The two rivals from the ancient times flew at one another at high speed and unleashed their fists towards each other. The fists collided against each other in the centre of the arena, causing powerful shock waves to occur as well as causing the wind to blow wildly everywhere. The spectators were startled by the intense first strike at each other that resulted in the wild wind, which buffeted them while most of its impact was absorbed by the barrier.

Lakshman and Lagron were still in the same place, with their fists punishing against their rival’s fist. Lagron was gritting his teeth as if he appeared to be struggling whereas Lakshman looked calm and composed as he did his best to push his fist forward.

Since neither of them were backing down from the tug-of-fists, they relented. Both pulled their punches back and got into their fighting positions once more. This lasted only for a second because they immediately began to unleash a barrage of fists and kicks at one another at an incredible speed. Each blow was either blocked, dodged, or countered by the other person before the rival would retaliate with their own attack that was also blocked, dodged, or countered before being attacked in return.

The ground shook tremendously from the intensity of their brawl that involved only fists and kicks while their energies surged incredibly around them. Each punch they threw released a wild wind that was repelled by an equally strong wind unleashed from the fist of the other person.

They continued to brawl it out for more than a minute with neither side taking any sort of damage. Then the next punch they threw at one another collided against each other in the centre. This standoff of fist against fist lasted for a few seconds before a spark of violent energy occurred, which sent the two warriors flying away from each other.

Lagron quickly recovered and rotated his body around into an upright position and set his legs down on the ground, where he slid for a few meters before coming to a stop. As he was sliding, he raised both of his hands and aimed them at his rival before unleashing a rapid barrage of energy blasts. Within seconds, over a hundred energy blasts were hurtling through the air with the clear intention of wounding their target.

Lakshman had also recovered and slid to a stop as he brought his body into an upright position. Then he saw the attacking coming and clenched his fists firmly. As they came, he began reacting to each and every one of them by using his hands to deflect the energy balls away from him.

The deflected energy blasts flew in all directions and exploded on impact against the wall, ground and in some cases, the barrier as they got deflected higher than Lakshman had intended to. This did make Lakshman feel a little annoyed at himself for not aiming to divert them away from his friends. Still, his mind did not divert from the energy blasts that kept coming towards him.

This continued to go on for several minutes before Lakshman clicked his tongue from irritation and made his move. He kicked off the ground and flew sideways, away from the incoming energy blasts. Then he began to move in a wide angle to get to his rival to implement what he had in mind.

Lagron noticed his movement and seeing him moving sideways in a wide angle, he smirked and gathered a large amount of energy in the palm of his hand before firing it at the spot where he predicted his rival would arrive at. The Phoenix Titan saw the incoming wave and came to a sudden standstill and let the wave fly by in front of him.

As it came, Lakshman smiled and kicked off the ground once again to soar through the air and at his opponent while skimming the edge of the enemy’s wave. Lagron was startled at seeing this and when Lakshman reached him, he gathered a large amount of energy in his palm and brought it forward to fire it at his rival. But the Dragon Titan was quick on the uptake and raised his free hand in the direction of his rival and shouted the magic words.

“Dragon Armor Energise!”

In an instant, red scales materialised in front of him before a solid shield formed around him. It blocked him from the wave of destruction that the Phoenix Titan unleashed upon him at such close quarters. Still, the impact of the wave against the shield caused the ground beneath him to quake and cave in slightly as cracks formed everywhere while the wind blew wildly as well as shockwaves were sent in all directions.

Lagron seemed to be struggling against the force of his opponent’s wave against his shield, but he suddenly smiled and screamed, “AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!”

With great strength, he swung his shield away and deflected the wave away from him and into the air. Lakshman was surprised because he did not expect him to do that, but his rival was not done. In a successive movement, the Dragon Titan released his other hand and aimed it directly at Lakshman before grinning and firing yet another powerful red wave of destruction at him.

Lakshman reacted quickly in an instant and shouted, “Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, the incoming red wave of destruction froze and blew up into small particles of light harmlessly. Lagron widening his eyes in disbelief because he had not expected his rival to cancel out his energy. However, this left him momentarily vulnerable and gave Lakshman the chance he needed to fly down and slam his fist down hard on his rival’s face.

The impact on the face was so strong that Lagron was blasted sideways down into the ground, causing his upper half body to be stuck beneath the ground.

“Yes!” The spectators roared energetically in support of Lakshman at the first hit made by their friend.

Lakshman took no notice of the cheer as he moved to grab one leg of his rival and pulled him out before swinging him around at an incredible speed to disorient him.

“Argh!” Lagron yelled being disoriented and swung around like a toy.

After swinging him around multiple times, Lakshman let him go by aiming him high into the air. The Dragon Titan flew off into the air at high speed and while he was unable to defend himself, Lakshman raced up to him and delivered a powerful punch straight to his gut.

