Before the red giant could land on the battlefield and cause a mess of things, Luke approached and then used Stinger on his face. He was almost sure that he had hit the enemy since he didn’t react even when he was only one meter away. Still, then very suddenly, he turned around and blocked Luke’s katana with the palm of his hands.

Artheim - LV 1750

HP: 35.500/ 35.500

MP: 21.200/ 21.200

SP: 48.300/ 48.300

STR: 7565

SPE: 1856

INT: 3580

END: 8863

RES: 5422

FOC: 12.100

Free points: 00

Gold Coins: 77.432.878

Active Skills:

Spells:

Passive: Fire Resistance Lv10 (Heroic), Wind Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Archery Lv 10 (Heroic), Viral Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Pain Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Cold Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Earth Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Meditation Lv 10 (Heroic),, Iron Heart Lv 10 (Heroic), Vigor Lv 10 (Heroic), Electric Resistance lv 10 (Heroic), Poison Resistance Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Strength Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Speed Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Endurance Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Magic Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Willpower Lv 10 (Heroic), Absolute Focus Lv 10 (Heroic),

If only Luke had used Appraisal before attacking... he would have realized the power of the thing he wanted to face. He had given up on finding the parameters of his enemies with his Appraisal, but he could understand why he could see it now... that guy didn’t feel the need to hide it. Besides, why the heck does he only have passive skills? That was too weird...

The red giant pushed away Luke and alongside his sword, and the impact made him fly for five hundred meters. In the end, he landed pretty far away from the battlefield, but the red giant followed him. That made Luke frown... From up close, it didn’t seem like Artheim was much bigger than the other giants, but his muscles looked like they were about to explode. He certainly was one overlord that had been fighting for a while. Despite that, he was just wearing long, large, brown pants, and he didn’t have a single piece of equipment or even a weapon. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Are you the one who is working with the demi-humans?" Artheim asked.

"What if I am?" Luke asked, already using Concentrated Strike.

"Why did you attack my troops? I have no recollection of facing someone like you before," Artheim said.

"Even so, you are an asshole who invades other people’s planets and raise hell on them. I don’t need any other reason to fight someone like you," Luke replied.

Although he said that, Luke knew that he was in a bind. He had faced many opponents much stronger than him in the past. Still, it was the first time that he was going to face someone who probably had hundreds of years of fighting experience. Such a high level could only be explained that way. At the very least, Artheim was a few decades older than Luke, and he was used to fighting enemies at his level every single day.

"You don’t appear to be weak, but you aren’t strong enough to challenge other’s overlords with your current level by yourself,"

Luke saw Artheim moving, and he even prepared to dash to the side and then counterattack. However, he suddenly disappeared, and in the next moment, Luke saw himself spinning in the air while feeling like his stomach had been smashed by something. His endurance buff was working, and even though his armor resisted, he still felt like that. It was insane...

Before Luke could even begin to fall, Artheim attacked him again with a downward punch. This time, Luke moved his sword to block. However, the enemy didn’t even try to hit another spot, he just went and punched the Blade and still sent Like downward, and he stopped when he landed on the ground, creating a one hundred meters wide craters. A single punch capable of doing that... thanks to his armor, Luke felt that only his arms were cracking a bit due to the impact. If he had taken that without the armor, he wouldn’t have survived.

Luke got up, and Artheim landed nearby. He wasn’t fighting seriously yet. It was more like he was measuring Luke’s strength. That was annoying, but it was fine as well. He had a surprise in store for that guy... When Artheim dashed again, Luke swung his sword and let the energy of the concentrated strike explode. Once again, the enemy ignored that and just continued his attack. Both of them collided, and a massive explosion happened that pushed Luke away hundreds of meters. It was amazing that the enemy could suddenly increase the power of his attacks like that. Maybe it was instinct, but it certainly was also a natural skill, like the one that Rina and Shalia had that the system didn’t recognize. Regardless, at the top of his right fist, Artheim saw a small cut that quickly healed...

"I might have picked the wrong enemy this time..." Luke thought

Luke could always retreat to his dimension, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to stay there for long. Still, there was only so much he could do against an opponent that his concentrated strike only cut down his skin a little bit. Luke had another idea...

When Artheim attacked again, Luke blocked with his sword, but the enemy realized that something was off. When he tried again, the wound in his hand increased after hitting the Blade of the sword. Artheim had no idea why Luke’s strength suddenly increased. It didn’t increase, actually. He just bugged the power of Heavy Strike with Mana Manipulation and made the enemy lose some points in endurance. Still, Luke was the one who was suffering the most damage...

