Wheel Battle

As his voice trailed off, Zeus waved a hand. A flash of golden light later, a strange god over five meters tall appeared before him.

This god had a brawny build, a stern face, and wore primitive jade battle armor. He raised his hands upward in a circular motion with his back slightly hunched, as if shouldering a tremendous weight, and a heavy gravitational field swirled all around him.

Shane was moving far too fast to brake in time, crashing straight into this god.

Yet the massive force felt like a clay ox entering the sea the moment it contacted the other's body. Although the god appeared to have been caught around the waist and sent flying by Shane's charge, his entire frame remained as unperturbed as a shifting mountain.

Instead, Shane was left completely numb all over from the impact of his own momentum.

The god slowly lowered his gaze, his hands—which had been making a hollow lifting gesture—slowly clenching into a massive stone fist. Packing a suffocating gravitational field, he slammed it viciously into Shane's back.

With all the cells in his body still operating at extreme high speed, Shane was completely unable to dodge flexibly. Coupled with the fact that the opponent had already suppressed his body with an unfathomable gravitational field, he could only watch helplessly as the fist carrying terrifying gravity landed on his back.

"Boom—!"

A heaven-shaking explosion echoed throughout the Divine Realm. Like a meteor struck by an asteroid, Shane crashed hundreds of meters deep into the ground of the Divine Realm, forming a huge hemispherical crater. Shattered rocks and towering plumes of dust spewed out from the pit.

A sharp pain washed over his entire body. Countless cracks appeared along Shane's spine, and the majority of his internal organs were shattered. Blood continuously gushed from his mouth, staining the earth before him.

He lifted his head with difficulty, gazing at the towering figure outside the pit, a flash of realization crossing his eyes.

Atlas, the Titan god who held up the earth.

Atlas gazed apathetically at Shane in the deep pit, his deep voice unexpectedly offering admonition.

"Little one, you should give up. Unlike Ares, my Divine Power is unaffected by other factors; since ancient times, it has been directly bound to the earth."

The subtext was abundantly clear: without Divine Power capable of shaking the earth, one need not even dream of challenging this Titan god.

"Spit!"

Spitting out a mouthful of blood mixed with chunks of viscera, Shane slowly climbed to his feet and raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth.

Standing in place in silence for two seconds, Shane suddenly raised his head with a grin toward his opponent, his voice somewhat slurred due to the blood constantly welling up.

"Not bad, just minor injuries."

Atlas's expression sank.

"Why push yourself so hard? You have already witnessed my Divine Power; are you not yet satisfied?"

Before Shane could reply, Wonder Woman's anxious voice came from afar.

"Give up, Shane! Atlas's strength is hardly any weaker than Superman's!"

Shane did not answer immediately, instead slowly flying out of the crater until he paused at eye-level with Atlas.

Swallowing down another surge of blood rising in his throat, Shane turned his head and shook it toward Wonder Woman.

"How can a teacher actively urge a student to give up—he merely possesses strength comparable to Superman's."

Then Shane turned back, looking at Atlas, who was waiting quietly.

"Such a gentleman."

He raised a hand and curled his finger.

Atlas sighed, the big man uttering something no one had expected.

"Blockhead..."

He swept a heavy giant fist, laden with a crushing weight that could no longer be described as a mountain, toward Shane's flank. At the same time, an inexplicable gravitational field descended out of thin air, intending to lock Shane firmly in place.

The terrifying fist momentum arrived accompanied by a gale, but Shane instantly dodged backward a short distance just before the gravitational field reached him.

Watching the massive fist graze past his face, Shane revealed a realization, casually batting away the laterally kicked-up hurricane.

"You really are slow."

Seeing his facade pierced, Atlas did not grow angry; instead, he slowly withdrew his fist and said in a deep voice.

"Yet you cannot shake me either. And once physical contact occurs between us, my gravitational lock is several times faster than one generated out of thin air. Can you withstand another punch from me?"

"I have to try. I've never fought a specialized opponent with such immense strength and such slow speed..."

Before his voice finished, Shane's body transformed into an afterimage, throwing a jab straight at Atlas's oversized eyeball.

Atlas's pupils constricted slightly. Raising his hand in a rush, his stone-armor-covered arm blocked his front while he exerted his gravitational field to the utmost, attempting to drag down Shane's speed.

Yet Shane's offensive was too fast. A flash and sway allowed him to evade the gravitational field, and his fist, accompanied by a sharp sound of tearing air, smashed heavily against the armor on Atlas's forearm.

"Thud!"

Amidst a dull, heavy crash, the armor composed of mixed jade fractured with spiderweb cracks, and Atlas's deep voice sounded from behind his forearm.

"Keep going, and your injuries will worsen."

Ignoring him entirely, Shane's figure vanished once more. Skimming across the ground in an instantaneous shift, he orbited continuously around Atlas, his double fists descending alternately like a storm. Every strike concentrated extreme force comparable to island-submerging power, landing with pinpoint accuracy on the junctions and vulnerable spots of the armor.

"Crack! Crack!"