“Gah!” Lagron exclaimed in shock and pain from the impact as a shock wave was released from the impact.

In an instant, Lakshman vanished and reappeared above and punched him hard on the back that sent him flying downward. Lagron plummeted towards the ground at high speed and seemed about to crash when his body suddenly spun around and he landed firmly on his feet, causing the ground to cave in slightly.

A moment later, Lagron kicked off the ground and rocketed into the sky at his rival while his power surged around him.

“Take this!” He yelled much to his rival’s surprise before raising both of his arms and delivering them straight into his rival’s face.

The Phoenix Titan groaned in pain from the strong impact, but it did not end there. Lagron spun his body around and went down to kick his rival across the face. The stunning impact knocked Lakshman away, but his opponent began to pursue him and begin relentlessly unleashing a barrage of fists to beat him up.

“Lakshman!” Cried out his wives as they watched their husband get beaten to a pulp.

Lakshman was beaten up like this, with Lagron wearing a triumphant smile over his face. Deciding he had unleashed enough barrages, he decided to deliver an extremely powerful punch straight to his rival’s face. So, he pulled his fist back and unleashed his most devastating punch at his ancient rival.

“Huh?!” He exclaimed suddenly when his attack did not connect and instead was caught by his rival’s hand.

He was startled and as he saw Lakshman’s hand grabbing his fist, he noticed his rival stir and look at him with a fierce look. In an instant, he realised he fell for his rival’s trap because, in the next moment, Lakshman clenched his free fist and punched Lagron in the gut with incredible force.

“Argh!” Lagron yelled out in pain from the impact for the second time to his stomach, but the attacks did not stop there.

While grabbing hold of his rival’s hand, Lakshman began to unleash his own barrage of fists at him with his free hand. Lagron was shocked and took a great deal of damage from the powerful punches that his rival unleashed on him. He was stunned and could not fight back as his rival successfully delivered blow after blow on his body.

Finally becoming infuriated, he roared, “Argh! Stop it!”

His roar caused a wild wind to surprise and buffet Lakshman, who stopped his barrage of attacks. Then he saw Lagron unleashed his remaining hand at him, but he quickly reacted and caught it as well with his own. The two stared at each other with each holding onto the other’s hand, which made them suddenly kick the other person, but the other blocked it quickly.

For a few seconds, the two interlocked warriors tried to hit each other with their legs but kept getting blocked due to the other person doing the same thing.

Getting irritated by this, Lagron clicked his tongue and said, “Damn, and here I thought to keep this a secret!”

“Huh?” Lakshman asked, unsure of what his rival was planning next.

He got his answer in the next second as a large amount of energy suddenly gathered around his rival’s body, causing him to glow in red light. Lakshman realised that he was about to explode a lot of energy and activated his Elemental Coated Armor to defend himself as best as he could at this close-range assault.

“AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!”

The Dragon Titan screamed and triggered the release of the violent energy that had quickly built up around him. Lakshman let go of his rival’s arm and braced himself as the impact of the violent attack knocked him away. He flew for a few seconds before Lagron suddenly appeared out of thin air before him and slammed his leg into his side, shocking and injuring the Phoenix Titan.

The powerful kick sent him flying away, but he was chased by Lagron and quickly hit again from the other side that sent him flying into the sky. Once again, he was chased after and knocked elsewhere by another impact from the Dragon Titan. Like this, Lakshman was being knocked around with strong impacts made by his rival, Lagron who chased him relentlessly as if not willing to give him room to rest.

After numerous chases and punches, Lagron demanded his rival as he chased after him once more, “Is this all you got?!”

He was about to land another hit when Lakshman dodged him by pulling his body back and replying, “Not quite.”

The Phoenix Titan clapped his hands together and shouted, “One Man Army!”

There was a sudden flash of light that made Lagron back away and blocked his eyes with his arm from getting dazzled by it. A moment later, it subsided, and he moved his arm away from his eyes and saw that a hundred copies of his rival had appeared before him.

“Let’s see you contend with us!” The copies of Lakshman told him and took fighting stances against him in mid-air.

Lagron looked at them and smirked as he said, “This cheap trick? Can’t you think of something better?”

He suddenly gathered energy in the palm of his both hands and crossed them in front of him before sweeping them out while releasing the gathered energy while saying the technique name out loud.

“Dragon Buster!”

In an instant, an unbelievable amount of small energy balls began to fly towards the copies of Lakshman, who were shocked to see this. They attempted to get away, but the speeding red balls were very quick and smashed into each of them, causing them to explode and spread smoke everywhere.

As the smoke spread, Lagron saw only one remaining as he was deflecting the attacks and smirked before flying towards him at high speed. As he was nearing his rival, he waved his hand and the red balls of energy suddenly stopped attacking him and fell to the ground to explode harmlessly. Lakshman was surprised by this, which left him open for just a moment, a moment that Lagron took and gathered a tremendous amount of energy in his arm to deliver.

