Chapter 753: I am not strong. You are weak
The moment Max’s golden palm met the monstrous fist of the Ascendant, the battlefield seemed to pause for the span of a single thunderous heartbeat. Blazing ripples of luminous energy erupted outward in concentric waves, lighting up the blood-drenched field like a sudden sunrise cutting through a storm.
For an instant, a brilliant sphere of golden radiance encased both Max and the towering creature, crackling and shimmering as light and darkness warred at the point of impact. Then, with a deafening crack like the splitting of a mountain, the sphere burst apart, sending the Ascendant hurtling backward as though fired from a divine cannon.
Its massive form flew in a wide arc, limbs flailing, black ichor spraying from fresh cracks that spiderwebbed across its armored torso. The creature crashed into the ground in the Second Circle, plowing through soil and shattered stone, carving a deep trench in its wake until it finally slammed to a stop amid a shower of dirt and rubble, its roars echoing in a mixture of pain and outrage.
’My palm is strong... but it’s still lacking severely compared to Noah’s palm,’ Max mused, his brows furrowing even as golden light continued to fade from his scales and hands.
He could feel the echo of the impact thrumming through his bones, not painful but vibrating with residual power. He understood perfectly where the gap lay. It wasn’t mere strength he lacked—it was the way of Buddha, that serene, all-encompassing spiritual resonance that Noah and the entire Bright Buddha Palace cultivated.
Noah’s palm strikes carried not just force, but a profound sense of tranquility and cosmic balance, a force that seemed to harmonize the universe even as it destroyed.
Max, no matter how strong his raw physical or elemental power, simply didn’t possess that spiritual enlightenment, and without it, his palm would always be a shadow of the original technique.
Still, the raw might of his blow had been enough to completely overwhelm the Ascendant, forcing it back into the Second Circle where it rightly belonged. But that didn’t mean Max intended to remain behind in the First Circle slaughtering ordinary Nulls while the real threat brewed further ahead.
From the moment the Ascendants had first arrived, Max’s instincts had burned with the urge to push forward to the 2nd circle area. The only reason he’d stayed in the First Circle for so long was because he hadn’t yet found the opening to go through. Otherwise if he had entered the 2nd circle area just because he could, he would obviously be reprimanded by the elders of the Hunter Association to go back to the 1st circle.
Now, that chance lay wide open, carved into the battlefield by the force of his own palm strike.