Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 1848: A Cheap Copy

On the stage, Rakan felt the change more keenly than anyone else. Max’s aura had risen, but Rakan was not convinced. Not yet. After all, an aura was only an aura, and body strength had to be proven through collision. The War God Body was not something that could be intimidated by pressure alone.

Rakan’s eyes blazed with war intent. ”Then take this!”

He drew his fist back. The bronze markings across his entire body flared to life as the First Limit, the Second Limit, and the Third Limit resonated together. His blood roared, his bones hummed like divine metal, and his flesh poured out boundless war force.

The power of all three limits gathered into his right fist and twisted the air around it into a distorted vortex.

The War God Palace disciples roared along with him.

”Rakan!”

”First Warlord!”

”The Three-Limit War Fist!”

”Crush him!”

Rakan stepped forward and punched with everything he had. The stage shattered beneath him, and his fist tore through the air toward Max like a falling star of war.

Max raised his hand. He did not raise a fist, and he did not raise a palm. He extended a single index finger, calmly, and touched it to Rakan’s incoming fist.

Boom!

The impact detonated outward. The barrier around the central stage flashed violently, the arena floor beneath both fighters cracked in every direction, and a storm of compressed air swept across the stage with enough force that even the watching participants had to narrow their eyes.

But Max did not move. His finger remained pressed against Rakan’s fist, and Rakan’s full-strength punch had stopped dead.

The entire Eternal Hourglass arena plunged into absolute silence.

Rakan’s pupils contracted, and his body froze in place. The War God Palace disciples, who had been roaring only a moment earlier, suddenly lost their voices. Thousands of people stared at the giant screen as though their souls had drifted out of their bodies.

They had expected Max to block, or perhaps to retreat, and some had even expected him to reveal another vein. But not one of them had imagined he would stop Rakan’s full-strength Three-Limit War Fist with a single finger.

At the Black Dragon Clan, the disciples fell silent as well, and then the plaza exploded.

”One finger!”

”He blocked Rakan with one finger!”

”That was Rakan’s full-strength punch!”

”Max did not even move!”

”Brother Max is a monster!”

Lady Virelia’s lips parted slightly, and for one brief moment even she could not hide the shock in her eyes. The seven family heads stared at the screen while their expressions shifted again and again.

They had always known Max was special, and they had known he possessed hidden depths, but the scene before them had gone far beyond anything they had anticipated.

Inside the Eternal Hourglass, the top geniuses were shaken just as badly. Damian Voss’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. Orion Starfall stared at the stage and said nothing at all.

Kaiden Voidmere’s eyes reflected faint ripples of void, as though he were trying to perceive exactly how the Vein of Origin and the Draconic Essences had fused within Max’s body.

Ervin’s expression turned deadly serious, and Revona’s Void Origin Eyes stayed locked on Max’s finger. Aurelian Lareth’s face twisted into something ugly, and Selene Vaeloria went pale with disbelief.

Morgana Starveil whispered, ”That is simply unreasonable.”

On the stage, Max looked at Rakan with unshaken calm. Rakan’s fist trembled against his finger, and it was not because Max was pushing him back. It was because Rakan was still pouring his strength forward and could not move that one finger by even the smallest fraction.

Max spoke quietly. ”Is this your full power?”

Rakan’s eyes went wide, and then he roared. He wrenched his fist back and punched again, and Max raised the same finger.

Boom!

The second punch stopped. Rakan attacked again with a third punch, then a fourth, and then a fifth. Each blow carried the terrifying strength of the Third Limit, each one shook the stage, and each one made the barrier flare, yet every single strike was halted by Max’s finger.

It happened again, and again, and again.

Rakan’s fists grew faster and heavier. His body blurred as he attacked from every conceivable angle, striking from the front, from the sides, from above, and from below. He threw straight punches, hook punches, elbow strikes, shoulder slams, and even a crushing knee strike that could have snapped an ordinary divine body in half.

Max never moved from his spot. Sometimes he used only the tip of his finger, sometimes he shifted it half an inch, and sometimes he turned his wrist by the slightest degree. But no matter how Rakan attacked, everything ended at that single finger.

Boom! Rakan’s fist slammed into Max’s finger and stopped.

Boom! His elbow crashed down and stopped.

Boom! His shoulder charge thundered forward and stopped.

Boom! His knee rose with enough force to split the stage in two, but Max’s finger pressed down lightly and pinned it in place.

The more Rakan attacked, the quieter the arena became. This was no longer a fierce exchange between equals. This had become a gap, and it was a visible and undeniable one.

Rakan, the man who had forced Max to reveal the Vein of Origin and then pressed him hard enough to call upon two thousand Draconic Essences, was now incapable of moving Max at all with his full power.

The shock in Rakan’s eyes deepened with every blocked strike. At first there had been excitement, and then disbelief, and then anger, and then raw unwillingness. But as punch after punch failed to budge Max’s finger, even that unwillingness slowly began to change into something else.

It became acceptance.

Rakan finally stopped attacking. He stood before Max, breathing hard, with bronze light still burning around him and his fists trembling from the repeated impacts. His body was not broken, and his will had not collapsed, but his eyes had changed completely.

He looked at Max’s finger, and then he looked at Max, and for a long time he said nothing at all.

The War God Palace disciples watched in silence. No one was shouting anymore.

Even Saint Reiner, standing in the shadows, remained quiet for several breaths. His eyes were fixed on Max, and the faint smile he had worn earlier had dissolved into deep contemplation.

”I expected this result,” he sighed softly. ”After all, the War God Body was never anything more than a cheap imitation of the Seven Divine Veins.”

He alone understood the truth of it. In ancient times, no human had ever been able to use the Seven Divine Veins, and so a number of them had gathered together to create a crude imitation of the technique, which later came to be known as the War God Body.

From that point onward, the War God Body reigned as the strongest body cultivation art in existence, for the simple reason that no one alive could open even a single vein of the true Seven Divine Veins.

But Saint Reiner had always known that a cheap copy would forever remain a cheap copy. He had devoted himself to researching the Seven Divine Veins and had eventually managed to piece together the complete technique, along with the method for opening all seven veins.

Even so, not a single genius, nor anyone else from the War God Palace, had ever succeeded in opening the Seven Divine Veins, and it was this failure that had driven Saint Reiner to build the two combat towers in search of a successor worthy of inheriting his life’s work.