My Infinite Cultivation System-Chapter 118: Battle with Kaelen

"Let’s fight," Kaelen repeated, his purple eyes fixed on Alex with an unnerving stillness.

Jaros moved first. His hand went to his weapon, but before he could draw, Kaelen’s gaze flickered toward him. Just a glance. Nothing more. Yet Jaros froze mid motion, his fingers trembling against his hilt.

"This doesn’t concern you," Kaelen said quietly.

Alex raised a hand. "Stand down, everyone."

Seraphina’s jaw tightened. "Alex, you can’t be serious. This man—"

"I said stand down."

The command carried no anger. No urgency. Just absolute finality. The group retreated slowly, forming a loose perimeter around the two combatants. Snow continued to fall, dusting the crimson ground with fresh white.

Kaelen tilted his head slightly. "You sent your people away. Good. They would have died."

"Probably," Alex agreed. "So would you have, if you attacked them."

A flicker of something passed through Kaelen’s eyes. Interest, perhaps. Or amusement. It was hard to tell.

"You killed three thousand candidates," Kaelen said. "There were some strong candidates among them. That drew my attention. I traveled three hundred miles to find you."

"That’s flattering."

"It’s not flattery." Kaelen rolled his shoulders, and the air around him began to distort. "It’s hunger."

---

Alex struck first.

He had learned long ago that waiting for a dangerous opponent to make the opening move was suicide. His body exploded forward, fist aimed directly at Kaelen’s chest. The punch connected, or would have, if Kaelen had not shifted three inches to the left at the last possible moment.

"Fast," Kaelen observed.

Alex spun, his leg sweeping toward Kaelen’s head. The dark haired warrior ducked under it, then drove his palm into Alex’s ribs. The impact sent shockwaves through the frozen ground. Alex skidded backward, his feet carving trenches in the snow.

Not fast enough. Not strong enough.

Alex’s eyes narrowed. He had been holding back, testing his opponent’s baseline. That was over now.

He activated dragon transformation. He could have used Ashura transformation as well which he had just copied from Kaelen but that would too much of a coincidence of him having that talent. The real powers would come to disect him for his secrets.

So dragon transformation was good enough for now.

Scales rippled across his skin, black as obsidian, each one humming with latent power. His fingers elongated into claws. His eyes became vertical slits of molten gold.

Kaelen watched the change without expression. "Interesting."

Alex vanished.

He reappeared directly in front of Kaelen, his clawed hand closing around the warrior’s throat. The ground beneath them shattered from the force of his arrival. He squeezed, expecting bone to crack, flesh to tear.

Kaelen grabbed his wrist.

The grip was like iron. Unbreakable. Kaelen’s arm muscles bulged as he pried Alex’s hand away from his throat, then drove his forehead into Alex’s face.

Blood exploded from Alex’s nose.

He stumbled back, vision swimming. Kaelen did not press the advantage. He simply stood there, waiting, as if giving Alex time to recover was a courtesy extended to a worthy opponent.

"You have strength now," Kaelen said. "But strength alone is not enough."

Alex spat blood onto the snow. "Then show me what is."

They collided again.

This time there was no testing. No probing. Pure violence, fist against fist, bone against bone. Alex drove his clawed hand into Kaelen’s shoulder. Kaelen answered with a knee to Alex’s stomach. Alex headbutted him across the bridge of the nose. Kaelen grabbed Alex by his neck and threw him through a boulder.

The battle became savage. Primitive. Both men bled. Both men broke. Alex felt ribs crack under Kaelen’s punches. Kaelen’s left arm hung at an awkward angle after Alex twisted it during a grapple. They tore at each other like beasts, leaving trails of blood across the frozen battlefield.

Jaros watched from a distance, his face pale. "They’re going to kill each other."

"No," Mira said quietly. "They’re just warming up."

She was right.

---

Kaelen stepped back suddenly, his chest heaving. Blood dripped from a gash above his eye. His purple eyes, however, burned brighter than ever.

"You are the first to make me bleed in this trial," Kaelen said. "I will honor that."

He raised his hands and pressed them together in a seal. The air around him turned black. Shadows coiled around his body like serpents, sinking into his flesh, merging with his muscles. His skin darkened to the color of charcoal. Four additional arms sprouted from his torso, each one wielding a blade of condensed darkness. His eyes became voids, empty of everything except destruction.

