54 Chapter 54 - Rematch against the lion

"What's wrong? Is that all you got?" Howled Leona, irritating Marc who quickly got on his feet again after being punched in the face.

Marc cracked his neck a little while saying "Fine. If you want a fight, then you got it." Before taking his sandals off and used his Paw Magic to transform his hands into paws.

Taking one normal step forward whereas the second one he rotated sideways and stamped the ground hard in Leona's direction.

*Boom*

The earth in front of Marc was blown and flew toward Leona in one big explosion, making it hard for her to see anything as it brought up a cloud of dust. To not let it hinder her sight completely she began releasing even more heat from her body, blowing most of the rubble that would otherwise have hit her.

After taking Leona's vision away, Marc suddenly jumped two meters straight in the air and stomped the ground once more

*Earth Compression*

But instead of just rubble and dust, a big boulder about five meters high was raised in front of him that he immediately hit with his right hand.

*Pa…!!*

Sending the big boulder into the dust cloud Leona's in.

Leona who eagerly awaited the next attack in the dusty environment could only see 4 meters around herself. Before she knew it, the big boulder made from compressed earth reached her vision.

"You will have to do better than that!" Leona said before she pulled her fist back. Around it, it began getting a red aura and the surrounding temperature was multiplying. Instead of waiting for the rock to come closer, she attacked it head-on and blasted it to smithereens with just her first alone.

*Kaboom*

Marc wasn't done though, as he had repelled himself forward and followed behind the rock before it was destroyed. When it was destroyed, he could see the incoming Leona with her first still in the air, he touched it from the downside to repel the overwhelming heat in the air, before using his other hand and tried to touch her stomach.

*Baam*

The other of Leona's hot fists met his palm strike with incredible power behind it, fully stopping it.

The two were now in a deadlock with Marc holding on to one of her fists while he was trying to push the other back. Only the heat was being blown back like a hurricane.

"Not bad, but. AGAIN!!" Leona yelled before she began exploding with heat from her body like an explosive pulse.

Marc was fully alert and using *Panther Disaster* to heighten his senses. The incoming heatwave was not something he wanted to be in, so he had already jumped back before stomping the ground again. Just to this time around make a big earth wall and place his hands on it to compress it to the fullest. It made it shrunk to the size it could only fully cover him, and make the incoming heatwave blow around it. It did not break down or crack by the attack.

"Damn, this woman is truly a prime example of a battle maniac" Blurted Marc, finding the current challenge very exciting, but seconds after he suddenly felt the wall get rapidly hotter.

"It can't be, right?" Marc wondered if she would try to destroy the compressed wall instead of just going over or around it.

And like raising a flag, crude holes appeared one after another before one appeared right in front of him that he stooped with a palm strike of his own. The wall crumbled as soon the two attacks met, and Marc and Leona were once again in a deadlock, but not for long as the two began continually striking each other without bothering defending.

Palm strikes landed over and over again on Leona's body that would normally have made a hole through a weaker mage by the consecrated force it shot through the body. Leona had trained her body to be strong, really strong. Coupled with her outrageous output of Magic Power that she was letting flow out, it clearly saved her life.

On Marc's body, multiple punches had already hit him all over mercilessly. His new favorite Hawaii-like shirt had multiple burned holes in it where the hits landed and would have melted his organs if he wasn't able to dispel the heat from his body before it did.

Ending the series of attacks that added wounds to both parties, Marc and Leona distanced themself from each other.

"You really don't pull your punches, huh?" Marc asked, seeing that he had burned fist prints all over his body.

"Either do you. Don't you know I'm a woman?" Leona asked back after seeing light-bluish palm bruises all over her body too not any lower amount than Marc has.

"Oh I know, I know…" Marc told her and looked at Leona's chest where it had a paw print right on a tit while clenching his hand a little to remember the touch.

Leona didn't show any reaction to Marc's lecherous look on her chest but instead proclaimed "But I'm far from done. You better use everything you have from now Meerkat or you will be slaughtered by this lioness."

