Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Maxim didn't spend a micro-moment staring at the emerged enemy. She bolted right along the corridor to deal with the foe before they attacked.

Skullius felt her presence fade, as it had when she and him had fought Baddan; an Auxiliary Technique. 

He heard a teeth-rattling boom an instant later, and Maxim's figure flashed towards him, spinning viciously, bouncing on the wall as it came!

Skullius leaned to the side to dodge it, and as soon as it passed him, he heard it pound in the ground tens of meters away.

A trail of blood followed the path Maxim had taken from the obscure figure of the woman ahead, who finally stepped into the corridor, her presence filling it up with suffocating, unreasonable bloodlust. 

Skullius could trace her shape and form with his abundant senses alone.

She was quite bulky, her entire body being the true definition of thick. Her calloused skin was exposed freely, leaving only her excessively generous chest and waist covered by a spotted hide that looked as tough as the woman was. 

The woman had wild, ginger hair, shaved at the sides, and her face, made ugly by the bestial expression she wore, was partly covered by loose strands of it.

She took heavy steps forward, and then grunted condescendingly at the figure of Skullius.

It appeared she was mute.

Skullius gave her a soft smile as he hid his hands within his robe's sleeves. He did nothing. 

The woman's presence flared from her body like a savage wind. It almost seemed corrosive, for the walls recoiled as it expanded from her body, unable to withstand it. There was also the harsh scent of blood from her, not only fresh blood, but the kind that had been accumulating for decades. Somehow, this scent was prominent in her presence, in her mana, as though the two were one and the same.

This woman was a Master. One who had reached the peak of it. One with accolades laced in the blood of thousands or perhaps even more. Considering that most people from Maqi didn't leave their nation often, this woman's achievements, her kills, must have been made locally, through monsters much like herself.

She was no ordinary Peak Master.

She reached Skullius and stood before him, towering over him intimidatingly, her mana brushing against everything chaotically. Most people would have buckled under her already.

Yet, Skullius didn't budge or show a reaction. But neither did the woman. She seemed amused that Skullius didn't react to her like everyone else she met on her way. 

He was either strong, foolhardy or both.

Right then, something akin to a translucent, paper-thin plate whipped through the air, heading for the woman's face. Before it hit her, it became three dimensional, released from the imprisoning technique from which it had been held.

It was a large stone block. 

It rammed into the thick woman with as much speed as it had been travelling with as a thin plate and shattered in her face, releasing dust and stone bits.

Skullius moved aside just as a bloody-faced Maxim zoomed towards the woman in the moment she took to swipe the dust from her face, her body covered in a thick layer of Perfect Aura. She lunged low, spread her arms and speared into the enemy's torso with all her might. 

The Maqian woman was pushed back slightly, her bare feet scraping against the floor for a few meters.

Maxim was stunned when her momentum stopped just after she had barely pushed past three meters. She remained hugging the woman's torso, her Aura flaring mightily to enhance her strength, but the woman… simply didn't move. Not anymore. She didn't attack either.

The pink-haired beauty ground her teeth, focused her Aura and called forth her Genuine Incarnation; a flat paper centipede that swirled around her as she drew back from the woman, and stomped on the floor. 

At once, a portion of the floor turned into a large, thin square plate that pivoted up with the weight of Maxim's foot, elevating where the Maqian woman stood, much like how a seesaw would.

The Maqian woman was caught by surprise. She slid down towards the lower end where Maxim was waiting, and as soon as she reached her, Maxim groaned as she threw a powerful straight punch into the woman's face!

The entire floor of the mansion rumbled horribly. Maxim had staked all her Aura into that punch, holding nothing back, and even the enchanted mansion couldn't completely neutralize the excessive force that blew from it.

…And yet…

Maxim turned pale. 

The woman… was completely unharmed.

Worse yet, she hadn't even used her Perfect Aura or called her Genuine Incarnation.

She simply took the attack with her body.

Maxim couldn't fathom it. Even if her opponent was a Form User, she shouldn't have been able to take on a powerful strike like that unguarded.

It didn't make sense.

'No way…' she thought while watching as the woman grinned and grabbed her shoulder with an impossible grip that sank into her flesh. 

The woman then cocked back her arm back and formed a bulbous fist.

At once, Maxim knew. If that punch connected, she was going to die.

It didn't matter that she had on her Perfect Aura. It defended against mana-based and weaker Aura-based attacks. What was meeting her was raw strength.

Without even looking to be tempered by anything noteworthy, the fist seemed to contain ungodly might.

And it came a moment later, faster than lightning, smashing into its target with horrendous force!

The walls exploded around the corridor, the vines and roots that decorated them seeming to burn away from the force that was generated in that instant, the floor sinking deep!

But…

"You seem capable of taking a punch and throwing a decent one…"

A masculine voice came. 

It didn't come anywhere but where Maxim had stood, awaiting her death… only now, the Hybrid Luman stood there, holding the large fist of the Maqian woman with lazy elegance.

Maxim was gaping while laying on the floor several meters away, completely befuddled, as was the Maqian Master before Skullius.

She couldn't understand how-

"How about you take a good one from me?" the Hybrid Luman said with a nasty smirk.

The Maqian woman doubled back.

Skullius didn't follow, but he did pull on his sleeve, revealing the slender blackish-red gauntlet underneath.

The Hybrid Luman made a fist, but he didn't cock back his arm. He didn't need to.

He didn't look for leverage. He didn't it.

All that mattered was that his physical stats were now perpetually bolstered twenty times, making his previous physical strength stat of just over 30,000 jump to over 600,000.

…And that the innate <WEIGHT> property of his mana was no longer 155,000 tones.

The increase in weight wasn't proportional to the amount of mana Skullius had. It had never been. Thus, while it didn't get multiplied twenty-fold, it still did become hideously overstated.

But of course, to truly mock the Form User in front of him, Skullius added his gravitational powers into the mix and the sweet tang of a skill called [Bombardier Bangster Fist Arts] before vanishing from sight and landing his fist mercilessly into the woman's chest!

The mansion had no way of containing what came next…