave up on it because I could tell that the process of doing so would leave me vulnerable for too long. What's more, abusing my intelligence right now would only bring a sooner end to my eye of time skill!
And most of all... there was absolutely no reason for me to fully decipher Loraz's aura. Just seeing it as an equation, I gained insight into his intentions that far preceded any hints that he would have to reveal with his physical form.
When Loraz raised his resummoned dragon arm, I already took a calm step to the side, removing myself from the range of angles he could attack from. His body shifted to the side in an attempt to bring me back within the range of his dragon's arm...
Only for me to complete a slight leap back to the other side, putting me squarely behind the man's turned back.
'Elemental Aura tribute!'
Before Loraz could turn back, I summoned the altered version of my costly yet overpowered skill. And with how I started to move as quickly as I could through the slurry of the thick air, the drain on my aura quickly grew from tiny to nearly overwhelming.
And when I pushed my fist out... The strain on my soul only grew stronger... along with the space itself that separated my fist from Loraz's face condensing, thus decreasing the distance my fist had to cross.
A mere moment later, I sapped myself out of the major chunk of energy hidden within the flow of my aura. No matter, aura or blood, the active Tribute skill came at a great cost!
But it was a cost I was willing to pay, for my fist, between the speed of my nearly maxed-out agility, the acceleration of moving through a stopped time, and then even further boost to its speed through the condensing of space...
With all of those boons, my fist grew swift and strong enough to reach Loraz's right cheek, sending him tumbling when the strike connected.