MIGHT AS WELL BE OP Chapter 956: Two Weaknesses

Aura Nova gazed intently at Lucian from above, while he merely lingered in place, meeting her eyes with a subtle, relaxed grin that clashed sharply with the intense seriousness of their confrontation. She found it impossible to grasp how the fight had twisted into such a ridiculous and nearly inconceivable direction; just a heartbeat earlier, it appeared they'd effortlessly slipped into a clash of sorcery and far-off assaults, enchantments smashing into each other and powers shredding the sky, but in the very next flash, Lucian had closed in on her with his katana ready, so near that she could glimpse the tranquility in his gaze as if the space separating them had simply ceased to be.

She failed to fathom the sudden and illogical shift in the battle, so she hovered mid-air, fixing her stare on Lucian below as her thoughts raced through endless options and scenarios at a terrifying pace, dissecting each motion, each instant, every surge in mana and the fabric of space, moreover, she remained baffled by how the illusion had tricked her so thoroughly to begin with, since by all reason and her prior encounters, nothing like it should have fooled her perceptions in such an absolute way.

Lucian stayed rooted in his spot with that identical casual smile, regarding Aura Nova with the poised air of a veteran expert gently instructing a novice pupil, his stance upright but non-aggressive, his aura subdued yet inescapably heavy, like the outcome of the fight had been sealed ages ago and he was just biding time for her to catch up to that reality.

"Do you know your weakness, Aura Nova?" he posed the question more to himself, not anticipating a reply from Aura Nova, his voice casual and almost chatty, yet Aura Nova answered promptly without pause, her tone firm and free of any annoyance.

"Enlighten me," Aura Nova declared while locking eyes with Lucian in total poise and serenity, her face a blank slate without a trace of arrogance or resistance, for if it was indeed her flaw, she was fully prepared to listen openly without evasion or protest.

"Your error right from the start was assuming your shortfall was just limited to close-quarters fighting experience, and then, once you fell to my Sword Intent, you shifted to thinking that's where your flaw truly rested," Lucian started explaining, utterly unphased by Aura Nova responding to his self-directed query, his explanation unfolding steadily and with patience, "that's precisely the problem. You're too narrow in your view, Aura Nova," he went on without budging a step, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on her features.

"At first, I was truly thrilled and keen to exchange blows and test myself against you, I really was, but at this point..." he halted briefly, as if selecting words that balanced honesty without excess cruelty while still expressing his letdown, "I’m not that interested anymore," he let out a quiet sigh as he said it, like all the hopes he'd nurtured since encountering Aura Nova had silently fallen apart.

Aura Nova stayed quiet, she avoided yelling or snapping back as others in her shoes might, instead just suspending herself aloft without shifting while absorbing his statements with steady attention, for she knew Lucian had no motive to deceive her now, no incentive to twist facts or guide her astray.

"You only catch a tiny piece of the puzzle, Aura Nova. Your flaw breaks down into two distinct parts. The first is combat experience in general, not piecemeal or in isolated skills, but comprehensively across the board," Lucian pressed on, resembling a mentor methodically pointing out flaws to a promising but unrefined disciple.

"You miss broad fighting wisdom, combat plans, flexibility, and strategic insight; you've got the pure gift and immense strength, but not the honed expertise to back it up. Take how you got hit twice in one fleeting moment—I'm certain you still can't figure out how... correct?" he pointed out, his gaze still pinned on Aura Nova as he talked, as if even a second's glance away might let the key point slip past her understanding.

Aura Nova offered no response, but Lucian's observation rang painfully true, for she truly couldn't explain how he'd landed those exact, flawlessly timed strikes without her detecting the slightest hint.

"But I won’t reveal the method, because then how would you ever really grow?" Lucian said with a soft, nearly playful grin. The way he'd wounded Aura Nova was actually pretty basic and direct; as she focused entirely on countering the Void Eater spell, he'd woven in an illusion spell alongside it, stacking trickery over devastation, and he'd anticipated her enduring the Void Eater anyway, since that incantation had only acted as a lure from the outset.

Lucian had surmised that Aura Nova lacked innate resistance to illusions, unlike him, Anthony, and Aaaninja. Anthony shrugged off illusions due to his ridiculously dominant nature that ignored all norms and reason, Lucian himself resisted them thanks to his system's safeguard that instantly blocked and dismissed such meddling, and Aaaninja overcame them through his ridiculously potent Eyes Of Genesis that saw reality past any deception.

Lucian had figured Aura Nova relied on her Omniedit power to stay fully shielded from illusions. Sure, she could pierce through them even without Omniedit, but it demanded a brief instant or the smallest sliver of time to sort fact from fake on her own, and Lucian had staked the whole plan on abusing that tiny lag.

Aura Nova, busy shattering the Void Eater spell with brute superiority, faced another assault out of nowhere; she'd reacted on pure gut and impulse without deliberate awareness, lacking the moment to properly detect the illusion, and Lucian had seized that brief gap with cold precision, though he spared her head, he'd claimed her arm as the toll for that lapse.

Regarding her other arm and how Lucian had anticipated her position before she even arrived, he could still pick up the faint spatial ripples she trailed during her shifts and jumps through space. The void acted like a fluid, and traversing it always stirred waves and disruptions however minor, yet Aura Nova hadn't mastered concealing or smoothing those traces, rendering her paths readable to anyone attuned enough to spot them.

"I bet on the Dusk planet, you just crushed foes with pure overwhelming might, which explains your gaps in versatile fighting know-how and polished tactics since you bulldozed past everything unchallenged," Lucian added, hitting the mark with eerie precision.

"Ultimately, your Omniedit power, your top asset, has paradoxically turned into your biggest liability. No misunderstanding—it's a phenomenal and fearsome gift, but facing types like me, Aaaninja, and Anthony, it just won't measure up," he noted evenly and straightforwardly while eyeing Aura Nova without a hint of superiority, simply voicing what he saw as an unshakeable fact.

Aura Nova's thoughts whirled as she concentrated wholly on Lucian's words, her mind buzzing while recollections surged swiftly across her awareness, cycling through her myriad fights on the Dusk planet in quick succession. She'd never required plotting or pondering maneuvers or placement, able to halt time and wipe out threats effortlessly, and armed with such vast dominance, she'd bypassed all the fiddly or intricate efforts.

Yet against rivals forged as mighty as her, or mightier still, she naturally came up lacking, for yes, her prime power had gradually and slyly morphed into her prime shortcoming on this elevated arena where savvy, accuracy, and smarts counted equally to sheer might.

Aura Nova held her silence despite this epiphany, knowing that uttering a word wouldn't alter a single thing.

Only effort, progress, and dedicated training could ever shift the balance.