Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix-Chapter 1542: Talent

Lonos felt a part of him leaving his body... now that Rain could use the time aspect as well as him, extracting his data was something easy to do. Still, it was easy to counter Rain’s current mastery of the time aspect... he just had to keep attacking Rain nonstop in order to force him to use all of his energy all the time.

Lonos suddenly appeared behind Rain and then swung down his arms to smash his head, but Rain blocked the attack... while his posture broke and he almost fell to his knees, he at least managed to avoid the hit. Following that, Lonos began to spin in the air violently, and his body blurred into almost nothing as he kicked Rain nonstop... the power of the attacks made Rain grunt in pain as the countless attacks landed on his arm and broke the bones again and again.

"I also can’t mess up... they aren’t called machine gods for no reason. Their learning speed is impressive as well," Rain thought.

While they could do basically the same things, Lonos still had access to a lot more energy, and he had more experience, too. He lacked creativity and improvisation, but given enough time, he could also develop that... that was why Rain had to be cautious.

"All of a sudden, Rain moved as fast as Lonos and then grabbed his leg and stopped the attack at the cost of his fingers cracking like twigs, but he ignored that and then raised his leg and then hit the chin of the enemy.

In that short window of time, as Lonos’s head was pushed upward, Rain soon spun his body, and after moving it from one side to the other, he smashed it on the ground, but Lonos stopped the fall using his arms to decrease the impact.

In the next moment, Lonos rotated his body and then kicked Rain’s face, forcing him to let go. Lonos got up and then readied himself for Rain’s next attack, but he just stopped moving and glared at him.

Lonos clicked his tongue in irritation, a rare display of frustration betraying his typically composed demeanor. Without the reliable foresight that had long been his most useful asset, his ability to anticipate the actions of his adversaries had decreased to disconcertingly low levels. Each miscalculation and misstep only served to exacerbate his predicament, leaving him vulnerable to his opponents’ unpredictable maneuvers.

With each error, Lonos unwittingly afforded Rain precious moments to exploit, granting the determined warrior an opportunity to seize the initiative and strengthen his pans. It was a frustrating cycle for Lonos, as his own lapses in judgment inadvertently fueled Rain’s ascent, allowing him to tap into newfound wellsprings of power and resilience.

As Lonos grappled with the repercussions of his diminished foresight, he couldn’t shake the gnawing sense of unease that accompanied each strategic misstep...

Lonos weirdly enough, took a deep breaths and then began to concentrate his power... in the next moment, several copies of him appeared around Rain.

"What the fuck..." Rain said.

The copies had the same presence as the real deal... they weren’t supposed to be like doppelgangers. In order to understand that technique, Rain opened his eyes widely and checked the information around the area, but soon, all the copies began to bombard him with Instantaneous Strikes.

Lonos was dead set in kill Rain without trying too hard but while his body was getting battered again, Rain stood his ground and using the knowledge that he already had, he completed with the data that he just obtained.

The temporal path was updated.

Lvl 45: Temporal Synchronization - Synchronizes temporal frequencies across disparate realities, facilitating travel and communication across parallel timelines. You can summon copies of yourself that will act according to the possibilities of the parallel universes. Cost: 1.000.000

Rain realized that while they were real, the copies were essentially shadows... they could exist like that according to the possibilities of Lonos. For example, he could summon shadows of him based on each possibility that he had available like attacking from different places, even if the final result wasn’t different.

"I am not the right person to say this, but this guy has too many skills..." Rain said.

All of a sudden, Rain felt sharp pains in his body, and then he confirmed that Lonos was attacking with his fingers as if his hands were the tip of spears... for someone like Rain, who was used to getting punched and kicked, that certainly would bother him and stop him from using his head effectively.

Still, the shadows began to dissipate one after the other when, all of a sudden, their necks began to snap... as the shadows dissipated, Lonos began to receive their experience and the pain that they felt, too... he soon realized that something invisible had attacked them from behind... even though they had less endurance than the real deal, that was still confusing.

Soon enough, though, Lonos saw Rain moving his fist and making it look like a blade as well... he just moved it for a single instant, but then in the same moment, the neck of a shadow would snap after moving from one side to the other in a single moment.

"He is using the same technique to attack instead of using clones..."

Rather than summoning shadows as mere echoes of potential outcomes, Rain wielded the power of the time aspect itself to launch his assault. It was a mastery of temporal manipulation that transcended the bounds of conventional combat, akin to a refined use of the Beyond Time Strike technique. Lonos couldn’t conceal his displeasure at witnessing Rain’s rapid learning of such advanced technique, a testament to the warrior’s unrelenting growth and adaptability.

The realization dawned on Lonos that engaging Rain from a distance was a dangerous gambit. With each devastating strike propelled by the intricate interplay of time and force, Rain showcased a proficiency that belied his relative inexperience.