"Heh? Then let me do the honor of going first this time around" Marc said before raising his hands in the air to gather an air bubble in the form of a paw. It grew bigger by the second, reaching 8 meters in diameter, only to begin to shrink later to the size of a tennis ball in Marc's hands.

Leona let him do it as she wanted to experience the power behind it again.

When Marc was done compressing it, he slowly released it by pushing it forward Leona. It made a little sizzling sound while it gently flew away from him.

"It looks so harmless but has so much power. This spell really is interesting." Leona grinned while thinking. The radiating red heat she was releasing suddenly began growing even further and took the form of a big lion head over her.

Leona had a ferocious expression on her face matching the big lion head over her, that roared before Leona punched the air in the direction of the incoming small paw bubble. Not a second later, the blazing lion roared again and flew forward the air bubble with its jaws wide open, wanting to swallow it whole.

*Calidum Leonis* (A/N: Means "warm lion" in Latin)

And the lion's jaw closed and the paw bubble couldn't be seen. Seconds went by and everything was quiet.

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*Ursus Shock*

The blazing lion's heatwaves it was radiating slowly began turning chaotic, before-

*Kaboom*

The lion was dispersed like the wind, surprising Leone's just a little, and shockwaves expanded outward like a bomb was just dropped towards both Marc and Leona.

"Sure enough, he has gotten much stronger!" Grinned Leona with anticipation at the incoming destruction before meeting it head-on like always.

*Calidum Brachium Barrage*

And dozen fiery blasts continually pummeled at the expanding *Ursus Shock*, slowly lessening its energy output, surprising Marc this time around by the way of using brute strength.

"She's like a beast that won't stop," Marc could swear he was looking at the beast in female skin. He couldn't watch for long before he would be caught in his own attack, so he stomped the ground again to make a big wall before touching it with his hand to strengthen it.

The ground the shockwaves hit, ripped, harden, and turned the ground upside down, making it look like a wasteland. Explosions of something continually colliding sounded.

When everything turned down and Marc jumped destroyed his wall, a bloodied Leona was looking provokingly at Marc with an open mouth that had blood flowing down the sides, but still grinning and showing her canny tooth.

"Again! We are not done!" She yelled madly and the temperature around rose to a new peak and all her Magic Power began gushing out giving her, showing a raging see-through heat transformation that moved like calm flames around her.

(A/N: A little like Naruto chakra mode.)

"Guess I will have to go all out too and use 'that' spell" Marc muttered after feeling Leona's power began raising considerably.

Marc placed a hand on his forehead and used his Paw Magic on it. A silver-colored paw bubble began emerging from the back of his head that contained his emotions and thoughts. When the ejection was done and he grabbed the silver bubble and injected it into his heart to store them for later, as he wouldn't want to lose his emotions up to now. Silver swirl marks like on a Devil Fruit began growing over his left chest and up to his shoulder. The overall atmosphere around Marc turned calm like a wave, with no unnecessary distractions or thoughts. Only focused on the fight.

(A/N: As there is no official image of the Paw-Paw Fruit I have chosen this one. It looks cute like Kuma's paws.)

Marc named the spell:

*One Goal*

When the two opponents were done transforming, Marc was the first to attack. When Leona looked at him from the distance, he disappeared, and she couldn't track or feel him. Before she could react, Marc was in front of her, and he had already hit her with seven palm strikes on her body. All that could be seen was silver energy with a blue hue around going through her body and leaving out of her back like a beam. No holes were created on her skin, but plenty of internal injuries were added. A nearly crushed lung, hurt liver, and a graced heart. Marc didn't hold back and was trying to kill her like she was him.

Leona's light in her eyes dimmed and the terribly red hot cloak of heat began dispersing while she was about to fall on her back.

