Chapter 656: Infernal Archdevil Commander: Yujia II
Arthur wasn’t even slowed for a tenth of a second, as his Pseudo-Authority rebuffed her command. In the end, Yujia had to rely on another element, melting the earth under his feet and forcing him to jump away to avoid having his foot burned by lava.
’I can’t use Time power on him...but on myself...’
She redirected her power to support, enhancing her speed. A split second before she moved, Arthur’s eyes widened and he tried to raise his blade, but even though he’d seen the outcome, his body wasn’t fast enough to react to it.
The difference in their base ’X3’ and ’X3+’ stats was clear.
In an instant, she was in front of Arthur, her halberd swinging in a blazing arc and it struck him across the side, a searing line of pain ripping through his body as the molten blade cut into his flesh.
Silver blood sprayed from the wound, and Arthur staggered back, gritting his teeth against the pain.
But he knew he couldn’t focus on the pain as Yujia pressed her advantage, swinging her halberd faster and stronger, pouring more energy into each swing.
Yujia’s strike cracked through Arthur’s hastily created gravitational barriers with ease, her power bearing down on him like an avalanche. She drew back, poised to strike again when suddenly, the world around her sped up.
Every movement blurred and stretched, sounds rushing into a sharp hum.
’No! I’m the one who has become slow!’
By the time she had this realisation, Arthur had already moved. He twisted his body to the right, pivoting just out of reach of her attack.
Then, in that same split second, he spun on that axis and swung his foot around in an arc. Time froze in that instant and he unleashed a kick with the force of 25x gravity.
**BOOOMM!!!
The impact struck Yujia’s side, shattering his own Time Stop and folding her body under the sheer force.
Her eyes went wide as she was torn from the ground, flung back through the air like a ragdoll. She hurtled across the battlefield, tearing through the air as the blow sent shockwaves through her body, smashing through debris, and carving a jagged path through the ground.
Finally, she came to a brutal halt, leaving a deep trench where she had landed, the dust and smoke of her crash rising like a storm around her.
’Rewind.’
Arthur healed his wounds and teleported right before her, throwing a punch aimed directly at her face.
Yujia rolled to the side, evading just as his punch collided with the ground and created a new canyon on the continent with the impact.
The shockwaves flung her body into the air, but she spun around mid-air and swung her halberd, unleashing a surging wave of molten lava straight toward Arthur.
Arthur met her attack barehanded, his fists wreathed in destructive gravity law energy shattering the lava wave as easily as breaking glass with steel.
’Wait...where’s his sword?!’
Yujia’s eyes widened as she noticed Arthur was barehanded, and having seen first-hand that Lostvayne was capable of independent action, her eyes darted around warily, trying to find it.
Something cut through her perception at hypersonic speed and she whirled around to block it, only to see it was a translucent blade she didn’t recognize.
"A deco-guk!!"
In that same instant, a sharp, searing pain cut through her back as Lostvayne found its mark, piercing through her liver.
As Yujia choked, blood splattering her lips, Arthur’s fist collided with Lostvayne’s hilt, hammering Lostvayne like a nail driven deeper into flesh.
The force of the blow sent Yujia hurtling forward, her vision blurring as she crashed through the air.
Arthur moved to follow up, but the ground beneath him suddenly turned red hot. In that instant he needed to will a short-distance teleportation, lava erupted like a volcanic geyser, engulfing him in searing flames and scalding his skin and clothes.
The boiling spray of molten rock disrupted his teleportation and sent his body arcing through the air.
With a grimace, he sent out a pulse of destruction energy that snuffed out the lingering fire before he crashed down on the ground. Temporal energy covered his body and his injuries slowly began disappearing.
Arthur willed Lostvayne back into his hands and the sword tore itself free from Yujia’s body and flew to him mid-charge, seamlessly absorbing his extinction law energy as he swung it down.
’Extinction Slash.’
A razor-thin, silver arc of cosmic energy cut through the air, almost imperceptible in its speed and lethality. Yujia’s instincts screamed and she threw herself to the side, narrowly evading the strike.
Blood poured from her stomach so she conjured molten rock and pressed it against her wound to cauterize it. The searing heat instantly stemmed the blood loss, and with a sharp breath, she cooled the stone, forming a makeshift armour over the gash.
"Island Split!"
"Volcanic Blast!"
**KR-BOOOOOM!!
Yujia raised her halberd, swinging it in a powerful upward arc that clashed with Arthur’s descending blade in a fierce eruption of energy that obliterated everything within the immediate radius.
The ground beneath them cratered, vaporizing in an instant, and a shockwave blasted outward, sending tremors through the air and forcing nearby mountains to tremble.
Flames and gravitational force crackled and intertwined, creating a chaotic maelstrom that tore through the landscape, leaving only smouldering, broken earth in its wake.
From within this devastation, two streaks of light shot upwards, colliding repeatedly and leaving multiple sonic booms as they cut through the clouds, moving far away from the base.
Both Arthur and Yujia had taken to the skies, their figures blurring as they traded blow after blow. Unlike before however, there was something deeper at play now—time itself had become their battlefield.
