The Titan's Throne

Omens

V was worried by Bastian's error and was about to scream, but it was too late for his entire body to get out of the way. When Bastian himself realized what was happening, his body reacted for him. His blood started pumping faster, his senses heightened themselves to the max and his mind went into overdrive. Fear can often be a weakness in battle, but for survival, it could also be one's greatest strength.

By reflex, he took a stance. V thought that was a stance where his fists were supposed to block the stinger, which would be a retarded idea, but thankfully she was wrong.

Sebastian Tirius came from a family of mages, thus, he never had any training in martial arts of any kind. Bastian Smith however was different. Although he was not particularly good at it, he had practised one particular fighting style from his college days, just to keep fit...boxing

He swayed his upper body slightly to dodge the stinger, an act called weaving in boxing. Then he took a few quick steps forward and aimed another straight at the same eye. The pincer again came to block. The scorpion had fallen for his feint. He quickly retracted his right hand, and aimed a fast jab at the pincer, not enough to damage it, but enough to displace it!

Once the jab had connected, Bastian began his next move. He stepped forward again and swung a right hook with all his might. His right hand, at this instance, was covered by a faint red glow. This was fire qi, to protect his arm from the poisonous properties of the scorpion's blood and to increase its penetrating power.

His fist entered the beast from its left eye and went straight to its brain. Almost his entire arm was inside the beast. The hissing noise made by the fire qi burning flesh was quite audible.

Then, as quickly as he struck, he retracted his fist, at the same time, ducking to dodge the other pincer that was coming his way. He then backstepped and side-stepped; leading to him backstepping like a mad man, dodging the stinger that had been coming from behind.

Due to the damage to its own brain, the scorpion could not control its own stinger, leading to it being stung by its own weapon. The poison was not only poisonous, but it was also highly corrosive. The stinger pierced through the right pincer that had just missed Bastian. It then went through the middle of its two eyes and went straight into the scorpion's brain; effectively destroying it.

Bastian stopped moving at a safe distance and relaxed his fists. The scorpion stopped moving and dropped to the ground lifelessly. Bastian looked at his work, marvelled by what he had just done. None of this was really intentional; it was purely by reflex or rather, he was not conscious of it.

He just did whatever he could do to survive. Once one entered the stinger's range, it was very difficult to escape unscathed. So by default, Bastian knew he had to kill it as soon as possible.

Which led to the current events. Luckily for him, the stinger and its appendage were very long, which meant it would take some time to extend and retract it. This gave Bastian enough time to react.

During the battle, Bastian noticed another thing, he could vaguely sense the distance between the stinger and his body. The strong smell emitted by the stinger, the speed it had reached out with, the sound it made when it moved and the feeling of the wind behind him, allowed him to determine its location. Especially the wind, Bastian felt a rather interesting connection with the wind.

The moment the stinger moved toward Bastian, V ran toward Bastian with all her might. Yet when she got there, she was met with a dead scorpion, and an unusually calm Bastian, who had his brows furrowed, seemingly deep in thought.

V was about to ask him how he had done that, when he opened his right fist, revealing a small brown bead-like object.

This is a daemon core!

Daemon cores were what all daemons had in their bodies. They were the concentration of most of the World Energy, collected during a daemon's lifetime. They supplied a daemon with instant World Energy during battle and were usually in the daemon's head, heart or mid-section, although there were strange exceptions. They also supplied the daemon with Life Energy, meaning without its core, a daemon was effectively dead.

He must have taken it when his fist struck into its brain! Incredible!

Daemon cores were often tiny and needed some time to find in the body, and this is after the daemon had been killed through other means. The scorpion was a big creature; its brain was proportionally large as well.

Bastian struck and retracted his fist within a fraction of a second, he had no time to search for the core, yet he found it instantly.

Judging from his demeanour, he meant to do so. This guy is just...

Bastian was even more dumbfounded than V. He had no idea how he just did that. He just stood there. The shocking performance he just gave was even beyond him. That was not just a show of strength and speed; it was a display of incredible reflexes and strategic prowess.

From Bastian's point of view, it felt instinctual, as if his body just knew the quickest way to win, or rather, to survive. In his previous life on earth, Bastian had done boxing for almost a decade, since his days in university. He was neither skilled at it nor poor, but he still practised it almost every day, even after his diagnosis. Those movements were now a part of him.

But he had never executed such a fast jab, nor had he weaved so perfectly in any fight. He could barely pull off a proper feint, yet here, he executed an incredible combination.

Thanks to his e-vision, Bastian could see the distribution of World Energy inside the creature; therefore, finding the core was not hard for him. He just had to look for the area with the greatest concentration of World Energy. To Bastian, it felt as if he had done this a million times.

After the intense bout with the scorpion, Bastian stood there and started doing more punches, straights, jabs, hooks, uppercuts, any boxing move he could remember. He even started testing his footwork. Bastian was a boxer who relied more on speed and footwork. In his previous body, his reflexes were lacking, making him unable to bring out the best of his style.

He was just doing it for exercise so he did not mind. He never liked pain, so when he sparred with someone it was never a skilled fighter. This did not stop him from trying to perfect his techniques though. Day after day, he would practice, read boxing theories, watch fights, practice, anything to improve.

This new body however was the epitome of physical perfection. It could perfectly reproduce any action he had in his mind; be it reflexes dexterity, coordination, strength and stamina. This body had it all.

V saw Bastian's display and simply observed. Suffice to say, she was impressed. Bastian was bouncing on his toes the entire time, his rhythm varied and his punches were good. They were fast, accurate and powerful. These did not look like the punches of someone who had never fought before.

She had never seen such a style before.

It has incredible and efficient punches. The footwork was also very dynamic and very effective for handling attacks on one's upper body.

Out of habit, V began to analyze Bastian, whilst he was shadowboxing. After a few more seconds, Bastian stopped. V assumed he was done and nodded in approval. Unfortunately, she was wrong. She saw him sniff the air, his expression quickly turning ugly. To V this was a bad omen.

Humans are not known for their sense of smell compared to other creatures but Bastian had clearly unlocked something that was scary.

Bastian quickly turned to his left and saw a group of Kalari Scorpions headed towards him. They were moving in what seemed to be a clumsy single file. They would move this way underground, then encircle their prey once they get close. They were about 200 meters away.

"It was a group of Kalari Scorpions and judging from the scent, there are six of them. Two of them have a slightly different scent from the rest, I think it's the parents," said Bastian with a grave expression.

His sense of smell is so sensitive that it can even differentiate numbers! Incredible!

V was impressed, but unfortunately, now was not the time to be impressed. Bastian saw that the situation was dire but his previous performance had uplifted his spirit. He did not want V to fight, even though she could easily finish the pack of scorpions in a flash.

In an instant, he wanted to test the limits of his new body, much like her. Feeling confident, he searched through the information he had received from the Bloodline Awakening, to see if there was anything he could use right now.

Most of these techniques required lots of yuan. His cultivation level was so low that he could only use Dragon Descends, a move that used kinetic energy from his previous fall as the primary energy source. Other techniques from the Empyrean Equilibrium Void

Shattering Fist were also dependent on kinetic energy. Furthermore, they often used the kinetic energy from one's opponent's strike as fuel, still, one required lots of time to master the entire technique. One mistake and one could die instantly.