Chapter 68 - Clash

In an oriental style palace room was a huge transparent screen showing the confrontation between Simon and Layton, the ministers seated around the huge throne in the centre upon noticing the successful birth of Simons domain quickly flattered, "Congratulation your majesty it seems another pillar of Daqin will be born soon."

The ministers by the side of the king flattered, Flattering both the king who was seated on the luxurious throne and his trusted general who was standing beside him who was the father of Simon all in one sentence. The black haired double pupil monarch just smiled at the minister's words, he could see farther than them and he had already noticed the peculiarities of Layton situation, including the reason why he was delaying time earlier, he was more optimistic of the young wizard than Simon, turning to the silent general standing by his side he only said one sentence, "Add the wizard to the watch list." The ministers who were still muttering and discussing excitedly quickly kept quiet as they knew the weight of their monarch's sentence, they quickly turned back to the screen and focused their gaze on the Wizard to be added to the list.

Since figuring out that Lilith could provide him with no help in the upcoming war, Layton had been thinking of a way to strengthen himself and through his understanding of this core world's practice system, he decided his chance laid in temporarily increasing his connection with the world and borrowing its power just like when he was in the Avatar plane.

Although he was not connected to the world like last time and his spirit could not be connected to the world will he decided to find another way to achieve his goals, he decided since he couldn't achieve his goal through his spirit he would go around and achieve it through his body, Layton had been spending the time when he was with Makarov having a very deep understanding of his body and the connection and it had on the spirit, as a prototype Layton had decided to copy May's breathing which synchronized her with the world allowing anyone to be closer to the world and achieve the avatar state, Layton based on this and his subtle control of his body and his perverted perception had been trying to perceive the rhythm of movement of the world since he had left home with Lilith in the morning, but his spirit was not strong enough to perceive the rhythm at a subtle and grand level so he went for something easier, he was perceiving the rhythm of the land beneath his feet and subtly changing his breathing to follow the vague frequency he had been perceiving, when Simon's domain descended, the fabric of reality in the area grew weaker to allow the domain be constructed easily and Layton who was fully concentrated on his perception quickly caught the last bit of the hidden rhythm that stumped him.

With each of his breath the surrounding seemed to grow closer to him but that wasn't enough for Layton, controlling his cells and pores to follow the bizarre rhythm, as his whole body was immersed in the rhythm his spirit which had a stronger connection to his body because of his earlier training with Makarov soon followed this bizarre rhythm giving him a vague connection with the huge energy present in the underground magic veins and pools, and the surrounding air. 

Although Simon's domain had shrouded the area polluting the natural energy and dyeing it with the colours of his divinity, this did not harm Layton if anything the domain was a boost, from what Layton could feel the blood red domain had a peculiar effect on the opponent's mind which was to make the opponent lose himself in battle become irritable lose his calm and become bloodthirsty while decreasing the opponent's stamina, all these negative effects were nothing but fuel to him because of his Magia Erebia although he did not activate the spell now his armed haki part of his rune already had the effects of burning negative information to strengthen itself and this domain full of negativity was simply heaven for him.

Simon who was in a peculiar mood soon noticed Layton's state, in fact, the reason he had resolutely made the domain was because he knew Layton was delaying time earlier and although he could not perceive what exactly his foe was doing it did not prevent him from trying to disrupt his opponent's plans, he just did not expect that the emergence of his domain not only did not halt his plans but instead fueled it, perceiving that Layton's aura was getting stronger Simon couldn't wait any longer, although he still needed some time to coordinate the extraordinary military and his divinity but if he waited any longer there was no telling how strong his opponent would grow into, so taking the epee inlaid on the ground in front of him Simon rushed towards Layton swinging the heavy sword.

As Simon moved he compressed the domain increasing its interference with reality preventing Layton from being able to mobilize the magic energy around.

Although doing this affected Simon as well as he had given up some special effects of his domain just leaving its inherent strengthening effects and severely shortening the duration his domain could remain active as the compression was a huge drain on Rose's magic, but Simon did not regret his decision this was the most optimal solution his enhanced mind granted by the extraordinary military had calculated.

Simon slash hit the air as Layton had already moved behind sending a punch straight at his spine hidden in the armour, the epee in Simon's hand quickly deformed turning into a double-edged sword which he moved slightly backwards blocking the punch, the fist and blade collided making a huge metal sound it was unknown when Layton's fist had turned pitch black, it was his armed haki blocking the sharp edge of the blade and increasing his strength if his armed haki was still at the previous level then Simon's weapon made with divine power should have cut through it but his haki had now basically been merged with all his individual cells strengthening its cohesiveness and it was feeding on the negative information in the domain to strengthen itself.

Despite being shocked by Layton's perverted defence Simon wasted no time and continued attacking spinning the double-edged blade he managed to shove Layton away, after doing this the blade morphed into a plain spear which he pierced towards Layton's heart.

Layton noticed the threatening spear which had focused most of the divine power into a concentrated point, his defence would surely be pierced by such an attack if he was not careful, moving his pitch-black palm to violently pat the side of the rapidly incoming spear he managed to shift the attack making the spear tip rub the side of his chest taking a sizeable amount of flesh close to his ribs as it passed.

Layton had not bothered defending his chest as he had concentrated his haki on his feet as he kicked towards stretched armpit of the knight arm hoping to disable his arm Layton had noticed the knight was dependent on weapon-wielding and disabling one of his arms would mean the battle was half won, the foot moved swiftly the surrounding environment strengthening its momentum and reducing the interference with its speed. 'Clang' a loud metal sound reverberated in the area, Layton's feet had hit the knights weapon again which had turned back into a double-edged blade and was held in the same straight posture of the earlier spear attack that just managed to block the terrifying kick.

Although the kick was blocked Simon's face could no longer keep that eerie calm as droplets of blood started leaking from his mouth splattering on the rubble around.