Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Loraz's fists accelerated, pushing the last of Fay's sparks away. By now, Fay didn't even have the time to send a new wave of her aura to try to contend with her father again.

And right as I started to sense first hints of panic and unrest in Fay's soul, I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder…

Only to jerk her to the back, removing her from the path of her father's aura-coated fist.

"It's okay," I spoke silently, more through our bond than through my lips, "let me deal with him."

Just a few moments ago, I couldn't do anything about this man. The difference in raw strength between the two of us was simply too great. Too overwhelming. And just a single strike of his was enough to send me out of commission for a good while.

But that was all before my affinity with darkness skyrocketed, unlocking a whole new potential hidden within the skills of the same affinity. Back when my eye of time only raised my intelligence by three points. Back, when my natural intelligence was still merely halfway through my current limit.

And now?

Loraz's fists surged through the air, gaining more and more speed with every inch it moved, no longer restricted by the pressure of Fay's divine aura. The divine's leader aura continued to solidify at a rapid pace, soon turning his simple fist into a fearsome hand, full of dragon's claws and covered in sturdy scales for added defensiveness.

But in my eyes…

Fay's mind scrambled as she desperately searched for anything she could use to counter the attack. Yet, with her mind failing to provide any satisfactory result, she ended up bracing herself for the strike, raising her hands to intercept and block it.

And she was just a single second too late.

'Is this really that simple?' I thought, pulling Fay to the back while taking a step forward myself. And with nothing but my bare hand, I reached out straight for Loraz's dragon's arm…

And I solved it.

I solved the equation of the aura that made up the illusion of this bestial form for the man's arm. And now that I had the solution for this equation…

My hand moved right through the illusion of the dragon's arm, removing its physical enchantments aimed to turn it into a solid, physical object.

With Loraz's dragon's arm turning into nothing more but a scary illusion, I pushed my hand even further, putting it right in the path of Loraz's fists.

I didn't try to redirect the strike. I had no plans to dodge or block it.

No.

As soon as Loraz's knuckles landed squarely in the middle of my hand's palm, I pulled my arm and shoulder to the back. At the same time, I pulled on the aura of Loraz's arm, using his own power to temporarily reinforce my own muscles and bones.

And finally, when I could bring my shoulder or arm back no more, I locked my joints, putting the burden of holding Loraz's strike back from the joins to the full and now reinforced structure of my bones.

"Ugh…"

My body fell back two steps when I failed to fully disperse the energy behind Loraz's strike. As it turned out, despite trying to solidify his aura projection into a proper arm, it was never the core of his attack.

The dragon's claws were there just for the added effect of terror, domination, and… distraction. In other cases, the aura I stole from the projection should suffice in reinforcing my brace to fully match the momentum of the man's fist!

Which, quite frankly, didn't happen. Maybe because Loraz prioritized his physical strength over the power of the echo of his soul?

"Hon!" Fay screamed out, looking right at my face with her eyes wide open.

Her chest was moving up and down at a rapid pace while her hands trembled under the stress of holding more aura than she had the endurance for.

"I'm alright," I replied, hoping to calm Fay as much as I could with just those few words I could afford.

And I really had to do my best to do so, given how she failed to just check my state after shouldering Fay's father's attack by simply taking a peek through our bond.

'I really need to get this over as soon as possible,' I thought, gritting my teeth.

I've solved the equation of Loraz's projected arm. I could tell… no, I could feel how his aura moved in complicated patterns that somehow ended up producing a dragon's arms layered over his fist as a result.

But I've now fully understood the equation. And that means, just by pushing tiny bits of my own aura, introducing some small changes here and there… I managed to turn Loraz's skill from a physical enchantment into a sort of buff to the aura of anyone who came into contact with it!

Doing so required me to reuse every single piece of aura 'structural code' that gave my skill its properties and that I managed to figure out so far. Yet, in the end, nearly the entirety of the burden brought upon by Loraz's attack ended up sapped by the power of his own aura!

"That was your last chance to attack," I spoke out loud, ignoring the pain in my soul born when I moved my eyes away from my beautiful woman and turned them to give Loraz a furious glare. "Now, how about I pay you back?" I asked, only to take a step forward.

I could feel Fay's worry exploding as she nearly rushed to grab at my shirt and hold me back.

I could also see Loraz's surprise and then amusement when he saw me approaching him with the obvious goal of confrontation.

But this wasn't the only thing that I saw. Not by a long shot.

"You really struggle a lot for a filthy human," Loraz muttered, his cheeky smile souring when he saw no hint of hesitation or fear in my eyes. And as he raised his eyes and shook his head to get rid of the broken mirage of a dragon's arm only to summon it again…

'So sloppy…'

There was no other way for me to comment on it.

The act of deciphering the equation of his skill was, quite honestly, just a fluke. A sleeptalk moment of my brain getting used to its new processing power. And now that I've chased away the drowsiness of my own weakness from just a few moments before, from back when I still had yet to raise most of my stats to their limits…

It wasn't Loraz's skill that I could decipher.

Right now, his whole flow of aura appeared like a slightly more complex equation. Yet, for no reason other than my gut, I decided against trying to decipher it.

Not because I couldn't. Not because it would be of no use.

I gave up on it because I could tell that the process of doing so would leave me vulnerable for too long. What's more, abusing my intelligence right now would only bring a sooner end to my eye of time skill!

And most of all… there was absolutely no reason for me to fully decipher Loraz's aura. Just seeing it as an equation, I gained insight into his intentions that far preceded any hints that he would have to reveal with his physical form.

When Loraz raised his resummoned dragon arm, I already took a calm step to the side, removing myself from the range of angles he could attack from. His body shifted to the side in an attempt to bring me back within the range of his dragon's arm…

Only for me to complete a slight leap back to the other side, putting me squarely behind the man's turned back.

'Elemental Aura tribute!'

Before Loraz could turn back, I summoned the altered version of my costly yet overpowered skill. And with how I started to move as quickly as I could through the slurry of the thick air, the drain on my aura quickly grew from tiny to nearly overwhelming.

And when I pushed my fist out… The strain on my soul only grew stronger… along with the space itself that separated my fist from Loraz's face condensing, thus decreasing the distance my fist had to cross.

A mere moment later, I sapped myself out of the major chunk of energy hidden within the flow of my aura. No matter, aura or blood, the active Tribute skill came at a great cost!

But it was a cost I was willing to pay, for my fist, between the speed of my nearly maxed-out agility, the acceleration of moving through a stopped time, and then even further boost to its speed through the condensing of space…

With all of those boons, my fist grew swift and strong enough to reach Loraz's right cheek, sending him tumbling when the strike connected.

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