Shattering sounds rang out in succession. The jade armor on Atlas's chest, shoulder guards, and calves flew off in shards, exposing the bronze-hued, solid flesh beneath.

Although he swung his heavy fists furiously to counterattack, his sluggish speed caused him to miss repeatedly, leaving him at the mercy of Shane's landing blows.

Dozens of consecutive fierce strikes left the armor around Atlas's body in ruins. The bare flesh of his shoulders, flanks, and thighs bore a dozen interlocking blue and purple bruises, each embedded deep into the muscle and showing traces of ruptured subcutaneous blood vessels.

Shane rose and flew away once more, his expression suddenly shifting as he prepared to continue gathering strength for a strike.

A sharp pain washed over his nerves in repetitive waves like a tide, and another mouthful of blood spewed wildly, splashing onto Atlas's tattered armor and blossoming into blinding flowers of red.

In the span of this mere momentary distraction, his speed plummeted abruptly.

Gritting his teeth, he wanted to pick up speed again, but the instant his fist smashed into Atlas's chest and his fingertips touched the opponent's warm flesh, his whole body stiffened.

Atlas seized this sole opportunity of skin-to-skin contact, and his gravitational field erupted instantly, acting like an invisible shackle to pin Shane firmly in place!

"Got you."

There was no emotion in Atlas's voice; since the opponent refused to heed advice, he would no longer show mercy.

His right hand clenched into a giant fist, the surrounding air compressed and distorted by the immense force. Carrying terrifying power comparable to a falling earth, he smashed fiercely toward Shane's lower abdomen.

Shane's vision went black instantly. Experiencing such terrifying power once more, he didn't even have time to register the pain before his brain entered a state of extremely brief unconsciousness.

This punch landed solidly. His lower abdomen instantly caved inward, the brittle sound of all his ribs snapping audible to the ear. Blood gushed madly from the corners of his mouth and nasal passages, and his battered body was sent flying backward through the air.

"Cough..."

Having flown goodness knows how far, Shane smashed through multiple small distant mountains in the Divine Realm before finally stopping. With gravel cascading down, he collapsed limply onto the ground, the intense pain in his spine making even lifting his head a struggle.

Yet his fingers still clung tightly to the earth, refusing to loosen even as his fingernails fractured and oozed blood. Once he regained consciousness, the fighting spirit in the depths of his gaze was not extinguished in the least; instead, it burned even more fiercely because of the agonizing pain.

Atlas executed a flying, bound leap, crashing heavily into the ground like a descent from the heavens. Amidst the earth-shaking tremor, he watched Shane struggle to his feet as the remaining fragments of his armor continued to fall off.

"Still want to fight?"

Shane did not answer, his gaze somewhat hollow. He let out a fierce breath and vanished once more.

Atlas stood quietly in place, his fists raising in silence as he guarded against movements all around him.

Shane changed tactics yet again, feigning a temporary slowdown in speed to allow himself to be captured as an afterimage by Atlas. Leveraging the gap in Atlas's punches, he forcibly accelerated, closed in on his opponent, concentrated his remaining strength into his fists, and selectively struck the bruises left behind previously.

With every landing blow, Atlas let out a muffled grunt. After suffering dozens or even hundreds of strikes across his entire body due to failing to block in time, the bruises finally began turning into blackened bloodstains, and even his gravitational field began exhibiting unstable fluctuations.

Atlas himself remained calm, his gaze tracking Shane's afterimage as he blindly swept about with heavy punches.

He didn't even need to land another hit; merely the hurricane whipped up by his strikes caused Shane's body to tremble constantly.

Unable to dodge in time on several occasions when his footing was unstable, Shane was grazed on the shoulder and back by the ultra-close-range fist-winds. His wounds tore open anew, blood soaked his entire body, and his vision began to blur from blood loss.

Yet he kept his eyes locked on Atlas's opening. Finally, the instant his opponent punched at empty space and lost his center of gravity, Shane lunged forward abruptly, poured his entire strength into his right fist, and slammed it viciously into the bruise on Atlas's neck.

Seemingly never expecting Shane to dare launch a close-quarters frontal attack while so severely injured, Atlas failed to bring his hand back to parry in time.

"Crack!"

The crisp sound of bone fracture drowned out the booming tremor of the earth. Atlas's neck bent sharply to one side, his massive frame swaying, and the gravitational field surrounding him instantly grew chaotic before dispersing.

He looked up toward the teetering Shane, an unexpected smile pulling at the corners of his mouth before he collapsed with a crash. Raising a sky-full of gravel and dust, he lost all breath entirely.

Shane finally relaxed slightly, dropping straight down onto the gravelly ground—rendered piping hot by multiple hurricane-force frictions—while bleeding profusely all over. His wounds continued to seep blood, the cracks in his spine pierced nearly through his entire back, and even moving a finger cost him bone-piercing agony.

A sturdy figure walked forward slowly within his blurred vision, treading across the pools of blood covering the ground.

A bright, confident voice rang in Shane's ear.

"I am Hercules—and the third god to challenge you."