Chapter 695: The Chase
Beatrix saw red.
Celestia materialized in Arthur’s hands.
Evan drew his sword.
In an instant, three attacks cut through the air, brimming with lethal intent.
But the two swords and staff struck nothing but empty space.
The assailant who had incapacitated Artemisia was suddenly 100 meters away from their initial position.
[Oh, you’re faster than I estimated? Still not an issue, though.]
They remarked as they glanced at the faint tear in their clothes where Arthur’s sword had grazed, their expression entirely unbothered.
It was only then that the trio could properly process their appearance.
A tall man with long black hair tied into a ponytail just below the base of his head. His facial features were objectively above average, with black eyes and a hint of stubble on his chin.
He wore the black uniform of the Gozonian Army, but none of them believed for a second that he was a demon—or any sort of ally to Gozon.
Rather, they couldn’t determine what he was.
Not even Arthur could.
And that wasn’t the worst of it.
This man had bypassed Arthur’s Future Sight and Evan’s Danger Sense, incapacitated Artemisia with a single strike, and evaded their combined attacks so effortlessly that the most they had managed was to nick his clothing.
They couldn’t gauge his Existence Realm.
They couldn’t sense his energy.
Even though he stood plainly before them, his presence was barely perceptible.
It felt as if the moment they took their eyes off him, he would vanish entirely.
And that was something that COULD NOT be allowed to happen.
◇ ◇ ◇
The man, completely unfazed by the three teens who had just attacked him, turned his back on them as if preparing to leave.
[I’ve gotten what I came for. Time to head—]
Before his words had even fully left his mouth, a crimson spear hurtled toward where his head had been a moment before.
He tilted his head slightly, dodging the destructive projectile, but as it passed, the spear exploded violently, engulfing the area in a blaze of destruction energy.
The man instantly leapt out of the blast radius, questioning thoughts racing through his mind.
’He attacked without regard for her? Does he have selective destruction?’
His gaze shifted towards Arthur, the one who had launched the spear. But instead of meeting Arthur’s figure, he was greeted by the sight of Arthur’s sword slicing toward his eyes.
From the opposite direction, Evan’s blade aimed from his throat, while Beatrix’s spatial blades stabbed at every conceivable angle of his body.
At the same time, her spatial power latched onto Artemisia, attempting to rip the unconscious girl out of his grasp.
Reacting in an instant, the man’s left fingers twitched and a surge of magic power shattered Beatrix’s spatial hold on Artemisia.
His right hand moved, deflecting both Arthur and Evan’s blade in the same instant, before dropping down to the ground. Without hesitation, he propelled himself forward, a series of sonic booms echoing in his wake as he dashed into the distance.
But Arthur and Evan weren’t about to let him escape.
Arthur raised his hand, and the gravity around them intensified a hundredfold. The ground quaked and caved under the immense pressure, with rocks and debris erupting into the air.
Naturally, the man’s body was forced downward, slowed by the crushing weight. But despite this, magic power flared around him, pushing against the overwhelming force of gravity.
He powered through, his movements greatly hindered but not stopped.
Once more, Beatrix took advantage of his slowed movements to warp Artemisia away from him, but the man’s left arm—still gripping Artemisia over his shoulder—radiated magic energy, repelling her power yet again.
The ground beneath him erupted as fiery spears and crimson-gold chains shot out, wrapping around his limbs, but he easily shattered these bindings with another explosive burst of magic power.
Before he could gain more distance, a hand cloaked in Destruction Law energy lunged toward his throat. The man spun to counter it with his own hand, but as he parried, two blades—one from the front and the other from behind—pierced toward his chest simultaneously.
Arthur and Evan’s perfectly coordinated strike seemed destined to land. Yet, when their swords reached him, they phased through his body, meeting no resistance.
’Spatial Intangibility!’
The realization struck them both instantly.
A moment later, the man vanished, using the same elusive movement method he had employed earlier, the one that had allowed him to ambush Artemisia undetected.
But the instant he reappeared in the distance, Evan’s eyes locked onto him.
"That way!"
Those words hadn’t even left Evan’s mouth by the time Arthur dashed through the air at hypersonic speed. He closed the distance in less than a second, his sword slashing toward the man’s side.
The man’s eyes widened, his expression filled with genuine surprise. He hadn’t expected them to track him so easily.
Unbeknownst to him, Arthur had anticipated this.
He knew that against such a slippery foe, Evan would use his Track Down skill to mark the target.
So, when the man vanished, Arthur looked into the future, glimpsing the direction Evan would turn, and had already been moving toward that spot before Evan’s brain had even sent the signals for the motion.
