Arum stood up, his impromptu meeting with the ground hadn't affected him that much. He was without a scratch. Even the trail he had blasted in the dirt was not enough to dirty him.

I was doubtlessly perplexed. I had felt my blow connect. So the question was, why was the giant of a man fine?

A Closer observation allowed me to understand. The shifting aura covering his body wasn't merely a cool factor. It acted like armor of sorts. A pretty good one if his unblemished state was to be trusted.

*A walking tank. Not even a slow one. A fast tank.

The thought crossed my mind and I almost let out a groan. It felt like it would be a pain to blast the aura away if it was even a possibility. There was a 'living' quality to it that made me believe that it would be restored as soon as it was dispersed.

"This was unexpected...Hey, Lorn was that magic?  I couldn't tell." Arum rumbled a question as soon as he was on his feet again.

The mage responded. "I don't think so. It's quite fascinating, to be honest. I only 'sensed' an intangible force blasting you away. Beyond that, I can't tell either." The curiosity peeking through his words gave me shivers.

I could picture the guy capturing me and doing some questionable experiments on me.

"It is not the power of a psychic, though it's somewhat similar in a way. I've met some in the past and I can recognize a psychic signature. He doesn't have one." He continued seemingly enthralled by his analysis.

Arum shrugged, and his gaze fell back on me.

"Quite the neat trick. I guess you are more than an immortal cockroach." Arum rudely said. I had guessed that his behavior was heavily impacted when he assumed his Valken form. Thus, I wasn't offended.

"Cockroach, it's the pot calling the kettle black. Look in the mirror before speaking."

Ok, maybe I was minorly offended.

He laughed at the retort amused. "Well, you are not wrong. The people that have managed to truly hurt me in the last centuries can be counted on one hand. Let see if you will become part of their numbers."

His gaze told me that our small banter was over. The fight was resuming.

He moved with the same unnatural speed toward me. The aura cladding his hands shifted into claw-like appendages. Judging by the deadly whistle caused by their friction with the wind, they were exceedingly sharp.

In a single bound, he was upon me. The added momentum of his fall was transferred to the claws he brought on my head.

This time I wasn't slow to react. I couldn't dodge so I raised my forearms to block in a cross fashion.  The sharp auric claws clashed brutally with my soft flesh. Or it would have, had I not covered my whole body with my willpower.

A small pit appeared under my feet. A testimony to the violence of his blow. I pushed and capitalized on his lack of support to land a spinning kick on his chest. He was sent upward before doing a backflip and landing gracefully on the ground.

*This is so unfair.

He was powerfully built and was also unexpectedly graceful in his motions. What a cheat-like combo.

We started exchanging blows at an extreme speed. We were blurs in our improvised ring. The sounds of air being violently compressed before detonating colored each of our altercations. Still, I noticed as we fought that I didn't possess nearly enough fighting experience to battle hand to hand with the guy.

I was skilled in close combat fights but he possessed the kind of technique that could only come from centuries of practice. I wasn't discouraged because of this, every single sup I fought since I became what I was, was more experienced than me in various aspects.

I went on the offensive, I wasn't too shabby myself when it came to speed. As such, I was on him in a blink delivering punches and kicks enhanced by willpower. Each time, I felt like I was striking cotton. The power behind my blows was being deflected.

I concluded that I wasn't only struggling because of the gap in skills. I was not making any progress because of his aura armor.

*If a direct impact is useless, then...

I threw a right hook toward his head. Midway my fist turned into an open palm. I could see the puzzlement in his eyes as the blow he was waiting for, didn't come.

I grabbed his shoulders with both hands. He must have thought that I was targeting his chest with a knee strike because he instinctively brought his arms up in defense. He couldn't have been more wrong.

I leverage off his shoulders and kicked off the ground with my feet.

With my feet up, I used his shoulder to stabilize myself before I pushed slightly on them. I rose slightly in a vertical ascent before grabbing both sides of his head and twisting violently with my waist.

The rotational force generated naturally affected my hands too. Which is to say his head was also being turned sharply as it was connected with said hands.

I was trying to break his neck or twist it. If possible remove his head entirely from the rest of his body.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Chloe telling me about a sure way of killing any type of immortal besides gods, demons, and angels. Not as much telling me as mentioning it during a conversation. Something to do with the removal of the head.

Although it took some time to describe I executed this series of movements smoothly and quickly. He wasn't able to react before I had started my twisting motion.

Now, I admit I was being excessive, going for the head so directly. It was just a light sparing. But I believed that someone so valued by Chloe wouldn't be that easy to kill. After all, according to her, each one of them could take 3 top supernaturals without being at disadvantage.

*Plus I can simply stop myself if it seems like he is going to die.

Physically, I wasn't even as strong as an elder vampire which was a top-level supernatural being. But my willpower was a great enhancer as I came to realize. It allowed me to enter this classification of beings. Additionally, the advantages I had weren't in sheer overwhelming power.

*I hate to admit it but my advantages lay more in endurance and resiliency.

No matter how much damage I took and how long the fight went, I was guaranteed to come out on top. Unless of course, I was somehow restrained.

I seemed to have raised some kind of flag with this train of thoughts as the situation changed abruptly.

Instead of trying to fight my motion, he let his hand fall to his sides and became completely fixed. I felt as if the word had stopped. This is to say, I had also become fixed. No, not fixed, I was just moving at an unbelievably slow speed.

It was so slow that I couldn't tell. My thoughts too, felt like they had been drowned in quicksand. I tried to use my willpower but to no avail. As my thoughts were slowed, so was my will.

I was suddenly plucked from my acrobatics like a misbehaving child and thrown to the ground with such violence that I felt my blood vessels bursting followed by every organ and bone. I couldn't move but I noticed two things thanks to my willpower.

First, the ground was glowing with a purple color. The same as Arum's aura. I wasn't sure if it was the case in reality. Second, I 'saw' what I believed to be the culprits behind my sudden onslaught of slowness.

Purple humanoid ghosts.

Then darkness crept up on me.