Chapter 690: Round 3! Fight! III
’Fuck, wormholes really aren’t my thing.’
The thought crossed Arthur’s mind as he teleported instantly, reappearing behind the staggered Duskhand, delivering a spinning kick to the man’s back.
**BAAAAMMM!!!
The impact reverberated like a crack of thunder, sending Duskhand flying across the horizon.
His trajectory ended abruptly as he crashed into the centre of a distant island, the shoreline already ravaged by the earlier tsunamis. The sheer force of his impact shattered the entire landmass like a fractured pizza, massive chunks crumbling into the ocean.
His body tore through the fractured surface, digging deep below the island and plunging into the ocean depths.
Arthur shot after him like a missile, his fist colliding with the Divine Human’s face underwater, driving him even deeper into the abyss.
Duskhand choked on seawater, coughing as he hastily used his magic to conjure an air pocket for himself.
But before he could regain his composure, Arthur charged again, his fist poised to strike.
Acting on instinct, Duskhand unleashed a surge of lightning, electrifying the water around him in a brilliant, lethal display.
Not willing to endure the unnecessary damage, Arthur abandoned his attack and teleported out of the ocean, reappearing high above. A massive orb of condensed temporal energy began forming atop his palms, swirling with destructive intent.
|¬Time Bomb. ¬|
The Time Bomb descended with overwhelming speed, crashing onto the remnants of the shattered island. The resulting explosion erased a massive portion of the ocean from time, leaving behind a misshapen void where water should have been.
But just as this happened, a streak of lightning shot in from Arthur’s left flank, colliding with his body and sending him hurtling down onto another island.
As soon as Arthur’s feet touched solid ground, his Destruction Pseudo-Authority called down crimson-silver bolts of destructive energy from above, each one descending with the force of a meteor.
The bombardment created a seemingly inescapable barrage that obliterated everything in its path.
But Duskhand was far from ordinary.
His lightning elementalized form allowed him to zap through the storm unscathed, closing the distance to Arthur in moments with his fist driving forward.
Arthur parried the punch with his left arm, instantly retaliating with a gravity-enhanced uppercut, sending Duskhand’s back rocketing upward while the sheer force cratered the land beneath Arthur’s feet.
As Arthur’s uppercut connected, his body bounced into the air. Reversing his motion, he delivered a powerful downward kick aimed at driving Duskhand into the ground, but the man moved fast enough to cross his arms in front of his chest, blocking with a shield of law energy that absorbed the brunt of the strike.
Though the shield minimized the damage from Arthur’s kick, the force behind the kick still sent him crashing into the ground below.
Unbothered, Arthur immediately summoned an orb of destruction energy in his palm and hurled it down towards Duskhand’s face.
Faced with the incoming Destruction Nova, Duskhand’s body instantly blurred into golden lightning, zapping away at breakneck speed just as the orb slammed into the ground.
**BOOOM!
The Nova erupted in a deafening explosion, obliterating the land in a blinding flash of destructive energy. Waves of force rippled outward, carving a deep cavity into the ocean below.
Waving his left hand, Arthur commanded the power of gravity to grab the remnants of the shattered island, pulling the rocks, water and debris into a swirling maelstrom with a gravitational pull extending for miles.
Alas, Arthur’s gravity power wasn’t yet to the level where even light couldn’t escape, so Duskhand could evade its clutches by zapping out of range.
Noticing this, Arthur changed his approach and focused all the mass into a singular point. He pressed his palms together as he condensed the immense mass, shrinking it until it was no larger than a tennis ball.
Layering Time, Destruction, and Spatial energies into the core, Arthur crafted a miniature AGSD that distorted spacetime as he grasped it in his palm.
In a flash, he teleported.
Duskhand, having just re-solidified his body, felt an overwhelming sense of danger flood his senses. His instincts screamed, and he acted without hesitation, activating a defensive artifact.
A colossal spherical shield of divinity materialized around him just as Arthur appeared at Duskhand’s flank and slammed the mini-AGSD into the shield.
**KRAAA-KOOOOOM!
The impact unleashed a catastrophic explosion, consuming the surrounding space in a vortex of gravity and destructive energy.
The shockwave was deafening, accompanied by the cracking sound of Duskhand’s shield fracturing under the force.
Arthur’s body was hurled through the air, buffeted by the tremendous backlash. A sharp sting of pain coursed through him, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
’What? I have self-power immunity. My attacks shouldn’t be able to hurt me...’
His thoughts raced, replaying the moment of impact. The realization dawned on him as he recalled the shield Duskhand had summoned just before the collision.
’Unless...it’s not ’my’ attack anymore. That shield must have had reflective properties...’
Meanwhile, Duskhand was also launched away by the explosion, his body crashing into the ocean with a force so immense it sent towering waves surging outward.
Both combatants lay temporarily separated, their clash leaving utter devastation in its wake as the ocean roared.
’Now then, which direction was this guy sent flying?’
Arthur manipulated the ambient cosmic energy, merging it with his spatial power to extend his perception across the entire Umhiz Ocean.
It didn’t take long before he located Duskhand’s presence—moving away from him and heading toward Zefesh.
"Wait, he’s running?! Or is this a trap...?"
Uncertain of the situation, Arthur remained on guard as he conjured a cosmic gate and locked onto Duskhand’s flight path.
The boy jumped into it, emerging right above Duskhand in the air, catching the man off guard with his sudden appearance.
