Chapter 645: 1 Second
|¬ENOUGH!!!¬|
A shockwave of crimson-silver energy erupted from the epicentre, an Anti-Divinity pulse that rippled outward in all directions.
The pulse hit every corner of the cavern, obliterating every trace of every attack from both sides of the situation, turning them to dissipating, harmless energy in an instant.
Arthur rose from the magma, fury etched on his face.
His body was a mess of damage—patches of his skin were burned raw, the flesh on his arms had been charred to a blackened crisp, and silver blood dripped steadily from his nose and ears.
But he was still standing—or, in this case, floating.
The Stellar Guard had not activated as that attack had not been fatal—revealing another flaw in the seemingly perfect survival artifact.
It only activated against fatal attacks.
Even if an attack left him disfigured, mutilated, or incapacitated, if it didn’t carry the promise of death, the artifact would not activate.
Arthur’s eyes glowed and his Pseudo-Origin cores sent law energies coursing through him. Cosmic energy gathered around him like a storm, swirling and coalescing into something massive.
But Arthur didn’t even have time to turn this energy into a proper attack.
In the same instant, another catastrophic beam of dark light descended from above, streaking towards him like a sword of judgment.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t hit as easily as before.
The beam struck his condensed cosmic energy and the resulting explosion obliterated the upper half of the mountain in a thunderous blast, rock and magma flying skyward.
His ears caught the sound of screams, but not from his allies.
That single second of reprieve granted by the cosmic energy detonation was enough to allow him to condense Anti-Divinity above his head, forming a giant gravity barrier.
The barrier bent the very space around it, warping the path of the destructive beam that followed up in the next second, redirecting it away from him and into the ground.
What remained of the platform they had been standing on was destroyed on collision, revealing the roiling sea of magma that churned beneath their feet.
The heat intensified as the magma surged, reacting violently to the catastrophic attacks that had rained down upon it.
Evan spread his wings, Artemisia used her wind magic to fly, Hibiki spread her wings and grabbed Crim while Beatrix floated with her spatial power.
No one had a break as Arthur wasn’t the only one getting attacked.
Hibiki made a desperate attempt to create illusions to confuse their opponents, but the sheer magnitude of law energies flooding the cavern shattered her illusions before they could even fully form.
Arthur, straining against the beam crashing against his gravity barrier, glanced upward. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the source—the very top of the cavern, near the destroyed mouth of the volcano.
There wasn’t just one existence attacking him.
Eight—no, maybe ten—no, twelve. The number wasn’t clear to him in the heat of the moment.
Arthur wasn’t exactly correct. While there were indeed 12 existences, only 8 were attacking him with their combined might.
The combined might of Eight Transcendents, a mix of Inferior and Intermediate Stages, unleashed their collective power to overwhelm him.
Evan was attacked by two of the Non-Transcendents, while the remaining two attacked the girls.
Beatrix, despite her best efforts, was coughing up blood as she struggled to redirect the beams through her wormholes. Her spatial power was strained to the limit, even with the buffs and assistance from Artemisia’s magic.
Evan had long since activated his Limit Break + Blessing of Destruction Skills, stacking the boosts to achieve a 9x power boost, all so he could barely block the attacks bearing down on him.
Arthur gritted his teeth, pouring even more energy into the gravity barrier and expanding its coverage to shield the girls.
"Beatrix! Teleport!"
He took off the burden from her so she could get them out of there. Arthur knew that fighting back wasn’t an option right now.
The environment was their greatest enemy—a single misstep could send them all tumbling into the bubbling sea of magma below, teeming with fire law energies.
Now, Arthur was superior to Beatrix in spatial manipulation, thanks to his Law comprehension.
But it should not be forgotten that Arthur was currently maintaining a gravity barrier against the relentless barrage from eight Transcendents.
If he could teleport under those conditions then he might as well just become a Deity at this very moment.
AGSD flashed in his mind as a potential option, but he dismissed it just as quickly.
AGSD was a technique that could absorb the energies of the attacks, but he needed to expel those energies in an attack the moment it reached max capacity.
These were Transcendent attacks, each of which would make AGSD reach max capacity in a second.
