Without hurrying, El pulled his right arm back. Dou Qi rushed out, merging with the Ash Flame essence that wrapped his fist in a fiery white aura.
"Octane..." said El in a sharp tone. The fist shot out, and struck Karna right in the chest. "...Blast: Eight Stacks!"
BOOM!
Karna's body bounced violently.
Explosion after explosion exploded from the point of contact, creating a shock capable of shattering a mountain.
The golden sands parted, as space and Karna's body were blown away, dragging the desert soil in a long, fiery path, almost hitting the great monoliths in the distance.
But El gave him no time to breathe. With his left hand raised, he whispered, "Banshō Ten'in."
SHOOM!
Karna's body was suspended in midair, then pulled back with the irresistible force of supernatural gravity.
Before Karna could organize a defense, El was already preparing again, this time launching dozens of punches with both fists flaring in unison and ending with a single Dou Teknik as before.
"Octane Blast: Eight Stacks!"
BOOOOM!!!
The explosion thundered again, forming an almighty pressure wave. The desert trembled. The horizon trembled. The sky was momentarily dimmed by the burst of energy released from the point of impact.
With a single thought, Shana who was thrown far in the distance by the previous explosion shot back, pierced the air and landed directly on El's right hand.
In an instant, El's body disappeared, leaving an after image that instantly faded amidst the heat waves of the 3-meter-deep crater desert and the spatial cracks beneath his feet.
El chased after Karna.
Not letting him escape.
El's resolve was clear: finish him before he got up.
Every time El stepped on air, the spatial cracked under the pressure.
Meanwhile, Karna's body was still bouncing around, going through space until the spatial cracks scratched along its path.
In addition, Karna's body slammed hard into the natural rock monoliths that towered over the desert several times, creating earth-shaking booms.
However, although the series of attacks just now had tremendous destructive power, it was still not enough to subdue the son of Surya.
Kavacha & Kundala's armor glowed softly, absorbing and withstanding most of the impact.
Even after the onslaught, Karna was still standing. With damage reduced to 90%, as if a god could not be brought down by mere physical strength, Karna was invincible.
"O Agni..." Karna said softly, but his tone was firm. A prayer as well as an order to the god of fire.
Instantly, Mana Burst (Flame) gushed from the soles of his feet, stopping his body in the air.
The heat wave screeched, spewing out an absurd amount of energy, setting dozens of surrounding natural monoliths on fire, melting into fiery red lava.
Even the sand beneath evaporated, turning into a pool of molten magma.
Karna stared intently, his red irises catching the image of El who was now moving faster than the speed of sound, creating sonic explosions with each step.
Without hesitation, Karna increased the intensity of her Mana Burst (Flame) until her body shot through the air... almost at the speed of light.
Amidst the waves of fire and the storm of pressure, the two figures met.
CLANG!
There was a terrible clang as two weapons collided, Shana with the Ash Flame essence in El's hand and Karna's divine spear pitted against each other.
The energy blast from the collision tore through the desert sky, creating a vortex of heat and sharp winds that sliced through the surrounding space.
In the next second, they moved.
Stripes of white and golden-red light traveled through the air. A scene like a tangled cable was created from the unimaginable speed, tracing the movement trajectory of two entities that transcended mortal limits.
CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!
Every time their weapons clashed, golden-red sparks and fiery ice flowers fell from the sky, showering down the golden sands of the desert like a rain of heavenly disaster.
On the other hand, the space in the sky was torn apart, creating cracks like glass falling from a height: the effect of El's spatial attack that shook the dimensional order.
Natural monoliths collapsed one by one, becoming both victims and silent witnesses of a battle between two existences far beyond human comprehension.
Before long, the exchange of attacks came to a halt.
Karna suddenly moved back, away from El. Not out of fear, but to prepare something.
El squinted Rinnegan's Eye of Insight, six tomoe rotating slowly, body tensing. He knew very well Karna's movement was not without reason.
El was not rash. He realized that pursuing Karna to thwart the attack would be foolish, as long as Kavacha & Kundala were still active, covering Karna's body with divine protection.
Instead of breaking the attack, it would put him in Karna's attack range.
With a split second to make up his mind, El's eyes caught the change in the spear in Karna's hand now engulfed in golden-red holy fire.
The flames writhed, wrapping around the spear, reconstructing the divine weapon into something different...
A golden bow.
"An arrow? Is Karna fighting as an Archer now?" El muttered to himself, a little surprised, but still calm.
Even so, he began to guess, at least, what kind of attack would be launched.
The golden bow had no arrow... until Karna pulled hard on the string, and instantly, a fiery arrow appeared, made of red-gold divine fire, pulsing with a power that could burn the world.
Karna soared high, supported by bursts of Mana Burst (Flame) from the soles of his feet, like a god of war arching from his throne in the sky.
"O Agni, burn my enemy," he said, full of authority and confidence, before releasing the bowstring.
WUSH!
The first arrow shot out like light. But in the next second, hundreds of other fiery arrows emerged from the void, filling the sky like a hellish meteor shower, all aimed at a single goal.
Immediately, El raised his left hand, palm open, staring straight at the oncoming storm of arrows.
"Spatial Strangulation," he said firmly.
Instantly, spatial crack lines opened up in the air in front of her, like thin glass beginning to shatter, before hundreds of Karna's fire meteors pierced through space, aiming with destructive force as if time was holding its breath.
However, before the cracks had time to destroy the entire attack, Karna, without warning, shot through space, driven by the impulse of Mana Burst (Flame), appearing right near El.
Too late.
Karna had already retracted his golden bowstring, and in an instant, a new arrow of flame was formed, denser, thicker, more searing.
"Damn..." muttered El, eyes wide, he didn't expect this to be just a lure, and Karna used it perfectly.
"O Agni, burn and pulverize my enemy!" exclaimed Karna grandly, before finally releasing the bowstring.
FWOOSH!
The arrow shot out, as if bringing with it the wrath of the fire god.
The arrow shot from Karna's bow, like a hellish meteor that tore through the air and space.
Time seemed to slow down, and El knew... he had no other choice.
In an instant, with full focus, a stage three Susano'o exploded out of his body, mixing with a flash of reddish-purple Dou Qi and the white flame of the Ash Flame, transforming into a white-hot giant, as if born from heavenly flames.
But El knew, although the protective shield was sturdy, this attack was not something that could be completely resisted.
The power of those divine fire arrows would penetrate. At least 50% of the damage could indeed be mitigated by the Light Armor's effect, and his strong physique, but the rest?
It was enough to make any human body shatter into pieces.
But El was undaunted.
If his body was destroyed, as long as there was a thread of breath left, he could still use Hell Path: Hell King's Head to completely rejuvenate his body.
Thanks to the Heart of Sun, El's regeneration rate and endurance became increasingly unreasonable.