The Achievement Junkie

"Oh, does that mean you want to play?"

The pillar of light caused Halmut's golden scales to glitter with power and radiance. He confidently stood before Moranti, not underestimating the God of Space but not fearing him either.

"All of you, stand down… I'll deal with him," Halmut ordered. "Tralbok, heal Grixor now."

Following orders, the holy gods all backed off. Lyrun returned Grixor his lost arm while Tralbok used time magic to restore the arm to its past state. Naparn silently stepped aside but his heart was reluctant. The others all retreated to their perimeter willingly.

Moranti chuckled and showed a sharp smile. "In that case, I'll finally have to get serious. Though I will admit, they were a great warm-up."

Moranti's body grew larger and more agile as his skin was taken over by pale purple scales. Claws replaced the tips of his fingers, still being thinner than a cicada's wing. Wings sprouted out Moranti's back to increase his flight speed. Spatial energy naturally revolved around him without any expenditure, proving that Moranti was able to naturally attract neutral space energy around him, just as Halmut did with holy energy.

Those that were spectating were on the edge of excitement and suspense. They had never believed that Moranti would be so powerful. To see him face six other gods at once and have an advantage was unfathomable to them, but to see Halmut become so serious also proved that the God of Space was worthy of respect and fear.

One wielded a simple yet beautiful scythe and the other wielded an ornate scepter with a blade protruding from the bottom of the hilt. Both had assumed their strongest forms right off the bat.

"Want to go first?" asked Moranti, tauntingly waving his scythe.

Halmut said nothing but charged ahead. Along with that dazzling holy energy, lightning and wind also coated the Sun Dragon's scales. His speed surpassed both Tyres and Torian without comparison.

However, Moranti was also taking the fight seriously. He held nothing back while allowing his physical form the ability to merge with the spatial energy. Matching Halmut's speed, Moranti took the challenge head-on!

The two divine combatants met midair and paused as their personal weapons clashed. They glared at one another, one being serious and emotionless while the other still had a playful look hidden under his serious gaze.

"Don't you want to give them a show to remember!" shouted Moranti, flooding the entire sky with spatial energy to match the abundant holy energy that Halmut had created.

The God of Space suddenly teleported, reappearing behind Halmut. His scythe slashed forward while the Sun God was already defending himself. A small rift opened up as the scythe's blade was about to clash with the scepter, but the bladed spines of Halmut's tail blocked the reappearing blade instead.

"So you're warmed up too? Then we both need to take this up a notch…"

Moranti backed off while slashing yet again. A wave of thick spatial energy lashed out toward Halmut, which the Sun God dodged by climbing higher in the sky.

Halmut wouldn't allow Moranti to control the battle's tempo, though. He roared and unleashed a cyclone of fire from his jaws.

Both high-level gods soared higher and higher as they evaded each other's attacks. Moranti didn't mind the separation while forcing Halmut higher and Halmut didn't want the weaker gods to be within an unavoidable range of Moranti's attacks.

While their attacks and exchanges were now further away, it wasn't any harder to witness them trading blows. More and more energy was getting used as the spatial and holy energies of the surrounding area grew thicker and thicker.

Also, they were no longer just evading. Sometimes, they would use their own attack to cancel the other's as the pace of the fight grew faster.

When Halmut would spew a hurricane of flames from his mouth, Moranti would do the same, only with a blend of spatial and fire energies to eradicate and shred the flaming cyclone apart. If Moranti would slash at Halmut with aid of spatial rifts, Halmut would defend with his unbelievably quick reflexes along with both holy and nature energies to strengthen his tremendous claws. Halmut made sure to use his advantage of size and brute strength when colliding with Moranti's crafty attacks.

Seeing the two gods nearly standing as equals jarred the crowds below. Their opinions of Halmut were nigh unbreakable but their assumptions about Moranti grew stronger with each exchange of blows. And, for those that were more sensitive to Moranti's earlier words about Halmut, the God of Space was beginning to appear as a reliable god to worship, despite Halmut's wishes and words.

The other gods from below were in awe of the battle taking place.

Those former chaotic gods felt a tinge of fear in their hearts. Watching the fight reminded them about Moranti's sudden rebellion five hundred years ago. It gave their fears validity. This fight was proof that, even back then, they had never seen Moranti give a fight his absolute all.

As for the gods which had always been holy, they were in shock. They knew that Moranti was to be feared yet always felt that Halmut had shown too much reluctance in facing the chaotic gods after the Godly War. Most had believed that with Skaryn gone, they would steamroll through the remaining chaotic gods. But witnessing such a battle take place, was proof that their leader had done the right thing.

Whenever someone pushed to confront the chaotic gods, Halmut would always insist that they take things slowly and secretly until he was finally healed. And that had only changed a couple of days ago when Halmut finally decided to use one of those strange multicolored crystals to heal himself, the same type of crystal Halmut used to revive Sybin to her previous godly strength.

After years of silently disagreeing with Halmut's planning, the holy gods had no choice but to support such a decision in retrospect. Moranti's existence and unique abilities alone was an anomaly that could've resulted in the deaths of many.