Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent! - Chapter 523

Chapter 523: A battle of life and death (3)
The Lux hesitated for a fraction of a second; it was clearly disoriented by the sudden extinguishing of Alex’s flames.

Its glowing eyes darted around, unable to find the beacon of light it had been using to target him just moments ago. But it didn’t take long for it to adjust.

The Lux relied on something more than eyesight, it had its own form of perception, much like Alex’s spatial perception. It could feel the vibrations in the air, and in the ground, to ‘listen’ for any movements in its vicinity.

Alex on the other hand had been waiting for this moment, his sudden shift to soul fire wasn’t just a tactic to hide himself – in fact it wasn’t even something he’d even considered, since he was unaware that they were shrouded in complete darkness without his scarlet Phoenix Flames to light the place up. Instead, it was a move he made to counterattack!

His spatial perception extended outwards from himself like tendrils, extending its reach into the hollow expanse they had fallen into. He couldn’t qutie see the Lux, but he could feel its presence, and with the lack of literally anything at all around the two of them, the Lux stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was like an oasis in the middle of the desert – impossible to miss.

He crouched down low, keeping his breathing steady despite the pain still lingering in his body. Virtue’s Edge lay silently in his hand, and the blade’s own thoughts responded to him with its own quiet fury.

Alex knew that the Lux’s extrasensory perception couldn’t be as good as his spatial perception.

For one, he was certain it didn’t have either a space element, or even an affinity for space like he did, so the possibility of it having spatial perception was near zero. And this was what gave him so much more confidence in this situation.

The space element was known for many things and often regarded as one of the more lucrative and more sought after elements in the Federation, and most probably the wider universe as well. But one thing all space element wielders prided themselves on was the fact that their spatial perception was unmatched by any other sensing abilities from any other element.

The only exceptions to this rule would be those awakened who had awakened unique talents outside of the normal elemental talents, which may have a more accurate or precise range of perception abilities.

Hence, Alex knew that the Lux must be relying on an inferior perception method at the time being, with his guess being either sound, or vibrations.

His guess came from many things, for one, the Lux had a water affinity and water elemental talents, and it was a well known fact that sound travelled faster through water than air. Alex wasn’t quite sure how this might correlate to a perception ability in the higher ranks, but it was his best guess for the time being.

As for him guessing it might be through vibrations? Well, that was just an off the cuff guess.

But with those two being his main guesses, he kept his movements to a minimum.

Both of them were similar in the ways they detected.

If Alex moved, or took any steps, the Lux could hear it through sound perception, or it could feel it through vibration perception. No matter which method was used, Alex only had to focus on keeping his movements to a minimum, and hope for the Lux to get frustrated and be the first to initiate an attack.

At the moment, he knew it didn’t know his precise location. He knew because he could see it keeping silently still itself, waiting for any sort of movement or mistake from Alex that might give away his location.

This was his only advantage, sure, he had the element of surprise over it, but the moment he made any movement at all, it would be lost before he could put it to use, so while he had the element of surprise, it was essentially a useless factor in this situation.

Just like he’d predicted, after 10 minutes straight of this stalemate, the Lux’s expression tightened and it made the effort to be the first out of the two of them to move.

Alex held his breath the entire time, but smiled when he saw the Lux acting so frustrated and angry at its inability to find him.

Snap!

However, that instant it turned its head to face him, with its gaze locking onto his location that very instant.

It couldn’t see him, but it clearly knew he was in that direction!

‘How the fuck!?’

Alex didn’t clock it at first, but he realised his mistake after a few moments of consideration.

‘I smiled! So it senses through vibrations after all!’

He felt like kicking himself over this tiny, almost inconsequential mistake that had much larger consequences, but he had much bigger things to worry about for the time being.

He hadn’t expected for a small gesture like smiling to give away his location, but that was a thing of the past now.

But it also gave him the valuable information that one of his guesses was correct, it sensed through vibration!

‘At least it isn’t all bad things that come from this…’ Alex tried to console himself, but it was at that moment he saw the Lux make a move.

The Lux moved first, charging with a speed that left the air around it trembling. Alex’s perception caught it just in time, allowing him to side step the initial strike.

It’s fist slammed into the strange ground beneath him, sending a shockwave throughout a few hundred metres of area where they resided.

‘A chance!’

Alex noticed this seemingly small factor, but in actuality it wasn’t small at all!

The shockwave was both a bane and a boon for Alex. It knocked him off his feet, but it also provided him somewhat of a smokescreen to hide his location from the Lux again.

In essence, Alex’s timely dodge of the incoming attack had killed two birds with one stone; he’d saved himself from being injured, and he gave himself a few seconds to regain his one advantage.