Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

Chapter 317: Time Rhino

Violet was both struggling yet also quite enjoying herself. Afterall it isn’t every day that she got the chance to battle against a foe that could so easily mitigate her attacks.

Well maybe mitigate isn’t the correct term, perhaps recover from was more apt?

Regardless of appropriate vernacular of this situation, the fact remains that it was a rare opportunity for Violet to learn more about such an elusive speciality such as time.

As such she was quite invested in learning as much as she could about how such a simple seeming beast was able to utilise it. And, how she could overcome it.

For now thought she intended to test the limits of what this Beast Lord could do.

To do this Violet opted to stick to her basics, void bolts and spears rained down on her foe.

The rhino for its part, seemed unbothered by Violet’s continual barrage. It just kept running straight at her, when she dodged out of the way with either a leap or a blink it would simply run around and charge straight back at her.

At first Violet was confused why the beast just continued to do the same thing over and over again, the only time things would change up would be when one of Violet’s attacks dealt significant damage. Upon which the beat would proceed to flicker backwards and then continue on without the last few wounds.

Then the beast changed things up.

Violet was just beginning to become accustomed to its methodical yet rapid charges. She would time out the beasts charge and then move out of the way with minimal movement, all the while unleashing a continual barrage of magical attacks.

The damage was accumulating, even with the periodic time flickers that healed the worst of the beasts wounds.

However, on this latest charge the rhino did something different from normal.

When the beast was around 10 meters away from Violet, around the time that Violet herself would be preparing to leap out of the way, the beast once more flickered.

Yet instead of moving backwards like Violet had expected, the beast instead moved itself forwards in time.

This caused the beast to reappear with its horns scant inches away from Violet’s chest, it was also moving to fast for her to do much of anything in response.

Still her void shield snapped into place between herself and the deadly horns. They managed to halt the beasts movements for a scant heartbeat before shattering.

That scant moment however, was enough of a window for Violet to blink away and reappear some distance away.

Upon landing she once more focused on the rhino, this time her excited mind set had been dimmed upon the realisation that she was very close to suffering near catastrophic damage.

Violet didn’t think she would die from just that single attack, yet she was in no rush to test that theory out. She focused in on the three deadly horns of the rhino, carefully assessing their nature.

They protruded from the beasts head some distance, she also noted that the front horn, the one besides its nose glowed a faint etherial blue.

It was only the barest flicker of illumination, yet it caught her eye.

Then as she watched she noticed that the same etherial glow seemed to be slowly increasing in intensity as time passed. Not massively, but still noticeably.

The beast charged a couple more times, with no time shenanigans this time. Until its horn was somewhat bright, then it flashed and the rhino flickered. This time backwards to erase a nasty wound on its leg from one of Violet’s spears.

Then Violet ms eyes widened in understanding as the horn that had just flashed was now back to its previous dull illumination.

’So it stores its time energy? Temporal energy? Mana? In its horn. I wonder what will happen if I manage to break that horn then.’ Violet wondered to herself as runes began to etch themselves into reality around the battlefield once again.

At the same time Violet tried to modify one of her spears.

Instead of instantly firing it off at the beast before her she instead kept this one floating above her head as she began to etch runes onto its form.

She etched runes to do with durability, sharpness and speed. Violet was unsure if her fairly basic mana construct would be able to endure the addition of runes into its structure, but she was more than willing to try it out.

At the same time chains of void began to sprout out around the battlefield, they whipped around to try and latch onto the beasts body as it charged by.

They dealt minimal damage, yet they managed to snag onto the beasts hide, slowing it down just a touch.

The beast however, was not willing to simply allow itself to be held down so easily, its immense strength enough to power through the harrsssing chains, its body shattering them when they pulled taught.

Then Violet felt something click into place with her rune etched spear and she smiled wide.

The number of runes forming chains redoubled in number. Countless chains formed, each one latching onto the beasts hide, legs and head as they attempted to slow or even stop the beasts relentless charge.

Then another rune formed on the ground between Violet and the direction the beast was after she just dodged its charge once again.

The beast turned, its movements slower then before with the shear amount of void chains dragging it down.

Then it charged once again. Its horn quite bright with stored power.

It closed the distance with swift strides until it passed over a small cluster of runes hidden on the ground.

The runes flashed purple, and suddenly a massive chunk of earth was simply erased from existence, right under the position that the beast was about to step.

The rhino slammed into the ground with earth shaking force. Distinct snapping sounds rang out as the beasts front leg shattered instantly from the impact.

Violet then unleashed her rune empowered spear, not aimed at the beasts body or head. But directly at the glowing horn atop its head.

The spear moved with blinding speed, seeming to almost teleport from its place besides her head to suddenly impacting the ground quite some distance away.

Violet blinked in confusion for a heartbeat, then she glanced at the horn and her eyes opened in surprise when she noticed a spear sized hole that pierced directly through the horn.

The beast then attempted to flicker back in time to heal itself from its wound, sadly it didn’t seem to notice the damage done to the horn, that or it just didn’t care.

Either way when the temporal energy flashed, everything went wrong for the Beast Lord.

A surge of power built up at terrifying speeds, the intensity enough to cause Violet to panic slightly as she leapt and blinked away from the fallen beast.

She did not stop until she was over a hundred meters away, even then she felt a faint sense of damage from the save the beast occupied.

Violet held her breath, wondering what it was exactly that had caused her to feel so threatened. Then the world flashed and Violet trembled.

A dome of temporal mana bloomed from the forehead of the rhino. It expanded out at both a slow but at the same time unbelievable speed.

Time had somehow broken within that circle of power and its effects were terrifying to say the least.

Violet watched on in mute incomprehension as time broke down.

A nearby tree suddenly shrank as its time rewound, hundreds of years of growth being undone in moments.

Next to it another tree took on a burst of sudden growth before its back withered and it collapsed in on its self.

All of that happening in both the span of seconds and untold years, Violet tried to make sense of what she was seeing, yet her brain simply refused to comprehend the effects within that dome of broken time.

Yet the most pronounced effects was happening to the rhino and it was gruesome to say the least.

Its body flickered continually, one moment it seemed back to perfect health, the next a ghastly wound appeared on its side, looking to come from an intense burn of some kind. Then it flickered once again and that same wound was replaced with a dozen puncture wounds, then it flickered and an entire chunk of its flesh seemed to have been bitten out of its side.

This continued in a horrifying display of perpetual harm, then Violet noticed a wound that she had dealt to the beast before it flickered the wound away and her eyes once again opened in sudden terrifying realisation.

The beast before her was reliving every single injury that it had suffered in its life that it had then rewound. All of them being inflicted on it one after the other in a seemingly endless rotation of pain.

The beasts face was locked in a frozen mask of horror and pain.

Violet however.c could only watch on, only a handful of seconds having passed on the outside, yet untold years having passed within the dome of broken time.

Then, finally, existence corrected itself and the dome of shattered time was forcefully restored to its natural state.

Sadly the same could not be said for the rhino.

When time returned to normal its body was a mess of wounds.

Some from Violet herself, yet only a tiny percentage came from her. Countless injuries that the beast had previously avoided through its life now all appeared.

The shear damage inflicted was simply too much for the beast to endure.

It died almost instantly once time reasserted itself.

Violet remained standing in place for some time after, both horrified at what she had just witnessed yet, relieved that she had managed to escape the dome of broken time.

Her musings were interupted when the system alerted her to her victory.