Many observers, particularly the soldiers and warriors among them, grew disappointed at the Dark Apostle’s performance.

His lack of skill in unarmed combat, knife fighting and general combat became painfully evident.

His shortcomings hadn’t been as pronounced in the last 3 duels due to his heavy reliance on technology, but now that he had lost almost all of his gear, there was no way to hide them anymore.

His flaws became incredibly obvious to those who knew a thing or two about actual fighting!

Sure, there were still plenty of people who understood that their prospective new leader was not supposed to be able to match a professional soldier in the art of combat.

The Dark Apostle was supposed to be a mech designer after all. He was also fairly young. It would have been unreasonable to assume he could match the Oscillating Fist in terms of martial prowess.

Yet his performance was still very bad compared to how he previously fought. He was nowhere near as slick and proficient as when he wielded a spear in the previous duels!

"This is embarrassing..." Ves palmed his face. "Can’t you make it even more embarrassing for myself and my other self? How will we ever command the respect of the Ascended Giants if we are getting our butts kicked to such an extent?"

"Trust me, my son." The Oblivion Empress softly spoke to him. "Showing weakness and vulnerability every now and then is not always detrimental. The two of you are not qualified to dominate the Ascended Giants by projecting invincibility such as the man you wish to usurp. It is better for you to gain their loyalty through a combination of sincerity and empathy, just as you have done with the Larkinson Clan."

"That makes a certain degree of sense, but at least let us make this choice ourselves!"

"I am doing this for your own good." She mercilessly declared.

While they talked, the Dark Apostle continued to suffer one setback after another.

The initial punch to the chest was probably the signature move of the Oscillating Fist.

Even without his high-tech gauntlets, he was able to rely on pure technique along with a bit of phase lord magic to land punches that shook his adversary’s body.

Though the vibrations were not particularly strong, they were still able to cause bruising and other forms of damage on organs that were much less able to take hits!

The Dark Apostle winced and groaned in pain several times as he failed to prevent the Oscillating Fist from landing another punch to his sides.

It felt as if one of his kidneys was about to explode!

If not for the fact that phase lord bodies were naturally big and resistant against damage, he was sure that the last punch would have incapacitated him long enough to let the Oscillating Fist finish him off entirely.

Fortunately, he was able to resist the pain just enough to back off and swipe his knife in front of him in a defensive manner.

The Oscillating Fist made a frustrated expression. It was clear that he could have made his punches snappier and strike with greater force if he wasn’t being held back by his slew of injuries.

Still, he was becoming more used to his condition with every passing minute. The more he moved, the more he was able to understand his current limitations. This allowed him to plan ahead and plot more effective moves against his inexperienced opponent!

This did not escape the Dark Apostle’s attention. He was forced to rethink his approach towards this fight.

Simple enthusiasm did not cut it. While his body was still in a much better condition, all of his attempts to strike at his adversary’s weak points or simply land a cut anywhere on his opponent’s body had utterly failed.

Why was this the case?

Bad technique was just an excuse. Due to his acquired weapon skills, he gained a general understanding of combat that was universal no matter what sort of weapon he wielded.

Even if he restricted himself to simple stabs and slashes, he still should have been able to cut his adversary at least once.

As he continued to fly around while trying to keep his adversary at a distance, the Dark Apostle tried his best to deduce why he was truly failing.

With a powerful opponent right on his tail, he quickly managed to come up with a possible theory.

He was fighting too cautiously.

His true body was much more intact and in a better shape than his adversary, yet he tried his best to maintain his distance and launch half-hearted attacks for fear of overcommitting.

This was not a bad approach if his opponent was less skilled and lacked the solutions to counter his attacks, but the Oscillating Fist definitely did not fall into this category!

His approach placed a greater emphasis on technical fighting as opposed to brute force.

In other words, the Dark Apostle tapped into his weaknesses while playing into the Oscillating Fist’s strengths!

How could he turn this around?

By adopting the opposite approach!

A metaphorical lightbulb suddenly lit up in his head.

He briefly glanced at the manifestation of his mother. The Dark Apostle may have figured out one of the lessons that he was supposed to learn from this fight.

When two irreconcilable enemies were locked together in a cage, the one who came out alive was not necessarily the one who possessed the greatest skill, but the one who was most willing to put everything on the line for the sake of winning!

After the Dark Apostle received this miniature enlightenment, his eyes narrowed. He no longer thought about doing anything fancy anymore.

He immediately turned around and let out a roar as he charged straight at the Oscillating Fist!

His experienced opponent immediately picked up on his change and tried to punch the Dark Apostle straight in the head!

If that fist generated an oscillating force that affected his brain, then the Dark Apostle would most certainly lose!

He therefore swiped his knife upwards in an attempt to intercept the fist.

The older fighter diverted one of his fists, but still managed to land his other fist into the Dark Apostle’s stomach!

Blood spurted from the Dark Apostle’s mouth!

He could feel some of his phasewater organs incurring serious damage from this punch!

Yet he still grinned as his Murder Knife managed to sink into one of the shoulders of his opponent!

The Dark Apostle tried to cut a deeper wound, but found it difficult to do so as the resistance was too great. He was forced to pull out his weapon and attempted to land a second stab, but his bleeding opponent took advantage of his proximity to hunch over and unleash a flurry of punches that continually struck his abdomen and sides!

The rapid series of punches did not land with as much oscillating force, but the damage they inflicted rapidly accumulated!

The Dark Apostle kept spurting out blood from his mouth as his torso gained more bruises while many of his internal organs were screaming in pain!

Yet despite all of this suffering, the Dark Apostle forcibly withstood the punishment.

This was not easy!