“I got you!” Lagron shouted gleefully as he was about to hit his enemy.

Just as he was about to unleash his fist, a flying kick came from the top and smashed into the side of Lagron’s face. He was stunned by this sudden attack as he did not understand where the kick came from or who had attacked him. Then he heard the familiar words of the technique he knew all too well.

“Pho-nik-ala-chala—!”

He turned around and looked up and saw that there were two Lakshmans hovering there, with one gathering a massive amount of energy in the palm of his hands. In the next instant, Lakshman unleashed the attack straight down at Lagron while screaming the last word of the attack.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”

Lagron’s eyes widened with shock at the massive wave soaring down on him, but he managed to contain himself and roar instantly, “Dragon Armor Energise!”

The shield from before returned in its entirety, and he held it with both hands to block the immense attack that was fired at such a close range. The wave soared down and seemingly engulfed both the shield and Lagron before it soared down to the ground to make a powerful impact.

The wave of destruction continued to get fired before it exploded at the ground, creating wild winds to blow in all directions. Shockwaves were unleashed from the explosion and the ground shook from the impact as smoke began bellowing in all directions and covered the view.

Lakshman looked down at the smoke drifting arena floor before extending his arm out to his copy, who touched his own chest and transformed into a ball of light before flying straight into and merging with Lakshman’s outstretched arm. Then the Phoenix Titan soared down and landed gently some distance away from the place his rival crashed at.

For a few seconds, the smoke continued to hang in the air as it blocked the view of the full arena when, suddenly, a great gust of wind was blown from Lagron’s crash site. The smoke was blown away in an instant, and everyone saw that Lagron was standing firmly on his feet and looking grimly at him. There were only small bruises and cuts but nothing too major that Lakshman could see, which made him smile.

“What was that?” His rival asked.

“What was what?”

“Don’t play tricks with me,” growled Lagron with his eyes narrowing. “That One Man Army technique. I saw my attack destroy all of your copies, leaving only you out as the original since you kept deflecting them. I did not miss a single movement of yours and yet… another one of you appeared. How did that happen?”

Lakshman saw that his rival was looking irritated at being tricked, and smiled as he replied, “It’s a technique.”

“Oh?” Lagron asked, looking mildly annoyed. “Not going to answer properly? It doesn’t matter since I’ve seen such a technique before.” Then he smirked and said, “It’s Doppler, isn’t it?”

This surprised Lakshman, and seeing his reaction, Lagron smiled and said, “As I thought. You did reverse engineer that technique from that Commandment of Freedom.”

“How did you…?” Lakshman asked as he was confused how his rival knew of that technique, or whom the Phoenix Titan had learnt it from.

“Did you forget? The Phoenix Clan and the Dragon Clan fought together against the Angels,” said Lagron, which made Lakshman realise the obvious. “While I was battling the Commandment of Justice, I watched you fight the Commandment of Freedom, and saw you struggling against him who keeps duplicating himself.”

Lakshman smiled wryly while Asura said in his mind, “It’s a technique that greatly troubled me, but I saw its use in places other than battle and did my best to copy it. I didn’t think this guy would remember such a minute detail though.”

The Dragon Titan suddenly smirked and said, “Still, you don’t seem to have perfected the technique to its truest essence considering the small amount of damage you did to me just now. A pity really since you did catch me by surprise.”

“I didn’t try to learn it on my own to make it like the original, and a reverse engineered technique cannot match the original’s capabilities,” replied Lakshman with a sigh.

Lagron shook his head and said, “Whatever. It’s your problem, not mine.” Then he smiled and said, “Alright. I think that’s enough warm up. What do you say?”

The spectators were shocked, and Dominic asked, “Huh? That was… a warm up?”

“You’re kidding me!” Zen said with a shocked look on his face.

“That looked pretty real to me,” commented Wolfenstine nervously. “If that was a warm up, just what kind of display will we see for the actual fight?”

“I don’t know but… I’m excited for it!” Priya said excitedly.

“Yes! I want to see their true strengths!” Indira said eagerly.

Meanwhile at the arena floor, Lagron stared at his rival and asked, “Well? What do you say, Asura?”

Lakshman smiled and said, “Sure. I think we’re ready to go all out.”

Lagron grinned and said, “Fantastic!”

He leaped away from the crashed site and landed back where he originally stood before the start of their warm up. Then he clenched his fists together and began to surge with incredible power. He began to roar with power as he surged and a flash of light occurred before the light dimmed and revealed that he had powered up and ready to do battle for real.

“Come, Asura! It’s time I show you I’m not the me of the past anymore!” He challenged Lakshman with a determined smile on his face.