"Damn it, what the hell...none of my Dimensions can hold you for more than a second, your Mana capacity is insane," Muttered Mysst with a grimace, a bead of sweat pouring down the side of her head as she caught her breath, looking a bit pale.

Hm, looks like she’s used a bit too much Mana. It’s been about ten minutes since we began our duel, inside a safety barrier.

She was quick to manifest her Soul Weapon, Dimension Gate, and while she did inflict some damage by briefly ensnaring me in her various dimensions, I was able to break free of all of them within a couple of seconds or so each.

The only reason why she can’t hurt me with that power is because I have a significantly larger Mana capacity than she does, so by unleashing a powerful burst of pure Mana, I can rupture her dimensions and forcibly break free of them.

Still though, against most, that’s one hell of an OP Soul Weapon she’s got there...her Mana capacity is pretty high, pretty close to the highest level a human can reach. She comes off as a slacker, but she’s clearly worked hard on her Magic.

As far as humans go, I’m pretty much one of the only ones who can survive against her, and that’s because my Mana capacity has been drastically boosted by my Contracts.

Otherwise, she’s basically unstoppable against, like, ninety-nine percent of the humans in the world, and that number probably applies to most of the Demi-Humans as well.

The only beings that her Soul Weapon would have little to no effect against are Demonic Grade Monsters and the handful of exceptions among humans and Demi-Humans who happen to have larger Mana capacities.

With her Mana capacity being close to as high as a human can naturally expand it to, people who don’t have Contracts like I do won’t be able to break free of her dimensions.

Even those with similar Mana capacities to hers will probably need at least half a minute or so to break free...incidentally, my Mana capacity is approximately double what hers is, my Contract with Azazel raised the upper limit of my Mana capacity by around fifty percent, and the subsequent Contract with Plasmuk increased it again by the same amount, so my current upper limit is double what it was before.

Kinda went off on a tangent there, so to sum it all up and get to the point...she doesn’t stand a chance against me.

"So, you ready to give up yet? There’s no doubt that the power of your Soul Weapon is formidable, and that’s without even having achieved Soul Weapon Ascension. However, it seems like I’m a pretty bad match up for you...so, you wanna give up yet or what?" I inquired, as she wiped the side of her head with her sleeve.

"Tch...don’t patronize me when you’re holding back so much, you’d be a bad match up against literally anyone. Oh, and about how you’re holding back, when you said you’d only use Spells, Skills and physical abilities, I thought you meant, like, punches and kicks in regards to ’physical abilities’. So, what’s with all those weird attacks you’ve been using?" She responded with an irritated look on her face.

"Hm? Oh, you mean these?" I replied, as I extended some spider threads out of my fingertips, before adding, "Well, I didn’t lie, these are physical abilities, they consume stamina instead of Mana...I gained them by eating a whole lot of Monsters."

"Seriously?"

"Yup...and also, I’ve been holding back with my Spellcasting too, I haven’t used Distance Casting at all, and I haven’t used my Heretic Spells either," I pointed out.

She’s got pretty good defenses, her mastery over defensive Earth Magic is quite high level, she’s managed to block all the attack Spells I’ve thrown at her so far.

But her offense relies too heavily on her Soul Weapon...which, like I said before, is fine against most opponents, but against someone like me, who has a higher Mana capacity, she doesn’t really have any options to turn to once her Soul Weapon is rendered ineffective.

As for her Skills, it seems like she only has a single useful one...and it’s probably the Spell Reader Skill, which allows the user to analyze and determine what Spell their opponent is casting. She’s reacted quite quickly each time I launched an attack Spell against her, and she’s adjusted her defenses depending on which element I use.

"Hm? What, what are Heretic Spells?" She asked me uncertainly.

"Oh, that’s what I call Dark and Light combo Spells. Here, let me show you my personal favorite...Heretic Spell: Black Hole!" I chanted, a dark sphere forming around the top of the safety barrier and exerting a powerful gravitational force, before I quickly dissipated the Spell as Mysst began to get lifted off the ground with an alarmed yell, as I added sheepishly, "Uh, sorry about that, it’s a pretty dangerous Spell to unleash in an enclosed space, my bad."

"Yeah...I surrender. I didn’t want to quit since I’d already expended some effort, and I hate wasting my own effort...but that said, you’re too damn powerful," She sighed, sitting on the ground wearily as the barrier began to fade.

"I have to say, I might have underestimated just how much more powerful you’ve become, Larrk," Remarked Ilex wryly, as he approached Mysst and helped her back onto her feet.

"If I’m being honest, I don’t quite have a particularly clear idea of exactly how powerful I am now myself...I should probably fix that. Oh, well, that’s a problem for future Larrk," I shrugged as I stretched my arms up with a sigh...

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