I blocked a kick from Slug with an almost casual elegance, retaliating with a sharp jab that pushed him back, but didn't do any real damage.
He recovered near-instantly, lashing out at me with a punch, which went straight through my afterimage technique. I attempted to circle around behind him and give a quick, hard kick to the Namekian's spine,
It glanced off of his thigh instead, as he managed to partially dodge at the last second.
Still, it was a powerful attack, forcing him to take a step back (or rather, float back, since we were in the air), to reset.
Then, it happened.
I didn't have time to process it, or try to stop it. It seemingly happened within one 'frame' and the next, completely impossible to anticipate.
A black mass flashed through the air and collided with Slug.
It wasn't power. Not in the traditional sense. It only contained trace amounts of actual ki energy, which meant that neither fighter was able to sense it until it'd already made contact with the black-hearted old Namekian.
But the moment it did, something changed.
Slug's ki exploded.
The black mass contained raw, unfiltered traces of whatever was left of King Piccolo's evil soul.
In other words, traces of a soul-deep malicious Namekian energy. Something far deeper than a simple injection of ki energy.
After killing Krillin, it'd gone searching for a host.
In other words, it'd instantly zoned in on the closest match it could find: Another evil Namekian. Latching on, the malice had instantly assimilated it not with Slug's ki, but with his soul itself, the way only Namekian-origin souls could do with other Namekian-origin souls, instantly catapulting Slug's power level higher.
Not the exponential height that a true assimilation would bring for him, but still enough to make my eyes widen in shock.
The evil Namekian didn't waste a single moment on questioning. He felt power, he used it, end of the story.
And he used this power. Despite his strength growing dramatically higher, his control, slowly growing better over the course of our battle, didn't suffer at all.
The amount of sheer malice pouring off of the evil Namekian made me flinch for a moment.
In that moment, his form flickered.
Suddenly, he was right in front of me. His windmill kick slammed into my shoulder just as I dropped it, blasting me downwards at an angle. At the last second, I twisted my body, only to catch a fist that blasted me back into the air.
Suddenly, I was on the other end of the power shear, barely able to react as Slug's attacks slammed into me over and over again, throwing me all over the topology with power that notably surpassed my own. In seconds, my body was covered in bruises.
Finally, Slug grew tired of batting me around, and sent an ax kick that blasted me through several trees, tumbling head over heels as they snapped like fragile twigs against the force of my body.
I hit the dirt and tumbled, then I sensed it.
Instantly, I forced my body to react. "Titan Pulse!" I managed to scream, swiping my arms through the air at the last second, tossing as much energy at the problem as I could manifest.
The shockwave that erupted was invisible and formless, until it came into contact with the energy wave that Slug had blasted at me after he'd kicked me aside.
There was an incredible explosion of light, energy, and force, mere feet from my position. I gritted my teeth, powering through the residual effects as my pure, formless energy shockwave just barely carved out a small space for me against the raw might of Slug's energy wave.
When the blast cleared, the air was charged with power, and I laid on the ground, half-hidden by the upturned dirt.
From Slug's perspective, I knew that he could tell that I was still alive: A single blast of that magnitude, even if I hadn't blocked it with my Titan Pulse, wouldn't have finished me off, but had still given myself a few seconds of leeway. The fact is, that attack could very well have seriously injured me if I'd been even a second later.
I used my moment of peace to re-evaluate the battle.
Attrition was off the table as an option. I didn't even pretend to understand what was going on, but it was clear that whatever that black mass was, it'd brought Slug's base power level up by quite a bit… a multiplier of around 1.5, if I had to guess, putting his raw power at just under 150 million or so… notably higher than mine.
That didn't make me entirely helpless, though. Without his regenerative factor, the raw power difference, while it did catch me by surprise, wouldn't be insurmountable.
But the regenerative factor still existed.
I couldn't beat him. His output could regularly overpower my own. That brought my options down to crisis-levels.
But not everything was lost.
Shaking the dirt out of my hair, I amped my Blutz-Light Generation technique up a notch and, glowing slightly brighter than before, blasted back into the sky to confront Slug once more, this time on a different type of playing field… one where he held the clear advantage.