MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Lilithra did not react to Anthony's seemingly arrogant words. She had seen too much, endured too much, to be roused by mere insults. Words were nothing compared to the wars she had waged and the eons she had survived.

Instead, she moved.

This time, her speed eclipsed anything she had displayed before.

One moment, she hovered before him, still as a shadow in the void. The next, she was already upon him, her fist surging forward like the collapse of a dying star, aimed squarely at his forehead.

Anthony's eyes widened, he had barely tracked the movement. It was as if reality itself had skipped a beat. The very galaxy roared in his ears, and in that heartbeat, he knew: if that blow landed, he would die instantly.

He moved without thought, instinct and experience fusing into a single seamless thread. His physical strength and speed spiked to their absolute peak as his own fist shot forward, carrying a force capable of extinguishing the sun.

With galaxy-erasing might, the two fists collided, an impact of apocalyptic magnitude. The blast thundered outward, a shockwave tearing through space itself, yet neither took a single step back.

Around them, drifting asteroids disintegrated into nothingness. Worlds that floated nearby were reduced to scattered rubble in the wake of a single, catastrophic exchange.

But Lilithra was far from finished.

When she had said she would fight with the full weight of her battle experience and physical prowess, it had not been an empty boast. Her smile was gone now, her expression carved into the cold, sharp lines of absolute seriousness.

The human boy had just blocked a punch thrown at her peak strength.

Her. Her. Her.

The hundredth Demon Monarch under the Demon King.

That was unacceptable. This was no longer merely a fight, it was a matter of pride.

Her movements shifted in an instant, becoming a storm of ferocity. Every strike was now a killing blow. Her style unraveled into something raw, wild, and untamed, each motion a culmination of centuries of slaughter and survival. She surged into the highest form of offense without hesitation.

An elbow arced forward, carrying a sudden, brutal wave of destruction that fractured the very fabric of space like shattered glass, its trajectory set to crush Anthony's chest.

But Anthony's hands moved with perfect timing, catching the strike and diverting it aside with equal speed and strength. The impact resonated through his arm in violent tremors, the sheer force threatening to break him apart.

But he didn't flinch.

He adapted.

His mind and body recalibrated in real time, his battle instincts weaving themselves seamlessly into this new rhythm. The gap between them began to narrow, not through raw power, but through the ridiculous evolution of his fighting spirit.

Lilithra's palm lashed out with the weight of a falling comet, a strike meant to rob Anthony of breath and balance in a single, merciless motion.

But Anthony slipped aside, his body gliding with impossible efficiency, the blur of his movement bordering on the unreal. In the same instant, he widened the distance between them with ease, his speed a quiet defiance of her intent.

Lilithra did not relent. Her form vanished and reappeared beside a nearby planet, her crimson gaze never leaving Anthony. Her fist drew back like the string of a celestial bow, every muscle coiling under perfect control, the raw density of her physical might condensed to a razor's edge.

Then, like the pounding of an ancient war drum that once heralded the fall of empires, her fist drove forward, straight into the planet's surface.

The planet did not shatter upon impact. No, under her ridiculous finesse, the colossal sphere instead rocketed forward, launched through the void as a blinding projectile. In less than a heartbeat, it closed the gap, hurling itself toward Anthony's position.

Anthony neither dodged nor blocked.

Instead, a grin curved his lips as he mirrored her technique. His arm drew back, power gathering like a dying star's final scream. Then he struck.

His fist met the planet head-on.

For a moment, it shone with unbearable brilliance. Then, like an egg hurled against a wall, the world exploded in incandescent fury, a tidal wave of destructive energy consuming everything within millions of kilometres.

Anthony and Lilithra did not spare a thought for the planet's inhabitants. Whether they perished or survived was irrelevant. This was their battlefield, and nothing else mattered.

From the haze, Lilithra emerged like a silent, predatory shadow, her movement as fluid and lethal as a hunting cheetah. Her knee tore through the void, cutting the fabric of space itself as it drove toward Anthony's ribs with chilling, murderous intent.

Anthony's own knee flashed upward in response, his senses unshaken by the haze, as if the swirling chaos could neither dull his vision nor cloud his instincts.

Their collision birthed a concussive shockwave that shattered the astral rock beneath them entirely, leaving them suspended in the void.

There, in the weightless expanse, they exchanged a blistering flurry of strikes, each movement sharp and lethal.

Anthony stayed on the defensive. He wanted to see for himself what the Demon King's hundredth servant was truly capable of.

Then, the battlefield itself seemed to change.

Heat surged violently through the void as Lilithra's forefoot connected with the surface of a sun. The celestial sphere hurtled forward under her strike, a burning world turned into a weapon, its searing light unable to scorch her in the slightest.

Anthony's forearm rose in answer, his muscles coiling like springs under impossible tension.

Time seemed to hold its breath, as if the cosmos itself paused to witness what was about to unfold.

With a grin, his arm came down like the gavel of an unforgiving judge. Before the sun could touch him, the sheer force of his strike cleaved it in perfect halves.

The split unleashed a wave of heat so intense it melted every asteroid, comet, and wandering fragment of rock in its reach, obliterating them without the faintest resistance.

Through the swirling fumes of celestial fire, two figures emerged. They stepped with calm, deliberate ease, their feet pressing against the surface of a moon as though walking its curve were the most natural thing in the universe.

Neither bore a wound. Neither's breathing had quickened. They stood unharmed, as if they could fight for days without tiring.

Lilithra's smile had long since vanished.

Anthony's, however, lingered.

He had seen and tested his new physique enough.

He had been patient, content to defend.

Now, it was time to attack.

To go on the offensive, truly, and without restraint.

"You know," Anthony began, his voice calm yet tinged with quiet amusement, "I've been on the defensive for quite some time now."

His gaze was steady, his tone flat. "I'll be taking the offensive from here on. But I should warn you, discard every assumption, every thought, every theory you've formed. None of them will serve you now. Even your battle experience, stretched across over a million years, will not help you. Be ready."

Normally, Anthony fought opponents on the level of their own battle experience, allowing them the comfort of fighting within familiar ground. But this time, he would step beyond that.

He would show her what it meant to face a man whose combat knowledge was ageless, layered with countless lifetimes of warfare, honed across battles that had no place in recorded history.

This was why he had offered the warning: he did not wish for Lilithra to crumble too quickly.

But whether she had been given the courtesy or not… it would make no difference.

No — it shall make no difference.