"Ashura transformation."

Kaelen moved.

Alex barely saw him. The first blow caught him across the chest, opening four deep gashes. The second shattered his left knee. The third sent him crashing into a hillside, burying him in snow and rock.

He crawled out of the rubble, gasping.

Kaelen stood above him, six arms spread wide, shadows dripping from his form like liquid night.

"You fought well," Kaelen said. "But this is the difference between us."

Alex’s dragon scales were cracked. His blood stained the snow. His knee refused to bear weight. Every instinct told him to retreat, to survive, to fight another day.

He ignored those instincts.

The world suddenly compressed around him. Reality bent. He started to see it from a third person perspective.

He activated his chaos rank telekinesis.

The battlefield erupted again.

Alex rose into the air on invisible currents. The broken ground lifted with him, boulders and trees swirling in a vortex of telekinetic fury. He could feel every particle of matter within 100 mile radius. Could command it. Could crush it.

Kaelen’s Ashura form staggered as invisible force pressed against him from all sides. He raised his six arms, trying to push back, but the pressure was immense. For the first time, something like surprise crossed his void like eyes.

They clashed again.

Alex hurled a mountain’s worth of stone at Kaelen. Kaelen’s six blades carved through the projectiles, but each deflection cost him ground. Alex twisted reality around Kaelen’s limbs, trying to tear them from their sockets. Kaelen’s shadows answered, severing the telekinetic bonds before they could tighten.

Neither could gain the upper hand. Their powers were too evenly matched, their wills too stubborn to break. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Kaelen’s lips curved into something that might have been a smile.

"It was a nice fight," he said, his voice carrying over the chaos. "You may die now. I will engrave your name in my friend’s list, the one who gave me a satisfied battle."

He raised his hands and pressed them together in a new seal.

From his shadow, something emerged. A blade so massive it seemed impossible for any human to wield. The sword was crimson, the color of dried blood, and it pulsed with a heartbeat of its own. Dark energy radiated from its edge, corrupting the very air around it.

"Behold," Kaelen whispered. "Venethnore. The Sword of Destruction. It amplifies my strength twenty times."

He vanished after saying that.

---

Alex could not track him. Twenty times amplification on top of Ashura transformation made Kaelen faster than perception, stronger than reality. The blade would carve through him before he could blink.

But Alex had stopped relying on his eyes long ago.

He smiled.

And took a simple step forward, his left hand behind his back.

Golden light exploded from the point where his foot landed. It spread outward in a perfect circle, covering the battlefield in warm radiance. The light did not push. Did not attack. It simply existed, and in its existence, it imposed order.

"Absolute Domain," Alex muttered.

Kaelen reappeared mid strike, Venethnore raised to deliver the killing blow. But his Ashura transformation flickered. The additional arms wavered. The shadows retreated from his skin like frightened animals. His talent, the very source of his power, was being suppressed by the golden domain.

He stumbled.

But Kaelen was a true warrior. His body adjusted before his mind caught up, planting his feet, steadying his grip on Venethnore. Even without his Ashura form, his base strength was immense. The crimson sword still hummed with destructive power.

He charged.

Alex spread his arms.

Crimson wings erupted from his back. Not flesh. Not feather. They were made of void itself, tears in reality shaped into pinions. The Void Wings beat once, and Alex vanished from sight.

With it’s five times the speed of light, he was untouchable.

To Alex, the world suddenly stopped. Snowflakes hung motionless in the air. Venethnore’s descent slowed to a crawl. Every breath became an eternity.

Alex appeared behind Kaelen.

"You fought well," Alex said, his voice calm, almost gentle. "This is how far you go."

He drove his fist through Kaelen’s skull.

The impact was absolute. Kaelen’s head exploded in a spray of blood and bone, his body crumpling to the ground without a sound. Venethnore clattered across the frozen earth, its crimson light fading as its wielder died.

[You have gained 3,000,000 points.]

[You have gained 500 reputation.]

Alex stood over the corpse, his dragon scales receding, his Void Wings folding back into nothing. The golden domain faded, leaving only silence and falling snow.

Jaros approached slowly, his footsteps hesitant. "Is it over?"

Alex looked at Kaelen’s body. At the blood soaking into the white snow. At the sword lying nearby, waiting for a new master.

"Yeah.", he sat down on the frozen land.