Thinking he had already won, Marc stopped striking her. But just before fully falling, Leona pulled herself up and the heat around her only rose instead of going down, and she began punching like a mad man with a speed Marc managed following and counter with palms strikes. Suddenly to his surprise once again, she made a faint and took the chance to plant a fist in his stomach, making a shockwave of heat fly straight through his body.

Unknowingly around them, the ground very slowly began turning red because of Leona's temperature. It didn't affect Marc much as he could easily step on it as he has paws under his feet to dispel the heat.

Sometimes the fist was parried by a palm and vice versa. Marc was faster than Leona, but she dealt with it using instinct and more destructive punches. They didn't slow down at all and were like two beasts that wouldn't stop before one of them died. No tricks were used this time other than hit, parry, and dodge.

After fighting for about 40 minutes, the two didn't look human anymore. Marc made a knee kick into her stomach that was boosted with his feet by repelling the air, adding much more power behind it than she thought.

It made Leona bow a little over Marc as she was higher than him. She didn't want to give up though, so she used her teeth to bite down at his neck as the last effort, nearly biting a big chunk of it off if Marc didn't turn his head just a little.

*Bite*

Though Leona did manage to bite some of his trap like a lion that bites a gazelle and making blood flow.

After using the last bit of energy left, she felt over Marc, causing him to fall back over with Leona on him.

*Thud*

Marc was also spent and his *One Goal* wore off. The swirls on Marc's limps slowly disappeared, and all that was left are burn marks all over his body Leona made. And blood seeping out of his mouth.

*Cough* *Spit*

Just having Leona fall on him made him cough up blood, showing just how bad his body's condition is. Pushing her of him and rolling her to the side, just to see that she was glaring at him with her eyes, but her body wouldn't listen to her anymore.

"What were those palm strikes?" Leona asked still with a grin on her body. If it was possible, she had continued fighting.

Before answering, Marc forced himself to sit up and look at her body. She didn't have as many visual injuries as Marc, but her internal injuries were very terrible. She had blue marks all over her body and blood seeping out of her mouth, ears, nose, and even eyes.

"A vital point-focused attack where I focus on damaging your organs," Marc answered. Only after using *One Goal* is he able to pull off these fast and invisible palm strikes, but he didn't want to reveal that much.

Marc touched the wound on his trap that Leona bit off and couldn't help complaining "Did you really have to bite? Although pretty ladies sometimes like scars, they don't like nasty scars like this would leave!"

"How superficial. The only thing that matters is if you are strong!" Leona growled in annoyance and stated.

"You aren't even sorry? Where my gratitude for not killing you?" Marc asked like he was hurt despite really is.

"I will kill you next time!" Leona suddenly said.

"Kill me? What kind of thank you is that?" With raised eyebrows, Marc asked in bewilderment.

"I will kill you with gratitude!" Showing her canny tooth, she said then grinned afterward when she saw Marc's speechless expression.

As they were talking, Marc suddenly asked "What is that?" And pointed somewhere.

Hearing Marc's question, Leona was about to force herself to turn over in the direction he pointed, but Marc was too impatient and flipped her over without minding her injuries.

*Growl* "Is that how you treat beautiful ladies?" Compiled Leona.

"Oh, shut up, would you? If I treat you like a normal woman, I would be dead. Now answer. Do you know what that is?" What Marc was asking about was something very shiny in the distance that reflected the sun.

Looking at it, Leona said "I do. I forced two of my friends to follow me and join this war. That is his magic, Sand God Slayer Magic."

"Sand God Slayer Magic? I wonder who is fighting him? He would be the perfect opponent for Gina." Pondered Marc out loud.

"Why?"

"It's a secret that isn't up to me to tell," Marc told Leona and took a break, watching the shine in the distance.

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(A/N: If you haven't realized it yet, then I have taken inspiration from Hit and Ultra Instinct (Dragon Ball Super). At first, I wanted to do a transformation like Luffy (One Piece) but Marc does not have a unique body like him so dropped it.)

(A/N: I took some inspiration from Avatar Earth Bending too, like raising rocks and walks.)

(Words: 2494)