Chapter 303: Chronosphere
Check out my entry for the WPC August: Beyond the Bloodline.🔥
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"Eight left.... Not for long though."
After tossing the headless corpse in his inventory, he summoned Celestia and Lostvayne in both hands before kicking off the ground and dashing forward, spinning his body around and sending out two crossed slashes of extinction.
The two thin silver streaks of light tore through the air with blinding speed, splitting the body of another demigod into four pieces faster than he could react.
He released multiple slashes in random directions, forcing them to dodge as they tried to call upon the powers of the universal laws.
Unfortunately, Arthur’s racial weakening effect was absolute, preventing him from being able to use the genuine universal law power and forcing them to rely on the watered-down essences of the laws, which were just basically normal magic power imbued with the law’s effects.
One of the demigods tried to run but Arthur flicked a finger and created a towering wall of anti-divinity which the fleeing demigod crashed into at full speed.
His skin burned like it had been scaled by hot water, and a searing sensation of pain coursed through his veins.
Waves of scorching energy washed over him, each touch like a thousand fiery needles piercing his flesh, overwhelming his senses with unimaginable pain and eliciting a guttural scream from his lips.
Under Arthur’s manipulation, the anti-divinity wrapped around him like a ball and began shrinking, the pressure pressing against his body from all sides like an invisible vice tightening its grip.
His breath became shallow as the negative energy bore down on him oppressively, crushing him with force as he screamed out in agony.
Suddenly, a jet-black blade with crimson circuit-like lines running through it pierced through the ball and through his chest, killing him instantly.
But in the short moment before his death, the crimson energy of destruction on the blade gave him a taste of soul-rending pain, and even after death, the sword didn’t let go of his soul.
While Lostvayne was snacking on the demigod’s soul, Arthur was locked in battle against the remaining six demigods.
One of them could not take it anymore and pulled out one of the law energy artifacts Arthur had sensed at the battle’s dawn, channelling his divinity through it and unleashing a colossal lightning bolt that crackled with raw universal law energy.
The bolt hurtled towards Arthur faster than he could react, and with a thunderous boom, it collided with his arm that was stretched out mid-sword slash.
"GAH!"
Arthur screamed out in pain as the intensity of the bolt of lightning that carried more than enough power to decimate cities of millions seared through his flesh and bone.
In an instant, the arm was consumed by the blistering surge of lightning. The scorching heat charred the flesh, reducing it to blackened remnants that crumbled away like ash.
[MASTER!!]
The Lightning then went on to crash into the ground and ignited a violent explosion that shook the very foundations of the land.
Thunderous echoes reverberated through the air as the explosion unleashed a torrent of energy, sending debris and shockwaves in every direction.
The Surrounding atmosphere crackled with the power of the law of lightning, leaving behind a scorched aftermath and an eerie silence in its wake.
Arthur’s body was propelled into the air by the force of the massive explosion, defying gravity’s grip on his body.
With each passing moment, the world around him blurred into a chaotic whirlwind of motion, the sheer impact sending him hurtling through the air.
He soared through the air for what felt like an eternity, the wind howling in his ears as he covered several kilometres, before finally falling regaining his bearing and flipping his body around to land on his feet.
"Fuck!"
The boy cursed as he saw the silver blood splattering onto the ground, mingling with the smouldering debris in the area.
’If it wasn’t for the fact that I was waiting for them to use that time Artifact I would have killed them all already!’
Arthur was enraged, and he felt the urge to end it all with a single blast of Extreme Nothingness’ Seismic Surge, but he held himself back when he thought about the possibility of gaining a Pseudo Authority.
Taking deep breaths, he numbed the pain in his arm and used his energy of life to force out the residual lighting energy that impeded his regeneration.
Gazing at his arm, cosmic energy surged into his body and stimulated his regenerative prowess, while he simultaneously activated the power of the law of time and rewound the time of his arm.
The demigods who gave chase arrived just in time to see his flesh bubbling and writhing with invisible energy.
Right before their very eyes, tendons wove together, bones reformed, and sinew stretched, as the arm grew anew with an otherworldly vigour.
"What in tarnation...??"
"...This shouldn’t be allowed to exist."
He ignored the mutters from the demigods and got to his feet, taking another deep breath before releasing the pain-numbing spell and flexing his half-rewound-half-regrown arm.
’To think rewinding my entire arm isn’t even possible for the current me...’
"Guys! Now!"
"Huh?"
Arthur looked up in ’confusion’ and saw that the five who were once Legendries had surrounded him, with four of them creating a massive four-cornered barrier of divinity to trap him while the fifth held a strange artifact in his hand.
’Finally!’
The artifact shimmered with a strange otherworldly glow, exuding an aura that Arthur could not be more familiar with.
Crafted from an unknown material, its intricate design featured delicate etchings that seemed to dance with life.
At the centre, a mesmerizing gemstone pulsed with an ethereal light, its hues shifting and shimmering between different shades of blue.
Merely gazing at it caused a sense of time itself bending under its weight to fill the air.
"Chronosphere, Activate!!"
With the command, Arthur could see the life and soul essence of the demigod holding it being drained, along with his maximum energy and he saw the man’s existence realm fall in real time.
’Oh, so that’s why they didn’t use it earlier.’
He kicked off the ground and shot forward, as if he was trying to stop him from activating it, even making a show of trying to punch the barrier blocking him and break it, only to have his arm injured by the divinity.
Arthur then conjured a sword from earth elements and tried to stab the barrier, but it was too late as a blue light surged from the artifact and scanned his whole body.
A blue sphere instantly manifested in around him, orbited by three rings with strange runes on them, incompressible by all except those who walked on the path of the law of time.
"..."
Silence pervaded the area as Arthur’s charging motion was halted within the sphere.
He had been trapped in a time loop, reliving a moment in time continuously in such a way he was rendered immobile.
The leader of the demigods had a feeling it might not work given that Arthur could use the power of time, but seeing that Arthur had been captured successfully, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
"This monster..."
"Look how many of us died just to get him."
"Don’t forget that it was your idea to use that attack that killed nine of us!"
"I lost my fucking arm for that, you know?!"
"But even without that, he still single-handedly killed half of our squad!"
"All because you guys refused to go all out from the start."
"Why do you say that like we could?! If we did then you Epics would have died in the aftermath!"
"Yeah! And if we overdid it the people of this planet would have noticed and come over to find trouble with us."
"But even without that..."
"Still..."
The remaining six demigods instantly began arguing amongst themselves, throwing blame around and screaming at each other.
Emotions ran high as their voices intertwined in a symphony of conflicting opinions. Two of them nearly got physical with each other and had to be broken up by the others.
It took a while but their tempers eventually calmed, the tension in the atmosphere receding.
"Damn it! Let’s just kill him and go.
Who knows if that guy can hold off the Archdevil of Destruction long enough?"
"We already wasted a lot of valuable time arguing here thanks to you. Won’t be surprised if she suddenly shows up now."
"Guys! Stop!"
"Yeah. This isn’t the time for this, let’s just deal with him and go."
After stopping another argument from breaking out, the leader of the squad sighed before unsheathing his sword, releasing the law energy he had sealed into the weapon earlier.
He checked to see that others had unsheathed their weapons before turning towards Arthur and counting.
"3, 2, 1. Now!"
The six of them simultaneously thrust their swords and spears towards Arthur, the weapons slowly but surely moving through the blue sphere and inching closer to the frozen boy’s body.
Right at the last moment before his sword touched Arthur’s heart, he noticed something off.
’Wait a sec? Wasn’t it only his left eye that was blue?’
Check out my entry for the WPC August: Beyond the Bloodline.🔥
