Chapter 702: Desperate Resistance
"Chrono-Space Dominion!"
As Beatrix pressed her hands to the shattered ground beneath her, her divinity expanded, enveloping the area as shimmering brown lamé particles filled the air.
The man immediately noticed Beatrix’s expanding domain of influence, his gaze snapping towards her. But with the Lostvayne-wielding Arthur before him, he had no choice but to refocus his attention on the greater threat.
Having reabsorbed the energy from the Continental Split slash that the man had blocked, Arthur pulled Lostvayne back and attacked again, activating Extreme Nothingness.
Forced to defend, the man instantly conjured a shield of cosmic energy in Lostvayne’s trajectory.
"Echobarriere!"
The exact amount of cosmic energy Arthur poured into his attack was matched by the energy infused in the shield, creating an unstable feedback loop. The two forces clashed violently, neutralizing one another in a massive explosion of energy.
Smoke and flames engulfed the area as molten magma erupted from the ground, the land liquefying under the destructive energies.
Arthur unhesitatingly leapt into the air to avoid having his feet burned by the searing heat below.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur caught movement. The man’s figure darted in from his left, an attack speeding toward him.
Reacting on instinct, Arthur swung Lostvayne in a counterattack. But as he turned fully to face his opponent, he realized something was wrong.
It was a time illusion.
Before he could think of pulling his sword back, the real figure of the man emerged from the smoke, mirroring the exact movements of the illusion.
The man’s attack closed the distance with blinding speed—so fast that Arthur doubted he would have been able to react in time if his sword hadn’t already been in motion.
Lostvayne clashed against the man’s strike, their energies colliding once more in a dazzling display of cosmic energy.
Just as that clash occurred, Arthur caught sight of another illusion flickering to his right.
It showed the man spinning and delivering a backhand strike aimed at his face.
Acting on instinct, Arthur shifted Lostvayne to intercept the blow, mere moments before the man’s real body moved in the same arc to attack.
The strike was blocked.
Arthur’s eyes caught sight of one of the brown lamé particles shimmering at that moment, and realisation dawned on him.
’...this is Beatrix’s divinity...’
He was within the range of her Chrono-Space Dominion, and what he was seeing were glimpses of the next few seconds—illusions of the future that allowed him to act before his opponent even made a move.
Beatrix took on the burden of showing him these fleeting visions, sparing him the extra strain of using Memories of the Future.
With her support, all Arthur had to do was just focus on blocking and attacking with everything he had.
In such a manner, Arthur blocked two more of the man’s destructive fist strikes with Lostvayne, throwing in counters as well.
The man frowned at this, irritation flashing across his face.
’Tsk... even if it accelerates this body’s destruction, there’s little choice. I can’t waste the remaining three.’
With that thought, a surge of cosmic energy erupted from his body to push Arthur back. The energies of multiple universal laws burst from his body, crashing over the battlefield like a tidal wave.
No longer was he limiting himself to Destruction and the occasional Time manipulation.
’Nekrotischer Kataklysmus.’
Thrusting his palm forward, he released an inky black wave of energy charged with the law of Death. The wave spread outward like a living force, seeking to erode Arthur’s life force.
Although surprised at the sudden surge of death law energy, Arthur reacted quickly, mixing his divinity with the cosmic energy wrapped around Lostvayne and released a counter-wave of destruction energy that collided with the necrotic attack, neutralizing it in an explosion of void-like tendrils.
He closed the distance for another attack, but the man waved his hand and summoned a massive blade of molten flames in his hand, infusing it with destruction and bringing it down in a fiery arc.
’Wütendes Inferno-Spalten!’
Arthur immediately used his gravity law energy to throw his body to the side, evading as the molten cleave split the ground beneath him into a glowing sea of magma.
Still in motion, Arthur activated his other three Pseudo-Authorities, creating a singularity that absorbed the flames from the sword and caused its structure to crumble.
But just as he did that, the man let go of the blade and conjured icy spears from his fingertips. With a flick, he launched the icy spears forward, freezing the air and the ground in their wake.
’Gletscheraussterben.’
In response, Arthur condensed the flaming energy within the singularity into his left fist and punched forward, unleashing it as a shockwave of flame-infused energy that countered the icy projectile barrage.
Flames and ice met, birthing an explosion of superheated steam. Within this cloud of steam, a vortex of razor-sharp gales roared to life, each laced with cosmic destruction energy.
The winds howled as they spiralled towards Arthur, threatening to tear him apart, but Arthur countered with a swing of Lostvayne, releasing an Extinction Slash that sliced through the tempest and forced the wind to dissipate.
What followed the law of wind was the law of earth. The ground fractured violently, and jagged spires of rock erupted beneath Arthur, their edges gleaming with destructive energy.
Arthur pressed his left palm down, using gravity to crush the rocks, but just then, the man’s loud voice reached his ears.