The main reason why he was able to bear it for the time being was that Ves possessed a surprisingly high pain tolerance.

Much of that had become imprinted into his true body, which grew and evolved with the prospect of suffering further pain in the future.

The Dark Apostle benefited from this. He even found that subsequent applications of pain felt weaker on a subjective level.

In any case, he single-mindedly ignored defense and solely focused on stabbing his opponent as much as possible!

Since the Oscillating Fist sought to pummel his opponent into submission as soon as possible, the Dark Apostle grew determined to make his opponent bleed!

His Murder Knife rose again before stabbing into the same shoulder!

This time, the Dark Apostle sought to exacerbate his opponent’s muscle injuries.

One of his adversary’s arms quickly lost force! Its punching power had weakened by over 50 percent and lost the fine control necessary to generate oscillating force!

The Dark Apostle grinned with phasewater-infused blood spilling from his mouth. Before he could land his third attack, the Oscillating Fist abruptly changed his approach.

He shifted his body and used both his injured and uninjured arm to capture the Dark Apostle in a hold!

The latter phase lord grew alarmed. Hardly any time had passed, but already the Oscillating Fist expertly used his arms and legs to gain leverage and hold the knife arm!

The Dark Apostle cried out in pain!

He knew that the Murder Knife was his only lifeline. If lost his grip on it, his chances of winning would definitely plunge to the bottom!

He concentrated hard.

For a moment, he sought to expend all of his remaining Worclaw energy that was circulating in his chest.

Yet even as he tried to draw upon the energy that was being circulated by his mutated Jutland organ, he found that he could not draw upon it at all! An invisible wall blocked him from accessing its power!

It didn’t take much guessing to deduce that his mother had denied access to this potent energy.

She truly did not want him to resort to this potent energy to win this duel!

This discovery put the Dark Apostle in a bad mood because he had very few options left to get out of this compromising position before his opponent broke his arm.

Wait. He still had another phasewater organ that might be useful in this situation. It hadn’t been developed for this purpose, but he would take anything he could get at this point!

He hastily activated his Acris organ and allowed it to accumulate energy just long enough to discharge it across his true body in the form of electricity!

Crackles of electric energy sparked from his body, causing him to suffer a second sort of pain, the pain of being electrocuted!

Yet since his true body integrated the lesser Arcis organ, he also gained a notable amount of resilience to getting shocked.

The same could not be said for the Oscillating Fist!

As tough as his true body might have become, he had no reason to integrate an Arcis organ into his body, which meant that its tolerance towards electrocution was not as high!

Although the Oscillating Fist possessed more than enough willpower to resist the pain, the same could not be said for his injured and weakened true body!

Though his nerves did not outright falter, he was no longer able to control his limbs as well as before!

The Dark Apostle soon managed to wrench himself free from the spasming limbs!

"ENOUGH OF THIS! DIE FOR ME, YOU STUBBORN OLD FOOL!"

Though his body was not in a good shape, the Dark Apostle gritted his teeth and ignored all of the screaming from his true body to stab at whatever body part was closest!

The Oscillating Fist released a soundless cry as the blade of the Murder Knife plunged into his chest!

Though the blade did not sink deep enough to hit anything truly vital, the corruption spread by the weapon exacerbated the original stabbing wound and weakened the giant’s body even further!

Before the Dark Apostle’s bruised and injured body could falter entirely, he continued to fly forward and sink his Murder Knife into his enemy yet again!

This time, he managed to disable the Oscillating Fist’s already wounded arm!

Now left with just one functional arm, the Oscillating Fist tried his best to unleash a powerful punch that could exacerbate his opponent’s already serious internal injuries, but the Dark Apostle grinned as he anticipated this predictable move.

He had lowered his knife just enough for it to score and cut into the flesh of this arm!

However, it turned out that the Oscillating Fist had made another feint. He pulled his punch at the last moment and instead unleashed a powerful kick that not only unbalanced the Dark Apostle’s organs further, but also pushed him away!

"AH! THAT HURTS, BUT YOU DON’T GET TO RUN AWAY!"

The Oscillating Fist desperately tried to put more distance between himself and his aggressive opponent.

The Dark Apostle tried his best to catch up, but his injuries seriously affected the efficiency of his flight!

"YOUR LIFE IS MINE!"

Both human phase lords had been pushed to the brink of defeat.

The Dark Apostle knew that he did not have much power left, so he decided to perform one more gamble.

He threw his Murder Knife forward.

Though he never trained in knife throwing, the skills imparted by the Sacrificial Spear Throwing Method still came in handy!

Though his aim was off, the knife still drifted straight enough to sink into the Oscillating Fist’s retreating back!

This time, it was the older phase lord’s turn to spurt a little blood from his mouth!

Normally, the thrown knife should not have enough force to sink too deep into the Oscillating Fist’s flesh.

The reason why this happened anyway was because the Murder Knife happened to sink into a portion of abnormally weakened and blackened flesh!

Its resistance was much lower than the healthier portions of flesh. There also did not happen to be any hardy bones in the way that could impede the D-arm.

All of this ultimately caused a serious enough injury that the Oscillating Fist momentarily slowed down.

The Dark Apostle quickly managed to catch up and grasp the hilt of his weapon.

He even managed to wrap his other arm around the Oscillating Fist’s neck.

The challenger grinned as he brought his bleeding lips closer to his opponent’s ear.

"Everything that used to be yours has now become mine. Now die."

The Dark Apostle repeatedly stabbed the Oscillating Fist in the back and sides.

The Murder Knife drew so much blood and corrupted so much flesh that the Oscillating Fist quickly lost much of his strength!

He could do nothing but release soundless cries as the Murder Knife slowly drew out of the life from his true body!