"Where do you think you’re going, mister?!"
Arthur’s fist descended, distorting space as it closed in on Duskhand. The divine human quickly dodged to the side, but Arthur’s other hand reached out, and the force of gravity seized him in its grasp.
"You wanna go to Zefesh? Then let’s go to Zefesh!"
With that, Arthur conjured another cosmic gate, tossing Duskhand into it. The man fell out directly above an active volcano, one Arthur had encountered on his previous visit to Zefesh.
Duskhand expended double the amount of energy Arthur had used to create the gravity bind, breaking free as he fought to avoid plummeting into the natural pot of lava below.
However, Arthur appeared from above, clotheslining him back into the volcano, sending Duskhand crashing into the molten depths. The force of the impact shook the entire volcano, triggering an artificial eruption.
Before the eruption could fully unfold, the volcano exploded in a violent burst, sending rocks and lava flying in all directions.
Arthur used his time Pseudo-Authority to freeze the projectiles that came within range, but amidst the flying debris, a bolt of searing lightning, charged with the power of a Pseudo-Authority, zapped towards him.
Extending his palm, Arthur expended more magic power to halt the lightning, and in that moment, Duskhand zapped in from the side and swung his spear down with the intent to cut Arthur’s outstretched Arm.
Arthur’s other arm blurred into motion, catching the spear in mid-air to stop it. Just then, a bolt of golden lightning descended from above, enveloping both Duskhand and Arthur in its electrifying brilliance.
The sky crackled as more bolts of lightning descended from above, slamming into both Arthur and Duskhand with the force of a nuclear explosion.
The immense power of the strike smashed them both into the ground, creating a shockwave that flattened the earth for miles.
’Divine Retribution! Sanctified Judgment!’
Duskhand’s divinity and magic power surged, calling down more lightning bolts that struck relentlessly, each one threatening to tear apart the space around them.
Yet, amidst the constant barrage, Arthur was able to push Duskhand’s spear away, his body enveloped in a layer of gravity law energy like a second skin.
Clenching his left fist, Arthur launched a punch powered by the force of 50 times the planet’s gravity.
Duskhand’s body lurched to the side, evading the punch that blasted a brand-new canyon into the land behind him, before spinning to deliver a slash aimed for Arthur’s neck.
Arthur’s right hand shot out, gripping the spear and pulling Duskhand toward him. In the same moment, his leg lashed out, kicking Duskhand away with such force that the man was sent flying through the air.
However, Duskhand’s grip on the spear was tenacious, so as he was propelled backwards, he yanked the weapon from Arthur’s grasp, its tip cutting into the boy’s palm.
Arthur glanced at the wound for only a moment before flicking his wrist and rewinding the small wound.
He then glanced up, locking onto Duskhand’s figure some distance away as he began talking.
"I really wanted to beat you when you were at your peak. That’s why I’m not using my Progenitor Authority to weaken you.
I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t."
Duskhand ignored Arthur’s little talk and stabbed his law energy-infused spear into the ground.
’Thunderclap Impale!’
The earth shook as shockwaves of lightning law energy rippled outward, causing the ground to crack and tremble. The energy surged toward Arthur, but the boy shrugged it off, his gravity barrier effortlessly absorbing the impact.
"Well, I’ve had my fun. And I do have an appointment later today, so I’ll have to wrap this up quickly."
Still ignoring Arthur’s words, Duskhand charged forward, his spear crackling with blinding light.
’Lightning Surge Thrust!’
An orb of crackling lightning materialized at the tip of Duskhand’s spear, and as he thrust the weapon forward, it hurled towards Arthur and exploded in a blinding flash of law energy.
Duskhand followed through with his spear, driving the lightning-charged tip of his spear through the explosion, aiming directly at Arthur.
But Arthur wasn’t caught off guard.
Time froze around him, the explosion of energy stilled in an instant, and with a snap of his fingers, time rewound to before Duskhand had even hurled the orb.
Arthur then grabbed the spear and used its momentum against Duskhand, yanking him over his shoulder and slamming the man into the ground with the force of a crashing comet.
His foot came down towards Duskhand’s head, but the man rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the stomp. He sprang to his knee and slashed at Arthur’s legs with his spear, but Arthur teleported, avoiding the slash entirely.
Getting to his feet, Duskhand launched a barrage of lightning bolts from the sky, sending dozens more from the ground beneath Arthur.
But all was turned to nothing as Arthur’s body exploded with a surge of destruction law Energy, mixing with the cosmic energy swirling around him.
His right hand extended to the side as he chanted softly.
|¬Souls lost in Hell.
Doomed to roam the Fields of Asphodel in vain for all eternity
Heed my call, and bend to my will. ¬|
Just as he finished the chat, Celestia’s voice echoed in his head.
[Master... that’s overkill.]
Chuckling at her comment, Arthur responded.
"I know."
The colours of the world inverted and the space around Arthur’s arm cracked.
Duskhand reflexively blinked, and when his eyes reopened, Arthur’s hand now held a jet-black sword with silver lines running through its blade like veins.
’That sword...’
His eyes narrowed at the sight, and just then, Arthur’s voice reached his ears.
"Playtime is over. Now, I’m going for the kill."
’NOW?! Then what the hell have you been doing all this time?!’—is what Duskhand wanted to retort with.
But before the words could even form, Arthur vanished from his field of view.