"If things continue like this, my arms will be crushed before I can cause any real damage..." Luke thought. "Fortunately, this mass of muscles isn’t the type who rushes ahead to eliminate his targets. That also decreases my chances of getting him off guard."

When the difference in power was that big, just being a bit smarter wouldn’t work, so Luke truly was in trouble. Still, that was also a golden chance to get a lot stronger in the blink of an eye, so he couldn’t give up on that fight.

Although he didn’t look like it, Artheim was quite cautious and methodic. To avoid and destroy Luke’s strategy, he suddenly attacked without moving from the spot he was in. Luke never saw him moving. It was like he suddenly moved from a resting position to punching one in a single frame. Before long, Luke was spinning in the air again after feeling something almost smashing his head and snapping his neck. Still, he had been fighting for a long time, and he knew that the enemy just punched the air, and the pressure of the sudden and stupidly fast attack hit him.

Even before his flying speed could be decreased, he got hit in the stomach by another ’long distance punch’. It seemed that Artheim was so strong that his attacks could keep their power even though he was hundreds of meters away from his enemies. Regardless, the battlefield nearby grew silent when the demi-humans saw a single overlord ripping off apart the ground like a meteor with a single punch. That wasn’t power that belonged to the reality of the mortals...

Despite the pain that made him feel like he could die at any moment, Luke returned to his spot by using Checkpoint. He also healed himself, and that made Artheim frown since that wasn’t going to change anything. That was just plain stupid. Instead of healing, he should have thought of another way to attack. Since he found one before that damaged him, Artheim thought that Luke could find another. Still, Luke was just waiting for the next attack.

Luke also felt that his plan was quite stupid, but it was the best option for a person like him, who was very impatient. To make things even weirder, he wasn’t acting or showing an expression that he had an ace up his sleeve... Regardless, Artheim punched him again and then again, not with the direct hits. Eventually, the third attack hit Luke, and he almost felt his life leaving his body. However, he still returned to his starting point and healed himself.

The same thing happened again and again, and while Artheim didn’t have Appraisal, he had good instincts. At first, his three attacks almost killed Luke every single time, but after a while, he started to look a bit less wounded. Even if his Pain Resistance was leveling up, it shouldn’t have that effect. Eventually, Artheim realized what was going on... Luke was using him to level up his defensive skills. He wasn’t wrong... In just a couple of minutes, Endurance Support and Iron Skin had leveled up five times each, thanks to those attacks and the extra mana Luke used on the skills at the very moment of the attack. All that just to save his mana and have enough to heal himself completely.

Artheim had faced many fools in his lifetime, but he never found someone that was much weaker than him, but it still was thinking that they had the leisure to use him like that. It was more surprising than maddening for him. Still, his target was being naive. As if he would let him do as he pleased for as long as he could... in the worst way possible, Artheim decided to teach him that his attitude was stupid.

Luke got a bit surprised when Artheim suddenly moved to the side. With what seemed to be a single step, he moved hundreds of meters away from his previous position, but he still looked at Luke and made him feel a shiver go down his spine. This time, he clearly saw the motion of Artheim punch. He did it slowly in order to put more power behind that punch. At the same time, Luke realized that he would be in trouble if he got hit by that. However, he couldn’t dodge it... Behind him, there was the backline of his army. Artheim put him in a real bad spot.

Without thinking, Luke emerged several Earth walls in front of him and also used his sword to freeze the air around and increase the durability of the earth walls. Still, the blast caused by the next punch easily destroyed those and hit Luke’s chest. He used his sword to block it, but it didn’t help all that much. Still, somehow, he wasn’t thrown away like a source of rag... He put his feet on the ground to receive the full power of the attack. He was pushed behind hundreds of meters, but at least he stopped the attack. The price might have been a bit too high, though.

Luke ended up coughing a lot of blood that turned his green armor into the red. Even the armor had received some damage now, but Luke couldn’t stop to repair it. Most bones of his torso had cracked in many spots. Even breathing was causing Luke a lot of pain.

In the end, Luke could only click his tongue in annoyance for him to be forced to use that. He disappeared without leaving a trace, and then he appeared in his dimension, where he found a clone of himself made of mana... Practicing Sonic Blade with a sword...