" Finally… a worthy opponent" Hercules said with a satisfied expression on his face as he too felt his arm stinging from punching against Max.

This was a new sensation for him, as in terms of raw power no-one had ever been able to catch up to him.

There was Rudra who used the power seeds to artificially boost his speed and hence increase his strength, but in terms of pure ability, even he fell short.

*Bam*

*Bam*

*Bam*

*Bam*

The two of them almost instantly after being pushed back by their initial clash, jumped straight back in exchanging extremely high paced blows.

With their fists covered in aura, the two battered each other's energy form at the speed of several thousand punches per second.

Dodge

Counter

Attack

Parry

Defensemagic

These five fundamental moves occured at such a high pace that to the naked eye it seemed like the two were not moving from their position at all as their movement speed surpassed the limit of human perception.

-23,000-23,000

-22,000

About five seconds into their intense clash, Max was able to find his first opening as he landed a punch on the perfect warrior's abdomen and from there on, he managed to do it once every five seconds as he realised that although very marginally, he was faster than the perfect warrior as his cosmic vampire build had managed to even transcend the perfect warrior.

"I'm faster than you-" Max said with a smug smile on his face as the perfect warrior did not reply to his provocation.

A few seconds passed and the perfect warrior took a few more gutshots, before saying " The amount of damage you deal to me is negligible…. With such a small advantage, you can't topple my superior constitution"

Max knew this was true, the perfect warrior had an HP pool of billions. A 25,000 damage was negligible to him and while Max because of his race had an edge in speed, the perfect warrior had the edge for physique and constitution where he had arguably the best constitution in the universe.

"Alright then, let's spice it up" Max said as he accepted the challenge that the perfect warrior threw his way and decided to step-up to it.

[ Martial God Arts : Gorilla Style Barrage ]

Bringing out a move that he only recently mastered in the universal warehouse, Max brought out the infamous Gorilla Style Barrage created by the celestial martial god.

-560,000

-560,000

-560,000

.

.

.

..

-560,000

Max blew apart the perfect warrior's defence as his opponent could not withstand the raw power of the gorilla barrage and once his guard was blown away, Max absolutely pelted him to Oblivion.

Chipping off 45 million HP points, Max made a visible dent in his HP pool as if Rudra was to see this sight, he would have undoubtedly puked watching how easily Max was able to land his first good blow on the perfect warrior.

Unlike Rudra who was only able to land a pseudo first blow on his fourth run, Max managed to land a barrage of hits on his very first attempt.

" Hoho… pummeling you is more fun than what I imagined" Max said as the perfect warrior with steam coming out of his body nodded his head in solidarity.

"You have mastered a great arsenal of moves…. However, unfortunately, it still won't be enough to beat me" he said as he opened his arms wide and suddenly Max felt as if his entire body could not move a single inch.

"What?" Max wondered as he noticed that starting from the feet of the perfect warrior, a weird runic inscription travelled all across the martial floor and created a circle around where Max was standing and then extending all the way backwards where a second perfect warrior stood.

"So the real one is the one at the back… and you're just a clone-" Max said as neither the clone nor the real perfect warrior confirmed or denied his hypothesis.

Regardless, Max had always expected the battle to turn out this way, as it made perfect sense for the perfect warrior to start a battle with numerical advantage.

Rudra had explicitly told him that the real battle only started when the clone came out and that Max's first target should always be the clone.

[ Seed of destruction ]

Max called upon the power of seed of destruction to eat away at the weird bonds that caught him, however, before the seed of destruction could undo his bindings, the perfect warrior pulled off a move that Max had never witnessed before.

[ Absolute Pulverisation ]

A tier9 beam of energy fell straight from the heavens towards Max as without the ability to move or to conjure a defensive spell, Max had no options to defend against it.

" A move I created myself…. An original I saved for only worthy opponents, something you won't find in any records….. something that even your brother had never seen…..I hope you enjoy" The perfect warrior said in a condescending tone as all hell broke loose on Max.

He felt as if concentrated destruction aura, coupled with elements akin to facing Karmic Backlash were ripping apart his very soul as he bled close to 2 million HP points for every second the move lasted.

"GAHHHHH" Max screamed as every inch of his body felt like it was set aflame as the pain that he inflicted on the perfect warrior, seemed to have been returned a thousandfold back to him.

" There is no escape from this move…. There is no redemption.

It's my ultimate attack which consumes more divine essence than what a single body of mine is able to conjure and requires me partnering with my clone.

It was nice meeting you, new challenger, but I'm afraid, this is as far as your first challenge goes.

Adios" Hercules said as over the next few seconds, the Pulverisation beam only got stronger and stronger, taking the DPS to even higher levels than before.