Chapter 1009: The Gap of Eons
The universal law energies erupting from Roseborn’s body rushed toward Arthur in consecutive waves that flooded him from every direction.
As Arthur closed the distance between them, he immediately used his Spatial Authority to calculate the total area around him covered by Roseborn’s mixture of law energies and deduced the best way to deal with them in an instant.
’My Gravitational Authority simply isn’t strong enough to block the combined power of 3 different Monarch Rank Universal Law Authorities.’
With that conclusion in mind, Arthur combined the anti-divinity from his Gravitational Authority with the destructive cosmic energy from his Aspect of Destruction and released it outward as a wave of destructive gravity in every direction around him, colliding against the incoming waves of cosmic energy and violently scattering them apart.
Bursting out from amidst the scattered energies, barely affected by the destructive gravity wave due to the multiple layers of magic barriers around him, was Roseborn, his right hand stretching outward to summon a long spear in a flash of light.
Cosmic energy erupted from the weapon alongside the power of the Universal Law of Light, which synchronised with Roseborn’s own Origin Core and flowed toward the gash in his left side, barely succeeding in holding back the rampaging power of Arthur’s Null energy from worsening the wound any further.
’A cosmic weapon with its own independent reserve of cosmic energy. Within expectations,’ Arthur thought, unsurprised.
He would’ve found it stranger if a man like Roseborn, who’d ruled a Multi-Universal empire for tens of millions of years, didn’t have at least one such weapon under his control.
Arthur simply swung Lostvayne upward to meet Roseborn’s descending slash, spear and sword colliding with an impact that made the fabric of space tremble lightly as shockwaves spread outward in every direction.
Roseborn grunted lightly as he folded all but one pair of wings to reduce his body weight, several magic spells appearing around his right arm and amplifying his physical strength so he could match the force of Arthur’s two-handed swing with only one hand.
The force of their weapons’ colliding knocked them apart, and immediately afterwards, they swung toward each other once more.
Their weapons collided a second time, then a third, then a fourth.
By the fifth exchange, Roseborn’s balance had been disrupted as the inability to properly use his left arm began affecting him.
By the sixth, he barely managed to swing his spear in time to deflect Arthur’s slash.
By the seventh, Arthur’s blade passed by the side of his face.
And by the eighth, Arthur slipped through his guard and targeted the gash on his left shoulder.
Lostvayne’s tip, coated in Null’s power, pierced through the 5 ten-ringed spell circles that appeared to block the thrust before stabbing into Roseborn’s shoulder.
"Gah!"
The man roared in pain, unleashing curse and extinction law energies from his body and causing spears of the mixed law energies to erupt from the space beneath Arthur’s feet, forcing Arthur to abandon his follow-up attack and immediately leap backwards to avoid the spears.
Roseborn instantly controlled them, making the erupting spears curve through space and shoot directly toward Arthur, but Arthur calmly activated Shattered Horizon, sending streams of destructive energy crashing through space and colliding against the spears, detonating them in mid-flight.
He immediately dashed back toward Roseborn, using his Temporal Authority to skip through time and close the distance instantly, while Roseborn activated his Authority of Alacrity, increasing his speed even further before swinging his spear as fast as possible in an attempt to overwhelm Arthur with a storm of attacks.
Arthur gripped Lostvayne with both hands and met Roseborn’s attacks head-on, the two entering an exchange of blows that sent powerful waves of force spreading in every direction and created ripples through space powerful enough to displace entire star systems from their galactic orbits.
The exchange continued for several minutes, neither of them yielding even an inch.
But even though Arthur possessed the advantage due to Roseborn’s heavily limited use of his left arm, preventing him from properly wielding his spear without worsening the injury and losing more blood, Roseborn also possessed an advantage that nearly nullified Arthur’s own.
Simply put, Roseborn was more skilled with a spear than Arthur was with a sword.
Then again, that was only natural because of the immense age gap between them, since Roseborn had spent far more time refining and perfecting his spear arts than Arthur had even been alive.
So it was inevitable that after several minutes of continuous exchanges, cuts and gashes had begun appearing across Arthur’s face and arms, while holes appeared throughout his clothes from Roseborn’s spear thrusts piercing his skin and causing silver blood to drip outward.
But Roseborn wasn’t unscathed either.
He’d suffered multiple cuts, and Arthur had stabbed the gash on his left side once again, using the null energy coating Lostvayne to destroy the light law energy Roseborn was using to heal the wound, allowing the Null energy to worsen it further and extend the gash even more.
