Chapter 892: Baby Steps
Just like Luminous, Hati had a vast, seemingly endless space that she could retreat to. Her demi-plan was as large as the eyes could see, a vast and endless wasteland of dry dirt and a massive rocky mountain with very little vegetation growing in the shade away from the burning sun.
Kayden stood a fair distance away from Arad and stared at him with a straight face, his katana unsheathed beside him. "I'll start easy, the lowest level of swordsmanship that I could still remember."
Arad pulled the adamantine sword and took a stance. "You're really thinking that low of me? I'll not fall that easily."
"I doubt it." Kayden breathed in, the veins on his body bulging as he suddenly disappeared. Arad's right arm flew away alongside the adamantine sword. Kayden was beside him; he had just finished a downward slash.
"I was going for the neck, but went for the arm when I noticed that you couldn't react in time." As Kayden spoke, Arad's eyes jolted to the side, a collection of [Ho-white Nova] rushing forth, almost twenty of them.
CLING! The Novas all disappeared in the blink of an eye, sliced beyond belief by Kayden. "Magic is too slow to harm me." With an upward slash, he cleaved Arad's other arm with ease.
"That speed..." Arad gasped as he regenerated his arms.
"Found the first mistake you're making. This isn't speed, it's acceleration." Kayden lifted his arm and dropped his sword, "Now I owe Chad a drink. You're useless." He disappeared and punched Arad in the face hard enough that he sent him flying through one of the mountains. "Forget about swordsmanship, I'll have to teach you how to move. You're indeed still a baby that hasn't learned how to walk." Kayden started jumping in place, "Keep your body relaxed, don't tense your muscles. What matters is acceleration, not speed. Speed is what you know, how fast you can move. Acceleration is how much your speed can increase through time." He started suddenly disappeared as he jumped from one side to another, "My speed is o, then I suddenly accelerate to the speed I need. I go from 0 to a hundred in a shorter time than it takes for my enemy's brain to process, which makes my speed seem infinite to them."
Arad sat up, the mountain crumbling on his head as he glared at Kayden with an enraged face, veins bulging on his forehead as he seemed to be about to burst. His eyes burned purple as magic gushed from his body. He grabbed a massive boulder, and it disintegrated at his touch. Totally outclassed, this was the first time in his life that he couldn't sense a path to victory. This attitude, this feeling, it was the same. Arad stood, and the mountain shattered around him. This was the same when he trained with Mira, he holding back so much power that it becomes obvious.
Kayden's slashes could cut straight through his scales and any defensive magic he had. Arad's most powerful spell, the [Ho-white nova] twenty of them were cut down in a fraction of a second. Even though Kayden's fist felt heavier than anything Arad had ever felt before, he knew it, that man wasn't using a single drop of his ocean of power.
As Arad burst forth with a single leap toward Kayden, the ground where he stood burned to ash under the impact of his jump. From full stop, he accelerated all the way to his top speed of over 1500 meters a second, faster than bullets, and his entire near-mountain-sized draconic body flew forth. Nothing this large should be able to move that fast, it was a horrifying sight that no mortal should ever witness.
Arad swung his claw at Kayden, pulling all of his might into that single hit. This was the quickest that Arad had accelerated in his life, but...it was still not enough.
Kayden swung his fist, hitting Arad's massive head. Arad's punch naturally missed. Kayden needed to jump to reach Arad's face after all, he wouldn't be standing in the same spot waiting to be punched.
As Arad's lower jaw exploded from the sheer impact happening at a blinding speed, his body seemed to be flying away just like before. But then, his claw that was punching toward Kayden, shifted to aim at the ground by his side.
With the blood flowing out his lower jaw burning, Arad's whole body spun around using the momentum from his claw strike and Kayden's punch, using his extended arm as an anchor to the ground. All of the joins in his spine burned as he used them as leverage to accelerate
further.
From Arad's claw, the punch on his face, his head spun, moving his neck, moving his whole body, the rotation rapidly amplified with each spinal joint, reaching the tip of his tail which accelerated toward Kayden's side like a whip.
Kayden lifted his forearm to block Arad's strike, but he was still sent flying to a mountain. The same way he did to Arad before.
Arad stared at the mountain as it crumbled when Kayden hit it. "Got him...at least...once..." He was already panting, in that one strike, he used all of his strength. Hopefully, that man is... "That was a good one." Kayden said, standing beside him. He already returned. "It's been a while since someone hit me this hard. I honestly didn't expect you to do it this quickly." Kayden's eyes shifted toward Arad.
"It's been less than a year since you were born." Kayden said with a stern face. "You're still a baby and an angry one at that. I taunted you a bit, telling you to stand and walk. In a fit of anger, you actually stood and ran a few steps ahead, but immediately fell on your face."
Kayden cracked his neck, "It means nothing if you can't maintain it. Now to make sure you can walk all the time, like you should be. You're a void dragon, you don't move through space. You should be the space itself."