When my fist connected with Loraz's cheekbone, my body froze for a single instant before relaxing for just as little.
Before adding the strength of my aura of muscles, I simply allowed the momentum to carry my fist. Only when it started to seriously slow down, did I finally tense up my muscles and drive my aura into my flesh, not only reinforcing the structural integrity of my fist but also accelerating it even further beyond.
And when it landed...
Smack!
The energy released all from my fist, transfering directly to Loraz's cheekbone. With the added acceleration of forcing my movement through time and then condensing the space that my first had yet to cover... I released it all, sending this damned father-in-law of mine flying.
"Hon!"
Fay's words finally reached my ears, followed by a soft thud when she dropped down on my back.
Judging from the state of her soul, she still had the inclination to desperately throw me out of harm's way when she crashed into my back... Only to freeze on the spot when she saw her father thrown away by the force of my strike, stumbling to regain footing only to fail and trip, tumbling across the open field where the battle took place just before.
"Woah..." I uttered a small moan of release, standing down and taking a quick look at my tightened fist. "That was..." I gulped my saliva down. "That felt pretty nice," I finally revealed the state of my soul out loud, even though Fay could read it through our bond anyway.
"What was that?"
Her worries gone, Fay now forcibly turned me around so that she could rest her hands on my chest and stare up at my face with sparks of pride and curiosity brimming in her eyes.
Rather than worrying about her dad and what happened to him when catching such a fat fist to his face, she was simply overjoyed to watch me serve it to him instead. And to a degree...
She was getting wet?
'I bet it's just my imagination.' I discarded the thought... only to fail at controlling myself as my hands surged forth, greedily urged to reach the peak of lewdness.
Fay couldn't even resist. And before the look on her face could even change, one of my hands landed down on the top of her head while I grabbed her fingers with my other hand.
"Just a combination of everything I managed to figure out so far," I explained by explaining nothing but giving a general clue instead. There was no time to properly discuss what happened, not yet. Not while there was still work to be done.
For the moment, though, as reckless as it was, I simply focused on patting Fay's soft hair and grasping her fingers within the hold of my hand, all the while lovingly staring down her brimming, strikingly blue eyes.
And the more I looked down at Fay's soul, the more her expression appeared to melt.
Yet, as if all my discoveries so far weren't enough, Fay's eyes started to lose their vibrancy, turning back to the usual, grayed hue of the blue...
Only to spark right back to the color they were whenever she turned into her ascended or promoted ascended form.
After staring at each other for a while, Fay was the first one to break the eye-contact. She lowered her head and rested her forehead on my chest before rubbing it as she moved her face left and right.
Letting go of her delicate fingers, I moved my other hand down before using them both to grasp Fay in a light, gentle embrace.
CLING!
The invisible blade struck again. This time, though, it found something to cut through.
The tip of the blade penetrated through my solidified darkness with ease, just like a hot knife would go through a block of butter. Yet, as the invisible blade dug deeper and deeper, its momentum slowed down. And when Loraz attempted to swing it to the side to cut the dome of my darkness open...
His invisible blade only managed to move by one, maybe two inches.
'There you are!'
In a moment where I couldn't really find a way to use my current abilities to pinpoint the enemy's location, using this dome of darkness... Was exactly what it was in reality. Merely a desperate attempt to buy me and Fay some time.
A defense born out of desperation rather than practicality. But for whatever case, Loraz came and gave me such a great opportunity! For when he attempted to cut the barrier with his invisible blade...
He allowed me to focus all my efforts on solidifying my aura into darkness on just the small area around his blade.
As a result, the barrier that Loraz's blade penetrated with extreme ease has now turned to thick and sticky, the main divine of the forest struggled to actually get it out!
"You shouldn't put it inside if you are not going to take responsibility for it," I sneered, pushing more and more of my aura towards the one place where Loraz's exposed a weakness of sorts.
And in the process of doing so, I failed to even realize that he ended up letting go of the blade. Still, locked within the dome of darkness, how could I be able to tell it? And with all my attention focused on reinforcing the barrier and keeping him in place...
I failed to realize that Loraz wasn't just an amateur. And while I was busy feeling good over how I managed to trap him, he circled to the back of my dome before shattering it with a single, leisurely strike of his fist!
In an instant, the situation went from manageable to an absolute disaster.
With my back turned to the man, I was full of openings that he could exploit at will. And turning around to at least brace myself for an attack...
"It's over," Loraz announced in a cold voice, staring down at me with one of his eyes, given how the other was already bloated to the point his swelled skin forced his other eye to remain closed.
Yet, this wasn't the time for me to enjoy the effects of my fists on my father-in-law's face.
"HON!"
Fay screamed out, already showering my surroundings with her sparking aura, keeping it in its stable form just with the utmost strain of her will.
But it was too late.
I no longer had the vitality or spare aura to use my Blood or Aura tribute. And even with all my newly gained understanding of aura, it wouldn't help me to turn around faster. And heck, even if it did... At such a close distance, what were my chances of blocking an attack from someone several times more powerful than me... with my bare hands?
Still, I tried to turn around. To the very best of my ability, I did my absolute best to overcome the odds and surpass the speed of Loraz's fist.
"STOP!"
Only for the entire world around me, as opposed to just the flow of time, to come to a stop when Madam's voice exploded all over the place.