"Ausrottung des Donnerschlags! Leere des Gemetzels!"
The sky above Arthur illuminated, and he looked up to see golden bolts of lightning law energy descending upon him.
Arthur twisted and turned, deflecting some bolts with Lostvayne while narrowly dodging others, the golden arcs searing the air around him.
Then, amidst the cacophony of crackling lightning, Arthur began hearing anguished screams. Initially perplexed, he suddenly found himself transported to a realm filled with an endless sea of blood.
A hand emerged from the crimson liquid, grasping his legs. As he gazed down, he saw countless agonized faces suspended in the sea of bodies, their hands reaching out to pull him down into the blood around him.
’This...the law of Slaughter?’
Arthur recognized the law energy surrounding him, realizing he was confronted with the faces of those he had ’Slaughtered’.
He understood that he couldn’t let them pull him in, as that would result in severe damage.
But since he didn’t comprehend the law of slaughter, there was one crucial aspect Arthur didn’t grasp.
This...was a mental attack.
In other words, while he fought against the pull of the thousands of corpses, his physical body was immobilized in reality!
He only realised it when his opponent’s voice echoed in the space around him, but by then, it was too late.
"Elementare Katastrophe!"
’Shi-!’
**BOOOOMMM!!!!
A catastrophic explosion erupted as a sphere of destruction-infused cosmic energy, combining five elemental laws—fire, water, earth, air, lightning, and ice—, collided with his body. The blast sent Arthur plummeting from the sky into the scorching magma sea below.
His skin blistered and charred, his flesh melting away like wax. The intense heat seared his bones, causing them to crack and splinter.
The only reason Arthur didn’t scream out in pain was to prevent magma from entering his mouth.
Gritting his teeth so hard he cracked them, Arthur used his energy to ’destroy’ the magma around him, leaping into the air just as the man’s next attack hit.
"Abgründige Todeswelle!"
A dark, crimson-tinged wave of energy surged forward, imbued with the Laws of Death and Destruction. However, Arthur had escaped the magma, dodging the deadly wave by a hair’s breadth.
Lostvayne’s cosmic energy continued to course through his body, facilitating a rapid regeneration. His muscles reformed, his flesh regrew, and his skin reconstituted itself, restoring him to a state of relative wholeness.
However, he had no time to assess if he retained any damage as the man’s destructive fist tore through the air, forcing Arthur to dodge.
Arthur grabbed the man’s fist, and swung Lostvayne in a horizontal arc, amplifying its weight 100-fold at the point of impact with the man’s wounded right side.
The attack sent the man flying through the air, crashing into the ground and creating a deep crater. Yet, even as he forced himself back to his feet, the man launched another Elemental Cataclysm at Arthur.
Each new law the man incorporated caused his body to fracture, with cosmic energy leaking from the cracks. This hinted at a limit to the powers he could wield in his current body.
But he didn’t care and kept on unleashing attacks relentlessly.
Shockwaves rippled outward, more magma spewing from the ground as the land melted under the sheer force of the collisions of cosmic energy.
Smoke and ash filled the air, but the man didn’t stop.
"Höllische Zerstörungswelle!!!"
"Halo of Oblivion!"
Both of them roared aloud as their law energies surged.
The man unleashed flames with destruction energy, fiery serpents coiling around his arm before being hurled towards Arthur. The serpents writhed and snapped as they barrelled towards Arthur, but they never reached him.
Arthur’s Space + Gravity + Destruction Combination technique activated, and silver-rimmed fissures tore open in the space around him.
The flaming serpents were drawn in instantly, as though the air had turned to a vacuum. Each serpent was unwillingly sucked into the rifts and then crushed by the immense gravitational forces within them.
Seeing this, the man kicked off the ground and dashed towards Arthur, coating his palm in slaughter law energy.
"Griff des Gemetzels!"
Crimson tendrils pulsating with the bloodlust-filled law energy erupted from the ground beneath Arthur. They clawed upward, seeking to entangle him, but Arthur used Annihilation Pulse, releasing an expanding sphere of destructive energy that erased everything around him.
The man darted to Arthur’s left at that moment, conjuring a spear of jagged ice glowing with cosmic energy in his hand and launching it with all his strength.
"Gletscher-Leerenspeer!"
His attack, though fast, was easily sidestepped as Arthur had already seen him move in an illusion of the future Beatrix showed him. Arthur countered with a spear of his own, filled with destructive cosmic energy which he sent skipping through time.
"Echobarriere."
The man blocked with his technique that generated a shield with cosmic energy equal to that of Arthur’s attack, nullifying the blow.
’Ausbruch der Vernichtung!’
He followed up with another earth and fire law attack, causing molten rock and destructive flames to erupt from the ground beneath Arthur.
As Arthur flew upwards to avoid it, the man teleported above him and swung his arm down.
"Das Ende des Hurrikans!"