Arthur’s perception extended beyond the present. Using his Blessing of Time and Pseudo-Authority, he accelerated his movements to an extreme, outpacing the flow of events unfolding around him.
He wasn’t just reacting to Yujia’s strikes, he was seeing them before they even happened. Lostvayne carved through the air, blocking the attacks that hadn’t even fully formed yet in the present.
Yujia’s halberd, despite its superior attack potency, seemed to glance off Arthur’s defences before she could even swing it fully.
But Yujia was not one to be underestimated. Her mastery over time, while not as high as Arthur’s, was still over the 50% mark.
She could perceive the future—just not as far as Arthur. But with her superior base speed, she had the advantage of closing the gap between thought and action.
The two traded blows in the air, seeing each other’s movements before they were made and countering those moves with blinding speed.
Arthur twisted his body mid-air, avoiding an arcing slash of Yujia’s halberd by mere inches, and retaliated with a gravity-enhanced strike from Lostvayne aimed at her chest. Yujia, however, had already seen the future where the sword would land, and with a flap of her wings, she shot backwards, the blade just missing her by a hair’s breadth.
The Devils, Spirits and Cultivators gathered below could only watch in awe and terror. Even the Elders who were supposed to aid Arthur didn’t even know when or how to do so.
The sheer scale of power on display made it impossible for anyone to interfere.
Even Yujia’s aides who had left the Spirit Stronghold after her and finally arrived couldn’t do anything, as they instinctively understood that entering the fray would mean certain—non-negotiable—death for them.
Arthur’s left eye constantly glowed, showing him memories of the future while he used his right to see the battle before him.
He saw Yujia’s next move—a sudden dash to his side with her halberd aimed at his midsection. In response, he twisted the flow of gravity around him, pulling himself sideways at the last second. Lostvayne came up and aimed for her exposed flank, but Yujia’s speed was too great. She flipped backward mid-air, her wings flaring out and sending a burst of molten fire in Arthur’s direction.
The flames washed over Arthur’s body, but he was unharmed. As he had seen the attack before it even ignited, he bent space and gravity, warping the fire around him as he shot upward, escaping the fiery blast entirely.
Yujia narrowed her eyes in frustration. Every time she attempted to strike, Arthur was already mid-motion, countering her before she could even complete the attack.
The gap between their understanding of time was becoming more evident with each exchange.
But Yujia was not one to accept defeat.
She pushed herself harder, her speed increasing as her wings flared wide. In the blink of an eye, she was behind Arthur, her halberd crashing down with explosive force.
The blow was powerful enough to crack space itself, but Arthur, seeing the future as clearly as the present, was already moving to intercept it.
Lostvayne met the molten blade head-on, the clash sending a shockwave that rippled across the crimson sky.
The two weapons sparked, their respective powers colliding in a display of brilliance. But it didn’t last long as both sides were already preparing their next attacks.
Yujia forced Arthur back with brute strength, something she was still superior in, but Arthur anchored himself mid-air with his gravity power, resisting her attempt to send him crashing to the ground.
He vanished and reappeared behind her, reaching for her wings and Yujia’s instincts screamed.
In an instant, she saw the future—Arthur’s fingers wrapping around her wing, pulling her downward, rendering her vulnerable to the Island Split that was coming right after it.
As such, she released a burst of energy to push Arthur back for just a second, then twisted her body. Her wings beat furiously as she whipped away from his grasp, then spun her halberd in a sweeping arc to slice his exposed side.
But Arthur was already two steps ahead. He saw her future counterattack and spun to meet her, Lostvayne intercepting the halberd once again with a resounding clash.
A vein throbbed on Yujia’s forehead and her brows twitched in annoyance. She finally understood how those she had fought in the past felt when she anticipated their moves before they acted.
Every time she tried to use her time powers offensively, Arthur crushed them with his superior authority. Every time she tried to overpower him, he was already in motion, predicting her next strike.
In the blink of an eye, Yujia launched herself higher into the air, her wings beating furiously. She conjured a massive wave of lava from the ground below, hurling it toward Arthur.
At the same time, she drew up all her time power and used it to accelerate her movements to speeds nearly invisible, even to Transcendents.
In the next instant, she was behind Arthur again, her halberd crushing down for a killing blow.
But Arthur saw it all.
Even before the lava rose from the ground, he had already acted, so by the time the lava reached his range, gravity bent it off course. His body spun around and he parried her halberd with his sword, before sending Celestia to stab her from behind.
Yujia let go of her halberd and caught Celestia’s blade, quickly flinging the sword away and grabbing her halberd once more to parry Arthur’s strike aiming for her chest.
Sparks flew as the two weapons met once more, moving faster than most eyes could follow, each strike, each counter, perfectly timed as they clashed again and again.
Yujia engulfed her wings with flames and flapped them, sending streams of fire at Arthur, but he unfurled his own and responded in kind, sending streams of destructive energy at her.
’He has a devil bloodline?!’
The Archdevil was shocked to see Arthur’s wings, but her eyes flashed with the light of her foresight at that moment and her body started moving.