Roseborn had no choice but to reactivate his Authority of Light and suppress Arthur’s Null again, and the moment he took to do that was enough for Arthur to use Destruction Crescent to carve an upward arcing slash across his chest.
Because Arthur’s blade was coated in Null’s power, every wound he inflicted on Roseborn infused more of that power into Roseborn’s body, forcing Roseborn to expend increasing amounts of magic power to use his Authority of Light to prevent those silver cuts from spreading further.
However, Arthur consumed more than twice the amount of cosmic energy while fighting with Null’s power coating his blade than he did when using ordinary destructive energy, which Roseborn could suppress with his higher-ranked Authority of Light.
And despite all the advantages Arthur possessed through the combination of factors such as his Progenitor Authority lowering Roseborn’s Existence Realm by an entire stage due to Roseborn being a possessor of Divine Factors, increasing the damage Arthur dealt while reducing the damage he received, while Extreme Nothingness: Chaos had inflicted an injury that limited Roseborn’s use of his left arm and forced him to continuously expend magic power suppressing the spread of Null’s power, alongside Roseborn lacking access to ambient cosmic energy because Arthur was using Cosmic Energy Domination, there was still one factor Arthur simply couldn’t change.
Roseborn, even as only a clone, was still a Monarch Realm existence.
As a result, he possessed more magic power and divinity than Arthur possessed magic power, divinity, anti-divinity, and cosmic energy combined.
A battle of attrition was absolutely not in Arthur’s favour.
Arthur’s sword and Roseborn’s spear collided once more, silver destruction and black-blue extinction erupting outward from the impact as the surrounding space distorted lightly. This impact, which would normally crack the fabric of space apart in jagged lines if it were within a universe, was simply unable to do the same outside, where the universal laws of reality were stronger.
Given this was his first battle outside a universe, Arthur was faintly surprised by the strength of the laws, but he had no time to focus on that as Roseborn redirected Lostvayne’s blade away from his body before thrusting straight toward Arthur’s throat.
Arthur quickly tilted his head aside and swung horizontally, forcing Roseborn to pull his spear back and block with the shaft, the clash blasting another violent shockwave through the cosmic clouds around them.
He pressed forward immediately after, his sword cutting arcs of crimson silver light through space itself while Roseborn met every slash with fluid spear movements, knocking attacks away with the shaft before retaliating with thrusts aimed at Arthur’s vitals. Every collision between sword and spear distorted the surrounding vacuum, fragmented cosmic debris exploding apart whenever stray strands of law energy touched them.
Roseborn suddenly spun his spear around his body and swept it toward Arthur’s side, and although Arthur blocked with Lostvayne, Roseborn instantly changed the angle of the attack and slammed the butt of the spear into Arthur’s ribs before thrusting toward his face. Arthur leaned backwards just enough to avoid the spear tip slicing through his eye, but a thin cut still opened across his cheek.
Arthur retaliated immediately, Lostvayne carving downward toward Roseborn’s injured shoulder and forcing the Flugel to retreat half a step while raising his spear to parry.
Arthur’s follow-up slash curved back upward almost instantly, the blade grazing across Roseborn’s chest and opening another silver-lined wound that refused to heal properly under the effect of Null.
The two exchanged another flurry of attacks in the span of seconds, spear and sword colliding dozens of times as their movements accelerated further and further.
Arthur’s slashes tore glowing fissures through clumps of cosmic dust drifting past them, while Roseborn’s spear thrusts blasted holes through the surrounding cosmic clouds.
Arthur cut across Roseborn’s arm while Roseborn’s spear slashed past Arthur’s side, and Arthur sliced through Roseborn’s wing feathers, only for Roseborn to abruptly change the rhythm of his attacks, turning his spear around Lostvayne’s blade and knocking the sword wide before Arthur could recover his stance.
’Holy Spear Art: Divine Rupture.’
The spear blurred forward with terrifying speed, piercing through the inner part of Arthur’s wrist before another thrust pierced the midpoint between wrist and elbow. The third thrust tore through the inner part of his elbow, the fourth pierced the midpoint between elbow and shoulder, and the fifth ripped through Arthur’s shoulder completely before the final thrust shot straight toward his chest.
But before it could connect, a semi-transparent blade suddenly appeared in Arthur’s free left hand, and he swung it down instantly, Celestia slamming against Roseborn’s spear and knocking it downward.
’Authority of Time: Temporal Reversal!’
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