In this fight, Arthur, Evan, and Beatrix were at a significant disadvantage.
Arthur, in particular, was heavily restrained.
He wanted to unleash his full power, but the risk of harming Artemisia held him back.
While he could use Selective Destruction, it wasn’t something he could apply to all his attacks. Techniques like Extreme Nothingness were simply too powerful for him to control with such precision—at least, not yet.
And his instincts were screaming at him that to defeat this opponent, he’d need to use attacks on that level. But doing so would certainly result in Artemisia’s death.
As a result, Arthur was forced to hold back, his strikes aimed only at breaking the spatial hold the man had on Artemisia. That same hold was the reason Beatrix’s repeated attempts to warp her away had failed.
To help her, Arthur employed his spatial Pseudo-Authority, mimicking Beatrix’s actions. Using his stronger spatial power, he forced the man to split his focus, hoping to create an opening for Beatrix.
The gambit paid off.
Arthur’s spatial pull disrupted the lock on Artemisia, and the man immediately shifted his attention to Arthur, attempting to prevent him from warping Artemisia away.
But just as quickly, Arthur relinquished the spatial control to Beatrix, who capitalized on the distraction and successfully teleported Artemisia away from him.
The instant Artemisia’s body disappeared, Arthur slashed downward with lethal intent. But before his strike could land, the man vanished, performing the ridiculous feat of latching onto the spatial channel Beatrix had used to teleport Artemisia and following it.
He reappeared directly in front of Beatrix, alongside Artemisia, and faster than Beatrix could grab her friend’s body, he seized the unconscious Artemisia again.
In the same breath, his second hand grabbed Beatrix by the neck and swung her in the path of Arthur’s attack.
This forced Arthur to abort his follow-up attack, redirecting his efforts to protect Beatrix from the devastating strike that had already torn apart the earth for miles.
The man hoisted Artemisia over his shoulder once more, but as he did, a mass of spiralling prismatic flames materialized in front of him.
Without a smidgen of hesitation, Evan unleashed his full power in a direct attack, forcing the man to reveal another hand.
Spatial power surged in front of him, distorting space and blooming into a wormhole that devoured Evan’s flames and redirected them straight at Arthur.
Arthur, however, tanked the attack without a scratch thanks to his Gravity Sheild.
In that same moment, a network of magic power surged through the ground, spreading out and enveloping the area around the man.
|¬Hall of Fractured Time! ¬|
Arthur’s Bounded Field activated, enclosing the battlefield within his domain of control.
The man clicked his tongue in irritation and leapt from his position, but his movements were immediately hindered, heavily slowed by the field.
To his surprise, neither Arthur nor Evan attacked him in his slowed state. However, he didn’t have long to wonder why.
A jolt of instinctual danger shot through him, and his gaze snapped toward Arthur. His eyes locked onto something on the ground—a projection of himself, captured from a few seconds earlier.
|¬Chronoslash! ¬|
Arthur’s blade slashed through the projection, severing its legs, while in the same instant, Evan’s sword, imbued with Arthur’s time energy, pierced its chest.
The damage inflicted on the projection instantly transferred to reality.
The man’s legs were severed at the knees, and a gaping wound opened in his chest where his heart should have been.
But before he could collapse, shimmering rings of time runes materialized around his knees and chest. In moments, his severed legs reconnected, and the chest wound vanished as though it had never existed.
Arthur’s eyes widened in realization.
’Time laws!’
The man had used time laws to negate the effects of Chronoslash, healing his injuries and, more importantly, erasing his time signature.
This prevented Arthur from summoning another past projection of him, demonstrating that the man’s mastery over time rivalled Arthur’s own.
Without hesitation, the man dashed toward the boundary wall of Arthur’s Bounded Field, magic power surging around his hand in an attempt to break through.
But Arthur moved faster.
He teleported behind the man, both eyes glowing as he swung Celestia which was coated in the deep, haunting purple mixture of time and destruction energy.
|¬Extreme Nothingness. ¬|
The man’s eyes widened in shock as he sensed the full lethal intent behind the attack.
’This kid doesn’t care about the girl anymore?!’
Reacting instantly, he spun around, channelling time laws into the magic power in his hand, and unleashed a temporal beam that clashed with the destructive purple energy from Arthur’s sword.
For a moment, their eyes met.
In that instant, the man realized the shift in Arthur’s demeanour. The boy was losing his restraint.
’He doesn’t care if she gets hurt anymore. He just wants to take me down!’
