To the five dragonewts, who were just realising that something was wrong, it seemed as if time had slowed down.

Everything in front of them began to change and terror unfolded right in front of their eyes.

Considering that the human in front of them was considered to be extremely terrifying and the things he had done in both the decimator rounds and the combat rounds, it had been too easy for them to approach and attack him!

However, that was only something they had realised a moment too late.

Jason had planned to release the race specific weakening curse but figured out that this was not even required in order to take out the first bunch of opponents.

Karn could be taken care of later, but the five dragonewts were more like pestering fleas, distracting him with their annoying buzz.

However, he didn't mind them and it was part of his plan, the reason he had summoned large black flame wings instead of small ones with which he could change his trajectory more easily.

With a crafty smile on Jason's face, the black flame wings stiffened mid-air as he stopped flapping them abruptly.

A quarter of a second later their shape changed and the huge black wings split up into a hundred blazing spikes that were controlled by both Jason and Solaris at the same time!

Both of them worked in perfect sync to slowly avert their trajectory and turned the spikes towards the five attacking dragonewts before they sent them shooting straight at their opponents without any further delay.

Each of the five dragonewts was bombarded with several black blazing spikes, searing through their flesh. Tiny fragments of Solaris' flames embedded themselves within their bodies, burning them from the inside out.

All of this took a mere second and the moment the black wings dispersed, the gravitational force started to work, pulling Jason towards the ground.

Yet, instead of falling down and leaving the aerial battlefield, tiny black flames manifested a few centimeters below Jason's feet, only to explode a second later.

The explosion propelled Jason a few meters higher into the air, which gave Solaris enough time to manifest another batch of black flame wings.

While the five dragonewts had been pierced by several black blazing spears and were burning from the inside; the fire draining them of their mana and life force, Karn didn't hesitate to attack Jason.

His eyesight and reflexes were exceptional, allowing Karn to perceive what the exploding black fireball allowed Jason to do.

Even though it elevated Jason's position, he was also forced to divert his focus on his wings for a moment that didn't leave him any scope to change his position.

This short moment was more than enough for Karn to manifest another flaming broadsword into his free hand.

While brandishing both flaming broadswords, Karn could only see a distinct gleam in Jason's eyes as he perceived tremendous changes all around both of them.

Earlier, Jason hadn't utilized his Celestia aura and stigma properly, and he had yet to use any of his other abilities.

As such, Karn was astonished to see that his body instinctively flinched when Jason released the petrification curse.

However, its potency had reduced drastically due to Karn's innate defenses, only to face the full brunt of the race specific weakening curse.

Jason refrained himself from using the abyssal ability because he felt as if the ability was something he should test out before using it once again. The last time he had used it, he hadn't been able to control it

Thus, he decided to not use it right now.

Despite that, the two curses he had activated were already more than enough to give him a quarter of a second which he used to envelop Byakur with a thin membrane of Solaris' flames in addition to another layer of his own mana.

With a swift swing, accelerated through the Floating sky movement technique he could barely utilize, Byakur sliced through the wind, only to cut through the flaming broadswords.

It was fortunate for Jason that the flaming swords hadn't enveloped any swords made out of high-grade materials, otherwise, the difficulty to cut through the natural resistance of dense metals might have turned into a problem.

Because this was not the case, Jason had been able to deflect Karn's broadswords and prevent him from inflicting an injury.

They were still fighting in the air, but Jason's position was more than half a meter above Karn.

From the outside, it looked like they were on equal footing which meant that their fight would only drain each other's mana reserves, however reality spoke otherwise.

By using a large amount of mana, Jason could end the fight against Karn, the dragonewt, however, that was not something he should do if he wanted to prevent being surprise attacked in a weakened state.

In the end, there were still more than 40 opponents on the ground, and they had just started fighting against each other.

Yet, based on a single glance towards the ground, Jason's Emperor Eyes perceived that their fights were rather boring.

He found that a majority of them were reluctant to fight against each other seriously in order to prevent utilizing too much mana at once.

As such, Jason couldn't just use a majority of mana to subdue Karn, just to defeat him.

He had to plan several situations at once, including the aftermath of defeating someone.

Because of that, Jason made a risky decision which caused a smile to emerge on his face that caused Karn to realise that something was wrong.

Trying to leave, Karn flapped his wings hastily, only to feel Jason's tight grasp around his shoulders.

Jason had retracted Byakur into the soul world while increasing his physical strength by allowing Petri to occupy his mana core.

This caused his control over the black flame wings to decrease rapidly.

However, that was not worrisome because Jason had already retracted the flames on his back.

There was only one large black fireball behind his back while the remaining flames had been absorbed by Solaris, converted into the mana it had been.

Karn was astonished by the sudden increase in Jason's strength.

'How can his physical strength increase so suddenly?! It's at par with mine even without the use of any mana...at the middle of the 8th Lique stage?!?'

Earlier, he had assumed that Jason's strength was high, which made him order the other dragonewts to join his attack but to think that he had been hiding even more secrets was unbelievable.

At that moment, Karn's eyes widened as black scales, with patterns of golden veins spreading through them, grew on Jason's body, with a three-meter-long tail growing out of his coccyx.

Only then did he hear a faint voice.

"Watch out!"

By the time Karn heard these two simple words of a warning, it was already too late and the large black fireball behind Jason's back exploded, catapulting the two young prodigies towards the ground.

The gravitational force did its job as Jason's weight had increased to over 100 kg with Petri's manifested body parts, pulling them towards the ground.

After the explosion behind Jason occurred, Karn realised the young man's plan which forced him to react in haste.

Out of instinct, he released every ounce of mana within him, only to envelop his body and brace for impact.

'Fuck!! As if I would give up now!!!'

__________________