And because they were continuous attacks, he would not have any chance to safely expel the absorbed energy, resulting in an explosive backlash that could endanger everyone.
Instead, Arthur focused on warping the space around him. His gravity barrier bent the path of the incoming beams, diverting them into the surrounding walls of the volcano.
Each impact sent shockwaves through the already half-destroyed cavern, and the structure of the volcano began to crumble.
Jagged cracks appeared in the rock, and chunks of molten debris rained down, making the area even more treacherous.
The gravity barrier covered only the immediate area around Arthur and the girls, strengthening it by keeping the surface area as small as possible.
But Evan, who had been blasted away earlier, wasn’t within the barrier’s protection.
Luckily, the pressure on Evan didn’t seem to be that much as the boy could withstand it with his shield and defensive skills.
Beatrix, despite the golden blood dripping from her lips, forced out every iota of divinity and magic power she could draw from her divine spark.
Artemisia placed a hand on Beatrix’s back, transferring her energy and enabling Beatrix to activate her Unique Skill once more and wrap the group in a delicate weave of spatial power.
Crim slashed her wrist open and used her own blood to form a whip that lashed out and coiled around Evan. With a sharp tug, she pulled him closer, reducing the range Beatrix had to cover.
Every meter counted, and Crim’s quick thinking brought Evan within the reach of Beatrix’s power, easing the strain just slightly.
But the teleportation wasn’t instantaneous and for a rather obvious reason.
When teleporting people, the stronger the person being teleported, the more energy is consumed.
If the target was also stronger than the teleporter was, they’d consume even more energy and take an even longer time to fully activate the teleportation.
And Beatrix was trying to teleport Arthur, a Semi-Transcendent.
Worse, Arthur was actively warping space with his Pseudo-Authority of Gravity and Anti-Divinity.
Beatrix had to make sure the space they teleported through wasn’t bent or torn apart by his influence.
The only reason she could even attempt this was because Arthur was restraining his Progenitor Authority from weakening her while he used the power boost it gave to withstand the onslaught.
But the true MVP was her Unique Series Skill.
Without her skill, she would have never been able to manipulate space under such overwhelming conditions.
Evan and Crim lent her their magic power, sending whatever reserves they could offer. Beatrix gritted her teeth, feeling the strain on her divine spark intensify, but she ignored the pain.
Slowly, light began to envelop their bodies, the signature glow of teleportation magic swirling around them.
Their bodies began to be warped through space.
They just needed to get out of here. It didn’t matter how far they went—even if it was only a few hundred meters. All they needed was to escape the bombardment, to get out of the immediate danger zone.
The moment they got out of there, Arthur could take them even further with a Cosmic Gate.
However, just before Beatrix’s teleportation fully enveloped them, something happened.
""?!""
Arthur’s hair stood on end.
Evan’s Danger Sense filled his ears with warnings. His System’s Survival Enhancement Mode activated, making him curse aloud.
Both of them had the same realization in an instant.
Despite the blinding flashes of light and the barrage of attacks crashing down, Arthur’s gaze snapped upward.
He saw them.
He felt their presence before he saw them.
Amidst the twelve powerful existences bombarding them with relentless attacks, two more figures appeared—a thirteenth and fourteenth.
One stood perched on the head of the other.
An Archdevil with flower-patterned eyes standing on the head of a Black Dragon.
Both of them exuded auras of existences that the current Arthur couldn’t beat even in his dreams.
Superior Stage Transcendents.
The Archdevil’s gaze locked onto Arthur’s and then he spoke.
Arthur didn’t hear the words, but he knew what was said.
—Fire—
And the Black Dragon obeyed.
From its maw, it spewed flames from the depths of hell.
Arthur’s gravity shield instantly shattered like glass and his Anti-Divinity exploded outward. The flaming light crashed down on him.
Beatrix’s Teleportation concluded and space imploded.
..
All of this happened in the same second, just milliseconds after the other.
Their bodies, already halfway through space, were violently pulled in different directions by the chaotic distortion.
And when time added a second to its flow, the entire mountain range they had been in was obliterated.
