He had less than half a second to react, his right foot still bleeding from the stone spike he had just ripped himself away from. There was no room to dodge, no space to think.

Driven purely by battle instinct, he immediately dropped himself backwards to the ground, shifting his weight onto his one uninjured leg as he used the created space to hoist his star-metal battle-axe upward to meet the descending blow.

Because he dipped so low, his defensive arc gave the Neanderthal’s club even more downward force and swinging leverage, but it was the only way he could parry the strike in time.

The weapons collided directly above his head with a furious crack, the sheer impact forcing a gust of wind to explode outward around them.

But simply parrying the attack was not enough.

The Neanderthal had poured a terrifying level of physical force behind the swing, lacing it with that exact same discordant tremor effect that had scattered Uhtred’s internal energy twice before.

This time, however, Uhtred did not rely on raw physical blocking. The moment the club and star-metal crashed into each other, he deliberately laced his defense with his newly acquired metal affinity.

It was a technique he had never formally practiced, a desperate gamble born from pure survival intuition.

In that split second of contact, Uhtred forced his Formless Core into action, channeling the metal essence he had learned to sense from the Epicyon Wolves directly through the shaft of his battle-axe.

He generated a high-frequency counter-vibration through the star-metal, aiming it at the tremor the Neanderthal was driving into him.

That tremor effect was the primary pain in the ass for Uhtred in this fight. The stone spike had already severely injured his right foot, drastically limiting his mobility, and his body was actively trying to divert vital cosmic essence to heal the gaping wound.

He knew with absolute certainty that if he allowed that foreign tremor energy to course through his arms again, it would violently scatter his internal flow, stall the healing process entirely, and release the full, blinding brunt of the pain he was suppressing.

For a someone whose mind was already operating at maximum capacity to ignore the burning agony of the gaping hole in his leg, losing control of his internal energy would make his movements sloppy, spelling instant death in this high-stakes fight.

As their weapons clashed, the feedback rocked through Uhtred’s palms, sending a violent jolt that threatened to rip his grip from his battle-axe.

But to his absolute shock and relief, the tremor effect in question was stopped right at his wrists. It did not travel past his hands. It did not invade his forearms or scatter his cosmic essence flow like before.

And even within his hands, the sensation was severely dampened. It entirely lacked the level of effect that Uhtred had expected, seeing how powerful the Neanderthal’s swing had come charging down at him.

It worked! Uhtred thought, a surge of adrenaline washing over him.

Across the locked weapons, he caught the instant change in the Neanderthal’s eyes. The ancient warrior’s pupils dilated in genuine shock, his heavy brow twitching as he realized his internal disruption technique had been nullified.

But despite that, his eyes firmed up just as quickly.

Snapping his hefty club back, he struck again, sweeping the weapon horizontally from the side in a vicious, rib-shattering arc aimed directly at Uhtred’s midsection.

Uhtred didn’t hesitate. He brought the long handle of his battle-axe parallel to his torso, turning it into a vertical shield against his forearm to meet the strike head-on. He activated the counter-vibration metal magic again, focusing entirely on timing the exact moment of impact.

A heavy thud resounded, cracking the air as the club smashed into the star-metal shaft.

Despite how close Uhtred’s bare arm was pressed against the weapon acting as his shield, there was absolutely no bleed-through of the tremor again. This time, the disruptive frequency even dissolved into total nothingness the moment it touched the axe.

A look of deep frustration flashed across the Neanderthal’s rugged face in response, but he remained utterly relentless.

Almost as if he had anticipated that Uhtred would successfully tank the second blow, his left hand shot forward like a striking viper, his thick, wide fingers reaching out to grab Uhtred’s shoulder to yank him forward and throw him completely off balance.

But Uhtred caught the movement early. He leaned his upper body backward in an instant, narrowly evading the Neanderthal’s reach. At the same time, he hefted his battle-axe from his side, weaving it upward in a sharp, diagonal trajectory meant to sever the outstretched arm.

Recognizing the danger, the Neanderthal leaped backward immediately, creating several paces of space.

Uhtred used that brief window to scramble backwards across the ground, pushing himself up from his crouching position into a full, defensive posture.

The moment he shifted weight onto his right foot, an intense, white-hot flash of agony shot through his leg and rippled up his spine.

He clamped his jaw shut, forcing the pain down. His mobility was now severely compromised, but a cold sense of clarity settled over him. He had successfully neutralized the main technique the Neanderthal had been terrorizing him with.

So, aside from earth magic, he can also use some variation of a metal magic too... Uhtred concluded, his eyes narrowing as he and his opponent sized each other up across the clearing, both panting heavily to catch their breaths.

That’s exactly why my metal affinity countered his attack.

The tremor he was sending into my arms was using the star metal of my battle-axe to create a resonance that disrupted my essence flow...

It made perfect sense now. Uhtred’s sudden intuition to utilize his metal affinity to vibrate his axe had broken the exact frequency required to achieve resonance.

Without that precise energy loop traveling up his veins, the Neanderthal’s technique was nothing more than a simple, heavy physical blow.

Which leaves only his earth magic, Uhtred thought grimly.

If not for the fact that the Neanderthal still had Earth magic, Uhtred’s act of fully rendering the metal disruption technique null and void would have simply turned this fight into one of raw strength.

But alas, there was still the Earth Magic to face...