Arnold vs Darkseid 2

[Arnold POV]

Darkseid once again fires off his Omega beams, and I launch a series of «dismantles» obliterating the beams in mid-air.

I then run towards Darkseid, with my hands ablaze as I hurl a series of blue fireballs towards him.

'Conjunction' I say in my mind right as the fireballs reach Darkseid. The fireballs exploded, but instead of burning Darkseid, it covered him in a thick layer of ice.

'Perfect.' I thought to myself. What I just used was an ability of the new and improved Curse-God system. While until now the Curse king system only allowed me to use different cursed techniques once I unlocked them this new upgraded system allows me to utilise the cursed techniques in a much more versatile manner.

«Conjunction» allows me to take any two cursed techniques I have and mix and match their properties and nature. Take that fireball for example, in order to create something like that, I took the properties of explosiveness, fluidity and ability to spread from jogo's fire technique and the freezing, crystallisation and expansion of Uraume's ice. The result was an explosion that would freeze even gods in an instant.

Unfortunately, my piece of art of a technique didn't last long as Darkseid immediately freed himself from the ice. But by then I had already prepared my next move.

'Combination' I thought to myself as a large mass of vines emerged from the ground, ablaze as a fire hotter than the sun burned within them. The vines crashed into Darkseid hurling him through the air as he struggled to break free.

This is «combination», another new ability of the system. Where «conjuncton» mixes different properties of my cursed techniques to form something different, combination just mashes the two together, all pros get added and the cons that can be removed get removed.

This ability takes way more cursed energy and the results are all over the place, but the power behind each attack is way more than «conjunction» no matter what.

What's more is that once the free trial was redeemed I was temporarily given a few cursed techniques. I currently had all the techniques I had unlocked in the tutorial plus Jogo's fire creation, Uraume's ice creation, hanami's plant creation as well as one more. But despite this it seems I've still not got enough power to defeat him. I'll need to get creative.

Darkseid eventually freed himself, cutting through the vines, using his omega beams to rip the vines to shreds.

He fires another set of omega beams at me and I dodge them by using the vines to destroy them.

I rush towards him, not wanting to give him an inch of space. I use Uraume's ice in conjunction with Hanami's plant creation to form vines that restrict Darkseid while I use Jogo's fire to constantly fire a barrage of fireballs at him at a blistering pace,

However, nothing I try to do holds him for very long, as he breaks free of his restraints and tackles me into a wall.

'Shit, this is not good.' I think while using reverse cursed technique to heal my wounds.

Before I can fully recover, Darkseid grabs me and then uses both of his hands to slam me back-first against his knee, breaking my back. My RCT continues to heal me as I use «Cleave» in order to get away, but it only manages to scratch him, not even drawing blood.

He kicks me, as if I were a rabid dog making me roll on the ground. I think quickly as I mix fire and ice using conjunction to form a smoke bomb, using it to teleport away.

Darkseid gets rid of the smoke with a single breath, before continuing to rush at me. Luckily by this time, my injuries have healed and I quickly dodge an incoming punch before I roundhouse kick Darkseid in the face.

I then teleport away before making a hand sign and chanting "Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine"

A shrine appears behind me as I launch dozens of «Cleave» at Darkseid. All those attacks manage to do is bruise Darkseid all over his body, once again failing to even draw blood.

'Thank god I have unlimited cursed energy right now or I would've been fucked.' I think to myself. That's right, while the free trial was active I had basically unlimited cursed energy as any CE I would lose would be regained in mere seconds.

'But even with this, it's not enough. I'll exhaust my cursed technique at this rate.' I realised.

I dispel «Malevolent Shrine» and launch a gigantic fireball, about 8 ft in diameter, straight at Darkseid. He dodges, sensing the danger, but the fireball still hits a fourth of his body, burning him greatly.

I then aim my ice towards him and fire as a wave of cold rushes towards him. But he does not for the cold as he rushes through the wave launching a punch straight for my jaw which I block with both of my arms. Although I usually blocked the blows, each and every single one of his punches still had enough force behind them to send me flying. This one was no exception as I'm caught mid-air by one of my own vines. But it seems to stress my cursed technique as my nose starts bleeding. I quickly started using RCT to heal my cursed technique.

He fires his omega beams at me while I'm in a position where I'm unable to easily dodge both due to CT exhaustion and using RCT. In a flash of quick thinking, I rip my own arm off and throw it at the incoming omega beam, causing it to hit my arm instead. The beam instantly vapourizers my arm, but atleast I survive. I thought to himself 'But still, if those omega beams hit me even once, I'm done for. And my time is almost up. Only 10 minutes of my free trial remain.'

'So I guess we'll have to use that. Well, here goes nothing' I think to myself as I make a hand sign.

As Darkseid looks at me, his eyes glowing red, I chant "With this treasure I summon…"

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A/N: Chapter is early today as I don't know whether I'll be able to upload at normal time.