Attack after attack from Ben landed on his opponent. Some of the attacks bounced off his hard skin, but others permeated through. Yogic powers was not distributed equally in his opponent's body, helping Ben in striking at those points. His opponent was also not a sitting duck. Some of his attacks did land on Ben, causing burns on his abdomen and left arm. But Ben maintained his distance and it was slowly being healed. But it was not really fast as burned skin was extremely difficult to regenerate.
Ben then changed his approach. The reason he moved to this location was to use the trees as leverage. He unleashed aether leap. Along with his claws an aura tail also grew on him. He ran towards his opponent, who put his hands in front of him ready for his opponent as well as guarding his vitals and previously injured spot. Ben who started to run in a fraction of seconds reduced to blur for the person. He could not follow Ben's speed. All he could see was blue and white light jumping around trees and running around him. While he was confused and at a loss as to what to do, Ben started the next round of attack.
He attacked his torso, legs, wind pipes, back more specifically aiming at the spine and all the vital points. Some of these attacks were claw swipes and others were aimed at penetrating using all 5 claws. Still Ben found it difficult to penetrate the tough skin of golden hue. But he did not stop. He jumped form tree to tree, ran on the ground and attacked his opponent from all angles possible. He even managed to strike a few times on his liver. The person then tried to protect that point even more frantically.
Ben noticed something. The person's hand had changed to golden hue. There was some steam rising, but it seemed like the steam had reduced considerably. He inferred that the person could not maintain that temperature for a long time. Ben also did not opt out the possibility that he is just bluffing and he might simply activate that power if he tried to make use of that possibility. He wanted to make sure. So he attacked him at such angles that he had to defend with his hands and could also attack him. For a few such attacks he did not do much. So Ben decided to go for a much deep bait. Sure enough the heated hands came to life. But his opponent seemed to have forgotten about Ben's speed, as Ben effortlessly dodged the attack. The opponent lost his balance as he tried to overreach. He was jolted by a kick to his groins. Even that was a tough spot considering his 'yogic' powers, but the sheer number of neurons there send extreme pain signals that momentarily stunned him. That was followed by an attack to the previous liver point. This time the impact penetrated the golden skin and managed to injure the person.
For the first time in the battle Ben's opponent bled. He was about to fall down when a knee to his face made him fall back wards with a broken nose and blood flying from it like an arc. Ben's opponent fell down and stayed there for a few seconds. Ben also did not follow up on the attack, because he also had used a lot of aura and had used energy for healing as well. Flesh wounds were and superficial wounds could be healed fast by a knight. But if the wound is deeper than that, they would bleed out and die. Even healing flesh wounds is really difficult for knight realm meridian wielders. His opponent gradually got up. Ben also got ready for battle. By this time that person's mask had also been undone. Underneath that there was an unassuming face of 20-25 year old. But as he realized he lost his mask, his face contorted. He snarled " Now that you have seen my face, don't think that you can escape alive." Ben did not tell anything. He was biding for time recovering his aura. His opponent was oblivious to this. According to him, Ben only had aura reserves and aura utilization skills which were really advanced. He had not expected Ben to have mastered his cultivation technique. He could not be blamed. Even with advanced technology and prodigious mentors, even noble scions take a year to perfect their cultivation technique. But unfortunately for him, Ben had achieved both resonance and harmony with his cultivation technique. This helped him to recover his aura much faster than normal. Also they were inside a forest where life aura was brimming, and it helped the Shamanic aura within Ben to recover faster.
Another advantage that Ben had was the fact that his harmonious cultivation technique allowed him to mask the increase in his aura from his opponent. Even though he was recovering aura fast, the energy fluctuations it produced was much less due to the stability of his cultivation technique. He was not expecting Ben to stall for recovering aura. He just assumed he was catching his breath. He also wrongly assumed seeing Ben's aura utilization, that he was severely low on aura reserves and he was on his last legs.
All these lead to him letting his guard down. And that was a grave mistake. He put a person who inherited the techniques of the seven sages in the same pedestal as noble scions and wealthy childes. He activated his yogic powers to the fullest. His skin including the face turned to golden color. His eyes became red and his hands were blazing white. The stranger attacked him head on. His speed was considerable. If Ben was truly exhausted or if he did not have enough aura, it would have been a problem. But Ben had recovered 80% of the aura and thus he activated the aether leap. The person struck at empty air. Before he could regain his bearing, he felt a powerful impact to his wound, braking the ribs even further and pain that made him to close his eyes for a second. But this time he did not let the pain the better of him. He attacked Ben with his blazing hands. But Ben easily dodged it. Then he started to strike him at high speeds using aether leap. At first his movements were only on the ground. Next, he began to make use of the trees to jump off.
The momentum of Ben began to increase. He struck at his opponent using his claws and aura infused legs. It created sparks when striking the skin of the yogic meridian wielder. His opponent was having a hard time keeping track of Ben's movements. He was being struck with minor feint strikes as well as extremely lethal strikes to vital areas at high speeds.
In 2-3 minutes, the opponent began to see through Ben's attack patters and he began to defend first and slowly began to attack. Ben was seared by the heat form his opponent's hand several time. Ben decided that it was time to end this.
Suddenly Ben's atta ck stopped for a second. His opponent was confused and he found that Ben was getting ready for an attack. He had not forgotten the large lupis that appeared out of nowhere and gave him considerable impact. He thought that Ben was going to use that. But much to surprise he simply started to run at him at high speeds. In a fraction of a second Ben reached his opponent and struck at him. His opponent also responded in kind. Just as their punches were about to connect, Ben simply stopped his punch. He then jumped up high. When his confused opponent looked up, he saw a large lupis ready to pounce at him. Before he could he even fully blink, he was struck with an impact at supersonic speed. This time the Rush n' Ram combined with aether leap bounced from the air managed to crush the armor of his opponent destroying his internal organs which caused him to cough up blood and fall unconscious.