Raymond’s dagger fell from the heart of the explosion, but he could not even attempt to follow it.
Watching the pieces of flesh stitch back together, he frowned.
Even the flesh from Carmen’s body joined.
"This is bad."
He stretched his arm lightly, and the dagger that had been falling, reappeared in his hand.
With a thought, he was standing in front of the stitched body.
He slashed at the center, the wind screaming as the blade tore forward.
Nothing. The blade passed through the flesh as though it did not exist in normal space.
Raymond’s frown deepened. "Can you stay alive for the next ten minutes?" he asked Lukas.
But even as he spoke, he did not look away from the flesh.
Lukas gritted his teeth as he mustered all
His strength to tap the floor with his barely hanging arm.
Raymond took that as confirmation.
Then he flickered out of sight. The flesh which had begun forming into a body disappeared alongside him.
In the sky far from the warehouse, space cracked slightly as Raymond stepped out.
The flesh appeared close to him.
"It looks like the same one from that day," Raymond muttered under his breath.
But his thought didn’t have time to bloom.
The flesh formed fully.
It no longer had the grotesque appearance it had a few seconds ago.
Now, it looked like a normal human.
But this only unsettled Raymond more.
"There is no doubting it, this is a miracle granted by god Mordrath," Raymond muttered as the flesh finally gained a form.
It was none other than Carmen, her body reformed perfectly.
But that was not the shock Raymond was currently experiencing.
"Her divine energy is already comparable to that of a paragon," he mused to himself.
Her strength was not an issue to Raymond, considering all she had was the divine energy, not the boons.
But if someone could casually create beings at Paragon tier...
"I don’t even want to think about it."
"I told you I was going to kill you, didn’t I?" Carmen yelled, lunging through the air.
The clouds around them were reduced to mist as the flames spewing from her body touched them.
Raymond did not wait, he met her in the center, their fists clashing to release tremors that rippled through the sky.
They thundered like a divine drum, enough to deafen anyone who heard it.
Both fighters disregarded this. They moved in blurs too fast for the human eyes to follow. The wind bellowed in their wake.
Flames spilled out from each collision.
"Maybe I underestimated you a little bit," Raymond said, catching Carmen’s fist in his palm.
It was a single hand he used, but the force behind the attack ripped his sleeves, sending sharp gales backward.
Carmen did not stop.
Her left arm snapped forward, leaving blazing trails as it neared Raymond’s head.
Raymond’s head snapped backward, letting the fist sail over his head.
He released his grip on Carmen’s fist and backflipped.
Just a second later, the place he occupied exploded as a flame lotus sprouted there.
For a moment, both fighters only stared at each other, scrutinizing their opponent with chilling focus.
"I see," Raymond said, stroking his chin calmly. "The Mordrath miracle you are using is not yours," he said. "Your patron god is Nezha."
He spoke as if he was talking about a normal matter that did not really need his attention.
Carmen only grinned. But she could also feel it, even with her newfound power, there was nothing she could do to Raymond.
The gap between them was like a vast chasm. One that could not be breached by merely possessing divine energy on par with a Paragon-rank awakened.
But she charged in regardless.
A spear of pure flames materialized in his grasp as she lunged.
Her body zipped through the sky, leaving red trails from the aftermath.
She thrust at Raymond’s head.
Raymond ducked beneath the attack calmly, the movement done as if it had not cost anything.
Carmen did not stop. She transitioned into a slash seamlessly.
As though the flame spear was a solid material, Raymond’s dagger caught the spear by the shaft.
The flames scattered slightly before reforming almost immediately.
The world held its breath as if it were anticipating what was going to come after.
"Falling star."
The words came softly and calmly, as if the person was declaring the end of something.
Carmen’s body trembled as she felt the space around her tighten.
Above her, space warped and twirled till it became nothing but a mote.
"Okay, I guess I need to pay Michael a visit, I can’t let him and his gang continue acting like this," Raymond said as the mote tore downward.
Those were the last words Carmen heard as the space orb ripped through her, tearing her body into pieces.
"I see," Raymond muttered
"We will meet later," a voice replied.
Raymond smiled as he stared at the mist before him. It was a crimson mist, shaped in the form of a person.
"Michael, I see you and your gang are planning something."
Michael, the mist being smiled lightly in response. "Raymond, how are you?"
Raymond scoffed at the greeting. "What are you trying to achieve with all this?"
Michael smiled again. "There there, how can you be surprised later if I told you now?" he asked, a finger tapping lightly against his lips.
Raymond nodded. "I will find you."
He said no other word after that. He vanished in the next instant, leaving the misty figure floating within the clouds.
To Raymond, attacking was useless, after all, it was merely a projection delivered through blood.
But Michael did not leave immediately. His gaze lingered on the falling pieces of Carmen’s body.
"At least, the first trial, even though it was a failure, assures me that I can turn all of them into paragon-rank awakened."
A slight smile played on his lips once again as the blood mist began to drift away.